again, thank you all for your opinions ... i highly appreciate it
... everything but the Farmall comment
.... just kidding
John
oh, believe me; i`m not a "safety nazi" and i absolutely agree with your opinion that safety starts in
your own head first.
this will be a pure "drivers" toy; no cell phone, no stereo, no gadgets, ... nothing to distract me
but the more i get into this project the more i`m thinking that it will be just as much fun to drive off the road as on it.
i`m a "Duner" at heart... i guess if you get infected with the sand addiction you just cant get rid of it anymore.
this is what i`m talking about:
had to google for a pic
i guess i need to dig out some of my own "duning" action pics again
as i mentioned before i used to build long travel sand/desert cars for a living and spend a lot of time in the dunes.
i personally never liked the average tail-heavy rear engine sandrails
... i always prefered excellent handling and a close to 50:50 weight distribution.
jumping, popping wheelies and blasting straight over whoops was never my cup of tea .
i always looked at the dunes as a 3 dimensional race track; instead of flat turns you have highly banked ones ... the G-forces you can reach are insane and very addictive
and crossing diagonal over a sharp dune peak (called "razorback") to dip into the next banked turn on the other side is one heck of a thrill that i`m missing badly.
so for my kind of driving style i dont need a lot of suspension travel (i actually prefer moderate travel for the sake of a low CofG)
to me a flat underbelly protected by a full length skidplate is more important to glide over the sharp razorbacks.
if this would be a "street only" car i would stick with the simple rear roll loop (as well as a strong loop under the cowl),
but (as nick47 pointed out) taking the car to the dunes will be like running a competition:
you take
a lot of chances ... the dunes are steep (up to 40 degree off-chamber) and there are no marked roads
so the chance for driving errors is high (as well as rolling or hitting natural hazards
)
i always avoided to go out into the dunes on big weekends,
but unfortunately there are always some "Mr. Bigelow`s" out there (my code for
Big ego, low skill drivers
)
sadly collisions can and do happen...
i had my share of close calls with guys (that have a "area awareness" of a blind idiot in a dark tunnel)
anyway.... (sorry for the long and ranting post)
here is another drawing :
higher resolution;
http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1013131/original/mmr11.jpgi discovered that i moved my "dummy head" by accident ; it was sitting 2" too high, so i corrected the cage height
i also decide to raise the rearend up into the frame by one inch , consequently lowering the car to ~6" ground clearance in street trim (perfectly horizontal axles)
this allows me to run the lower tube all the way under the LCA for a simpler and stronger frame.
for off road i can turn up the spring pre-load to raise the belly to 7-7.5"