LocostUSA.com

The drivetrain has been mounted…


















The motor mounts are BMW E36 M3. Built for a heavier, torquier motor, they should be relatively stiffer. I wanted something a little more aggressive than OE while still numbing some of the four cylinder buzz. Hopefully these will make for a fair compromise.

The transmission mount is a polyurethane mount for a Chevy TH350/400 with a machined aluminum adapter.

The differential bushings were machined at 2 ¼ degrees to reduce some of the pitch cast into the Miata differential.

Some welding and reinforcement to do, but still a welcome milestone. So far everything has fit as planned - no surprises yet with the CNC cut frame.

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Peace, Ron

My first post!
I'm following along. Like most people I like to weld a whole lot more than I like to grind or cut.

holy cow i am very impressed sir, do you think you will sell copies of that file if it works perfect with out need any revisions.

Thank you. Nothing is perfect for everyone and I will not sell copies of the file. However, when I’m confident it is a satisfactory foundation I will upload the necessary files for the very low price of... free.

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Peace, Ron

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Walt
06 RX-8 Shinka
04 RX-8 GT
06 325xi
Some people never have anything except ideas. Go do it.
Emissions & fuel economy haven't exactly been areas of strength for past rotary power plants, but absolutely no one with a soul has ever cared.

I suggest you look at some of the other Miata diff mounts which incorporate a non-rigid front nose mount. Using two flexible and one rigid mount has lead to several failures. Dave W

The rear mounts are solid aluminum billet.

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Peace, Ron

Maybe its just the angle of the photo, but in photo No. 4, your tranny tranny frame look like they are almost touching. Is that going to cause a problem when you step on it and the engine shifts to one side?

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Trochu Motor League

It's an illusion. There is 3/8"+ clearance. If you look at the same area in picture #3, you can see more shadow.

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Peace, Ron

This project is coming along wonderfully.

I succeeded in loading the points clouds you presented in...
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17614
...here's how the engine came out in Rhino. I seem to have lost some data--there are a few holes and not great detail--but it certainly will do nicely for doing mockups on my laptop; much easier on the knuckles and much cleaner.

Now how did you do that cool photo-overlay of the engine trans and diff, as shown on the first page of this thread?

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

Hi Jack,

Since you're using Rhino this is probably irrelevant, but to answer your question... Those views were created with AutoCAD's built in object viewer. Not all ACAD packages/installations are set up the same, but I'm able to access the object viewer by selecting the parts I want to see and then right-clicking and selecting "Object Viewer" from the pop up box. If you don't have that option, try selecting the objects and typing OBJECTVIEWER into the command line. This should open a new window with a rendered view of the parts. In this window you can orbit/zoom around the parts. In the upper left corner there will be a drop down menu with different visual styles (X-ray, Realistic, Shaded, and so on). I believe those images were created with the Realistic style selected and then just screenshot'd.

Would you mind PM'ing me a couple screenshots of what you see in Rhino, just for curiosity sake?

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Peace, Ron

Sorry, I forgot to add it to the previous post. Here's the engine. That photo layover was pretty dang cool but this'll do me all right, in fact for what I'm doing it's pretty much magic.
It's a lot more obvious that this is useful when it's in 3D and I'm swinging it around in the Perspective window.

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

I hadn't heard of VR3 before reading them here so I went and checked them out. They give the SAE students a reduced set up rate and a special deal on materials which is really cool. Even though they are in Canada and I'm in California I'd buy from them because I like that they encourage students by giving explicit instructions and good pricing.
They have a page dedicated to FSAE http://vr3.ca/fsae.html and it has great instructions to help people get going with what is probably a daunting task for the first timer.
They also have an impressive 3D modeling manual. http://vr3.ca/documents/SolidModelingRedux.pdf

If you can't tell already I'm impressed by this company.

The frame looks great!

On page 1 in your first post you say "A model was then created to fit the point cloud… ". Does that mean that you are unable to provide a "size" for your frame design which is typically a reference to book frame size plus or minus inches of extra length and width?

The LIAB idea looks like a great solution as it will still definitely be a car that you built yourself. I remember the vendors tat used to be on eBay that sold a complete set of cut tubing for a locust book frame for around the $500 range plus shipping if I remember the number correctly. They were surprisingly close in price to the folks that sold the prefab frames in the $800 range. It almost looked liked like the pricing broke down into $200 for material and $300 each for cutting and welding.

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Bill H
Winnipeg, MB, Canada

From someone who thinks using Cheerio boxes is the pinnacle of design tools, and who has to work out the placement of every single tube, and then measure, measure, cut, fit, and then weld, all I can come up with is WOW!
Your frame looks incredible. It clearly is the result of your skills with certain software/apps/programs, and other such electrickery I have no clue about. The fit and finish is just perfect. I have seen top end race cars that don't look as good as yours.
Well done. You have just become "that guy" we all aspire to be, and secretly dislike at the same time. I couldn't even dream of making a frame to that standard.
I'm going back to my cave now to continue the battle with Sparks, flames and rocks to attempt to put a collection of metal bits together in the hope that they resemble something!
Bloody 'ell!!!!
Cheers,
Stewart.