Kit Car

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ev0 4 drifter
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just so everyone knows the whole idea of this was to go off road, i live in the middle of nowhere so there is no problem with space, or speed limits, my grandad is a qualified mechanic, electrician, plumber (this won't matter but, hey) and welder so he's going to look over it when it's done. near my house is a 3 mile straight piece of road, so we will test it there. i don't know if i've said this but we have changed the idea, again, take fiesta suspension parts (shocks etc) and work those into the design. we're making a steel roll cage just incase. my friend carl has a stock car, we are using the fuel tank design from one of those for safety reasons (fires etc) we've discussed the idea and written all our ideas down. the 4wd has gone out the window, that was just an idea, i don't have the time or money to fabricate the parts we need.
 
The normal Seven is far too low down for off road, you need a design that will give you plenty of ground clearance if your going off road. You could modify a Seven design to give you that ground clearence but it would benefit from having the track widening. You want to keep the center of gravity as low as possible but you still need enough ground clearence.
 
all ready thout of we will raise it by a few inches and fit a skid pan to the under side, to protect the chassis.
 
I think you might also want to go for a VW motor and transaxle, too. Very reliable in off-road situations, unless your heart is set on using this Fiesta mill and it's transaxle.
 
i'm getting the engine for free off of a very good friend, it's a good engine so i want to use it. i'm thinking of using an rwd gear box and covering the old driveshaft points up. then getting a new shaft to convert it to rwd, just as was suggested by you.
 
how much experience do you have welding?
i'm not too much older (just a couple years), and i wouldn't undertake that size of a project. i have read a decent amount on them (Mr. Champion's book, and another book where one was constructed using miata running gear) and they require a lot of knowledge.

the only reason i haven't started one is because i don't trust my welding abilities, sure i can lay down a alright bead with a MIG welder, but i wouldn't trust my life on my welding either.
 
i'm just learning, but the enginge guy's brother welds tractors for a living so he's helping me out with this. i don't have an answer for everything but i know loads of people who know how to do this and they don't mind helping me out. the things i have trouble with will get sorted when i find them.
 
I've designed and built one car so far, one of the Formula SAE racecars mentioned earlier. Here's what it looks like, with me in the car too:

http://groups.engr.oregonstate.edu/SAE/2006/DSCN0065.jpg

Anyway, building a car from the ground up isnt all that easy, it took us seven months or so and that was with a team of 10 or so seniors in mechanical engineering and a very good TIG welder, and access to a machine shop, engine dyno, and pretty much anything else you could ever want to build a car.

That's not to say that you cant or shouldnt do it. Going with a rear wheel drive lotus 7 replica might be a good idea for you though, there are a lot of people with experience out there with them, and you will be able to get decent chassis designs from them, ones that you know will work. Designing a decent chassis from nothing will be kinda challenging for someone with no engineering background.

It's a lot of fun, especially when you do your first sweet burnout in your new car. If you want to ask me any questions or anything send me a PM, I'll give you my email address.
 
Okay folks, I point you to this thread in which we discussed a similar topic earlier:

"The Homeades"; Build Your Own Sportscar for £1000 ($1800)

We discussed a similar plan to build a LOCOST, a Lotus 7 knock-off at home. Discussion included views, opinions, and plans from both sides of the pond, and included some views from a man who has done his own work, KiethT, who built his own LOCOST with some Miata parts.

---

IMO: You may want to pick up a book on how to do it... Just a suggestion...
 
engine comes this week hopefully, i'm going to the local scrapyard with carl to get some suspension parts, (hopefully)
 
good luck with it all, I think your gonna need it. when you say offroad do you mean on tarmac or on grass mud etc.
 
grass and backtracks are all i have to use so it'll probably be the backtracks with a raised suspension, this is to combat grounding out in the water dips. it will have a skid pan but if i hit it really hard i could damage the underside regardless. my mum has said as long as i don't cause an accident, have a rollcage and passes inspection by my grandad i can go as fast as it will go, as long as i'm mindful that there will be farm trafic in the week.
 
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