Houston Locost

Uhhhhhh...

2011-06-03T18:40:00.006-05:00

So, I may or may not have totally forgot about this blog. Last post was just over a year ago, so if anyone stumbles upon this site or still gets updates, I'll fill you in and attempt to update this thing more often. No promises though, because working on the car is always more fun than updating a blog.

I am happy to report that progress hasn't stopped along with the updates. Over the past year, I've designed and built the front suspension, steering rack mounts, engine mounts, seat mounts, steering column mounts, and built the floors and transmission tunnel (which isn't really a transmission tunnel, since the transmission is built into the engine casing). Picture dump time!

Steering column:

Engine mounts:

Steering rack:

Front Suspension:

Aaaaaaaand all that culminates to having a rolling chassis, getting the chassis off the table, and FINALLY putting the car on it's own four wheels for the first time ever! Excited.

With the engine installed:

All the mess you see in the background is the disassembled remnants of the build table, and everything that fit on the shelf under the table. Since getting to this stage on Memorial Day, I haven't done anything in the garage except start cleaning and organizing it. It's an uphill battle.

If in the future you are really interested in my progress, you can check out my build log on the www.locostusa.com forums at http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=7180. That link will take you to the first post. It's a lot easier to update that build log (blog?) than it is this blog, so updates are more frequent there.

Diff mounting

2010-05-26T23:42:00.006-05:00

Being married sure does have a way of sucking up time. And not to mention a new hobby of mountain biking. But I digress. There has been progress...while waiting for parts to come in to complete the rear suspension, I decided to tackle the differential mounting. I agonized over how exactly to mount the front of the diff, and had an idea in my head that I think would have worked decently. Then one day while flipping through Kit Car Builder, I saw a picture of how Everett-Morrison mounts their Ford diffs in their Cobra replica cars, and wanted to punch myself in the face for not thinking of it. If you squint really hard, you can kinda see how they did the front mounting:

So, like any good engineer, I pretty much copied their design. Here are the results:

It's still only tacked in, but that is the general idea. Parts should be in soon for the rear suspension, so I'm hoping I can finish that up over Memorial Day weekend, and then it is on to the front suspension. Hope I can have a rolling chassis in a ~~couple~~ few months.

Wha?? An update?!

2010-03-16T23:15:00.005-05:00

Yes, I'm still working on the project. Yes, I realize I haven't updated this since September. First, October through January were hectic. Who knew wedding planning and honeymoon planning would take so much time? Since getting back from the honeymoon in late January, we've been working on the other project (the house). Got some new furniture, painted the living room, and some other small projects to make the house livable for a woman. It had turned into a bit of a bachelor pad since I moved in last April. Even this update is a couple weeks late. All the stuff you see done was finished late February.

The first part of the update is along the lines of making things suitable for a woman. I finally got around to driving to my brother's place to borrow his utility trailer to haul of the remains of the donor Miata. For some reason, wives don't seem to like Miata bodies that have been stripped and sawed in half sitting under blue tarps in the driveway. Strange, I know.

The last I saw of it. Sad.

In regards to the car, last I left you (if anyone is reading this), the basic rear configuration was done. I've slowly been working on rear a-arms since October, and I finally got a chance to work on the upper rears. They're obviously not totally done, since I need fully weld them, fab a shock mount on the lower rear, and clean up the uppers.

Look! A wheel bolted to the frame and 2 seats! And yes, I did stand there, spin the wheel, stand back and giggle like an idiot. It's a big step!

I'll try and keep this more up to date. No promises though. Time spent updating the blog is time not spent working on the house or the car. Or spending time with the lovely wife. Cough.

Work work work

2009-09-06T18:06:00.004-05:00

Got some work done over the last few weeks. Took the engine out of the R1. There really is nothing quite as therapeutic as taking something apart that you don't have to put back together.

Sitting in it's new home.

So my original plan was to just use the standard plans (which are designed for a solid axle) and adapt it for the independent rear suspension of the Miata, but after much staring and thinking, I decided that the best thing would be to take apart everything I had from the bulkhead back and start from a clean sheet design. Off to Solidworks I went, and I ended up with something that I think will work.
Tore everything apart, and the beginnings of the new design. By the way, as you can see in the pictures, I picked up my differential a couple weeks ago. Some guy on Craigslist was parting out a 1994 Ford Thunderbird V6, so I picked up the 7.5" 3.27 differential, half shafts, and the driveshaft just for good measure.

If you squint and use your imagination, it's sort of starting to look like a car. Squint hard.

Spending Money

2009-08-13T23:05:00.005-05:00

Picked up my other donor yesterday. It's a 2002 Yamaha R1 that was wrecked in the front shortly after the original owner bought it. It sat around for awhile, and then someone tried to put it back together as a trackbike, so it's got new forks, a new radiator, new clip ons, and other misc stuff. It also came with 2 spare wheels, a rear axle, and an extra undertail. The bike is supposed to have 1200 original miles, but since the gauges are missing, I'm just going to have to take the guy's word for it. It's mostly complete, but it's missing a steering stem and a fuel pump, so it doesn't run, and even if it did, it's probably not prudent to ride it. All the better.

The plan is to use the engine, wiring harness, ECU, ignition, etc from the bike and sell off everything else. My garage is starting to look like a junkyard.

Update

2009-08-09T16:56:00.003-05:00

Quick update, just been working on the frame, adding bars. I've almost got a complete basic chassis to work with. After I buy a differential and engine, I can start designing the engine mounts and diff mount and rear suspension. Not much more to say here. It doesn't look like a lot of work has been done since the last pictures of the frame, but believe me, there has.

Reciprocating Saw Fun

2009-07-22T21:02:00.007-05:00

Because it was so freakin hot outside, I didn't get a whole lot done on the frame this week...definitely not enough to take progress pictures of. I spent a good part of the week sitting indoors and starting on the suspension design, reading up on steering rack ratios, bump steer, and master cylinder sizing, and trying to find a wrecked R1 for sale in Houston.

I did cut the Miata into pieces to transfer to the scrap yard. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but it was so hot outside that these are the only two pictures I felt like taking. I also cut the front end (ahead of the windshield) off, but when I was done, all I wanted to do was go inside, drink a gallon of cold water, and experience the greatest invention of all time, air conditioning*.

*Sidenote: I really don't think air conditioning is the greatest invention of all time (GIOAT, for simplicity's sake), but it certainly feels that way after 4 hours in the hell that is Houston summer. I've never really thought about it, but if I had to choose a GIOAT, I would probably be a predictable loser car nerd and choose the automobile. But what liberated everyday people to travel more than the automobile? If you answered my hypothetical question with powered flight, I might call you a jerk and then agree with you.

The Beginning

2009-07-13T19:37:00.010-05:00

As the description above says, I am attemping to build a reasonable facsimile of a Lotus 7 from scratch. I hesitate to call it a replica, since there will be a lot of departures from the original car. To point out the obvious (maybe), the general concept is called Locost because its based on a Lotus, and most people complete the car for very cheap, especially compared to a real Lotus 7 replica, the Caterham 7. To learn more about the concept, check out http://www.locostusa.com/, http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/, the Yahoo Locost Group, Ron Champion's legendary book Build Your Own Sports Car for as Little as £250 and Race It! (no longer in print, but a great read if you can get your hands on one), and Keith Tanner's great book How to Build a Cheap Sports Car.

The plan is to build the frame from scratch, use a 1990 Mazda Miata as a donor for parts such as the hubs, uprights, steering rack, steering column, brakes, etc. etc, and power the car with a Yamaha R1 engine.

From here on out, I'll try to update the blog at milestones, but I will have to update you what's happened in the past month and a half. Click on the pictures to view full size.

5/30/09

I bought my donor car, which I wasn't actively looking for. I just saw the car for sale on Craigslist the previous week and thought that it would be a perfect donor. I hadn't quite planned on starting on the project just yet, so I didn't inquire right away. But then I thought about it for a couple days and said to hell with it and bought it for $500. It was too good of a deal to pass up. This should be a lesson to everyone about how Craigslist is the devil. You end up with crap you didn't plan on buying. Crap that makes your fiance shake her head. And wonder what the hell she's gotten herself into.

Towing it home:

The ignition switch was broken and battery was dead, and the driver's seat was just sitting in its spot, so it was easier to just tow it home. Here it is at its new home. And also its deathbed.

Notice the driver's seat held in by gravity, the passenger seat held in with one bolt. and the entire contents of the driver's door (window, door card, power window motor) sitting in the passenger seat.

Not in bad shape, just not in particularly good shape. Pretty much every panel has dents in it, it had been lightly wrecked in the front, and left sitting in a parking lot for 6 months or so with no windows and a ripped top. So all that considered, it's in damn good condition.

5/31/09

Didn't waste any time, and ripped out the interior:

Not a bad haul for a $500 car.

6/13/09

Bought the steel, built a build table last week and cut and laid out the bottom rails this week:

7/7/09

Got the the basic top rails and rear bulkhead tacked together:

7/12/09

I'm getting tired of seeing the ugly Miata in my driveway (and I suspect my neighbors are too), so I took the weekend to completely strip the car in order to cut it into pieces to haul to the scrap yard. I can report that it was freakin hot in Houston over the weekend. Not fit for man or beast out there. Not sure what that makes me, but whatever.

Before we (we meaning me and one of my good friends who inexplicably keeps helping me with this project despite the fact that a) it feels like 109 degrees outside, b) he has his own project CB750 he should be working on, and c) did I mention its 109 degrees outside??) tore the car apart, my buddy jerry rigged the car to run, just to prove that I bought a perfectly running car for $500. Then we drove it around the block with no interior and no muffler giggling like idiots.

Boring video of it running:

Onto the carnage:

Open wiiiiide...

After much cursing, PB Blaster, breaker bars, skinned knuckles, and whatnot...

And that's where I stand today. I'm looking forward to breaking out the reciprocating saw this weekend to cut the car into pieces.