Steel

Good news, the steel place is gonna cut them in half for me for free. No 20' sticks on top o' the car for this guy.

Rear suspension

Tomorrow I buy tubing. I think duct tape will be my friend for this task. I'll take a picture of it loaded on the car.


I've been spending a lot of time thinking about rear suspension. I think I may try to do a mumford link instead of a panhard rod.


It'll be more complicated but I've heard great things about them.

Example car

since I have nothing much to report today, I thought I'd post a picture I found. This is the general style od the finished project.

Chassie size

Spending some time today to think about if I do + 4 or a 442 version of the car. +2 has extra engine compartment room. I'm leaning that way. The weight difference should be ~50 lbs all told.

Lets get it started

Time to start acquiring the metal. I plan on picking up the materials for my build table tomorrow and the steel on Friday. I'll have to cut down the pieces since it comes in 20 foot lengths and my garage is only 19.5 feet long. I'll be hauling it on the roof rack of my passat. That'll be funny looking.

new welder

Oh yeah. For those of you looking for gratuitous welder shots, look no further perverts:

the donor

OK I got a donor. During a trip to Portland I found a good bargain donor. A 1988 Ford Mustang (4 cyl).

The car has 91,000 miles on it and it only has a few things wrong with it:

• Fuel gauge doesn't work - Not needing this part anyway
  
• AC not hooked up anymore. Probably a bad compressor. - Not going to need it anyway.
  
• Dent in passenger side.
• worn u-joint on passenger side

The car is not a rocket ship but the 2.3 liter engine will run better once all the smog garbage is gone and the exhaust and intake flow more freely. I'm almost tempted to try and turn the car for a profit and buy a more beat up car.

Also on the same trip I was given a floor standing drill press by my grandfather.

It works great and should be very helpful during the build.

sigh

No movement on the donor car front. Watching Craigslist and waiting.

Celica story

Looked at a donor celica this weekend. Guy didn't have title. Backed out at that point. Also the car wah hammered and had 350k on it I don't need to hurry here.

up to pdx

OK. Off to portland to examine and hopefuly buy a donor Celica gt-s.

suspension

This is an interesting suspension idea, I'd love to attempt it, but I think I will build a normal laout later and try this out after all runs. ... Could be a while at that

Donor search

I've been getting lots of advice on what to use for a donor. Some a bit farther out of reach than others. I am now leaning to old celicas. I could build a de dion rear end with the IRS and have an interesting car.

This project is always in the back of my head, like a song you just can't stop singing. OCD?

For Bob

Well Bob, the comments are enabled again...

Wife test

Well, the first major hurdle is cleared. My wife has given me the go ahead for the project. She even suggested I make a list of tools I may need to go forward to give out as gift ideas to people. All in all a positive development.

I've been researching cars a lot for the donor. I plan on using a Toyota or Suzuki donor which will allow me to mate a VW TDI engine into it when I can get a deal on one.

Wife

OK.

Sign off from wife - Pending but positive so far

I priced the tubes, 120 for all the 1 x1 and al the .75 x .75 locally

mcsorley 442

I think I'm going to build a McSorley 442 model. It is 4 inches longer and wider and has 2 inches more height, thus the 442.

My last steps before officially doing this are:

1. convince wife
2. decide on donor
3. build a build table
   

More Donor

After reading the car and driver article I ruled out one of my donor cars. I had considered a 320i or a 318i as a donor, but they are fairly lackluster hp wise, however a e36 318 might be a better candidate since it came with 134 hp, or 34% more power than the 80-86 BMW 4 banger. I also know I can pick up RX7s for cheap, however I'm not very experienced with the rotary as far as repairs are concerned, but I like the weight and output.

My list is looking like this so far:

• early BMW e36 318 or 318 ti
• 2nd gen rx7
• older celica
• older miata
• toyota pickup running gear in the rear with a TDI VW motor. (mmmm Bio)
  
• ae86, but too manuy drifters whave decimated teh population there.
• 240sx
  

However each has its own pluses and minuses

interesting read

Electric

OK, got a tip. Thank you Sears. So I start to practice on a 1/8th in piece of stock and there goes the circuit breaker.

Hello Home Depot. I ended up wiring a dedicated 20 amp breaker and outlet into the panel to run the welder and my compressor off of and used some 12/2 gauge wire to connect them. While I was in there I also put a 20 amp breaker in for the garage circuit. By the end of this it was to late to play with the welder anymore.

Diesel motorbike

BTW: If you like diesel, Look at this

welder woes

Need to get a new tip for the welder to use the flux core. It's a bigger diameter. I'll get a pic of it soon. My wife has the camera on a trip at the moment.

I did find an interesting site today: http://www.ecodeparts.com/ They sell euro diesel engines. they have a 1.4 tdi that gets 60+ mpg. If I could put that in this project with 500-1000 lbs of weight reduction over the car that gets the 60mpg I could get 75mpg+ and still be quick.

Welder? check

I bought a welder last night. I found what seems to be a good deal on a Century (bought out by Lincoln in 2003) welder. Now to start practicing. Photos later.

Acme adapter

Someone sent me a link to this site:

Now I can start thinking about using Bio-power for this project.

Welding

I've been reading up on welding. I realize that I will need to get better at it before I start the project. Lincoln has a great site wirth articles and FAQ's.

• Welding terms
  
• Most people would probably use a MIG welder for this
  
• What kind of wire to feed? Look here for some help.