hugo7-
I did consider a kit car but any of them that I'm actually really interested in are violently expensive replicas and while they're described as kit cars they're really just big Meccano sets...
@Airhead I most certainly do want to drive it on the road so I'll be conscious of that and start looking into how one goes about registering the finished article in Ireland, I suspect it may be a case of finding some classic car to call itself a "donor" though and sticking some little bit of it's chassis onto the new thing...
-
Sure someone here has a 'busa kit car. Maybe @Brommers or @bq (TBH I only recently realised they were two separate people).
I don't have a 'busa powered kit car. I do have one with a ZX9R engine, one with an R1 engine, and one incomplete car with a Blackbird engine though.
Designing a car from scratch would be a bold move unless you've had a lot of experience in building cars before. Working out roll centres, spring rates and damping ratios from scratch is hard, and while there are rules of thumb you can work around, it's far from simple. If you're determined to give it a go, then a reasonable starting point would be the Ron Champion book on how to build your own sportscar, which gave rise to the Locost craze. The car in the book is front-engined, but it would be a good starting point to learn what's involved in the process.
P.S. The other issue would be bodywork. If you're building a one-off with a custom chassis then presumably you'd need custom bodywork. And that's a big, big job. It can be done - a friend of mine made a custom bodyshell for his race car from carbon fibre using resin infusion technology. However, it took him the best part of 9 months solid work (he's retired) to make the buck, the moulds, and the bodywork and he swears he's never doing it again.
-
Not me. Though I am flattered by being mistaken for someone infinitely more interesting than me.
You are reading a single comment by @hugo7 and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
Nahguavkire
Brommers
bq
I know there are a few forumengers who would know such things so I'm hoping help will be at hand...
Say I wanted to undertake a wildly ambitious project to design and build my own car from scratch (or near enough), where would I start with my reading list for chassis and suspension design/ engineering?
I'm thinking tubular spaceframe with mid mounted engine and rear wheel drive.
I know there would be an extremely good argument for pilfering existing suspension setups from something else and just building a chassis to meet the suspension mounting points that otherwise would be in whatever car I've taken the suspension from (I've seen people mention RX-8 and 350Z as good donors for this) but I'd like to do as much homework as I can to be able to make as informed a decision as possible before committing to choosing donor suspension.
I've also had people recommend the best way to go about such a task is the LFGSS (@amey) approved method of starting with the tyres and working inward.
I'm reasonably competent with Revit as I use it for work but the specifics of engineering a chassis in Revit would be a little bit out of my comfort zone at the moment (I'm determined to learn!)
So... please direct me to the Sheldon Brown of building your own sportscar...
(A comprehensive and long winded build thread will ensue provided I can get past the early planning stage on this one!)