You are reading a single comment by @TGR and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
In a recent episode of Bitchin Rides, they did that - carbon fibre moulds. Professional garage, loads of staff and it took weeks to get it done.
TGR-
Yep, it is immensely time-consuming. The bodyshell my friend made from scratch is this:
Despite being slab-sided and without any significant compound curves it still took fer fecking ever.
Edit: Image won't embed on Chrome as it's not https. Here's a link for Chrome users.
Brommers
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.