LocostUSA.com

At my age I take pills to lower my pressure. Wait, you said TIRE Pressure. Never mind.

I thought in old age you took pills to raise... never mind.

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Midlana book: Build this mid-engine Locost!, http://midlana.com/stuff/book/
Kimini book: Designing mid-engine cars using FWD drivetrains
Both available from https://www.lulu.com/

I'm not THAT old,yet.

Well, I haven't posted anything here recently. Doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything to the car. Actually, I've been thinking about several things. The steering wheel, trying to decide whether to have a quick release wheel or not. I decided to order the wheel with the quick release. My concern was that the quick release would move the wheel too far out from the
dash. I won't know until the wheel arrives next week. I have spent a lot of time trying to position the controls just right, so I want the steering wheel position to be correct.

Also, I've been thinking quite a lot about the brake and clutch pedals. I've almost completed my own pedals, but I still haven't decided to use them, I may still used an outside supplier for those. My friend Ryan, loaned me a Willwood double cylinder pedal with a balance bar, but that
particular one won't work. The pedal arm is too long. I'm also considering another one, but I don't have the dimensions just yet.

I've been thinking about the exhaust header situation also. Originally, I was thinking of building my own headers. After looking on e-bay, and finding a Miata header for a pretty cheap price, I might just modify one of those. Don't know yet.

Have been looking at radiators also. Will probably go with a new aluminum radiator designed for a Honda Civic. We shall see.

The chassis is almost complete except for a few attachment tabs for things such as body panels, radiator, and some accessories and such, except for the transmission tunnel. I haven't completed the full triangulation of that yet. Trying to decide which way the tubes need to go.The yellow lines on the photos show two different ways, or as someone (tyrod) suggested, I could do one side one way and the other side the other way. I have a query out about that now. If I get several votes one way or the other, I'll probably follow their advise.

Well, I decided to work on the transmission tunnel. Here is what I did.
I decided to keep the console. I made a U shaped piece out of 1/8 steel to weld
above the drive shaft.

Lately, I've been working on the heater. After looking around, I decided to use a heater from a Chevy S-10. It seemed like it would be adaptable. Also, one reason for choosing this unit is because it uses cables to control the air system as well as the water. Picked up this unit for forty bucks.
I was hoping I could use the entire unit as is, but of course the air box is way too large. My plan was to mount the airbox just above the transmission, since this space isn't used for anything else. So I had to discard the Chevy airbox and will make one a little more suitable. Here is the airbox frame., and here it is with the core installed.
My original plan was to cover the frame with aluminum, but after thinking about it some, I decided to cover the bottom with aluminum because of heat from the transmission, but I will use plastic, probably PVC, for the sides of the box. This will be much easier to ad the air outlets. I plan to use PVC plumbing fittings to the sides and use flexible duck for the air.

Here is where the core and airbox will be positioned.
Here is another view, from the passenger position. Note the airbox extends behind the vertical frame tube. This allows outlets directly into the passenger footwell, or directly to the dash and also vertical for defrost.
The blower will be above the core.

For the heater, I also need an adapter plate to mate the fan to the core frame. I made a template using masonite. .
Then I made the adapter plate from aluminum as seen here. The round hole in the adapter plate is the air intake for the fan. It will be positioned over the passenger footwell.

Here is the position of the heater assembly as it will be mounted.
The aluminum panels will be installed on the car first and the heater and fan assembly will be mounted on top of the panel. A simple round hole cut in the top panel of the passenger footwell and aligned with the air inlet of the fan will allow fresh air to enter the fan.

Photoman
Good job on the heater. Heaters are nice !!!!
Make sure you install a bleed valve or fitting to near the heater core which allows for filling the cooling system, and or, to let the air escape, other wise it my be a bear to getting any air-locks out.
Dave W

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be a while before I actually connect it. I tend to jump around on my build. Do one thing today and something else tomorrow. I'm also playing around with the dash and instrument cluster.

These photos look pretty harsh. That's due to the on camera flash. The actual parts don't look this rough. Even though i'm a photographer, still, I'm just doing amateur type snapshots.

Well, I finally got a steering wheel. After much deliberation, I decided to also get a quick release. Here is the wheel I bought. It's a standard 320mm wheel. Anything larger would be too large. I think it will work just fine. Only problem is, the top of the wheel slightly obscures the tack and speedometer at certain angles. There's not much I can do about that since I can't change the height of the instrument cluster. It's not that bad really. These are problems that make building a car fun to me. Many people aren't concerned with these kinds of problems, but I find them interesting.