LocostUSA.com

Hello everyone, I suppose its time I start one of these threads.

Today I bought a donor car, finally. Its a 1991 Miata with 250k miles on it. 100k miles on the engine. What's really cool about it, is it has a Jackson racing supercharger on it, and full exhaust from the headers back. Of course, I don't care about the exhaust other than its worth some coin.. I paid $2500 for the, but I think I ought to be able to recoup most of that, especially if I sell the supercharger.

I'm waiting to start working on the chassis until I totally strip the donor, so that I can measure everything and appropriately decide on my chassis size.

I also need to sit in eVo-x's car (book frame) and see how my size-13 feet fit.. From the sound of it, I'll need to go with a Mcsorely 442, or perhaps the design presented in the Gibbs book, which is a "221", I believe. We shall see. I would like to go with as small of a frame as I can and still fit.

Oh, and also, I bought 450 lbs of steel last week.. I know that's a ton, but I got a good price on it and wanted to get a bunch of everything. The 4'x8' sheet of 1/8" (11 gauge) plate weighs 160 lbs!

My steel list:

1"SQR tubing, 16GA, 20' lengths, 9 pieces - $115.56
3/4"SQR tubing, 16GA, 20' lengths, 2 pieces - $22.72
1/2"Round STD (.84" OD x .109" Wall) 21' lengths, 2 pieces - $35.70
Sheet, 11GA x 4' x 8' - $87.62
Sheet, 16GA x 4' x 8' - $52.00
Cutting Fee - $7.50
Subtotal - $321.10
Taxes - $25.69
Total - $346.79


Now that I actually have everything I need, I will try to post a bunch of pics this weekend of the garage, the donor car, and the steel.

Welcome!
Looks like you have enough steel to build a bank vault.

Haha, yeah. I'm planning on building my project table out of steel (with an MDF sheet on top), I'm currently building a welding cart/table, there's a couple other things I wanted to build. Both for fun and for some extra fab experience before I get started on the car.

WHAT!? Why would you do a silly thing like that? The only replacement for displacement is pressure! If you're selling that supercharger, I would be interested!

... Just giving you a hard time, build it whatever flavor you like. At any rate, Welcome. We look forward to your updates!

I dunno... I'd be interested too... I'm fond of superchargers, owning a Mini Cooper S...

Welcome aboard...I would like the super charger label stuck to you car just to keep the ricers at bay! (yes this is a joke)

Just driving the miata with the supercharger on it is exhilarating.. I can't even imagine what it would be like minus 800-1000 lbs..

If I sold the supercharger, it would be one of the very last things to go. I'll keep you all posted though, obviously.

I don't know where you went to school, but a ton is 2000 lbs,
if you paid half price for a ton, but only got 450 lbs, you got ripped off.

Blue, "A ton" is slang for an excessive amount of something. They don't teach slang in school. I'm sure you knew this.

You got a nice deal on the steel plate, last week I had to get some steel for the build table for the SAE car here at school, and I paid 74 per half sheet (I didn't feel like driving my truck that far at 10mpg), and I got 14 gage. I would so much rather have used 1/8th inch for the build table, but such is life. Good luck, and keep us posted.

Apparently they don't teach sarcasm in school either.

I think the wink smilie in blue's post means that he was giving ivai a hard time.

Pictures!


Here's the donor. 250k miles on the body, 100k on the motor/supercharger. Its got some dings, and the top is really crappy.





Here's the steel:




Had some fun this weekend and finished construction on my welding cart/table (still needs paint):



That's all for now, folks! Hopefully this week I'll pull the engine and get some serious progress made on disassembly. I have tons of boxes and zip-lock bags at the ready!

-Jeff

Nice! Looks like you have all you need to keep you busy for a while. Just add a bunch of time, sweat and new tools you never imagined needing and you might make a Locost out of that stuff.

Began disassembling the donor.

All these boxes are empty, and ready to accept zip-lock bags and parts.



I labeled EVERYTHING and took a ton of pics as I took it apart.



A nice jackson racing header, I believe these go for around $450 new. I was planning on selling it.


Until I discovered this.. I'm not sure if I should weld it and try to sell it or what.



Yours truly:



These $15 harbor freight moving dollies are amazing.. 1000 lbs capacity. I couldn't buy the 4 casters from home depot for that price.



Anyways, I got the whole drivetrain out (including diff and axles).. Next will be disassembling the interior, the remaining bits out of the engine bay, and then the suspension. When I take the suspension off I'll probably put the body on a couple of those moving dollies so that I can still move the car around.

Cool, another builder in Atlanta. There's probably enough now to have a local Locost builder's club.