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Mine fit up front but I have a Gibbs frame.

I had to run one of the lines outside the frame but I was not planning on having bodywork there anyway.

Thanks for the photos guys. It looks like the oil cooler Locofin is using is a 12B unit. Unfortunately, I had nothing to compare to so I bought a used S5 13B cooler. They look to be the same size coolers with one major exception, The oil lines are attached using Banjo fittings on the S5 and one of them, bless their hearts, is located on the side of the end tank. On your 12B cooler, both lines enter on the rear of the end tank. If I had one of these coolers, I could probably fit with no problem. Incidentally, does your cooler have the thermatat bypass?

Ralph, the Gibbs frame is more forgiving in this area. It looks like you had no problem fitting in the later oil cooler.

Maybe I'll wait until I receive the nose and see if I can wedge in the cooler I have. That is unless I find someone who will trade a 12B or S3 oil cooler with lines for my S4/S5 cooler w/ lines. And I spent so much time cleaning up the one I have!

Always good to see how others have skinned the cat! Thanks.

Fit the nosecone, radiator mounts, and got my wheels. The wheels are 13x8 for the front and 13x10 for the rear. The front brakes are 10" hybrid Ford with GM calipers. The wheels just fit over the claipers with the exact back spacing I specified. The wheels are Diamond racing spun steel. Good price for what you get and not too heavy for a steel wheel. Nice and shiny silver powdercoat. These wheels will ultimately be for my rain tires and I will get alloy wheels for dry slicks.

The radiator is a Honda civic dual core plate and bar type. I copied the mounting concept from some fellow Locosters. Nice sturdy, and simple. I left room for the rear mount fan unit. I plan on fabricating a shroud for the fan to get the most out of a marginal unit. I will likely also have an electric water pump to keep circulation between runs. The nosecone must have been be copied from an original seven or Caterham. It is just big enough and the price was right (Thanks Chuck!). I had to cut out clearance for the strut brace between the shock towers, but it is a race car. As long as the car somewhat resembles a Lotus Seven a few extra holes don't matter to me or the rule book.

Looks great! (and mean as hell! )

Looking good!
Can't wait to see this car driven in anger

Moti

You probably know this, but that bolt looks a little short for the front lower wishbone mount. If possible, it's also a help to install facing down instead of up.

Looks like *a lot* of scrub there too. Maybe OK for parking lots, but it looks a little worrisome for high speed - maybe I'm wrong though....

You and me both Brotha...

There is a lot of scrub. We will see if it is an issue on a low speed solo car. I can always change spindle type and use much smaller brakes and then bring in the wheels. I don't know if you can see in the picture that I have two LCA inboard mount positions to give me the flexibility to make significant changes without re-welding stuff. I can swap out monoball pins, buy new strut tubes and have a completely different front layout. Maximum adjustable for the future. I will likely change things anyway. I am just making it easier to do.

Regarding the bolt, agree I need a longer grip length bolt.

Up or down. Is there a difference? I thought if the nyloc nut was visible, I could at a glance see things are secure instead of jacking the car up.

Thanks
Mark

The only thing I can think of if the nut backed off and fell off while driving and the bolt was the way it is it would fall right out, but if the bolt were in from the top it might hold your suspension together for a few seconds....maybe allowing you to pull over or at least slow down.

Yep, it's a good practice to put the bolt in a way that gravity keeps it in if the nut backed out.
Plus it looks like nut is bigger than the bolt head, so likely to be heavier by a few miligrams, therefore you'll drop the center of gravity by a few tenths of a micron

Moti

Isn't it funny how we always think about stuff like this.

Mark

Finished painting the COMPLETED frame last night. I have about 200 hours into the design and fabrication so far. Next step ROLLER!!!

The frame took much longer than I thought it would. Not too many revisions. Just a LOT of assembly and teardown of the subcomponents in getting all the chassis tabs and brackets fabricated and attached. I sure hope this represents at least 50% of the build time like everyone says. Still fun after all this time on the project. I would not of had the patience to see a project through to this point back when I was 20.

Mark

Looks nice! Congrats on another milestone.

Loco,

The build looks great, especially nice to see what you've used for, and how you've done the front suspension. Those parts, along with some "minor modifications", look like they'll be great under the front of a '64 Dart project (keep the original outside looks, arm it for serious handling from underneath). Still not sure what I want to do for the rear suspension, the three link looks good but I would like to keep a functional rear seat... Maybe, rear fixed "buckets" ala Ron Champion, Chapter 14.

Anyhow, I notice in yesterday's pics that the rear stay off of the roll hoop is gone, though looking back through the post that it was still there in the May photos. Why did you remove it?

Mikey Bynum

Very observant. My SCCA Solo rules do not mandate the back stay since I have more or less 2 forward braces. You need one or the the other, not both. Most street car designs do not have the forward braces which would interfere with entry and exit and they put them in the back and the chassis saw no significant stiffening benefit for keeping it. Most everything in the boot area (behind the roll hoop) is just along for the ride. It was also in the way of my fuel cell location and was just excess weight so it was cut out. Every pound counts when the completed car needs to weigh around 1,080 Lbs wet!

Mark