LocostUSA.com

First of all it's "West Coast Ron" to differentiate me from Ron Payne, the Seven builder in the mid-West. Two Ron Payne Seven builders. What were the odds?

I've got a pretty good start on my build but havn't posted anything yet. My excuse is that there are so many pictures of build tables and a few tubes tacked together with the builder sitting in it making vroom-vroom noises that I thought I'd wait till my build was a little further on. I completed my tub this week so here's my story of success and failure.

Being a traditionalist I decided early on that I wanted to go the twin cam GTS route as it was closest to the Cosworth twin cam. My first big mistake was to start a build based on the GTS without having a running donor in hand. I scrounged my parts from all over. I ended up with 4 junk engine from which to make one good one. One GTS, one FX 16, and two MR2 junkers. The wheelbarrow of parts is some of what I had to work with.

Is this the Ron I met, or the another one?

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The Lethal Locost
The Lethal Locost 2 - Even More Lethalerer

Can't wait to see more!

-dave "vroom, vroom...admit it!" hempy

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...nowadays people are so intellectually lazy and lethargic that they can't build ANYTHING with their hands. They'll spend hours watching whiny people marooned on an island, but won't spend a second adding anything to the world. -weconway
Visit my [Locost 7 build log]

First of all Greg, yes it's me the one who's made two trips to Kelowna and admired your Lethal Locost.

Yes Dave, I admit it, I did sit in the frame and make "vroom, vroom" noises.

I used my bits and pieces of engine parts to make what I hope will be a good engine. I took a lot of care to measure tolerances etc. and hope it will stay together.

I bought a rwd header from ebay for about a $100 bucks. I couldn't see fabricating one when I could buy one at that price. I was lucky that some of my junk engines were fwd because when I held up an original stock header to the engine I could see that it pointed right at the motor mounts. Good thing I saw that because up to that point I was going to use an ebay fwd header because it looked like it would be less work to get the pipes to the outside. I was able to cut and hack the header and pipes without having to buy any elbows. I fabricated a flange so the exhaust can be removed more easily.

Some builders have fabricated new lower intake manifolds and some have cut down originals so that the engine hood would clear without having to have a bulge. I went the cut down route. I used a Curtis nose cone and the engine hood clears the manifold, close, but clears.

I had two targets for the end of last summer. One was to get a fish pond dug; not one shovel of dirt got dug and the second was to have the frame painted while the weather was still good for spraying out doors. So one out of two's not bad.

I had a lot of final welding to complete. I not only tacked the frame together but I kept going and tacked lots of the brackets for other things as well. In hindsight, that was a mistake. When the basic frame was complete I should have finished welding it completely. I didn't do that because I thought if some parts interacted with a part of the frame it would be easier to change if it was only tacked. It made the final welding more difficult because some of the joints that would have been easy to access earlier were more difficult with brackets etc. near them. Oh well, live and learn.

I tried to anticipate every required bracket etc. that would be needed to avoid having to grind paint off and weld something on later. I have to say that just that part of the build, attaching misc. brackets took longer than I anticipated.

I had been told that painting is when you find all the welds you missed. I also knew that putting flat panals over bumpy welds doesn't work very well. So for those two reasons I resisted to urge to drop the welder and grap the spray gun. I went over the frame with a fine tooth comb. Actually several days before I was finished welding I started taking a piece of tape and sticking it on any joint that required further welding so that I won't forget to weld it.

I really did think that I was 100% welded so I was a little suprised when I found two welds needed doing. Since I found them when I was priming it wasn't any big deal but it's still amazing that you can miss something when it's right under your nose. I did better on the bumps that wouldn't let a panal sit down flat. I only had to grind off paint and a bump in one location to let the panal lay flat along the tube.

Nice looking frame and paint!

Another reason to put off the brackets...the frame may move around during final welding! Hopefully not enough to matter, but....

-dave

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...nowadays people are so intellectually lazy and lethargic that they can't build ANYTHING with their hands. They'll spend hours watching whiny people marooned on an island, but won't spend a second adding anything to the world. -weconway
Visit my [Locost 7 build log]

Looks awesome! Great to see so many of us BC'ers on the Forum...look out, you guys, we're gonna take over!!

By the way, lots of us sat in our frames/rolling chassis and went "vroom vroom" (maybe still do?)...but if you're using a Miata donor, don't you go "zoom zoom"? Just a *twisted* thought

No that would be... zoom, zoom, zoom!

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1964 Lotus Seven Replica

You're right Dave, putting on all the brackets before the frame was fully welded could've caused the frame to move and caused the brackets to not to be in alignment, I guess being a slow poke TIG welder saved me.

Having the frame painted has really cranked up my enthusiasum level. I've got the tub completed. I'm in aluminum floor group. I know steel offers more protection for the butt but the way I look at it I still have way more between me and the road than when I'm riding my bike.

For a lot of other projects I've used a hand operated hydraulic pop riveter and thought that it was the only way to got with 3/16" rivets. But I was wrong, the air operated one is so effortless to use. The only way to go.

i'm glad to see a lot of canucks here. i haven't started my build yet, still gathering knowledge-info-know how. one thing i know is that i'm also going with a Toyota donor.

goodluck on the build and i'll keep going back to this thread for update.

After completing the tub I installed the rear body panel. I'm happy it turned out really well. Just luck probably but for a piece that had several ways to be screwed up it was a plus that it turned out better than I expected.

I have a low profile right angle drill that's not all that compact. When I had some holes to drill inside the transmission tunnel I couldn't find a way to reach them. I found putting an short 1/8" drill bit in the collet of my cheapie die grinder worked really well. At first I thought that I would just burn the drill bit because of the high revs. But between being able to control the speed to some degree and but putting a reasonable amount of pressure on it slowed it down and the bit drilled lots of holes without any problem. The die grinder is low on torque and a little bit of pressure slows it down to a suitable drill bit speed.

Nice! Way to use the noggin.

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He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Wow, Nice work !!! You`re really moving along.

Keep them comming, both pictures and update !!!

Cheers,

Fred

You aren't messing around. Nice looking car.

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-Andrew
Build Log
Youtube

Thanks Chet, Fred and Andrew for the kind words.

As soon as I started my build I started thinking about getting some coilovers. I kept thinking that sooner or later I would find some "bargin" ones. That never happened. I thought about ordering some from GTS tuning but the exchange rate was too much of a killer to do that. I saw that the Greg W. made some for his "Lethal Locost" and since I've had a ride in it and they seemed to do the job I decided to go the homemade route.

I bought some Monroe cheapie shocks. The first thing I did was chuck them in the lathe and part off the dust cover tube. I put a couple of socks over the "good" part of the shock to keep it from being dented inside the headstock when the dust cover (gripped in the chuck) was parted off. I left a 1" diameter ring of metal on the shaft (A). It fits into the recess (B)on the spring retainer, keeping it from moving sideways out the slot.

For the bottom perch ring I put a very light ridge, almost nothing, in the heavy slug in the bottom of the shock. It keeps the ring nice and square. Greg warns very clearly not to weld the bottom perch ring on the top side onto the thin side material. Too bad I didn't listen. A flame about 3' long shot out scaring the crap out of me. Fortunately it went out quickly but a fine stream of oil continued to spray out for several minutes. Oh well, now I have to buy another shock so they're not going to be quite as locost.

The photo shows the plywood rings that I used as a mockup. This gave me the correct length for the spacer tube that determines ride height. Not as convenient as a threaded tube but for road use it'll do me fine.

I put an old decal (that's dek-cal in Canadian and D-cal in American) on to dress it up a little. I toyed with running a thread trace on the spacer to make it look "real" but I thought the better of it.

If Afco had had their $18.00 springs on when I was buying springs my homemade coilovers would have been truly locost but since I paid about $50.00 per spring they are more like midcost.