LocostUSA.com

Maybe modernbeat knows?

The shocks are custom built by Ellis Engineering and are great, but because of his past business practices (delays and nondelivery), I'd recommend going elsewhere. I believe the heads and valving components are Carrera or older QA1 parts, but don't hold me to that.

From memory, I think the spring rates are something between 80 lb/in to 125 lb/in. Having a 1-to-1 shock to wheel movement ratio allows nice rates like that and allows the shocks to move through their range so the valving has a chance to do it's work. All in all, Gene did a great job putting the suspension together and refining it while he owned it.

Unless they have been changed since I built it, the front and rear motion ratios are 1:1, and the front spring rate was 225 lbs/in, and 150 lbs/in in the rear. I swapped springs many times tuning, so I think that's what the car has in it, if not then it's close.
Since it's a race car I went for one inch of suspension travel, so the wheel rate is about equal to the weight carried by each wheel.

I love that shot.

Still for sale? I'm trying to figure out how to get it out to the east coast... and then to Canada!

Boy howdy, is it ever! In response to significant moving expenses, the miracle of modern dentistry, and a desire to do tooling for a Locost streamlined body kit, I am reducing the price to $6000 in hopes of a quick sale.

I'm finding my high efficiency pursuits are more interesting to me than is autocross (hey, it takes all kinds, right?) and this car deserves a better home. So if you'd rather spend next year honing your driving skills than spend it building an FTD-capable Locost, please get in touch with me. It'll save you money and time.

And you had to drag this back up on my birthday.

There isn't anything available this fast at this price. Anything.

Where Is the BEC listed for sale located in Oregon?
what is that rated for hp?
is there a build log located somewhere to see details?
is it licensed in Oregon?
Thanks, Jim

I don't think we have a full build log. The car was previously owned by Modernbeat, so he is well aware of it's capabilities. He did do some rebuild/redesign of the rear end, as I recall. That work and other stuff is available in a long thread he ran. Look him up in the members list and see where he posted most often.

I never did a build thread. I bought the car from Gene Young in Kentucky. Gene's a talented guy. Here's his latest project, a tube framed, carbon fiber bodied XR4ti.



After a SCCA Solo rules change in D-Mod, Gene removed all the frame behind the roll bar and the front and rear fenders and their mounts. I built a new rear frame, fender mounts, nerf bars and an additional jacking point. Since Gene is a very small guy, and I'm a very large guy I did some more work repositioning the steering column and shifter. The engine needed some standard maintenance and I took care of that when I got it and again right before I delivered it to Jack.

When I sold it, the car did not have a title and had no street equipment. It was built for autocross and nothing else. That does not mean it can't ever be outfitted for the street and eventually titled. The paperwork that came with it has the original purchase receipts for the motorcycle parts and the RX7 axle and spindles. Those are the only parts that were once on another vehicle. Everything else is fabricated, aftermarket or racing parts.

The engine and trans are from a 1993 Honda CBR1000F and made 135hp.

A busy month. We're prepping the BEC for a guy who says he wants to buy it; it's going to take a bit of work--making it street legal, for starters--so I needed to move it out of my hangar and get it to mid-field. Easiest way to do it was to charge its battery and give it a gallon of premium.

There are only about ten interesting seconds in this 1:07 video (I'm still figuring out iMovie), but it has an interesting message, which is: Man, I'm getting old. I didn't even go through the gearbox; 4th gear was enough to remind me that my road racing days are behind me, not to mention my street freaking. This thing has four+ times the horsepower and four-fifths the weight of MAX, and I could get way over my head real easily if I made this my daily driver. But it's nice to know the car didn't forget how to accelerate while it was in storage.

Great video Jack, but did you warm up the car first? Is that a paddle shifter? How does that work?

I also got a kick out of your two videos on slip stream testing (Diffuser Movie, Windscreen Bump)

Cheers,
Roy Challberg

Thanks Roy, and yes I did warm it up. I shut the engine off while I was looking for traffic and listening for anybody else who wanted to use the runway, a la "...Illinois Valley, Cessna triple six niner sierra, five miles out for one eight..." and also so my radio call would be understandable to the guys in the skies (if any).

Does anybody else here use iMovie? I'd like to know how one selects what frame is going to be the still frame displayed before one clicks the start-button on YouTube. This one came out just right but it was blind luck and I don't know how I did it.

Yes, paddle shift, I think Jason (modernbeat) figured this out. It has a push-pull thingie from the butterfly under the steering wheel to the bike's shift lever. Pull right for upshift, left for downshift, and I use the clutch just like a car clutch (no fancy shmancy clutchless shifts, though back when I was a bike racer, I generally upshifted with a tad of shift lever preload and a tap on the kill button).

Youtube gives you 3 choices for the start frame, you have no control over it. I'd love to be able to pick my own start frame but haven't found a way to do it yet.

I work with iMovie a lot and have found it to be much easier and almost as capable, for my purposes anyway, as Final Cut Pro.