Hello everyone. Longtime lurker, random poster, and big-time Locost fan that has caught the bug (and some of the budget). Feel free and follow my website link for a brief description of myself and my career. I have been thinking about this for a long time and have changed my mind many times before coming to my final decision on the car's specification. At one point I had myself talked into buying a kit from Coveland, but then I decided for the price I would pay to buy the frame, I could afford all of the tools (including a nice welder), materials, etc. and feel better in the end about my accomplishment and be able to make it how I want it. So I decided to start from nothing...
So I have compiled pretty much most of the tools, most of the materials to build the frame, and some of the donor parts. I came upon a great bargain from a friend and bought a freshly built, ported 13B S4 motor, trans, and clutch type LSD, along with driveshaft, halfshafts, uprights, rotors, rear calipers (need to find some fronts), starter, and some other misc stuff. I think it was a bargain at $800, considering I would've paid more than that for a complete donor car with a questionable motor, and would've had to strip the donor and dispose of it, and really not used much else off of it. So I'm confident I got a good deal, heck, the rebuild and porting on the engine alone would've been that much, with the new Mazdaspeed hard and soft seals that it has.
I plan on going simple with the engine management. With my racing experience and contacts, I have come up with a Star Mazda intake manifold, Weber carb, old-school style distributor, and should be able to make 220+HP depending upon how aggressive I am with the jetting(read:how bad my MPG's will be). We make about 200 WHP with our race cars with stock internals and stock porting motors, and this motor should flow a LOT more! And there's no RPM restriction like with the race cars... sweet.
I have to thank a few people for their great websites that I have learned SO much from. Keith's book and site, great work! Bill and FM's Westfield build. McSorely, thank you SO much for the effort you put into the book frame drawings. Jeff and his project seven, easily the nicest, most well thought-out locost I've seen (is that even proper grammar?). Chris and his BEC locost, sweet car, dude.
Ok, enough babbling, onto the progress pics. Bear in mind I am only a few days into this, but I've got a small portion of the frame going. I'd love to hear feedback, guys. Thanks for a great forum.
http://picasaweb.google.com/erturbo
edit: In response to Kimini- am well aware of this issue, among others with using a rotary (EGT's, Cooling capacity, fuel economy, oil injection, etc. etc.). We have been racing rotary-powered formula cars for years, and going to tracks like Laguna Seca and Sears Point, sound is something I have a lot of experience with. The other issue you didn't mention is EGT's. They are some of the hottest around, even compared to turbos. So the muffler/exhaust system also have to withstand extremely high temps. So things like cherry bombs and other mufflers packed with fiberglass or even mild steel wool just disinegrate quickly. That's why I plan on using a type of muffler with all internal SS baffles, not packing. Probably two of them. Supertrapps are a great way of cutting down sound, but they are ugly and rattle a lot, IMHO. I like the way Caterham does it, running the exhaust down the side, then turning back under and exiting out the back. This may be what I need to do, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now the plan is to use 2 of those mufflers I was talking about (which will fit down the side) and give a pair of ear plugs to the passenger... Hehehe...[/url]
edit: Okay, I've been busy the past few days, check the website for more progress!
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