LocostUSA.com

I've been playing around with the miata stuff and it look's promising, here are some photos of what I have so far.
the suspension pick up points are as per mazda specs, I made some mockup a-arms and monted one side the OEM ones and the other side what could be done, the pics are not that great but will try to take better ones.

rear suspension


Front



cheers

Interesting, thanks for the pics. While I was originally against pulling the entire Miata suspension geometry across to a locost, as I think about it more I seem to like the idea. Being able to use the OE suspension arms for mock-up and/or final assembly is also convienient. Your & Viscarious' pictures tend to confirm what I've suspected; a pushrod spring & damper configuration might be an important part of packaging this suspension successfully in a car as low as a 23.

Any insights so far from what you've played with? I think it might be interesting to plunk the OE Miata suspension geometry into wishbone or something similar and see how it shakes out.

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.. in the world

I have been doing body work for some years now, pretty good w fiberglass, unibody frames etc etc, but wen it come to computers it's another story, I would love to be able to use some chassis software but.....it wouyld take me longuer than building the thing so.....I use a tape measure instead, however...if anyone is interested in working w me on this I'd be happy to give it a try.
I'm posting a couple more pics here on what I'm presently doing and a link to my photobucket, if anyone is interested in taking a look at some of my projects.






here is a link to photobucket
http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa71 ... ?start=all

I think the miata setup is very decente, fairly cheap, and because money is always short....I try not to reinvent the wheel.

Cheers, Tony

Make them lighter and sturdy enough and you may have luck selling them to Miata owners as well.

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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.

I have maybe a very obvious, way way over asked question, but I have looked in old stuff and not seen it, so i will ask it again.

Why not use the Miata suspension directly into the Locost frame design? I read all these threads about designing suspension geometry, etc, why not just roll the Miata front and rear into the frame design? Bolt in the front A arms and rear suspension assembly and be done with it. Can you use the complete set up without all the hassle of fabrication, etc? Is weight the issue?

Thanks in advance for the info.

Dave

My sentiments exactly Dave!
Know I know all about the miata subframes beeing heavy/ugly etc etc and the a arms also, but whats wrong with the suspension geometry?? Why not just fabricate the a arms etc etc and still keep the original geometry?
Yes I know it would be bit wider but....how hard would it be to widen the body work?
Just my way of looking at things, cheers, Tony

PS: Please forgive the grammar errors. (Im sure there are many) but I'm a foreigner who never went to school here:(

Tony, I really appreciate that you are being a pioneer here with crossing the OE Miata parts directly to a locost.


I am actually planning to either do exactly that (be able to run OE Miata control arms) or closely replicate the Miata geometry using off the shelf race car control arm components with Miata spindles. I have the data I need for the front of a Miata and have been working on roughing it out in SolidWorks, but I'm missing detailed measurements of the rear subframe, control arms & spindle. It would also be nice to have an accurate measurement of the distance between the front & rear suspension pickups.

With the above information and by using some of the available software it should be easy enough to carry the Miata's basic geometry & perhaps even general behavior over to a new platform. I understand that there's no way this will produce a car that handles exactly like a Miata, but I think it may provide a good platform to start with. As long as the weight bias is kept close the original Miata and everything else remains proportional then the suspension geometry is probably as good as anything I would produce based on a couple of books & lots of forum reading. If nothing else the software modeling would give us a unique look into what happens inside an OE Miata suspension to learn from. I really want to see what is happening with the OE rear toe links since Mazda has been using rear steer in some production cars since the FC RX-7.

If someone can measure the back end bits I'm more than willing to share the rest of the info & sources I've compiled.

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.. in the world

erioshi wrote....

"Tony, I really appreciate that you are being a pioneer here with crossing the OE Miata parts directly to a locost."


Erioshi
thanks for the coment but I'm far from beeing a pioner , i'ts just that since I'm no good with computers I just try the easy way out
Anyway, at the moment I'm a bit busy at the shop, and havent been able to finish the mock up, but it's getting there, meanwhile, if anyone who is good w some software is willing to try this out, I would be more than happy to work w him/her.
Cheers, Tony

You're using square tube for your Aarms?

Oh no, thats bad, you'll die, the sky will fall, Tom and Nicole will divorce

Makes me laugh the Miata arms I have seen that people decide that the reasonably good handling Miata geometry has to be changed

Nice work

I was just talking to Tony about using a book width chassis with a standard miata track by adding structure no wider than the control arms to transfer the loads to the chassis, then paint it flat black. Remote shocks help too.

A front uca to fit a miata has very little clearance between the joint and the spring. Thats the main reason I had to angle the tie rod:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7972

The companies that make tubular front ucas for the miata have a supplier for upper balljoints that either bolt or press in and are not adjustable.

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Miata UBJ: ES-2074R('70s maz pickup)
Ford IFS viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13225&p=134742
Simple Spring select viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11815
LxWxHt
360LA 442E: 134.5x46x15
Lotus7:115x39x7.25
Tiger Avon:114x40x13.3-12.6
Champion/Book:114x42x11
Gibbs/Haynes:122x42x14
VoDou:113x44x14
McSorley 442:122x46x14
Collins 241:127x46x12

Ever stop laughing enough to consider why we might choose to do that? The reason the geometry is changed is to make it fit inside a Lotus clone frame, not because we think we can do better than the engineers at Mazda. If you tried to drop a stock nosecone over that duplicated front structure you might laugh at what it looked like with over three inches of frame sticking out on each side with these little short A arms connecting it to the wheels. No offense meant to the OP, he likely isn't going for a "traditional" look.

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

Happy new year everyone
Wow I start my new year w you guys laughing at me
Just kidding,
Anyway, Cheapracer, you can sleep in peace, there will be no divorces
Those "square" tubing a arms are just for mock up purposes, since I can't do cad or draw on the computer like you guy's I do it the old fashion way, and I sure wasn't going to waste good dome tubing to do that!

MiataV8 Thank you, I apreciate your help and info.


Chetcpo, no, the idea was not to put that front end under a traditional nose cone, but to build something based on the traditional frame with a full body, and you are right, those "little" a arms would look ridiculous sticking out of a traditional front end.

My main concern about using the Miata spec geometry was the effect of moving the engine back on the frame would have, after all on the miata it sits between the front suspension, I think MiataV8 has given me some good info on this point.
Anyway, Lets hope the economy changes for the best so we can start building cars
Cheers, Tony

PS: Is there "spell check" here anywhere?

Hey guys
Been palying with my miata front end lately but got a bit of a snag.

w a arms level and straight things look ok but....

...at full turn and droop.....tie rod hits a-a arm

I kind of like the a-arms layout so I'm hopping you guys can help me with the best way to fix that snag w the tie rods, should I raise the R&P and just put the tire rod on top of the steering arm?
Any help would be apreciated.
Tony

You've hit the snag that most using the Miata front end have. Most raise the RP and put the ball joint on top using a variety of methods, some questionable.
why not use the method Mazda used and move the lower A arm back?

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John - Slow and Steady. . . Well slow anyway
Build Loghttp://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=6245

The problem with the OEM lower a-arm is the front tube, as you can see on this picture it goes about the midle of the ball joint, I did this mock up to try diferente positions for it but anything other than like the factory is going to interfere with the R&P, and moving the rack foward will mess up ackerman angle etc etc.



I gess I'm just gonna have to try and see what happens.
I did see some of the builders here raising the rack so I tought maybe they could help out.
Tony