coyoteboy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 10:08 AM |
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Why is it so hard to choose?!
I've been investigating the possibilities that are within my budget, having decided to design and build my own car, but cannot put a finger on
my design philosophy. I started off looking at making a 4WD front-engined car, but then got convinced that it was a no-go and since then I've
been wandering round the fields of options without direction. I've considered monster V8 and tiny BEC. RWD and 4WD twin engined. But ultimately
I can see the appeal in all of them, and can't sus out which I actually want to get started on. How do you decide which route to take? I know
most people are bound by their chassis choice, but I don't have that pleasure.
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fesycresy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 10:13 AM |
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If I were to build a car from scratch, then it would be hard to look past the exo style car, such as the Warner R4.
There are also some pictures on this forum of basically a copy of that car. Stott has them, I think it's his mate.
The red chassis looks stunning against the black.
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The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
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MK9R
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 10:17 AM |
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what do you want the car for, is a pure track toy that will never be on the road, or is it a grand tourer, do you want comfort, or are you happy to
wear a helmet every time you go out....... Answer all these types of questions first, that will cut you options down and make things a bit easier and
hopefully mean you end up with the car you really want
Cheers Austen
RGB car number 9
www.austengreenway.co.uk
www.automatedtechnologygroup.co.uk
www.trackace.co.uk
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graememk
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 10:21 AM |
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Guinness
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 10:25 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by graememk
That is superb!
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hughpinder
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 10:31 AM |
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Try to get a drive in a BEC/standard car engined car and mega V8 versions - as (preferably) driver or passenger. Your decision will be easier to make
then. In the end I decided I wanted a car mostly for the road, and would use it as a daily drive in the warmer months, so am going for a relatively
sane tune from a car engine. If you want to race, your first decision needs to be which series you are going to enter, as this may dictate your
choice.
Regards
Hugh
[Edited on 18/10/10 by hughpinder]
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40inches
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 10:46 AM |
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A 4x4 seven has been done, Dax offered the Rush Quadra about 2002 LINKY, or if you fancy a
challenge, how about jet power
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 10:51 AM |
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It's going to be a road car primarily, but I'd like it to be something a bit special. One major contender was to drop in the running gear
from an MR2 Turbo, atom style, but then I realised the engine/gear from that would not be far off the same weight as an Audi 4.2 V8.
But both of those are going to be fairly heavy weight in comparison with a BEC. I'd love to have a try in all 3 but I'd consider myself
lucky to be taken for a spin in any of them, let alone all of them!
I know of the quadra, but I'm not keen on a front-mid engine'd layout (he said, hanging about on a locost site lol). Arghh.
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daniel mason
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 11:24 AM |
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it depends how special you want it to be?
i decided to do something which i thought was 'special' in putting an f20c lump from an s2000 in there. so i bought a donor,stripped it
bare, took the engine and box to mnr. and they built a chassis to suit. its a perfect fit! and hopefully good reliable power for not a massive ammount
of money
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 11:31 AM |
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To be fair, if I design it myself it's going to be special enough for me but I can't help but get the feeling that if I do it I should do
it once (with revisions no doubt) and properly. i.e. if I'm going over the 1.6 tax bracket I might as well go well over it and get the highest
power/weight I can sensibly afford. If I'm going to build a mid-rear engined I might as well make it an F1 layout, which essentially means audi
v8 with diesel transaxle.
Naturally I can't justify investing vast amounts in it, and I probably won't be racing it on a track too much, but the last thing I want
to do is build up, for example, a ZZR1100 powered car and then sit there and wish I'd spent the additional few hundred quid on a heavier but
much more tunable lump and "done it properly". Or lob in an audi V8 and find that it just doesn't corner as well as I'd hoped.
I think it's the holy grail I'm looking for lol.
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nick205
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 11:42 AM |
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Surely it's intended use has to be the prime consideration - Road/Track/Race/Off-Road, every day, fairweather driving etc?
I would also be worth talking to builders like nitram38 (MotaLeira), cloudy (Warner R4), Kimini, AlanB etc to really understand the costs and work
involved in a unique design and build project.
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 11:51 AM |
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90% of its use will be to replace my weekend tin-top. I'm a bit of a masochist so I'll happily do 5-600 mile trips in it every so often,
but I'd still consider that in a BEC. All weather but probably mainly dry weather. On road.
The R4 is the car that really ticked many boxes when I started to think about it properly. I've been involved with the design and creation of a
single seat track BEC for competitions and I'm more than aware of the difficulties that lie down the route ahead, but I'm looking at it as
a long-ish term hobby build to basically take as long as the welding patch-jobs on my tin-top toy last! I still have a daily driver. I do have a
garage to build it in and keep it in and I have access to lathes/milling machines.
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adithorp
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 11:53 AM |
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Keep starting new treads, re-wording the same question and you'll get basically the same answers.
"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire
http://jpsc.org.uk/forum/
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 11:57 AM |
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With respect, adithorp, I've not asked the same question at all. My other threads have been asking specifics about each type, I'm now
trying to pick my way through the decision process with a bit of feedback from a friendly discussion here. I'm not looking for definitive
answers, I'm looking for general chat around the subject to help me tilt my mind one way - that chat might be the thing that fixes a choice in
my head, or highlights one key point missed from the more specific Q's earlier.
If you don't like contributing to that, don't, but don't get your knickers in a twist over it either.
[Edited on 18/10/10 by coyoteboy]
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TimC
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 12:21 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by graememk
Only in Newport (01633)
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MK9R
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 12:22 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by TimC
quote:
Originally posted by graememk
Only in Newport (01633)
Tim, you probably owned it at some stage, but obviously before it was finished 
Cheers Austen
RGB car number 9
www.austengreenway.co.uk
www.automatedtechnologygroup.co.uk
www.trackace.co.uk
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 12:29 PM |
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Wouldn't like to hit that in a head-on!
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adithorp
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 01:28 PM |
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So start with what you do know/want. then answer the questions that arise from that. Once you've got some answers/decitions made from what you
do know, maybe that starts to lead to answers to the other bits.
You want to build your own chassis.
Do you want exo-skeleton or bodywork? From that ask how wet and windy are you happy with? If bodywork do you want to make that from scratch or buy in
(which basically means 7esque)?
To answer the title question... Because you used to be indecisive but now you're not so sure.
adrian
"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire
http://jpsc.org.uk/forum/
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MikeR
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 01:47 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by coyoteboy
Wouldn't like to hit that in a head-on!
I wouldn't like to hit it at any angle - power to weight must be atrocious.
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 03:04 PM |
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adrian - yup, indecision has me by the nads.
It's only really the powerplant/drivetrain layout that I'm in indecision about, I know I'm going exo, wet weather doesn't
bother me, worst case scenario I'll pack a drysuit
The 3 different setups I've had floating in my head have some similarities (mid-rear) but are otherwise vastly different. Big heavy silly engine
for high base power and massive potential, or mid-line power with potential for more and a bit lighter, or very light but with feck-all power and
much lower power-weight ratio and harder tuning.
That's 3 different design strategies I suppose, one's the american brute force method with little to go wrong but fairly heavy, two is the
middle-of-the-road "normal" route and three is the lightweight frantic expensive to improve route.
I'm currently unable to identify how much difference the extra 200+kg of V8, or extra 100kg+ of MR2 engine, would make to the handling of a
small vehicle, over a BEC. But I don't want to bring this back to a BEC/CEC argument. Many would say you can counter the extra weight with the
correct suspension setup, but many would say you can't. Hence the indecision.
I know BEC route will require more hardware to be custom made and probably prove expensive, but each has its own areas of possible extra expense.
Buy twin zzr1100 engines and you don't need a diff and can compete on power/weight but have ultimately just made it the same power/weight as a
decent car engine but with added complexity.
I could go on.
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adithorp
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 03:20 PM |
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Define...
1. high base power
2. mid-line power
3. feck-all power
...in order to give us some terms of reference.
"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire
http://jpsc.org.uk/forum/
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 03:45 PM |
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Well, working from what I (personally) know I can get from each engine:
High base power - the V8 chucks out 300 stock, 450 with a supercharger and some time. This is achievable but I'd call it potential for later
development.
Mid-line power I'd call the 3S-GTE - stock power is 200ish, I can easily get 300+ from it for next to no extra cash, maybe more. This is where
my experience lies
Feck all power is a bike engine - 150ish stock, max on my budget and knowledge. Maybe 200+ with a turbo and some extra bits down the line but
I'm not so confident in this field due to lack of experience.
I don't know if you remember but I made up a spreadsheet and the two top contenders on power/weigh were the 3S-GTE and the V8, the bike engines
really fell behind on both cost and "performance". But I'm struggling to quantify the weight side of things in the handling
performance equation.
[Edited on 18/10/10 by coyoteboy]
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iank
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 04:52 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
quote:
Originally posted by coyoteboy
Wouldn't like to hit that in a head-on!
I wouldn't like to hit it at any angle - power to weight must be atrocious.
It only weighs a tonne, so less than a fiesta.
0 to 60 in 5.3 seconds, 147mph max - not bad
It's a Subaru Impreza WRX Type R 2 Litre Turbo under the skin
http://www.skipcar.co.uk/
--
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Anonymous
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richard thomas
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 07:07 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by TimC
quote:
Originally posted by graememk
Only in Newport (01633)
Wicked.... Tim is that you on Vox?
Boyokasha!
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Ninehigh
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| posted on 18/10/10 at 08:37 PM |
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What engines can you get hold of?
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