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Anyone else building a mid-engined car?
Alan B - 15/5/02 at 01:33 PM

Guys,

I just want see if anyone else is going this route, and share ideas etc.
My progress so far:
http://www.desicodesign.com/meerkat/

Cheers,

Alan B

Alan B - 21/5/02 at 01:01 PM

Sorry Guys,

Blatant ploy to move this thread back to the top

I'll expand the question to anyone thinking of going mid-engined? or even just interested in mid-engined stuff?
One of my main motivating factors is the scarcity (in the US) of decent donors for conventional locosts compared to FWD donors. In the UK it seems you still have plenty of Sierras left so maybe it's not much of a problem there?

Alan B

john_s - 21/5/02 at 06:14 PM

Hi Alan.

I'm tempted to have a go with a mid engined model using a front wheel drive car as the donor once i've finished my sierra based locost(which isn't very advanced at this stage!).

The biggest problem i can see so far would be the work required to enable operation of the gear change once intalled in the new car.

John.

Alan B - 21/5/02 at 06:32 PM

quote:
The biggest problem i can see so far would be the work required to enable operation of the gear change once intalled in the new car


John,

I thought that too, and in fact I ended up with the MR2 gear change. However, after seeing how it's done you realise how simple it can be
The handbrake is probably as tricky (or more), but it still isn't a show stopper.
Once you've built your conventional Locost you'll have learned so much that a mid-engined car won't be a big challenge.
Whether you want to go through it all again is another story

Alan

ChrisW - 21/5/02 at 06:58 PM

Thought about building a crazy go-kart type thing a few years back using a Mini engine, gearbox, props, hubs etc and bolting it all to the back of a spaceframe. No suspension, no bodywork, just a 900cc go-kart!

Anyway I did a few drawings but it never came to anything (like most of my 'ideas') although I remember looking at your site and thinking I'd keep an eye on what you were up to!

Chris

bob - 21/5/02 at 09:57 PM

Alan

Great site,one of the best i've seen.

Alan B - 21/5/02 at 10:09 PM

Cheers Bob,

I'd better get my fat arse and do some more then
Seriously, when you haven't got mates down the street who can pop in encourage you (the nearest builder I know is 90 miles away ) then having a website to share stuff is the next best thing.
Thanks for the support.

Alan

Alan B - 21/5/02 at 10:16 PM

quote:
I'd better get my fat arse and do some more then


Hmm... what a difference one word makes
It should have read "off my fat arse"

Alan

stevedenbigh - 26/9/02 at 01:55 PM

Whilst looking through some old posts to find alink to a website whose name i've forgotten, I noticed this post. I thought it might be of some interest to people that in Costin and phipps book "Racing and sports Car Chassis design", which was written just after the mid engined revolution in racing cars, the reoson for the engine being moved from infront behind the driver is not stated for weight distribution or low second moment of inertia reasons, but it was done to lower the driver to reduce aerodynamic drag by reducing the frontal area (silhoette of the vehicle when viwed from the front) of the vehicle.

on a similar theme, a lot of people seem to recon that 50/50 weight didtrbtion is best for a vehicles overall performance, but in fact most racing cars are rear heavy, even front engined ones such as the panoz and the Cheetah (anyone remember that AC Cobra rival from the 1960's/)

MrFluffy - 26/9/02 at 02:48 PM

Im doing a mid engined car, but its not quite a locost...
Im actually revamping my kitcar, its a nova sterling based on a 69 vw beetle pan (yuk), I'd already ran a ford cvh on my transaxle with a adaptor and alienated myself from the whole vw world because I had commited a unmentionable sin of fitting a watercooled engine with a radiator up front, so I thought why not go the whole hog and build my own chassis with proper suspension.
I ended up on this board because there are a lot of good ideas regarding jigging out the front suspension, suspension design, donar parts etc. Im even going to nick the geometry from the locost, but make it adjustable with bushes so I can tune it to suit the weight of the car..
Also it seemed a shame to keep that poxy 4 speed transaxle with swingaxle suspension, so Ive got my mitts on a renault espace 5 speed UN1 (same as a renault 25), and Im going to try run granada halfshafts with adaptors..
Motor wise, well, the plans were to buy a whole renault25 v6 turbo and use the motor and transaxle but seeing as someone gave me the trans, I can blow the budget on getting a rover v8 in there instead now
If you take off my fancy grp bodyshell, and squint a lot, it might even look like a locost

Alan B - 26/9/02 at 02:53 PM

MrF,

You should find plenty of stuff on my site of interest.
The link is at the top of the thread.

Good luck!

MrFluffy - 26/9/02 at 03:27 PM

quote:
MrF,

You should find plenty of stuff on my site of interest.
The link is at the top of the thread.

Good luck!

I already did, we exchanged emails on the matter already..

Simon - 26/9/02 at 03:31 PM

Alan B

Now I've seen how "simple" (quotes, cos I've no doubt there is a lot of work involved) the engine / rear suspension area is, I intend, once my current project is on the road (when/if etc:-) ), I intend to build myself a "mid engined" Mini.

Engine - Rover Turbo / Box etc
Very wide arches (Fortech!) etc
Ultra lightweight (similar Locost if poss)

Probaby been done before, but never mind

ATB

Simon

MrFluffy - 26/9/02 at 03:59 PM

I actually ran into a guy with something remarkably like that in paris, loading it onto a trailer, we chatted for a while and it turned out he raced it but couldnt get it legal for the road despite his best efforts... Should have taken a pic....

theconrodkid - 26/9/02 at 04:39 PM

I am building a mid engined road racer,escort xr3i running gear,looks a bit like a radical(or it will do when its finished)dont hold your breath!

Alan B - 26/9/02 at 04:45 PM

quote:
I am building a mid engined road racer,escort xr3i running gear,looks a bit like a radical(or it will do when its finished)dont hold your breath!


Hmm...Very interesting! Keep us informed

Alan B - 26/9/02 at 05:35 PM

Conrod, I have some pics of an escort engine mounted in a mid-engine racer, are you interested? If so I'll post some in my archive.

interestedparty - 26/9/02 at 05:41 PM

I'd like to see those, Alan

John

Alan B - 26/9/02 at 05:42 PM

OK, I'll post some later!

theconrodkid - 26/9/02 at 05:46 PM

Thanks Alan would be good to get some more ideas,ps yours is coming along at a fair rate

Alan B - 26/9/02 at 06:10 PM

quote:
Thanks Alan would be good to get some more ideas,ps yours is coming along at a fair rate


I have few, I'll sort out the best.
Thanks, it's moving on! Will get better in winter, it's much cooler to work on it!

Alan B - 26/9/02 at 06:44 PM

I have posted 4 pictures under the title SRF 01 etc.
The last 2 are from somewhere else on the net, so apologies for copyright etc.
I'll post more of mine later.

theconrodkid - 26/9/02 at 07:19 PM

Sorry Alan cant find them?

theconrodkid - 26/9/02 at 07:31 PM

Just ignore that last post

theconrodkid - 26/9/02 at 07:43 PM

found them,very nice any more without bodywork would be nice

Alan B - 26/9/02 at 11:23 PM

Conrod, 5 more posted.
I have more of the front etc. if they're any use?

Findlay234 - 27/9/02 at 07:45 AM

hey conrod, ive got an old magazine with a an escort with two engines, one in front and one mid mounted. it looks like he used the full front running gear from another escort and just shoved it all in the rear.

it happens to be a max power mag but i thought it might suit what you're doing

interestedparty - 27/9/02 at 07:49 AM

Good pics, Alan, quite a bit of useful info there.

It seems to me that the main problems in designing and constructing mid-engined cars (all IMHO)-

a.where's the best place to put the fuel tank? I'm not too sure about having one up front

b.the gearchange system. Can't see any details on the SRF pictures. Seems to me what's needed is two cables, one to transmit the fore and aft motion of the lever, and the otther to transmit the sideways (rotary) motion. Quite a bit of careful fabrication at each end is going to be needed to achieve a good gearchange system

c. the handbrake mechanism, finding the best rear calipers c/w cable system to fit the front discs/hubs of the power unit donor.

Solve these problems and the rest doesn't look too difficult. I think.

John

MrFluffy - 27/9/02 at 09:11 AM

Dont put the tanks in the sills like lamborghini did on the racing muira, and the racer ended up in a fire when the car went out of control and sideswiped a bridge...
Best consensus seems to be above the engine somewhere (bad idea if you have a engine fire), to the rear of the engine but inside a SUBSTANTIAL crash cage (route Im planning on) and stuffed with explosisafe packing. All i need now is a locost onboard fire extinguisher design...

Findlay234 - 27/9/02 at 09:40 AM

hey alan, just looking on your website, like the 3d images, what software did you use??

Alan B - 27/9/02 at 12:24 PM

Hi Guys,

A few replies:

Fuel tank - I'm using two of about 5 or 6 gallons each, one behind each seat (and firewall!) one with the sender, both with low pressure pumps, feeding into a surge pot where the high pressure pump will be.

Gearchange - Look at an MR2, it's so simple that any concerns vanish. Also, the push-pull type cables are readily available and easy to adapt.

Handbrake - Agreed, just a matter of finding the right bits.

Software - I use Mechanical Desktop 4 for my solid modelling. Maybe not perfect, but outputs native DWG files which is handy. The rendering feature is indentical to regular AutoCAD IIRC.

Good to see this thread back near the top again, where it belongs

theconrodkid - 27/9/02 at 05:00 PM

thanks Alan,you got a good source of rose joints?ive got all i need to get the rolling chassis built,ill get back to you about springs and the finer points when i,m there ,Findlay bring the mag to the meet but make sure its in a brown paper bag

Alan B - 27/9/02 at 05:27 PM

quote:
thanks Alan,you got a good source of rose joints?


Yeah, there's quite a lot of suppliers of rose joints (heims for US readers ).
It's the bloody seals that are a total rip-off nearly as much as the joints!!!!
I guess they need some competiton making them