The Project Begins

[RacingSnake]

Re: The Project Begins

ah man... and this thread was only 1 month away from being auto locked

[a__zed]

Re: The Project Begins

A friend of mine said there was a bike powered car matching the description of my old one in Essex thats all

[Evilution]

Re: The Project Begins

ah man... and this thread was only 1 month away from being auto locked

Delete our replies and let it self destruct.

[RacingSnake]

Opened at the OP's request!!

Holy thread resurrection batman! lol

[David_MCS]

It's been a long time since my last update, life has been busy with many up's and down's and sacrifices had to be made in the form of time. Time is very precious and I'm happy that I now have surplus to continue this amazing project.



Rather than saying I'm going to re-start the project and get followers excited, I just continued where I left off with a few major changes.

A few months have passed and progress has gained some amazing ground, there has been some huge changes and many lessons learnt.

Firstly we've moved the project location. Myself and my dad were cramped for space so we've moved to a small unit which we rent locally, this has made a huge improvement in itself as we now have space to work and store parts.







Our equipment has changed. We had long lead times for parts to be laser cut, machined and modified and it was slowing us down. We took a leap of faith and purchased a fantastic CNC machine for all our custom parts, it has paid for itself in worth already. We now draw then start machining in around 20-30 minutes and the results are astounding.









Here is where I should start filling up the thread with many many photos but let me answer a few questions that I feel may come up.

Will you be making kits available?

Maybe, my dad is close to retiring age and would love to. Nothing would make him happier than somewhere to work/play on projects like this. I have drawings and versions for every part ever made for this project and an inventory of parts required. I think what's most important now is to finish this project and then think about it, I don't want to make mistakes like a commonly hear from other companies producing similar kits.

Where is the engine located?

In the back where it's supposed to. It's not hard to Google other kits and conversions, this project isn't a first but we've done things right. We wanted to retained both seats.

Do you need to modify the chassis?

Yes, in order for this project to feel purposeful it needed to abide by a few person rules. Things like independent rear suspension, equal length driveshafts and many many adjustable parts with a standard look meant the chassis needs to be modified slightly in the form of cutting the engine bay so the engine fits, it's not a lot.

I could of quite easily built a subframe to work around the original chassis and finished by now but handling and ride wouldn't of been be amazing. I'm not building an outright track weapon but it can be, think of it as a mix of 'fast road and track'.

What vehicle are the parts from?

A mix, we wanted parts easily obtainable as we could of made them all with the equipment available but that incurs a great cost and not what this project is about.

So far the parts are from/meant for.

Sierra Cossorth
Radical SR3
MNR Vortex
VW Polo

This may change but how things are staying at the moment.

I'll post pictures up through out the day, please feel free to ask any questions. I'd be more than happy to answer them

David

[David_MCS]

Opened at the OP's request!!

Holy thread resurrection batman! lol

Haha thanks :0)

[RacingSnake]

Existing pictures not working for me where are they hosted?

[Thrumbleux]

Existing pictures not working for me where are they hosted?

Ditto.

[Thrumbleux]

So far the parts are from/meant for.

Sierra Cossorth
Radical SR3
MNR Vortex
VW Polo

What parts from which?

[David_MCS]

I'll update the original photo's, long story short my account on this forum had the contact email address set up on a domain I no longer own, I had to re-register the domain to reset the password!

Okay so the images can be found here, http://www.smartbusa.co.uk/images.php

David

[David_MCS]

What parts from which?

Driveshafts and hubs from a Sierra Cosworth (lots of variants have different sizes)
Diff mounts from an Radical SR3
Rear hubs from an MNR Votex (modified slightly)
Radiator from a VW Polo (Common kit car)

Standard radiator could have been used as well as the fuel pump thinking about it but I just wanted something adequate enough for when a turbo is added in the future so both were changed.

[zimzimmer]

shame i cant see any pics, id love a buza smart

[David_MCS]

Can you not see my recent pics? I uploaded via the forum but I'll swap them out for pics on my hosting..

[David_MCS]

So before I post any more pictures I should probably show at what stage the project is currently at.

After a bit of cutting/trimming.




We test fitted the frame. Note: This is probably the 4th or 5th complete frame that's been created, the rest never made the cut.



Then test fitted the engine



Bumper on to see what will be left on show, the exhaust will hide all this.



Finally.. something that has been on my mind for a while. Custom front hubs with the same Ford PCD as the rear setup, retaining the ABS rings, offset but with slightly larger bearings.



As well as the evil looking cutter which may be cutting them out of a stainless steel billet. I've ordered aluminum which I've done a simulated stress test but I need to see how they come out before I decide.



I'm just about to head up to where the project is situated so I'll post up some more photo's tonight

David

[Big Performance]

Aluminium ones will be fine.

http://www.canleyclassics.com/?xhtml=xhtml/product/alloyhubs.html&xsl=product.xsl