OT: single seat sports car project, seeking feedback Options

[siverson]

Hi all,

This thread:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...17048&st=80

has prompted me to share a project I've been thinking about for a while and now am just getting started on. I thought I'd share with you guys as we're typically like minded car guys...

I'm making plans to build a single-seat, mid-engine, street-legal sports car.

- Less than 1,600 pounds

- 600 horsepower Chevy LS7 engine (dry sump)

- Porsche G96 transmission

- Street legal, but should be a pretty amazingly track car as well.

- Several donor parts from a C6 corvette (e.g. suspension uprights)

- Can accommodate drivers up to 6'8" and size 15 shoes (impossible with other lightweight street cars (e.g. Ariel Atom, Caterham)). (I'm 6'6".)

- 105" wheel base. This is about the same as a C6 Corvette, and much larger than other lightweight cars.

- Fiberglass body styled after a "modern 1960s F1/F2 car" (e.g. Porsche 718, Brabham B19).

- Single seat, super simple. no frills. Very simple dash, no doors, no wipers, no a/c, no heat. But safer and more comfortable than a motorcycle.

The Ariel Atom, SuperLite Nemesis, Palotav DP2, Light Car Company Rocket all share some characteristics of what I have planned, but none are quite right and hit the mark for me.

What do you think? Any ideas or suggestions on what to change? Like it? Hate it?

And below are just some conceptual drawings I've put together. Nothing is "engineered" in these concept drawings.

-Steve

[Katmanken]

Think you are quite a bit high on your weight. Drove a friends Merlyn Formula Ford a couple of times in the 70's and it was a whopping 960 lbs fully fueled. Of course the fuel bladder was the seat. In may ways, your open wheeled tube design is similar.

A couple of things to think about a tube bodied car. Getting in and out of something like that is not quick. You stand in the cockpit on the tubes, place your hands on the upper chassis tubes and begin walking your feet down into the chassis while stepping on the diagonal cross tubes. Make sure that you don't put any weight on the soft floor skin. Once you are in, it reminded me a lot of being jammed into a tennis shoe and tightening the laces. You are in a very confined space up to your chest, and can barely move. Getting out involves lots of snakelike wriggling and climbing back up the tubes of the chassis.

The Merlyn vented the radiator air down the chassis and out of the cockpit. In the summer, it was way worse than miserable. Cooled the car just fine, fried the driver. Did I mention that car used the tube chassis to run radiator fluid from the engine to the radiator and back again? You could get a really good burn if you weren't careful.