So, I was updating my website and came up with a name for my car... though it is really more sarcastic than I would have wished for.

Project MBT-8 914 stands for (in military voice) Main Battle Tank 8 nine one four - or resembling the fact it is a V8 914 that is quickly becoming an M1 Abrams. It will be interesting to see what this puppy weighs when I am all said and done - I expect that the 2305lbs it went in at has been on a steady diet of burritos. I put a lot of cage in it for safety, so I am okay with that, but now that I am adding weight with a dry sump tank (not the tank, but the extra oil weight and hoses), a wing that feels pretty heavy, and door panels, etc (every little thing adds up of course) I am going to have to go to fiberglass decklids and lexan windshields to get back near that weight.

Let's see, how can I lie to myself... oh yeah, hey it will be more stable. Yeah, that's the ticket.

But, if you are going to war, bring a tank right? Lame metaphor for racing of course, but... well... whatever.

AJ made a bunch of progress again, from the rear iso it is starting to look like a 914 again
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YEAH, we can preview pics finally!! And do multiples in one post!! Nice job to the admins!!

here you can see the upper pad set in place - notice the cut to get it in. Once it is screwed down, the seam will be noticeable but not bad.
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the front will need rework to fit, but tacked into place for now until the front fiberglass is put on this week.
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Also added in some midpoint mounts to the adapter plate for additional support - that 930 transaxle mounting setup is scary to me so this should take some of the load off of that area.
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BTW, if you saw this link for the first time, here is the original link from the start
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...p;hl=byndbad914
got messed up a little by the "great virus of 06" fiasco, so I started another here.

Looking great

Please do keep updating with newer pics...I'm in the process of doing something similar and your pics are very helpful.

nuts!

not just nuts, deeez nutz!

sorry, couldn't help myself.

1.8t - are you building a tube car as well? If so, you can mimic my "floor" if you are worried about side impact stability, but if you worry about weight, the average sane car builder will use way less tubing and you will probably be fine. I am "ascared" of getting hurt, so that is why the cockpit area is so gnarly. I have what is known as the Anderson Luck Factor...

Of course, hopefully I don't "call it" here, but watch me go off the track and have something come in the window and hit me in the throat anyway. The car will be in perfect shape without a scratch. That would be what is known amongst my friends as the "Anderson Luck Factor" - the low probably of the craziest/worst thing happening is multiplied by 10 if I am involved.

Yeah, they think that is funny...

WOW!!!!!!!!

I think I am having tube envy!!!!

GREAT work

Yup, I had a rought idea of what I wanted to do but looking at yours gave me a clear plan on how to do things. Thanks again for posting the pics.

Not really worried about weight...I just want to it be less than 2400lbs and i'm good...but even then I dont think i'm going to use as much tubing as yours. I may pick up some 1"x.120 tubing to reinforce selected areas.

pokey - I think I am having avatar envy!

1.8t - a couple suggestions to help minimize the tubing but stay rigid...

I have the outer perimeter (the "square" that frames out the interior area) at 2" diameter - 1-3/4" would be fine for most folks. The lower forward tubes, the rear tubes that mount the engine, and the tubes that tie the front to rear are 1-3/4" - I would stick with that. The reinforcement in the interior is a mix of 1-1/2" and 1-1/4" - you could make the "diamond" under the seats and other "tie-in" tubing out of 1-1/2" and leave out a lot of the cross tubing (the stuff running parallel to the windshields that I added for side impact stability).

that said, if you use chromoly like I did (DOM will be 30% heavier), my whole tube frame section is probably only 300-400lbs. I haven't done a weight analysis in a while, but the lower "frame area" front to rear with no hoop or NASCAR bars was about 175lbs, so if that doubled it would only be 350lbs, and I don't think I added twice as much tubing yet. DOM would only add roughly 115lbs to the whole car in that case.

If you stay with a 4cyl and 901 trans, you will be lighter than me by a couple hundred pounds as well. So I am guessing I will be around 2400lbs, maybe higher as I add more stuff to it (trans coolers, trans pump, oil coolers, wing, fire suppression system, so forth), so you should stay within 2400lbs.

Roger Sheridan has a really light 914 tube car - I have a ton of pix of that car.

a thread from the bird board http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread....threadid=253609

He had mostly 1-3/4" and 1-1/2" bar, with 1" stuff in less structural areas, firewalls weren't welded in place (mine will be = more rigidity but more weight). He has a 3" diameter tube that runs across the rear of the car at the lower firewall area and built off of that - his designer found it necessary to have that huge tube at that point to help react the rear loads IIRC. His whole car with a -6 and 901 trans was just over 1800lbs. He recently went to a 915 so guesses it is about 1850lbs now. Carbon fiber seat, etc. helps of course.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will be picking up some 2x2"'s for the floor area like you suggested. I'm using DOM tubing so I guess mine will be a little heavier. Currently I've got 100ft of 1.5" DOM, I'll also pick up some 1" .120 to use for reinforcements.

My plan is to leave the exterior of the car alone and gut everything else, including front rear firewall as you did....only keeping the longs. I don't plan to take the fenders/quarters apart...just leave the body whole with reinforments and build around (on inside) of that.

After being inspired by your thread (really ) I went into the garage and did some chopping and bending. I managed to make the main hoop/roll bar. I'm planning on making the cage off of the longs first and then chopping and doing the floor and building up as on yours.

Anyways, I don't mean to hijak your thread...I'll start another one for my project in case someone would like to see it...thanks again for your suggestions.

Just to clarify the first sentence - I have 2" diameter round bar, not 2x2 square bar. If you want to go with a "boxed" section car, use 2x3, with the 3" as the vertical dimension.

Oh boy, see now you went and got me all excited... I started out to build a rectangular "frame" car but couldn't get 2x3 in chromoly...

And then reread what I just wrote - build a frame car. THAT would be cool, not weigh a ton, and the longs would be in place simply to hold the body structure, not carry loads. With my car, I kept the longs below the doors to have some rigidity regarding the fact I am using stock, heavy doors. The rear section that is still left (the sail panel and the small bit of fender to Dzus the fiberglass) is VERY weak right now. I can grab the little piece of fender and move the sail around a bit. Won't matter as the reinforcements added in my first pics in this post will hold all that in place.

For you, you could run 2x3 box front to rear firewall as a parallel frame (with the correct width to match the mounting locations for the front suspension), then box out the car to the longs, and back and forth at the front nad rear where you want the new firewalls. Then weld the 2x3 along the longs on the inside - making the new frame structure integral to the longs. Now the body is "along for the ride". Add in a roll cage just like mine (tie into the frame, NOT the longs!!), a couple tubes to the front for strut perch mounting and such (similar to mine). Then the rear you could lay out with a mix of round bar and box sections to mount your engine and such. You will be fairly different from mine if you run trailing arms. Watch my link over the next couple weeks - AJ should be starting the five-link rear setup shortly which will be waaaayy easier and slicker to work with than trailing arms and easy to build (you'll already have the 1" diam tubing). Front end will be tubular as well with struts that would also be good to copy if you plan to use struts and not SLA ("double A"). The lower arms, fully adjustable strut perches and spherical "ball joint adapter" pieces were all bought from Kanna Motorsports and I expect them to work fine... we'll see soon enough.

Make sure to add some small strutural tubing like I have to tie into the fenders, rear panel and such to support the body, THEN cut out all of the inner body stuff and rearward longitinals (cut rear part of longs down to the firewall like I did AFTER you lock the body in place - will take a lot less measuring than AJ is doing right now to get the body back into place).

If you are going to stick with the flat Pcar engines, you would need to work at keeping everything removeable from the bottom since they are so wide. Otherwise, the narrow V8 makes the upward removal doable, and the caging of the car much easier. If you could come from the top, you could frame front to rear.

fingers are wearing out...

The reason I support building a "frame" car so much is that any overhead structure is not as necessary for rigidity - though of course helps with torsional loads for sure - notice I say not as necessary. You could have less internal cage structure and such for a very rigid car making it more streetable.

Think American g-machine cars and you will get what I mean. Solid frames, solid suspensions, minimal overhead structure, very streetable and comfortable with loads of power and cornering on hand. THAT is what I originally intended to build, then went 141mph, car was scary acting, etc etc, full tube crazy car.

My future 70 Mustang fastback project will be diff'ernt - build more for the street with a 500HP engine, but from a 430-ish cube engine, so "milder" running and such. Then I won't want all the cage structure at all. That will be 2x4 DOM framed out with a NASCAR front clip and 3-link rear if that means anything to you. Our 914s are lighter so 2x3 DOM would be fine for you.

Here is a good Nova g-machine project that illustrates the rectangular tubing as a frame with minimal cage structure.
http://www.iimuchfabrication.com/

I'm planning on doing something very similar to what you recommended. However, I'm building the cage into the longs and also tying it into the floor and rest of the chassis. Basically, the longs and body will be going for a ride with the chassis and won't really be responsible for any kind of load, it'll be just hanging on as you said.

As for my project:
Using a Audi S4 (2.7tt, but single larger turbo) engine + 6spd trans. HP goals is about 550ish. Uneven lenght A-arms with QA1 or Koni coilovers with Willwood 4 piston calipers/brakes front and rear, riding on custom spindles using porsche hubs and bearings. I'll be modding some trailing arms to make the spindles (at least thats the plan for now).

And as far as G-machines...I love em. Check out Lateral-g.net if you havn't already...I got my motivated to build the 914 this style from checking out that stuff. My next car will be a 69' camaro (which will be my daily driver)...after I finish the 914.

-Sonu

I was looking into the LS1's and Lightning stuff also...but decided to go Audi. Plus I got a killer deal on the engine/trans and am very familiar with Audi motors. A single GT35r should get me there with the S4 motor and it's stong enough stock to hold that kind of power.


Actually, not really looking to keep porsche bolt patter necessarily...just thought I could use the stuff I already have (like extra trailing arms) to make the spindles. The wheels I want to really use are 5x112 bolt pattern. I'm looking into a few other choices also (cheaper ones) and will decide by tomorrow which way to go.


Yeah...I've been following that mustang for quite some time now. Basically what I want to do with the teener...but still not sure if I will really need to do a boxed 2x3 or round tubing for the bottom since the teener is so much lighter. If I get a camaro I'll be doing like that.

I'll post some pics next week of progress...and my final decision on how to do the frame/suspension. I'm having a cousin come by and to compare ideas and then we will build whatever we decide on.

Any updates on your car?

AJ continues to cruise along on the car... here are some pix from Saturday. More will be on my website when I update it -probably tomorrow.

Starting to look like its old self again
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Here is the front trunk area - radiator is tucked in nice and tight to the fiberglass, but a little too tight. AJ needs to drop the nose another 3/8" roughly to get the fiberglass back to original position - notice the broken lip area - he is brutal with my fiberglass!
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Here is a tray I made for the rear to hold the ignition and trans pump. There will be a couple bars ran from the mid-mounts to rear mounts for this tray to ride on. Then when I want to remove the engine and trans, that can come right along with it (notice the flanges have been added so engine/trans can R&R from above)
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This shows the rough placement of the seat - even though the firewall will be much further forward than before, you can see that the seat is roughly where I would have had it anyway. By rough placement I mean there are no brackets welded in place yet... I will be using the stock rails and mounting scheme to have adjustability to get it just perfect. My right rotator in my shoulder was blown out a few years back so it gets "twitchy" after a bit of use, so I have to move the seat around every once in awhile to change my position to the wheel.
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AHHHHH finally got my fix, great pictures. Still looking for the pictures of the wing?

Hey Paul - I know what you mean. I too am jonesing to see what the wing is going to look like on the car, and I pestered AJ again Saturday asking when we could work on it He needs to finish up some more stuff in the rear before we start welding in mounting plates for the wing, so maybe a week or two more

Alright, after a 5-week fuch up dealing with machinists, I finally have the car moving along again. Long story short, I had designed some custom wheel adapters for the new racing wheels, which should take one day to make. THREE WEEKS into the ordeal, I finally told the first shop to pound sand after not starting them (they told me 2 days btw when I gave them the dimensions). Then the next shop took a week to do them WRONG (even with a fully dimensioned ProE drawing!!!!), then after I taught them how to read a print, made them close but not quite right again the next week. Close enough to work though, so the car sat 5 weeks waiting for a 1-day project. I shoulda just bought a rotary table and done them myself at this point...

So, anyway, AJ is finally able to get back on it and start doing the suspension. After the suspension is all in place, we can install the firewalls, mount seats, wire, plumb and all that good stuff. Hopefully that is all "downhill" and rolls along, but the car won't be done to bring up to the WCC, which I REALLY wanted to be able to do. I was on schedule 5 weeks ago

Front suspension - forward link is really a 935 link from Kanna Motorsports - AJ is making a lower A-arm for strength v. one forward link and one lateral link.
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Iso shot with the wing and new spill plates (the other ones I fabbed looked lame once the wing was installed)
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From the rear
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Details of the wing mounting for those that have wondered how I was going to do it - I more or less copied the idea from Roger Sheridan, except how he designed his lower mounting to the car. The aluminum uprights had flat sections inside that matched .75x1.5" tubing perfectly (I think Roger used the chromoly steel which doesn't have that feature and was why I chose aluminum instead).

The adjusting hardware on the uprights is all purchased from McMaster Carr and is simply a 6" adjuster with rod ends. The tabs will be welded into place later.
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Lower mount has two sets of holes - lower pair puts the wing about roof high, then I have an inch higher set in case I need cleaner air. Starts looking a bit lame if the wing gets really high though... the angle is 25 degrees - I would like more "visually" but I was afraid of the moment loads at the weld with more and more angle.
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At the top, I have aluminum plate cut to fit the upper wing mount welded to thicker plate cut to match the .75"x1.5" inside dim of the tubing.
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There are more shots on my website, but beware, geocities sucks and wants to shut it down apparently if a bunch of people access it but feel more than welcome to click away...

Ahhh, you know that this is just what I have been waiting for.

Why did you not put the wing uprights closer together like RS car?

Can you post the part number of the uprights again?

Great progress.

That’s what I am talking about. Thanks for the being so up front with information. Hope you don’t mind but thanks to you I have a real good idea how to duplicate a similar set up for my self. Hope you don’t mind if I copy you. Your ideas are first rate.

Heheh, the wing ideas are copied from Roger Sheridan, so feel free to steal the stolen If you are seriously tracking the car, go with wider spaced uprights like mine. If you are "sorta" tracking but also care about it looking cool, go with the 18" spacing on the uprights - it looks much better that way.

I had heavily considered going to the 18" center and running a couple small guide wires from the spill plates to the back of the roof (no I am not kidding ). At the track if I had rocking I could hook up the wires to stop the rocking, then off the track I could just remove the wires and it would look good all the time. This is starting to sound like a bad Zoolander pun... "the car would be really gud looking"

My question is:

What are you going to do in the front to balance the car? That wing has a 3degree angle of attack @ zero setting on the uprights!!! You are going to need a BIG splittler for the front..LOL

I have always admired the tube work of a offroad guy. He could have used a lot less in the construction of the car. Every single cage/car build I have seen from the offroad guy's is WAY overkill. You make references to Roger's car.. Roger's car has 1/4 of the tubes in it compared to yours. You will have NO issues with being able to jump it off of 30ft cliffs!!

Dont take the above as negative. It is just an observation. I'm happy you have progress on a project

B

he has the power to over come the extra weight

Brad - no offense taken!! I am going to be running a front splitter - I just have yet to fab it. It will probably stick out about 2-3" in front of the spoiler area once it is done.

As for the tubes, all those tubes in the center of the car are actually my idea - not AJs. Even AJ thought I was way overkill! So I have the baja guys thinking I am overkill I just wanted the center cockpit area of that car to be very rigid since it is so compact - recently rally guys were being killed by side impacts where the car crumpled in and took them out. All that tubing is there to hopefully keep the car out of my ribcage As for Roger's car - you are correct that he has way less tubing, but that just doesn't seem safe to me should something really go wrong at 150mph.

And torsionally it will better handle the 438 lb-ft of torque the V8 is making.

His car is very light, which is great for speed, but not necessarily safety. Mine probably gained 150-200lbs just in floor tubing, but in the long run I think I will be happier carrying that 200lbs of safety around the track. And fortunately all of that extra weight will only be 4-5" off of the ground.

Of course, the way my luck works, I will have a side impact and the car won't budge an inch, but I will have died from some f'd up internal injury due to lack of impact absorbsion

mo' updating after the weekend. I went down Friday to check up on things. Normally I would work on it on Saturday, but went out to Willow for the POC races instead (need to get my priorities straight, right?!) It was good to go out there as I have a whole bunch more ideas of things to do and there was a huge turnout of cars.

I saw the turbo 996 car that clicked off a 1:18 a month or two ago out there, and that was something to see. I gather he wasn't that much quicker through the corners from what I could see, but through the T7-T8 sweeper and the straight he would just mow down cars like they were standing still! I only took pics of the rear suspension as my camera ran out of room before getting an overall shot of it.

Anyway, back to MBT. AJ is finishing up the front suspension by building the upper strut mounts as of Friday
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and started making the skin for the underside of the car
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from inside
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he skinned out the dash and some other areas too
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What gauge sheet are you using for the fllorpan/underside?

good question... I am not sure about gauge sizes, but I think it is .090" IIRC. I will have to ask to be sure. He used the .060" stuff on the backside of the dash, but I am pretty sure the bottom is thicker. I don't think it was 1/8".

Little Tidbit about the Turbo cars you were watching.. they rarely finish the race. Something *always* breaks for some odd reason.

It is fun watching them come to a stop for the corners

HUmm. I'm wondering if you should have went with Rogers "wide" version. The biggest tires I could get under the narrow body (with stock suspension) are 11's.

B

Brad, same for the HPH flares? I've got 10's on now, and see another inch of livable space.. more if I cut the reinforcement.. (but I wont do that..)

When I bought the kit, I actually planned on more of a streeter V8. Times they are a changin'. Even so, I won't have any of the inner body in the way now. I will be limited by only what the 5-link suspension won't hit for the most part, which will be interesting to see what that will be. I may be able to get a 12 or 13 under there in the end, but hard to predict at this point. I am going to talk to AJ pretty seriously later tonight about maybe building A-arm stuff similar to the 996 I shot all the suspension photos of as opposed to long links (which I prefer because you get little to no change through travel with those), which will make more room for tires.

As for those turbo cars breaking - I heard he has something like 700 rwhp, which seems like a ton from such a small motor, so I am guessing that would be a "highly stressed" engine He didn't break from what I saw, but he threw money at the car in a manner not often witnessed and never experienced by a guy like me. Rumor is his dad owns all the Sport Chalet stores, they have about $500K-$600K in the car. He was changing tires in between every session (18" x huge" sets of Yokos aren't exactly cheap).

Sense the jealousy yet His dad owns the Sport Chalets, my dad owned a garbage route. And a septic tank pumper at one point to round out the strange smells of our driveway. Born "whiskey tango" and it has been an uphill battle ever since, that many would insist I am losing I suspect

more updates... he has started laying out the rear suspension. It is looking good so far, but still early phase. The uprights may prove to be a bit of a pain but doable - AJ is mocking up with the whole arm, then will cut it down to where it needs to be for all 5 links to work correctly. He already determined it was easier to work with the arm upside down

Sorry for the fuzzy pics, turns out my batteries were almost dead an my camera focus goes to crap when that happens...

Here is a jpeg from SusProg3D software's website. I didn't use the software (I used graph paper and compasses cuz I am a CSOB) but lifted this pic from their site to show AJ what I want.
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And the progress
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Note that the top link isn't declined - but it isn't at ride height, just resting on the jack. The end geom should have lowers parallel to ground and nominal ride height with a decline in the top link to give about 1deg of camber gain on 2" of bump. The shock will mount in the stock location again.

And then we had a seriously heated debate about his firewall. He thinks it is nice and simple and works well. I hated how it looks and how intrusive it was. He was pretty on fire after that conversation, but everything is smoothed over after the weekend and I gave him some sketches of what I would like to see and he will make it happen.

Here is what he had - what do you guys think? I am a really picking bastard, so maybe I am just taking it too far, but I just didn't like how "big" it looked. My sketch follows the back of the cage inboard to the engine mounting tubes, then has a "doghouse" that is removeable at the center (think like a van but at the rear, or a Pantera for those that know what those are like).
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And then a shot of the wheel adapters I had made FYI. Adapts 911 130mm pattern to 5-on-5 race wheel pattern.
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too lazy again this week to get a set of batteries, so camera is still a little fuzzy...

AJ fixed the firewall to a sketch I provided... IMO look about 1000% better
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Another shot - you can kinda see the pieces up by the window that I bent up for them to install. The square area gives plenty of clearance to the water neck and throttle linkage, while the bent pieces attached on each side follow the stock pillar pads almost perfectly to give it a "custom, but factory fit" look. I think it was worth the extra effort to make it match the car's lines. He had just a 90deg bend like the center all the way out just sort of "running into" the pads and thought it was lame to try to work to an interior pad... some guys just don't get what I am trying to do.
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Oil tank is mounted more or less
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Seats will be mounted next while the suspension gets finished up (hopefully) and a few more items to mount (shifter, cooling system, fluid coolers, and such). So a couple more weeks I should be able to trailer this home to start a custom wiring harness, run all the brake and fuel lines and plumb the dry sump system. I am hopeful I am only a month away from getting this thing started again. It is a long shot, but if AJ can wrap up in a couple of weeks, I may take a week off of work (I need the break) and just hammer away at this thing.

lookin good!

Excellent progress. It looks like your almost finished. I don’t what I am going to do when you’re all done and your updates end?????? Maybe watch more T.V. Maybe I will start working on my ride. Now there’s a though. I have a question for you. In your previous picture of the oilcan, standing on end is what appears to be your rear stub axel. Can you provide details regarding that part? What car is it from? Part number? I know that you have the 930 CV's and I am wondering what parts you used to connected the 930 CV's through the stock 914-swing arm with no adaptors.

Very cool!

You definately were right about the firewall!

TIm you need to watch your toe change on the rear suspension. With the link going towards the firewall you will see an unusually high amount of toe change in bump droop and roll. You have compounded the movement of the wheel by adding that link.

I looked at doing something similar on my car in the early stages because it is easiy to package. You will also see a jerky rate of camber gain with such a short upper arm. It would be better if you could mount it somewhere over or near the tranny.

I know you are concerned with safety, but using .090+ for the floor pans is insane. Look at the thickness of the factory sheetmetal. I would go a little thinner as you are just using it to keep the dirt out. The tubing is providing the real protection.

I thought someone may wonder what that was... actually that isn't off of my car They were working on the Thing next to mine and I think one of the guys picked it up off the ground and thought it was mine. I just left it there

As for my setup specifically, I have Turbo Carrera axles and hubs. Talk to Jim at Patrick Motorsports for all the specifics, but he sells some simple spacers that go in the mix to make the longer Carrera stub axles and hubs work with the narrower, stock 914 wheel bearings. Works really slick. The axles can be bought new with the stub axles as an integral part. Then you just need Carrera hubs, his spacers and it all goes together. And the Carrera CVs bolt directly to the 930. He gave me a matching price on the parts (to Pelican's prices which were cheaper when I bought my stuff - don't know about now) when I bought the flanges and spacers from him.

Brett - The toe change shouldn't be too bad over a couple inches of bump - but that is left to be seen. All the links are adjustable, and I have to mess with the caster angle of the rear to tune it out. It shouldn't be anywhere near as bad as the trailing arms were. Also, camber gain is relative between the length of the upper and lower - so it is a short upper, but somewhat short lowers. I calculate 1 degree gain at 2" of bump and 1.5deg at 3" of bump. After that I drag the car on the ground, so gain becomes irrelevant. Remember, any suspension design will work if you stop it from moving

But good eye as it looks to be really short, but the tube diam and rod ends can be deceiving - it is around 8-3/8" long and the bottoms are like 9 - 9-1/2" long IIRC.

Dang that is too cool!!! I do have to ask how much will that thing weigh once its finnished? Theres a whole lotta steel there! I think you should see if Porsche wants to take a run at NASCAR!

Thanks again for the great information. Man your smart.

Heh, thanks for the compliment. Probably more resourceful than smart - when I need to figure out how to make something work, I get the phone and start harassing all the usual suspects in the Porsche world.

I think Jim Patrick gets a lot of on the various forums, but he has been a good guy to talk to (at least for me) in the past few years. He was somewhat of a dick a few years back the first couple of times I tried to call his shop and order stuff and always went elsewhere. But maybe he had a change of heart a couple years ago Maybe he was reading the forums and unlike George at AA, actually took the bad-mouthing seriously and made a change. In any event, he is NOT cheap (typically his prices are higher than other places for the exact same stuff) but anytime he has helped me out I bought the stuff from him as my "consultation fee" so to say.

And when suppliers are cool to me I give 'em props, so I always promote Pelican, Otto's and Patrick for parts and help. That is my main resources. There are others I have not bought from yet that are quite popular, but for now Pelican is 5 blocks from my house, Otto's is about 10 miles and otherwise it is Patrick.

Actually I thought about it some more and you may have a decent design for a hybrid car. If you set it up so that the front links will toe the suspension in on braking and bump you can help stabilize the chassis. This will make the car much easier to drive for a non-professional driver.

You are right the less the suspension moves the more all suspensions become the same. That was something else that I studied with my design. In a race car with very limited suspension travel for instance, struts and dual a-arms have similar characteristics.

What does your roll center do in bump and roll? Where is it in location to the front? How is it in relation to the CG height in the rear?

Car is looking good. You plan on painting or powder coating the chassis when your are done?

Brett - yous a smart kid and catching on to how I am setting the car up. The car will have toe change (AFAIK all indep suspensions have slight toe change through motion, it is all about minimizing it and choosing if you want over or understeer). I am going for slight toe-in to force understeer, which as you wisely mention, is easier to drive. The key of course is to not have it change from in to out or vice-versa - then the car is a mess to drive.

And you are mucho correct on the "non-professional" part of my driving

Roll center on the front moves down (struts) and same with the rear on bump <both move up on rebound>. I have the RC set higher in the rear (not exactly calculated frankly, but drawn out on paper it is slightly higher and should roughly stay higher all the time at static settings) - again to force understeer. But that value will move around anyway as I set the car to the track (camber changes move the RC - the front will be more affected than the rear tho'). If I have to run a bunch of camber in the rear and none in the front to get tire temps correct, then maybe the rear RC would be lower than the front for instance. I don't expect that scenario of course, but the RC is a moving target; at static settings with same front and rear camber, rear is higher.

As for relevance to cg - I has no ideas unfortunately. This car has never been built, so there is no way of knowing where the weight lies until it is done - then I can weigh it and tip it if I feel so inclined (pun intended) and figure that out.

Why all the understeer tuning? Bcuz it oversteered like a mofo before at any speed. And it is the only car I have ever spun And in terms of trying to get all the RCs and ICs right - there will always be compromise and for a 914, it is space. I have 10lbs of in a 3lb - not even 5lb - bag.

So basically what I get is what I get and I will tune the suspension so it can be all it can be, not all it might have been if you catch my drift. I am not going for the track record with the car anyway, I just wanted to be as safe as possible because I love going really fast v. tons of corners (why I like Willow Springs), and if we could improve some things, then improve them.

BTW, I should check your blog... how is your car coming?

Unfortunately my car is staring forlornely at me, watching me work on everyone else car or project. Gotta make some bank to play with my own projects. Hopefully I will get to do something on it next month.

I want to get back on the chassis and engine adapter.

updated shots of the car after this last weekend. First, the rear suspension is all tacked into place and looking good. I can grab the hub off the jackstand and move it up 4" before any visible toe change (at which point I have ripped the frame off the car to do that in reality with only 3-3.5" ground clearance) and camber gain looks slight. Of course once everything is all done and I am corner-balanced, set at height and running thru the alignment steps will I know exactly what I have. Looks really good tho'

rear close-up roughly near ride-height (jackstands aren't exactly precision for photos )
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a more overall shot
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front splitter I have been working on. I will final mount it when it is on the ground and the body panels all lined up and such. You can see the coolant reservoir added as well.
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with relief cut for the tires on both sides
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And the oil tank mounting
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and a shot to show the firewall better (new batteries in the camera finally) and the shifter is mounted.

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shifter is hard to see, but maybe you get the idea. It is up about 4" from the floor for better accessibility while racing.
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sick man... totally over the top super cool sickness goin on....