Saturday, January 19, 2013

Here's where it gets interesting....

Ok, so here it is, I had been alluding in earlier posts about where the design was heading......

The plan for this Super Mini is to use the entire suspension, drivetrain and as many parts as possible from a Honda S2000 sports car.

The rationale was based on a number of key criterion:
  1. Choose a donor vehicle that was very well designed and engineered to begin with from the factory
  2. Allow use of readily available new and aftermarket replacement parts
  3. Healthy availability of aftermarket performance parts if further performance is desired down the road....can anyone say "Turbo" :)
Started by mocking up the suspension and wheels on the floor to get an idea of track width, and rough idea of wheel base. Determined that a stretch of 2" would be acceptable and could easily be made up by stretching the fiberglass front end same amount. I have a lead on a engine/transmission and the seller allowed me to take a bunch of measurements from it which we proceeded to mock out on the floor with chalk to get a rough idea on placement for various items relative to the body dimensions. Think we are good so far.








Saturday, January 12, 2013

Given the plan to keep the weight down on the finished project, picked up a new rear bonnet from a Mini supplier I located on the web. He carries a number of parts in fiberglass and carbon fiber.

Check him out here

http://roguese7ens.com/



Fantastic quality, extremely well made, and super light !

To fasten it down, elected to go with a super cool flush quick release fastener rather than using the more traditional Mini handle or Dzus fasteners.

http://www.quik-latch.com/quik-latch-mini-latch.html