Body and engine mock up

Now that the front and rear S2000 subframes have been set at the factory default ride heights and desired wheelbase, and temporarily tack welded to the chassis table, we can begin further mock up.

Since we didn't acquire a set of factory rubber engine mounts with the engine assembly we picked up, and the price of new mounts was on par with aftermarket mounts, aftermarket mounts were selected.

Time to temporarily mount the engine and transmission in place using the new engine mounts, and adding a brace to the table to support the transmission at correct pinion angle for driveshaft alignment. It's obvious at this point that a new shorter driveshaft will be in order.

 

 

Dropping the body on now will allow us to figure out a few things:

1. How low we can go with the body over the chassis, with the limiting factor being the top of the engine.
2. How far the engine and transmission will protrude into the drivers compartment.

First order of business is to cut the remaining cowl panel from the Mini shell.

We then used the shop car lift to raise the body shell up, rolled the table back under, and then lowered the shell back down over the table to position the shell which took a few attempts in order to obtain the desired height.

 

 

Just for kicks, dropped the nose back over the front to get some perspective... looks like there's still some margin for further lowering.

Next on the agenda is to get busy laying down some actual tubing....stay tuned....