Project 4 from Agent4573 - Category - Offroad Fabrication

[agent4573]

Finally got my buddy to cnc plasma out the parts I was begging for. Got the front bulk heads for all the suspension and all my gussets. Got all the gussets tacked in tonight and I'm planning on doing the front suspension tomorrow. I ordered standard width front seats, but I think they sent me the +2" width front seats, as they are REALLY tight. The radiator is out of a 5.0 mustang and appears to be a pretty nice single pass radiator with an oil cooler. Hopefully its enough to keep the 3.0 liter Nissan cool. If not, I'll have to find a larger double pass radiator. Got the "windshield" downtubes remade and tacked in. Motor and transmission are in for good with the clutch and starter mounted. All I need to finish that is the slave cylinder. Tacked the pedals in but had to rip them out to put in the gussets. Once I put the seats in I realized the roll cage was way too low so I had to raise it to get some head room. Because its at an angle , when I raised it, it didn't hit the same point on the mid-rail as I planned initially, so I made up some braces to help spread the load out. I know its not ideal, but without redoing the entire bottom half of the frame, this is the best I could come up with. All the gussets are 3/16" mild steel. Also, I need to stop wearing short sleeves while I weld.

P.S. I completely apologize for the rambling or fragments, I'm freaking drunk.

[everlastsupport]

The seats look tight in the shot where you have them both in, but they should be fine.

Did he CNC the gussets? You could cut by hand with a jig-saw or plasma and grind them clean if he takes too long. There are a lot of good blades out there now. Blue Mole is a great blade for reciprocating saws, also Lenox, even Irwin are good for the bigger blades (I left out many others).

Skip HF on anything that cuts or drills metal (outside of the cut/grind wheels)

Looks like you are back on the project. Keep us posted.

[agent4573]

Yeah, he cnc'd the gussets out for me. He told me last week he was getting ready to cut all my stuff out so I drew up the gussets and sent over the files real quick. The front bulkheads were what I really needed because I couldn't do those by hand and I was running out of fab stuff to do on the chassis (yeah right).

Anyway, here's what I got tacked in. I'm leaving later this week to head to DC/Philley/NYC for a week so any time I do get to work will be just fully welding in all the front end stuff. I'll wait til I get back to order the front shock mounts and finish up the front end. Also decided to cut out the mounts for the rear arms and go with a micro-stub setup. Its a lot stronger than the VW drive train and lets me use long axles, so hopefully I can get a bit more travel before I max out the CV's. I get better welds while on a table than I do while upside down under the car. I had to do these in ~2 inch stretches to minimize warpage, but overall I think they came out looking really good.

[agent4573]

Sorry I disappeared for a while, been working on the car and at my real job almost non stop. Here's a massive update.


Got the front end in and done. Welded the upper shock mounts on and modified the arms for the lower mounts. I wanted to run an X acros the front but the steering shaft got in the way. I triangulated it up to the middle of the roll bar and it seems to work well.






Got to work on the motor/fuel tank/radiator mounts and got them all in place.




Welded up some aluminum 1.5" tube for the water pipes.


Bought the fuel pump and pre/post filters and mounted them in place on the bar under tank.

[agent4573]

Got to work on some of the electrical. I'm not a neat person and my buddy volunteered to help me wire it. I think the dash came out looking pretty decent. Eventually I'm going to have a pro redo all the sheet metal and put in a new dash, but for now this serves it purpose.




I moved on to the rear suspension after that. Got the new arms in, but before I did I had to take them to another buddy and have him move the mounts backwards a few inches so the shocks would clear the frame.




Added in some extra support for the rear arms and made sure everything was in double-shear.



Eventually it came to the point where it could hold itself up under its own power.


After that I put on some skin just to keep myself from getting literally sandblasted.

[agent4573]

Got it to the point where I could take it out for its maiden voyage.



It ran great for about 30 minutes and then started running really terribly. Took off the timing belt covers to find this:



Turns out I had a nut or bolt that fell into the timing cover and I didn't realize it. Tore up the brand new belt and the drivers side exhaust cam skipped a tooth. I put a new belt on it and it fired up again. Luckily no major damage was done.

Now it was time for the real test, does it fit in my trailer? This was really the only reason I built a buggy instead of buying one, because a normal 4 seater wouldn't fit in my trailer. With almost no room to spare, it FIT!





We went out to Dumont over halloween and I took it for its first REAL ride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvrtI6LSba0


It did ok, but a few issues presented themselves that need to be fixed. Its WAY down on power. The motor is supposed to redline at 7000rpm, and it barely makes it to 5300 before it runs out of steam. I think the Autozone straight tube headers I threw together real quick are a leading factor in that. I now have nice 1.75" mandrel bent exhaust kit sitting in my living room. Hopefully this weekend I can cut/weld a nice set of smooth flowing headers for it. It ran really hot. That could be because the tune is so out, but I think mostly its because the radiator is directly behind the seat. I cut it out and mounted it on the two rear most bars on top of the engine. I'm also making a new fuel cell for it as the one in the pictures only hold 6 gallons. My new one sits where the radiator used to and holds about 12.5 gallons. I've also sent the ECU out to get modified so I can tune it. Once I get everything back in, I'll take it down to a shop in LA and spend big $$$ on a full dyno tune. So thats my update. I'll post video once I get it on the dyno.

[performance]

When it slipped a cog, it could have slightly bent a valve just enough to keep it from building the power it needs.