Well I guess this car would fit under Small Big car?
Or Garage Racer.
Midi Size Buggy?
Or something along those lines.
I have built cars for awhile now nothing special just buying the parts
and putting them together I am by no means an awesome fabricater.
I just like to build things.
Heres a small run down,
after a few years of building buggies for the sand (vw engine and parts)
I built my first race car.
Kinda big in my opinion especially for a 2 seater.
VW powered with VW front beam and rear arms with a 115
inch wheel base and 14.5 foot overall size I raced for awhile in the VW class until it was stolen.
I then switched and built a sand car.. VW A-arm 2 seat 105inch wheelbase
2332 VW Turbo car.
I will post some pics in the oppropriate section later.
Anyways after a year or so the racing bug was eating away at me and I wanted to race again.
So I did a baja.
It was good and fun and lasted about a year.
I let my wife race it and it eventually broke down on her.
I have always wanted to build a smaller car.
I always have and finally I did.
This project is all out of my own garage with pretty much normal tools,
alot of lowbuck tools and a Lincoln none bottle mig welder.
But anyways I dont mind and enjoy building so off I went.
I build what I can and buy what I cant.
So I bought a front beam actually took the one out of my bug.
I bought some rear arms for 930 micro stubs and disc brakes.
Then I set up and designed my own frame.
I was going to go a little shorter but with the arms and size of tires I want
to run in the desert I finally went with the 95 inch wheel base.
So with those parts I got started.
I built a frame with the measurements I worked out from prior builds then
just shrunk down where I wanted the car to be smaller.
I just worked through the car step by step like setting up a seat to see how tall I wanted the sides and roof and went from there.
At first glance it looks a little long without all the rear stuff in but its actually going to be tight with fuel cell, engine, tranny, torsion houseing, battery, oil cooler, shocks and of course a spare tire and even more stuff.
Anyways Then I set up the front beam and tied it into the car.
Same with the back torsion houseing (or pivot tube as I will be running coil overs)
Here take a look
and another showing the back
I just have been keeping at it adding to the car as I get parts etc.
I think so far I am about 6 weeks into it.
Here is another shot of it just showing how much cross braceing I am running nothing like having plenty of saftey when your small and running in the desert.
And I have added even more braceing etc since that shot too.
As I said everything is built in my garage so nothing special when it comes
to fabrication so here is my simple yet affective rear shock tab system
Here is the car with the tires just barely on so I can check my CV, shock, axles and well just about everything clearance.
It all checked out so the tires will come back off so I can work on the car some more.
Tons of welding to do and alot of work still to come.
Anyways I think this is a cool project to do in my own garage and then go
out and race it and see how I do.
I race locally with MORE Racing.
We just run through the local deserts like Barstow when we race no Baja etc.
Trophy only class.
Thats where I am at so far.
Let me give you guys the specs on the car so far as well.
Tut Tech Race Car Specs
The specs on the little buggy:
The buggy is 12 feet long from rear bumper to front bumper
It has a 95 inch wheel base and is a 2 seat buggy
The width of the buggies cage is 45 inches at the bottom section in the seating area and 55 inches wide at top of seating area.
Sides are 25 inches high from floor to your shoulder
The roof is 50 inches tall from bottom of car to top of car.
The buggy can seat people as tall as 6 foot 4inches.
The front end width is 60 inches wide to the brakes
The rear is just over 60 inches wide to the brakes.
The front and back our an addition 10 inches wider with the 5 lug hubs on.
Making the buggy just around 75 inches wide front and 80 inches wide in the rear.
Tires are Dunlop 30inch by 9inch mud terrains.
The rims are Centerline rims 15x5
The buggy is heavily supported with tons of cross bracing and a lot of reinforced corner sections.
Some points of intersections actually have 8 bars tying into one section to make this little buggy very strong! Which means Very Safe!
The buggy is simple and made from 1.5 inch steel tubing and 1 inch steel tubing, both in .120 wall for maximum strength.
Engine & Suspension:
16 gallon safety fuel cell with an approx. 125 mile range
VW Engine single 40mm Weber carb
A 091 Bus Tranny, Both Motor and tranny were built by Sandrails Unlimited.
930 CV's with 300m axels.
Axels are 28 inches wide
934 Micro stubs with 930 stub axles and 4 piston disc brakes
20 inches of Rear wheel travel (buggy is strapped at 18inches so I don’t brake a CV)
And 15 inches of front wheel travel.
2 inch Coil Overs front and rear with a triple 3.0 fox bypass's in the rear to control this little buggies ride.
Some Input on how and why I think this buggy will work:
The buggy is very stable.
The 95 inch wheel base makes this car turn easily and very easy to control.
With the buggy being nearly as wide as it is long is why its so stable.
Short and small to get into and out of hard to drive places. Very easy to traverse rough sections of the desert or rocky, washed out, rough, hills well a lot of terrain that’s bad for longer buggies to get hung up and not be able to turn tight and run through this little buggy can is my hopes and plan.
It will just run better in the technical courses and in and out of the stuff the larger buggies have trouble with.
In my local deserts there’s a lot of that so I am hoping this little buggy does
well.
The buggy may look like it has very simple construction with a nice look to it but it is also very well thought out as I have built several buggies and worked out several ideas to lead me up to the building of this little buggy.
The buggy is small without looking small or without you feeling small when inside, in fact you have plenty of room inside this buggy.
The buggy has a nice look to it with out it being long actually the overall length of the buggy is only 12 feet. Very cool.
The buggy could be smaller in other none race versions but do to fuel cell and other race gear this buggies overall size is a little longer.
Racing:
So far my wife and I have raced the little buggy at the MORE 400 mile race.
With 8 buggies in our class and over 130 total cars racing we placed
4th in our class.
We had no fabrication problems, welding problems, design problems and the buggy worked exactly as we had hoped.
I can actually say it exceeded my expectations.
It is nimble, quick, very stable, runs through whoops very quickly even for its
small size, easy to drive and did I mention a lot of fun.
The race was awesome and we cannot have hoped for more with our first showing
And minimal testing on the buggy.
We had a couple flats to fix, a fuel pump left us stuck out on the track for 2 hours and a bad alternator left us stuck for nearly 1 hour.
We had other small problems as well so with all this and we where still able to bring in a 4th Place at our first race is great and I cannot be more happy for the first showing of the car.
I hope to be in the top 3 soon.
That’s all for now,
Thank you.