New to the mini buggy scene....need some advice

[packpride]

I kind of fell into the buggy pictured below. It has an R1 1000cc motor. I traded a quad that I won in a raffle for the buggy. I have a good bit of experience with building off road race cars, but i will admit that I am a bit lacking when it comes to axles and cv's and such. The cars I raced were swing axle cars by class rules.

This buggy was supposed to have been built by a guy that used to fabricate Formula 1 cars. I traded with a guy that had more money than timeand hired this guy to build the car. You can see in the photos a couple of goofs, especially on the rear tube where it looks like there is a tube splice. It looks to be well thought out except for 1 huge problem. It seems that the buy who built it planned around using Subaru CV's and axles. At full droop, the rear axles are at almost 31 degrees!!!! The car has only been driven about 10 miles before an axle broke on two different tries. The car has been sitting outside for the last 6 months in it's current state. I am thinking that I can use 930 cv's and drive flanges with the center section that is currently in it if I use different seals and bearings and assuming that I can source a center shaft with VW 002 splines.

A couple of questions:

Has anybody heard of using Subaru axles and cv's?

How are the center shafts and hubs secured in the center sections? I've looked at the Gear One and the Desert Karts center sections and assume that hubs are welded to the center shafts???

I am thinking that I could either cut out the center section and lower it to a more acceptable axle angle or just lower the ride height and use limit straps. Anu thoughts on that?

[K-fab]

Welcome to the site.

Interesting vehicle. There's something sort of familiar about it - not sure what, though.

I have heard of people using urabuS (read that backwards - I'm entertaining myself with an old high school joke) drive train pieces, but I don't have any first hand experience w/urabuS stuff.

Most of the time a center section for drive train will have either a nut retention or snap ring or something along that line. Do a search on Yoshi's rides - try using "center carrier" in the search engine and see what pops up. There are more than a few on the site that are using a similar setup and they should be able to help you out.

I can't tell by the pix, but if the rear suspension geometry is done correctly, you may not need to have any sort of (or very minimal) plunge in the axles. If that's the case, I can get you the info on non-plunging 930 CVs (I already have to get this info for another MBN member, so it's easy to share right here)

If you end up having plunge (more than likely), then a regular old 930 CV can work - I think you can get close to 25 - 26 degrees of articulation out of them w/cages (can't recall the exact number right off hand). Limit straps would be a considered option.

Someone here will have the info or be able to direct you more precisely than I'm doing at the moment...

The lower you can get the CVs in the chassis, the better - but you also have to make sure that you'll have clearance for the driven sprocket. Many times they're quite large to get the gearing correct. That may be the case as to why the output shaft appears to be fairly high above the bottom of the chassis.

How about more pix? Side view of the chassis, front view, close ups of front & rear suspension - you know, all the good stuff.

Anyhow, welcome to the site.