My new buggy/ kit car project

[LEE1969GB]

I have been working on this project for 5 months now, I plan to sell these buggys as a kit car, for those who do not know what a kit car is it is where a customer buys a donor car (probably crash damaged) and from that car you will use engine, transmission, drive shafts, CV's, brakes, loom, hubs, fuel pump, ECU, steering wheel and column, peddles, battery, front and rear lights, door handles and locks, all switches and ignition with coded key, door mirrors, exhaust, radiator and some other parts.

I have already bought two of the donor cars with 14 and 17 thousand miles on them and paid around £1000 (USD $1650) each and should get around half that back with the sale of unwanted parts like doors, bumpers, interior etc... so all of these parts needed for the buggy will cost me about £500 ($850)for each buggy. I will supply the frame, suspension parts and all other parts needed as a kit.

I have chosen this donor car mainly because it has CVT drive and has a low ratio (to pull bigger tyres) the CVT helps get grip in muddy conditions we have here in the UK. The first thing I did was get a donor car and put the engine and transmission into the suferer buggy I have and hired a field near to my workshop so I could prove to myself that the transmission and CV joints are capable of taking the off-road abuse, I was thrashing it around the field for weeks and over jumps with the accelerator flat to the floor whilst in the air and landing, it took it all with no problems so I was convinced that it is up to the job. The engine is not the most powerful but is fine for the basic buggy. I will be looking into fitting a turbo or fitting another engine with the same transmission as an upgrade.

After being satisfied with the transmission I then designed and built my own frame. From the very start I wanted 3 main aims for this buggy:

1) for it to be very strong and capable of taking loads of off-road abuse without breaking even if this means it being a bit heavier, there are a lot of cheap Chinese buggys sold here that people get fed up with them breaking down all the time and then cannot get parts to fix them.

2) For it to be RAC MSA legal (They are the ruling motorsport organisers in the UK) so I have built the chassis and roll cage to their specifications so it can be raced.

3) For it to be road legal which means it has to pass an SVA test which is very involved (checking what would be type approval on a mass produced car) so a customer could use it as an everyday car if he wanted to. (Not much room for the shopping though!)

If you look at the pictures I am just assembling the buggy now ready to start giving it some serious abuse to see what breaks, it is only in primer at the moment to keep the rust off. I have tried to give it loads of ground clearance because we get loads of very deep ruts and I have kept the steering rack high up to help stop it getting damaged.

It will be a long time yet before I am ready to sell any of these buggys because I want to be certain that it is strong and reliable.

Any thoughts?

[onlyguy]

i like it. i think the formula you have there, is about the only way to compete on price with the nasty chinese machines, but with a far better servicable result. good work

[bdkw1]

Any thoughts?

The steering arm is going to need some reinforcment to the spindle and the rear shock hoops could be designed a lot better.

[LEE1969GB]

I assume you mean because of the distance between the arm and the spindle? Boxed spindles are made of 5mm plate so I think they will be ok and most of the load from rear shocks will go through the removable strut brace, but this is why I am going to test it to distruction. I do expect to have some problems and going off past experiance probably not where I expect and that is why I can not understand how people can sell untested plans.
Not a problem though I do want to hear advice and criticisms thats why I have posted it.

[nutnbolt2002]

what car are you using for a doner?

[LEE1969GB]

The doner car is a Honda Jazz.

[Engineer]

Steering wheel is on the wrong side??

Just kidding. Could you give us a close up of the drive setup?

Thanks!

[Gene]

Looks great!

I'm curious about rear suspension geometry and notice rear shock angle top-to-bottom mirrors upper and lower rear outer control arm mount inclination.

When the shock is fully compressed, what is the shock angle to the upper control arm?

Can you describe how the Sueferer (SP) provided design ideas for this evolution including suspension.

[LEE1969GB]

Looks great!

I'm curious about rear suspension geometry and notice rear shock angle top-to-bottom mirrors upper and lower rear outer control arm mount inclination.

When the shock is fully compressed, what is the shock angle to the upper control arm?

Can you describe how the Sueferer (SP) provided design ideas for this evolution including suspension.

I liked the wide A arm front and 5 link rear which is why I got it (and it was cheap) so I stuck with that type set up. The suferer suspension is all square though, no caster or camber on the front so the steering feels dead and no camber gain at the rear.
I also used the suferer as a guide to things like cab space, I wanted more width a bit more length and I was banging my head so a bit more hight and I want it to be able to take a full size (real) man.
There are a few lines in the suferer buggy that you see in my buggy, The forward sloping top rails at the front and the upper rail at the back, its hard not to when thats what you have been working on for a while but a lot of the design was determined when I took a very early outline frame down to the technical scrutineer who is the main man for space frames (mainly roll cage) and he was quite spacific as to what he wanted to see so that has had a big part in the design. No point building it if it will not pass scrutineering.
As for the rear shock being at the same angle as the outer control arm mounts that was not intended just the way it worked out, it gives me 5 degrees of camber at full bump.

[LEE1969GB]

Gene, I had a look at the shock angle this morning and took this pic, I can not see any problems?
Engineer, I took a photo of the trans also this morning whilst you were all asleep