47 replies to this topic

[steah]

Right. so I've been talking about this for about 2 days here on the forums, what with sequential gearbox's, twin rads, been looking at turbo's, etc. Anyway. The Plan. my idea more or less is to build a track day car, in the style of an F1 car, or any formula car for that matter, based around an A series engine. that could be driven on the roads (fingers crossed).

 

so it will be RWD, mid engined, and MAD. with what i had initially hoped would be a mini engine powering the lot, obviously with some considerable upgrades.

 

my cousin owning a bespoke carbon fibre production company puts me in good stead for weight, so that was the idea behind not using a mini shell, then the idea of the F1 styling came about, so fitting the engine longitudinally just sort of fit?  *

 

i did some sketches last night with my mates to give you all an idea of what we are trying to achieve:

 

 

 

 

so whadda you all think? achievable or just plain rediculous? its just an idea atm, but hopefully we'll get started soon.

 

*for anyone wondering, the F1 styling isnt just for looks (but cmon, driving down the street in an F1 car would get some hilarious looks) its to aid performance, as the car will be predominantly track based.

[rally515]

Wish I had the budget for something like this, might be good to start getting quotes on parts and totting up how much it'll end up as roughly.

 

Anything is possible with time & money so go for it!

 

Following this

[steah]

thanks rally, well thats actually the beauty of it, we dont have a mega budget, we get the fibre at manufatcurer prices, and the A series is cheap enough to use, with so much available its all interchangable really :)

[minbin 69]

sure sounds like one to watch

[HarrysMini]

Looks like an achievable idea. The only thing that worries me is getting it road legal, obviously it would need an IVA. I reckon that would be the most difficult bit.

You need to do some proper engineering here and lots of working out!

Best of luck with this, would be interested to see if and how it progresses.

[IainStallard]

Not gonna lie, I can't work out the concept of using a mini gearbox with this set up, but its a good initial idea. Following

[Badboytunes]

Looks like an F1 car, or a Junior Ford car. So to me it doesn't look mad.

 

I admire your ideas and attitude. But.... to be a grumpy old fart, I cant see it coming to fruition. Feel free to laugh in my face if you manage to do it thou. Sometimes you have to stop dreaming and be realistic.

 

I would suggest lots and lots ( years even ) of study of chassis design , especially using carbon fibre. Drop Gordon Murray an email. You may just get a break though or some good advice.

 

Good luck !!

[steah]

well ive just done a year at college of engineering, imm pretty hands on, my mates grandad is an engineer, we have cnc machines and whatnot (quite frankly i think we are the best equipped 17 year olds ever) (no we're not rich, we just have family in the business, so we get old work stuff cheaper haha) i pray it does progress! i know i want this to happen.

 

getting it road legal is going to be a nightmare, so thatll be the last of our worries. my local mot place should let me know what i need to do if i tow it down there

[Badboytunes]

 

 

getting it road legal is going to be a nightmare, so thatll be the last of our worries. my local mot place should let me know what i need to do if i tow it down there

 

 

If your designing and building from scratch, your mot man is not the guy to be speaking to. You need to read up about ( cant type the the three letters )........ Although, some say ..... IVA

Edited by Badboytunes, 07 July 2014 - 09:43 PM.

[steah]

well the thing is badboy, we have all the knowledge of chassis and whatnot (not me specifially) basically my uncle and cousin ran aformula renault team for years, so we have the knowledge within the family, if need be we'll just steal a shell from them haha, then just figure out how to bolt everything in

 

the gearbox idea is in need of work, not gonna lie, but im sure we'll get there haha

[rally515]

Could just use a Morris minor engine and gearbox ?, means the center of gravity is lower and the power is being sent to the back from the get go.

[steah]

yeah thats what i kept getting told, im liking the idea more and more haha, its still an a series, doesnt necessarily have to be"mini" powered

[Badboytunes]

my uncle and cousin ran aformula renault team for years, so we have the knowledge within the family,

 

 

 

 

Cant argue with that.........

[steah]

haha thanks badboy, well ill keep you guys updated, expect updates everyday this week with more drawings, research, and potentially depending on how my wallet is feeling, might buy an engine, if i restore that and get no further, some minor owner is going to be a lucky bugger haha, but at least i will have learned something, well ill keep y'all updated, if anyone has a minor engine 'laying about' by all means feel free to donate it to the cause ;) only worry with the minor engine is the gearbox is utter rubbish, so after fitting a turbo and whatnot (gotta have stupid power obviously) it wont cope :/ need to think about that. well expect updates tomorrow! or even later tonight if i dont fall asleep first. speak to y'all tomorrow

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

I really don't see why you'd bother. Do you already have a Mini basis or are you into Minis and want to try something different? For the power to spend ratio, there are FAR better and more reliable engines out there. The A-series is super out dated, whilst as we know amazingly tunable and with amazing capabilities, you need money to go there. 

 

The Rover K-Series is a far superior design in terms of power output, the 1.1 8v from a Metro or similar puts out as standard twice that of a standard 998, and costs a fraction of the price to get running in a car. If you bought a written off Metro, you could scrap the shell and sell a few parts and almost get the engine and gearbox for free. That's without talking about larger capacity K-Series, the 1.4 twin cam has 105bhp, these are less than £150 often, and the 160 from a ZR or MGF has 160bhp for less than £300.

 

If you want the F1 'design' to work then you'll need enough power that the aero aids in this case a front and rear wing to actually be effective, and not just create more drag for an A-Series to push through.

 

Don't forget you'll also need arch covers to make the car road legal. The IVA is very strict and often Lotus seven based kit cars fail first time, and this is a truly tried and tested design which has been around for half a century.

Edited by Mini-Mad-Craig, 07 July 2014 - 10:29 PM.