Subframe/Drivetrain Thoughts....
 

Being that a good number of these cars will be bought with daddy's money and handed over to teenagers who have no clue about how a front engined/RWD car handles, it stands to reason that a pretty good number of these cars will be totaled. That being said once they start showing up in salvage yards the drivetrain, and suspension assemblies seem like they would be prime candidates for building a superlight trackday car like the Atom/Caterham. Just think if you could find one that had been wrapped around a utility pole in the passenger side door for around $5-6k. Strip out the go fast bits, Part out what can be saved from the body, sell the shell to the recycler, shorten the wheelbase by about a foot, weld up a cage, reinstall said go-fast bits. Result is a car that would weigh about 1200lbs and goes like stink at 6lbs/Hp with a bulletproof stock drivetrain. For probably less than $8000. Your Thoughts???

-Joe:thumbsup:

Sounds dangerous in the case of a crash.

Well it wouldn't be street legal at all but a properly build cage out of DOM tubing and a helmet would probably be alot safer than the original car...

-Joe:thumbsup:

When you start getting to work on it let me know and I'll take a trip over to Alabama and give you a hand!

I think it will take a bit of skill and precision to produce a well handling car if you're buidling the chassis from scratch, but the power to weight ratio is definitely something to drool over.

Thanks for the offer. I really dont think it would be that hard. As seen In the chassis diagrams, the rear suspension/drivetrain is all one subassembly that bolts to the unibody. With regards to the front, once the suspension is removed I dont think it would be too hard to weld up a jig that fits in the original body's suspension mounts. Once you have that jig assembled it's just a matter of building the new cage to fit around that jig. Then remove the jig and mount the suspension pieces. It's all theoretical at this point because we don't even have a production car yet, but it's definately something to think about. I've been thinking about doing this to a NB miata for awhile now. As you can see from the pic below, Miata's whole drivetrain and suspension can come out in one unit, but the FT-86 looks like it might be a better candidate performance wise.

-Joe:thumbsup:

http://www.flyinmiata.com/projects/7...s/img_0058.jpg

-Joe

That is a bloody beautiful sight to be honest; I can only imagine the kind of trackrat you could have with a tubular shell/frame built into/around the NB's drivetrain.

People have been using Miatas, S2000, and various other platforms for this purpose since these donors were available. I've had the privilege of flogging a LoCost built on the NB drivetrain before and it is a hoot...and a friend of mine is starting a similar project in his garage this winter...there is even a forum for like-minded lunatics to get support from.

GRM Article about a Locost build they did in 48 hours
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/med...126linedup.jpg

Googling "Miata Locost" will also net you a lot of info.

As long as it's a single seater and open cockpit, I approve lol.

Really? :sigh: It's auto racing, of course it's dangerous.

Whatever you do, don't watch this:

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despite the title, there is no way the car was doing more than 80 when the wreck occurs

Locosts generally aren't one seaters....Legrands are, me in my third event in one of those::
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Factory5 is building a new kitcar around a Subaru drivetrain (MR, though I think...).

I'd rather take the drivetrain from a wrecked one and put it in my Impreza :)

The rear subframe on this car looks to be almost exactly the same as a 08+ Impreza, and the front is kind of a reverse Impreza subframe. So, I'd ditch the suspension bits if I were making a track car and go with something better.

www.locostusa.com

Boxers are a wide, very rarely used engine for these types of cars. You couldn't follow the common plans/proportions. STrut front would also screw things up, virtually all of these types of cars have double wishbone front/rear. Though struts hubs aren't always hard to adapt to an upper wishbone.

Here's somebody who took the miata subframes and built an atom-esque car around them. http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8332

1200lbs might be a bit optimistic, most of these little tube frame cars end up 1300-1400. But it's good to have goals. ;)