Week 11: Getting the frame done

One of the most exciting days working on the car yet! this week I removed the car from the table after completing the last few pieces. On this picture if you look on the side of the frame there are two diagonal tubes and those were the last four pieces to complete the main frame. Although the car is not complete the frame is and this was very reliving, I was afraid i wouldn't even have it done for the presentation. Now what I have to do to the frame is go around to all the tube connections and weld them all together. right now they are all tacked together, meaning that its just a little weld so its easy to fix any mistakes that I might have made. The one thing that has really amazed me is the amount of time it actually takes to built this. Before I begun the project back when I was planning everything out I thought for sure I would be able to have the car completely done and running by now. The thing is I'm no where near that. I have the most important part done and now its all up to fitting everything together but its not close to done. So far its been lots of fun and I'm very excited to see the finished product.

Week 10: The Rest of the Support

The only thing left on the chassis of the car is a couple support beams that connect everything together. Then its on the the a arms and putting everything together. so what I did this week was make all the connections that weren't already made and the last support tube going across the back where the radiator is going to sit. I don't have any pictures of this because i forgot the camera. but ill put some up as soon as I can. I'm getting closer to finishing the body and its really cool being able to see how everything is coming together and imagining driving the car. One other important part of the car that i wanted to talk about is the drive line in the back. There was an option to have a independent rear end or a solid. Solid means that the rear end has one solid shaft going across and both wheels move together when you go over a bump or off a jump. Independent means that there are two half shafts on ether side of a Central hub and they both move freely when going over bumps, witch creates a smother ride. So we went with the independent, that's why I as i explained in week 8's blog that we had bought two Porsche half shafts for the rear end.

Week 9: The Engine

The one thing that makes this car go is the engine of course. So I'm going to explain about how were going to install it and the basic specifications on the motor its self. Well lets start out with the basics, the motor I purchsed for the car is a Honda street bike motor. The bike that it came out of is a 2008 CBR600RR, witch witch has a 599cc liquid cooled in line four-cylinder motor in it. the motor has over 100 horse power, 118hp at 13,000rpm. Witch is pretty radical for a 500 pound car, so its basically going to haul ass. It will be chain driven with a sprocket on the center of the back axle putting the power to the two half shafts and turning the wheel. The one problem with using a motorcycle engine is that the cars not going to have reverse. So I'm going to have to be careful and not get in any situations where ill need to back up. The ignition system on the engine is a duel stage fuel injection with 40mm throttle bodies, denso 12-hole injectors. this means there's no carburetor so the fuel is just sprayed directly into the cylinder, witch means there will be no bog, and power immediately. Sense the motor is liquid cooled we have to have a radiator witch is going to me mounted behind the drivers head so it car be in the flow of air and not get bend up if i were to crash. The motor is also 6-speed manual so there will be a clutch pedal and shifter in the cab. also the motor will have an alternator connected to it so that it will be able to power all the lights on the car and the electronics.

Week 8: Finding out the cost

This week I wasn't able to work on my car because the shop wasn't open. So instead of working I created a spreadsheet of all the parts I have purchased for the sand rail. Ill have a copy of this at my presentation at the end of the project. so i first started out with the chassis parts, first and foremost the tubing for the frame. I had used the tube service through my fathers work, and the amount of tubing needed was (10pcs@18') of 1 1/4" OD tubing x .095 wall, (3pcs@18') of 1"OD tubing x .095 wall. this was a little bit bigger tubing then the design called for because we wanted to beef up the frame. The next most important part is probably the suspension. For the actual shocks we went with FOX shocks, i purchased these off eBay. I bought 8.5" travel 2.0 Fox shocks for the front and 10" travel 2.0 Fox shocks for the back. This converts to over 15" of travel in the front and over 20" in the back. Now for what makes this go, The engine. The original plans for the the Sand Rail called for a 300 cubic centimeter snowmobile 2-stroke engine, but if you can tell by the trend we could settle for that. So we went with a 2008 Honda CBRR600 race street bike motor, with over 100 horsepower. this also made it so we had to go with bigger better half shafts in the rear due to the increase in power. So we got Porsche 944 turbo half shafts witch should work out perfectly. also we had to get all the parts to go with the engine like gas tank, radiator, exhaust, wirring, switches, and all the guages. all of these parts were not cheap and for this project to be properly funded i had to sell my dirtbike and use the money to buy all these parts witch is already totaled over $3,500.