V8 buggy build

[Baloo]

Let me start by saying that what l really want is mc engined lightweight buggy but l seem to suffer from "project attention deficit" from past expirence it has become clear that l lose motivation and things slow up and even come to a halt  after about 3 months or so
so although l have bought a set of rorty's plans l see them as long term project that will take 18 months or more to complete, so l clearly need something of a more immeadiate nature to keep me occupied what l  thought l needed was somthing that was quick to build not to much inticate machineing that l could get done fairly quiclky so as l could take it out and give it a good thrashing when l was having an off day working on my rorty,
the only place that l can use it locally is the field out the back of the barn, luckily the field is not used for anything else so l can take an excavator in and carve out a track, not much elevation change and not a sign of rocks or sand dunes l can make a flowing sweeping track with a few humps, banked curves and S bends , not really off road more sort of undulating and flowing, there is also a couple of hundred yards of tarmac road that l can incorparate into the track,
so l dont need a buggy with 20" of wheel travel at least not on this one,
a little while back l bought a damaged  suzuki x90 to use the engine from in my sj, this left me with  the rolling chassis blocking up the workshop, l looked at this chassis every day for a couple of weeks as l worked in the workshop, not wanting to scrap a perfectly good rolling chassis l kept trying to find a use for it, eventually l talked myself into using it as the base for a V8 buggy,
 a sort of modern version of this fugative buggy


heres the the rolling chassis l have started with, granted suzuki  vitara ( sidekicks ? )  dont have the strongest of chassis  to start with but with a bit of cross bracing l am hopeing l can stiffen the chassis up a bit

       
heres the chassis with the intended engine sitting in it, l am planning on using a rover 3.9 lt engine with a general motors 3 speed auto, the engine is your old buick 215 ci with a slightly bigger bore l think







l have not used the front axle  and drive shafts allowing me to mount the engine further back and lower, doing this also allows the use of a landrover propshaft, so nice and easy no machining work, the engine mounts also land perfectly on the crossmember, not much more than 2 10mm holes to make them fit


Andy

[SPEC]

 
I'll be following this build closely

[Engineer]

Hello Baloo and welcome to the site.  It looks like you have a good plan, and a good start on this project.  Based on what I have seen with you other complete projects, I am confident this one will turn out as well.

Thanks for adding your project to the site for us all to see.  Keep us posted!

[Baloo]

hi  Spec/Engineer

here's a couple more pics





you can see l am still playing with the layout, the tubes pass through the strut towers to help stiffen them up a bit, l cant decide if they are then going finish on the front bumper or just before it ?  welding the frame to the bumper will proberly make the front end better able to take an impact but l like the idea of being able to swap the front bumper over by undoing 4 bolts when its bent ?

whilst passing the tube work through the suspension towers helps in the for and aft direction they look pretty weak in the side ways direction, l was thinking of putting a cross brace in something like

with the engine so far back l can just get the crossbrace over of the water pump,  might make an engine change later an intresting task
and l know you are going to tell me that l have put the steering wheel on the wrong side  but its looks  on the right side right to me

Andy

[SPEC]

Hey Baloo,
The build looks like your off to a good start
I have a concern about the main hoop tho-  Have you sat in the seat and measured the distance fron the top of your helmet to the hoop?
It looks alittle low in the pix...I don't want you banging your head on it

[Boostinjdm]

maybe that's what keeps him in the seat??

[Baloo]

maybe that's what keeps him in the seat??

yes thats it, on a budget build we put velcro on the roll bar and the back of the drivers head    saves a fortune on helmets and harnesses 

[SPEC]

 

[Baloo]

Hey Baloo,
The build looks like your off to a good start
I have a concern about the main hoop tho-  Have you sat in the seat and measured the distance fron the top of your helmet to the hoop?
It looks alittle low in the pix...I don't want you banging your head on it

my  you have a good eye Spec,  my original plan was to have the buggy as low as possible with this in mind l first mounted the seats with the base sunk into floor level with the bottom of the 4" tall chassis, then l sat in it and bent the tube to give 3" above my helmet, however the seats dident feel very comfortable and so l started experimenting with the position of them, you can see wooden blocks under them in the pic where l was trying different positions, l have arrived at position where they are 3" or so higher than planned and leaning back at an angle, they feel quite comfy like this and this is probally where they will live, this does mean that the roll bar is 3" to low now so l will have to replace it with a new one, l learnt a long time ago to only tack weld things together untill the plan is finalised so it wont be to much of a pain to cut it out and replace, the seats also mount much closer together than in the pic giving some elbow room/protection



l bent up some footwells and mounted the suzuki brake servo and master cylinder

but the temprature here in the uk is minus 11 l am sure some of you think that is warm but to me its bloody feezin, and as the workshop has no heating progress might ( will ) be a little slow for as while as most of the tools are frozen to the work bench

Andy

[Baloo]

ok need some opinions on wether l should go with a carb or fuel injection,

which will stand up to the bouncing about the best ?,  the big advantage l can see with the holley carb is that its lower and l can use this bonnet( or least a fiberglass copy of it )


the windsreen frame is just a mock up needs a bit of taper in at the top l think ?
if l go with fuel injection then l dont see it squeezing under the bonnet, l supose l could go with a bonnet scoop 

l'm assuming that the engine will run better on fuel injection than the carb ?





thoughts please

andy
 

[SPEC]

I think FI would be the way to go if you have access to it..
I'm looking at your build...One of my daily drivers is a geo tracker...Brother to your chassis donor...Mine won't be seeing a cge and a V-8 soon...94 with 90K miles on it

[Engineer]

The Fuel Injection will definately handle the bumps and angles better.  Nothing worse that a flooding carb sitting on the side of a hill....

[Dunebound69]

Fuel injection all the way!! My old rail had a carb. It belched and farted all the time from fuel sloshing out. 1600 cc vw was eating twice the fuel per hour as my 3.1 V6 dose now. 2 1/2 g/hr (if lucky) vs 1 1/2.

[Baloo]

[Baloo]

Spec
      Whats a Geo tracker ? is it the same as  suzuki vitara ( side )