scratch built Mazzer roadster

[Nurburgringer]

Originally Posted by wildegroot

The ring looks like fun. The best I've done in Germany was a few trips down the autobahn with the pedal to the metal on a rental car. Throwing a rental car around the French Alps was a blast too.

I bet it was. One of the regrets I have from my time in Germany 2002-2005 was not driving the Stelvio Pass, especially since I had a good relationship with a local Opel dealer who rented out a Speedster (virtual twin to the Elise). But the Ring is so addictive, just about everytime I had a chance to travel I ended up there.

Wish I had read about your experiences before putting on the QA1 springs. Even though my car will never see close to the same action as yours I think Eibach springs were only about $100 more.
cheers

[wildegroot]

Originally Posted by au-yt

Hi Will
Magic Stuff congratulations!!!
I am a late comer to the thread and sadly at a difficult time with you family.

You are part of a special group of people who have spent a measurable percentage of their life with exotic specials.
Here is a List of cars I know off.
Rebodied 365 Ferrari -20 years work, A maser 3500 having a 4.9 Khamsin engine and new body sections to be a 4900 GT proto-8 years work so far. 308 with a V12 and 288 body (not in the US)-8 years work so far, and a Cira 60s mid engine Montreal V8 powered special -5 years work so far.

There needs to be a special thread for these amazing people and their cars but a couple of people want them left as mysteries for various reasons.

Regards
Graeme

Thank you for the compliment.

I'd love to see the projects you listed. Could be dangerous though. If it starts looking like a trend we may all be rounded up and put in the nut house!

Regards to you also.

Wil

[au-yt]

Originally Posted by wildegroot

Thank you for the compliment.

I'd love to see the projects you listed. Could be dangerous though. If it starts looking like a trend we may all be rounded up and put in the nut house!

Regards to you also.

Wil

Wil
Your right about the posibility of us all in the Nut house having said that, keep up the extrorinary effort.
Being able to make ally bodies is a rare thing on its own.
Regards
Graeme

[Nurburgringer]

Originally Posted by au-yt

Here is a List of cars I know off.
Rebodied 365 Ferrari -20 years work, A maser 3500 having a 4.9 Khamsin engine and new body sections to be a 4900 GT proto-8 years work so far. 308 with a V12 and 288 body (not in the US)-8 years work so far, and a Cira 60s mid engine Montreal V8 powered special -5 years work so far.

whoa, I'd love to see more on these also!
Mid-mounted (Alfa I assume) Montreal V8 sounds very very cool.
cheers

[wildegroot]

Originally Posted by Nurburgringer

whoa, I'd love to see more on these also!
Mid-mounted (Alfa I assume) Montreal V8 sounds very very cool.
cheers

I just saw pictures of Graeme's car. It's an interesting project. He's got sort of a Dino-ish body on a real race car type space frame and a mid mounted Montreal V8 hooked to a trans-axle (Hewland?)

[wildegroot]

Hello everyone. Well, I'm back working on the Mazzer. Still have a lot of distractions but so far this weekend I installed the new adjustable GAZ rear shocks with the new (new last year) Hypercoil springs. I also re-installed the modified rear sub-frame which was painted black early last year and has been hanging from the ceiling by a wire ever since. Tonight I applied black duct tape to the top surfaces of the sub-frame, hoping to prevent electrolysis between the steel tubes and the aluminum body panels. Also made up and installed the first brake hydraulic pipe on the chassis, running from the rear brakes up to the fire wall where a second section will connect it to the rear brake master cylinder. The brake pipe was installed in anticipation of installing aluminized fiberglass insulation blanket inside the transmission tunnel. The final photo shows the flare being made on the forward end of the brake pipe.

[gcmerak]

Looks fantastic!

Ciao,
George

[au-yt]

Looks fantastic well done.

To answer you question the Transaxle is a Renault UN1 / very similar to the Lotus Esprit box.

Cheers
Graeme

[wildegroot]

Originally Posted by wildegroot

.

Below, a few photos here of the nose/bonnet which is now basically ready for primer and paint. The aluminum skin has a very thin coat of high-grade polyester filler on it to smooth over minor waves and imperfections. Here and there the metal under the filler can be seen poking through. It's always important to stop sanding when the metal surface appears through the filler. If you keep sanding the surface will become wavy again. A final coat of polyester will be sprayed on now and sanded very lightly to avoid breaking through to the metal. This will prevent "ringing" under the final paint.

The aluminum headlight cover forms were skin coated and sanded along with the nose to keep the lines tangent. The forms have now been removed and will be enlarged around the perimeter by about an inch (25mm) so that the edges of the clear headlight covers don't get ripples when the hot Lexan sheets are draped over.

[wildegroot]

photos for above post

[wildegroot]

Meanwhile, I also have some photos showing the aluminum rear clip (tail section) back on the car, temporarily, and the beginnings of a diffuser to make some down-force or at least cancel out some of the lift a body shape like this tends to produce. There isn't a lot of room for a diffuser so it won't be too radical but a little bit is better than none at all.

Since this is all experimental, I'm taking the low-tech/low-cost approach on this (no CF yet). After taking a bunch of measurements under the car and making a design I cut the parts out of 5 mm luan plywood and 1/2" (12 mm) pine cove-molding and assembled it with glue and temporary staples. It's only the core and is actually still quite light. The assembly will be covered with fiberglass cloth and polyester resin and that is where it will get its strength.

The plan is to cut out the center portion of the rear valence and under-tray so the diffuser can tuck up into the "trunk/boot" area and pass under the differential and rear suspension and to connect to the back of the flat floor of the cockpit.

The idea is that as air under the car flows along the flat bottom it reaches the backwards funnel shape of the diffuser and starts expanding, creating a low pressure area under the back of the car. The higher pressure on top of the car pushes down, creating down-force. I may need to make a spoiler on the back out of clear Lexan to make sure I don't have low pressure on top too.

[wildegroot]

Originally Posted by wildegroot

photos for above post

I should ad that the 3 piece front valence, which includes the splitter, will be very vulnerable to ground damage. The plan is to make molds and lay up thin fiberglass copies to mount on the car. I definitely don't want these made in CF since I need them to crumble easily to keep the damage from grounding on a speed bump, driveway ramp, etc from traveling up into the bonnet. I want to keep a couple of spare sets on hand, all painted and ready to mount. The car has skate-board wheels under the nose to help prevent ground contact but **** happens.

[wildegroot]

Originally Posted by gcmerak

Looks fantastic!

Ciao,
George

Thank you George.

[wildegroot]

Originally Posted by au-yt

Looks fantastic well done.

To answer you question the Transaxle is a Renault UN1 / very similar to the Lotus Esprit box.

Cheers
Graeme

Thank you Graeme. And good luck on YOUR project car! It'll be a stunner when it's done.

Regards,

Wil

[f308jack]

Wil,

I'm in total awe of what you're doing, great stuff.

A question: I don't have any pics of a standard QP rear-axle lay-out, but system-wise it is very similar to a Jaguar rear suspension.

The problem using this in a short chassis car is that there often is no space for the trailing arms. The last car I rode in with the set-up was a C-Type replica, with strengthened lower A-arm pivots, but without trailing arms or tri-angulation forward in the line of the inner fulcrum shaft.
It was quite scary to drive, as under different loads, and certainly under braking, the rear end was all over the place.

How did you solve the problem of location of the rear wheels on your car?

Shiny side up!

Jack.

[ApexOversteer]

Man, this car is going to be so badass when it's done...

[wildegroot]

Jack,

Thank you for the compliment.

The QP rear suspension is VERY similar to a Jaguar set-up. It's basically a copy. It uses the same differential housing, very similar Girling brake calipers and the other components are slightly larger, close variations of the Jag system. The trailing arms serve the same function as on the Jag but vary by the way they attach to the chassis and the length is adjustable but I eliminated the trailing arms. I replaced the inner fulcrum shafts for the lower control-arm with longer shafts. The extra length of the fulcrum shaft is used to connect to the chassis and also to locate an adjustable link (with rod-end bearings) on each side from the outboard ends of the lower control arms. Basically I made an A-arm out of the lower control arm by adding a forward angled link which pivots on the same axis as the control arm.

I've described it on this thread earlier but the problem with the Jaguar (and QP) IRS trailing arms is that the aft end has to travel through an arc which made it necessary for Jaguar (and Maserati) to rubber mount the sub-frame carrying the rear suspension. Triangulating the link with the control-arm so it swivels on the same axis allows the rear sub-frame to be rigidly mounted, which is what I did. If you go back and look at some of the photos of the rear suspension you'll see what I'm talking about.
__________________

[f308jack]

Hi Wil,

No need to go back in the thread, we're talking about the same tri-angulation. I see an extra link there, hope that'll cure it from any diseases:-)
Yes, I am aware of the plagiarism, I used to have a Deauville (a very long time ago) which also shared the rear axle/suspension design with Jaguar, but was probably identical to that of the QP.

I would actually wager a guess that the 'original copy' came from De Tomaso, for the simple reason that Tom Tjaarda offered the Deauville design to Jaguar first as a replacement for the XJ. When \Jaguar (or Leyland at the time) refused it, Tjaarda offered it to De Tomaso, who turned it into the Deauville in the very early seventies, and later into the Longchamps(2-door version on a shortened platform) which in turn spawned the Maserati Kyalamy derivative, albeit with a different engine.

The Khamsin, whilst developed around the same time as the Deauville, also received an independent rear suspension in a sub-frame, but of the more traditional double A-arm design. De Tomaso at thast time wasn't the owner of Maserati yet, otherwise things probably would have looked somewhat different from a mechanical point of view.

I digress....

Originally Posted by wildegroot

Jack,

Thank you for the compliment.

The QP rear suspension is VERY similar to a Jaguar set-up. It's basically a copy. It uses the same differential housing, very similar Girling brake calipers and the other components are slightly larger, close variations of the Jag system. The trailing arms serve the same function as on the Jag but vary by the way they attach to the chassis and the length is adjustable but I eliminated the trailing arms. I replaced the inner fulcrum shafts for the lower control-arm with longer shafts. The extra length of the fulcrum shaft is used to connect to the chassis and also to locate an adjustable link (with rod-end bearings) on each side from the outboard ends of the lower control arms. Basically I made an A-arm out of the lower control arm by adding a forward angled link which pivots on the same axis as the control arm.

I've described it on this thread earlier but the problem with the Jaguar (and QP) IRS trailing arms is that the aft end has to travel through an arc which made it necessary for Jaguar (and Maserati) to rubber mount the sub-frame carrying the rear suspension. Triangulating the link with the control-arm so it swivels on the same axis allows the rear sub-frame to be rigidly mounted, which is what I did. If you go back and look at some of the photos of the rear suspension you'll see what I'm talking about.
__________________

[gcmerak]

Keep up the fantastic work!

Caio,
George

[wildegroot]

Originally Posted by f308jack

Hi Wil,

No need to go back in the thread, we're talking about the same tri-angulation. I see an extra link there, hope that'll cure it from any diseases:-)
Yes, I am aware of the plagiarism, I used to have a Deauville (a very long time ago) which also shared the rear axle/suspension design with Jaguar, but was probably identical to that of the QP.

I would actually wager a guess that the 'original copy' came from De Tomaso, for the simple reason that Tom Tjaarda offered the Deauville design to Jaguar first as a replacement for the XJ. When \Jaguar (or Leyland at the time) refused it, Tjaarda offered it to De Tomaso, who turned it into the Deauville in the very early seventies, and later into the Longchamps(2-door version on a shortened platform) which in turn spawned the Maserati Kyalamy derivative, albeit with a different engine.

The Khamsin, whilst developed around the same time as the Deauville, also received an independent rear suspension in a sub-frame, but of the more traditional double A-arm design. De Tomaso at thast time wasn't the owner of Maserati yet, otherwise things probably would have looked somewhat different from a mechanical point of view.

I digress....

Maybe you digress but it's an interesting tangent. A lot of what you say above is new to me and fascinating.