Suzuki Carry mechanicals for a sports car.

[artyone]

I'm 52 now so I'm a bit old but back in the day I was quite the tinkerer with cars. I did welding, oxy, so when all the mates put V-8's in Viva's or whatever I made the headers and the engine mounts. Mainly I rode motorcycles but I had cars too and my favourite was a 1962 Holden EK station wagon I got with a 202 and an HR diff already installed, badly but it passed warrants. Those were the days when Holden stuff was plentiful, the mid 80's and I took out the old front end and put HR wishbones in it and HT steering uprights and brakes, and HT wheels at 14"... oh, and I bought a two stage power glide for it. I loved that car! Eventually I was going to sort out the rear end and lower it... bit ahead of it's time looking back now.

But I'd started on bikes. CB100 at 15, then an SL100 followed by a an SL350 but my lovliest machine was a Kwaka Z750 which I put a down payment on after a month working at my mates spray shop. I crashed it soon after I bought it and then rebuilt it over a coupla years. I figured it was the sellers fault so I stopped paying it off and they came and repossesed it but it was in a million bits so eventually they did a deal with me and bought the parts I needed and a manual and added it onto the amount owing and let me have it back... and I again started paying it off.

This is the old SL350 with my dog sitting on the seat. he would sit in my lap whenever we went anywhere and I only got picked up once for it and the dog then decided to do a shit right in the doorway of the dairy he stopped me in front of which he, the copper wasn't too happy about. Ended up I wouldn't leave my bike and walk the dog home, we were about a half mile from home, and the copper wouldn't let me take the dog as I usually did so the cop let the dog, Bear was his name, sit in the backseat of the Police Car and followed me home on the bike. That was typical for that dog.

This is the Kwaka and I eventually got rid of it 'cause I was a maniac on it, always full throttle, and had too many really close shaves and decided I'd build a four wheel version of the same thing and started studying up on space frames and suchlike.

I started out with a 161 Holden motor and t-bucket style frame then realised I wanted smaller so I got a 1.3 litre Mazda SOHC drive train and a 180b datsun rear end and started building a space frame but then the stockmarket crashed and left me penniless and with abig debt against my landscaping business so that put an end to that. I got into music after that and started making electric guitars, which was fun for a few years, but I was totally under capitalised and so in '92 I went to art school to make use of what I'd always done... draw.

 

That's been fun for 20 years but recently the idea of building a car came back and I had some money so I bought a 1950 A40 over on waiheke and shipped it home. But even that felt like too much work being so old and it was in such good shape it seemed a real pity to break it down just for my amusement so it's sat in the driveway while I've tried to sell it on trademe... to no avail.

 

Then just two weeks ago a Suzuki carry appeared at my neighbours and got pulled apart somewhat to weld rusty bits so I went over for a chat and now the Suzuki's sitting in my driveway and the A40's sitting in his.

Now I wouldn't blame you for thinking the Suzuki carry is an incredibly silly thing to use as the mechanicals to build a little fun car, well... a pretend race car, imaginary sports car.. and I hope I'm not wrong, myself, in trying.

 

For me it's got all the parts I'll need, well mostly, and I'm kinda over all out speed going into middle age and the idea of a set of higher and much thinner tyres, as in space savers, and me with my ass 5 inches off the ground sitting in a frame welded up here at home outta 1.2mm wall tubing and the odd bit of hand made wood and copper and brass... I'll be in heaven... oh, and my brothers got a leather refurbishment business here in East Tamaki, Leathersmiths and we kinda need a vehicle that's kinda neato to take to shows to try and rustle up some business that pays better than stinky old couches.

 

I've measured everything up and started some drawings and so I'll publish a side view and top view tomorrow sometime and get out into the backyard to knock back a bunch of blackberry to start building the shed I'll need to build this in. meanwhile theres an add in the for sale section if you wanna buy the body which is actually quite good.

[flyingbrick]

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/43327-artyones-carry-based-sports-car-project/

[artyone]

This is my first attempt at this kinda thing way back in the bad old days. 161 outta my HT ute, which was replaced with a 3.3 litre Victor motor (What?( and triple Dellorto's I swapped for building some headers for a small block in a '48 Chevy sedan. I didn't have an Arc welder on hand so further work on 3.2mm wall tube using gas just seemed like too much so it never happened.

Then I found the book of books which was 'Sports car chassis design' or somesuch which was hardcover book written by an Englisnman.. and Auckland libraries still has a copy of... and I started building spaceframes, or a spaceframe... but this was about 1987 and I got taken out so had to sell off all the wonderful stuff I'd found here and there to make it.

The a few years later this lot arrived. I was given a whole Suzuki chassis without motor and box and I so wish I still had this stuff now. Notice in the left bottom the alloy drum/wheel centre. The rims bolted to the outside of it which was very cute.

This is my first drawing/ conception which is leaning towards a low waist height chassis, as in the height of the chassis from it's feet to it's waist, to make it more alike single rails but it's silly rigidity wise and complicates things that don't need to be complicated if I go higher. As well as that it's designed to give the same lower trailing link (is that the right term for the lower swing arm?) geometry as in the van which would see the front wheels swing outwards from the bottom under outside cornering... but I think I can forgo some handling by having the link swing from almost ground height and ease of fabrication so I'm going to make the chassis deeper all around to get more rigidity with less weight.

And this is the Red Bull trolley I made in the early nineties using the Suzuki Fronte uprights and brakes and I so wish I still had these too! Also it's pretty much the view I want in a really motorised car... open wheels spinning in front of me.

[artyone]

This wheel is 4 x 114 stud pattern with a 40mm positive offset, or thereabouts (maybe 43mm), and the tire is a 145/80D16 so has anyone any idea what they might have come from?

I know that's asking alot but as I need four more I need to know makes and models otherwise the tire guys seem to be blind which I don't blame them for.

[artyone]

Now I definitely have to start building a shed to do all this stuff in and so this morning I climbed up on the roof of what is my dwelling and took photos of the space I think it'll be best to do it in.

It's the most south west and back of the property I'm on and has been basically left to it's own devices for about 10 years so it's pretty overgrown.

This kinda shows more of the blackberry entanglements that the opening, of the shed when it's built, will look onto. With blackberry I cut it down then pile it up to dry then make fires and that seems to be the only way. like kikuyu, to kill it.

This is standing on my housey thing and looking towards the driveway and it gives a little of an indication of how I build.

And this is the pile of wood I've been collecting over the last few years for just such an occurrence. Theres even some big spruce posts in there which I got from a place that brings in big huge CNC mills. Had the little Daihatsu really sitting on it's ass bringing that stuff home! Mostlt all packing case timbers but with some old film set 4 x 2 thrown in. Just realised I've got a pot belly so maybe I'll put that in the shed too!

And while I was up on the roof I took a photo of the park across the way.

[yoeddynz]

This might be of interest to you given your liking for bikes. I'm not sure but are Bedford Rascals and Suzuki vans the same? Anyway- bike engined Rascal pickup..

 

http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/113629/1990-bedford-rascal-pickup-tl1000#.U2DCb1d3Nr8

[artyone]

Cheers yoeddynz, as soon as I read you post, before clicking the link, I had visions of a suzuki van engine in a tryck but it turned out to be opposite!

 

One of my absolute favourite cars is the Maserati Birdcage because it combines two ideas I really enjoy. One is the chassis made incredibly light by welding millions of tiny tubes together and the other is a 3 litre 4 banger... I love thumpers!

 

Now if this guy had've built a super light weight chassis then mounted a Subaru boxer engine in it and hooked it up to a shortened independent rear end... yummy. 

 

The fact he's gone out and bought two engines then a whole bike just makes me sad somehow, though I appreciate his having a go but he's kinda fighting a losing battle in more ways than one. Especially with the clutch which has to pull/push so much more than it was designed for, like doubling the horsepower of the engine and expecting the same clutch to work... well not quite.

 

So in that respect thankyou youeddynz for the reminder not to let an engineering problem, possibly like the one I've been mulling over about how to put the clutch on the gear lever, over take the essential ideals of being as light as possible and spending the least amount of money.

 

Even that has come home to me after visiting Zebra picka parts yesterday and seeing that even they're prices are way more than I can afford. Buying two sets of second hand Suzuki front end discs, calipers and centres off a front engined car would buy me a huge swag of tubing.

 

Being poor is an essential requirement in this whole build, having to make do and create solutions that fit around not being able to just buy stuff as the fancy strikes.

 

And in that regard I've been lucky today as Mum, who owns the house out front and employs me to maintain it (which pays my rent) has asked me to mount a sliding door and this means I can go to Burns and Farrell in Onehunga, get petrol money to go check out fittings, and on the side go and review the prices of steel and trailer stub axles at the trailer place which is about a mile from Burns and Farrel... and yet again hassle the mechanic who has a Daihatsu van in his backyard slowly rusting away which he'll give to me but hasn't gotten around to it because he uses it as a shed. I've been dropping in for about 5 years now after that little piece of treasure!

 

I saw this last night in the thread of super projects around the world. http://shawnhibmacronan.com/current

 

And while the thought of keeping the body of the suzuki van and adding a mid-mounted engine appeals to do something like this what is coming home to me is that the 'Pledge Me' site, where art and design projects are funded, might be a viable option. Now in the back of my mind I'll be pondering how to create a usable approach to being able to create a kit car from Daihatsu mechanicals with a front end, as in project front end, which would meet the requirements of suitable cash 'donors'... emphasis being on small commuters vehicles, bio fuels and sustainability with a side in DIY.

 

Bring on the Banana peel fibre glassed bodies!!!

[artyone]

Down to business and initially just pulled a wheel off to see, if indeed, the 16" space saver would fit and it does, but carried on and the way it's all built makes it quite simple for me to make my own uprights.

So the stub axles sits on plate and so everything other than the four bolt plate can be cut away, As it is the whole thing is kinda U shaped with the stub on one side, the ball joint across the bottom and then the strut on the other side... and all I need is the plate to then fabricate my own upright.

And lovely lovely, the caliper carrier is on a plate and not part of the casting and it's those four points that hold that which make it good for me.

Then with a little eye micrometer it's seems there's room enough to get an upright with a camber angle that won't create scrub on turns.

Basically this is the initial drawing of the stub axle square and straight enough to make any drilling and milling a straight forward affair but like this I'd need resin sand inserts to get enough and proper draw on a sand cast pour so I gotta think about more before I start carving so I could get a simple drop in the sand piece which would also be easily held to machine.

 

Oh, and I went to this small trailer steel supplies and found some nice ERW furniture tube for the frame. Square, rectangle and round don't really appeal and finding the kinda stuff Atlas steels do is neato. It's the rectangle stuff which has a radius on the top thinnest part. Yummy as it combines the best of round and square without being either and not quite as difficult to get ones head around as oval... which looks the best but is tricky on the brain to mate up nicely.

 

Now I think about kinda finalising chassis design to figure a floor jig for laying out and welding.

[artyone]

So lucky me was out yesterday delivering a cheap laptop I found for a friend and took a turn 'cause my little voice said do it and found a CB350 of 70's vintage sitting way down the back of a warehouse. Like all hunches you gotta play it right and I musta said the right words 'cause he eventually got keen enough to show me his relic and be quite chuffed with the offer I made... even though I was definitely running on empty.

 

But after a little findangling with the nearest and dearest, Mum and Dad as there's no significant other of opposing gender and similar decade birth, it seems I have available credit save this treasure from it's ignominious and tarpaulin shrouded descent into irrelevance. Then when I get home my bro calls and the Bentley seats have finally arrived. A chap he does work for, who imports whole Bentleys and Rollers, had access to slightly shop soiled Connelly leather seats for the above which were surplus to requirements so my brother put my name forward that the three of us could do a deal and make shop seats from the otherwise un-required spring, foam and leather, me supposedly being the maestro and lynch pin who could build frames and keep the whole package styley enough to encourage folding to cross counters.

 

So it seems project funding has arrived. Meanwhile it's all about shifting about two tons of bricks, blocks and piles of builders mix so the trusty stead to be broken down into horse meat, The S carry, can be blocked up in a far corner of my realm and it's innards removed with due ceremony and regard to it's spiritual significance.

 

At this point it's like all these possibilities that have been swirling about and vying for significance are starting to settle and while I've been going off on all these tangents of possibility and feeling slightly scattered amongst the dog fights of defining gestures I've enjoyed the ride and am looking forward to it all settling into actual greasy fingered work.

This is a beautiful CB350 and while the overall thing is a bit too Manx for me I do absolutely love the exhausts... and because there seems to be this equally fat and square thing going on with tyres on bikes, in the retro world, I'm thinking about thin and skinny front 'and' back... which kinda makes me just as guilty of being a trendo mondo.

[artyone]

So to get the ball rolling good and proper it's time to haul out the motor.

My trolley jack needs charging with oil so only does about 3-4 inches but that enough to slowly get the drivers side high enough to haul out the motor.

Then the head crowns, oh, this would be defined as a breach birth as the ass end comes out first.

Mums legs are back together and babies first glimpse of the world.

And the other thing really useful from the days of youth are the noble skateboard. Now comes the scrub with Kero and a nice water blast to get her tidied up before going into the shed.

[artyone]

The motors tidied where it won't be too dirty to handle and not get super messy and I've thought a little about the odds and ends that'll need fabricated to fit it where I want it too go... plus one or two wish list possibles.

 

I think for starters I'll chuck the alternator on the other side, kinda where it is now in the bottom right, as this keep it out of the way and open up all those lovely casting on the left side. Next is motor mounts as these are too low and wide but it looks like just chopping down what I have would suffice. After that it'd be a mounting to go hydraulic on the clutch as the lever turned over both ways put's it in close to the motor and a fairly simple bracket on the bellhousing should do it. Then it'd be setting up the gear lever mechanism, which ran on cables and should mount off the rear gearbox mount and work with rods.

 

On the wish list, and may not be unbelievably difficult, is a new intake manifold for a small double barrelled sidedraught. The water output seems to be above and between the front fuel intakes and means that all sorts of resin sand inserts would have to be made to get a sand cast done but then again maybe a lost wax casting might be easier.

This'd be the sitting position with the engine about 5 inches off the ground... seems do-able. Only thing I can see that might get a bit complicated is the passenger position and that starter motor on the left... and given the exhaust would be running just outside that I might have to go for a passenger sitting somewhat further back than I am... or will be anyways, tucked right in against the rear axle. Then a small fuel tank can go in around the starter motor.

[artyone]

I'm actually a bit concerned about that big lump hanging so far to the left and how that'll affect cornering with so much weight unevenly distributed across the front end, even though I kinda like the look... I'm gonna see whether I can't rotate the gear box and get it standing up striaghter as I'd be making the inlet manifolds anyways so a little sump refabricating wouldn't be too much extra work.

[artyone]

I've tidied the space where such as building this could be done and found an old bed which could be used to build the base of a chassis to begin nutting things out.

This, though entirely freakish, solves one or two problems. One is that it shows a way to mount a wide radiator while still having the tall and skinny look.

Anyways, something will be happening soon.

[artyone]

I've pretty much set my mind on transverse leaf springs with four bar at the rear and double wishbones at the front. I had an idea years ago where the double wishbones are alike those on Carterhams and suchlike, as in fabricated and moderny racey like, but I wanted transverse leaf springs and then lever action dampeners, alike Austin A30's and it's ilk, but working through linkages... so a thoroughly mixed up modern doing retro or, basically, as if some rodder from the fifties suddenly had these ideas or a vision of race cars of the future and used what was available. I've got some photos somewhere of a very early MG race car, of the time of live axles everywhere without fail, but they have all independant suspension on it and dual rear sliding halfshafts with universals each end and double wishbones... it's lovely.

1935 MG R type. Look at the rear and, after seeing it's all torsion rods for springing, they've even added adjustments to increase decrease toe in/out on the rear wheels... now if they'd only built a huge engine like the Germans did with the Auto Unions there might not have been a war!!!

 

With all this in mind, and finally getting money in pocket, I went out to Titirangi to Gordonia (Grahame Gordon's beautiful rambling adventureland on the way to the West coast) and found some dampeners but couldn't find Mr Gordon so arranged the levers to be found, as an art installation with a headlight lenses and a small H, by way of a slightly cryptic note and a telephone number and my name... he hasn't called.

The next thing I need, which could be tricky, is to find some ball joints that bolt on to a wishbone... as opposed to press in, and have the shaft of the type that isn't tapered but is parallel or of even width and has a recess machined in where a bolt in the upright lateral to the shaft holds it in place.

Actually like this might be the go...screw in. But if I can get side lugs and the above type of shaft.

Maybe this is as close as I'll get.

1994-2009 Steeda for lowered Mustangs. The thing is that with this way of attaching the shaft I can get the steering angle right in there with less camber required and the upright just needs a hole drilled in from each end and the crosswise holding bolt. Using the regular way of attaching balljoints mean theres a foot, as it were, at each end of the upright just so the bolt on the end of the taper can be accessed... plus having to have a taper cut.

 

So if anyone knows balljoint jargon or are we even way past that and it's all just part numbers?

[artyone]

It's been a while.

 

Ended up buying a bunch of 800cc engines and all the parts meanwhile doing the big tidyup to sort out all the work areas to get around to building a space to do the cars and cycles.

 

Now the carry building has been broken down into two separate veins. One is to start off with a very simple beam type chassis where all the straight un-modified carry stuff bolts straight in with the only fabrication, other than the chassis, a steering system of a rack and pinion for the new postioning of sitting behind the motor. At the moment I've dome preliminary drawings to scale after hauling out the ceiling beam 200 x 75 folded 2.5mm wall galvanised steel and am now considering finding a certifier and going the legal road.

 

Number two is a scratch built sportscar rod thingy which was the original intention but because I can build the simple car fast and easier I can let all my ideas about neato and wild fall into the number two category.

This is a Nissan Cefiro rear end and what I'm thinking of doing though something like this below from a Nissan 140j is actually exactly what I'd want.

Along these lines is incorporating these parts I grabbed from a Morris minor that spent the day in my neighbours yard before getting on the truck, after being unceremoniously cut up with a grinder, to be taken for burial in a very hot pot!

Also got the steering wheel and column from the Minor, at the last minute.

[artyone]

Started playing with the 800cc engines and first on the to do list is a set of inlet manifolds for twin carbs of some description which isn't much of a conundrum but figuring out how to do the water outlet might be. The thing is havin' two inlet manifolds, 1/ 3 and 2/4 is easy as one turned over fits the other but the water exits between each block of two, 1/2 and 3/4, and incorporating water out with gas in means turning the manifolds over mean water goes up from one and down from the other unless I go the way of 4 separate manifolds.

 

The easiest way at the moment is to flat plate across the whole lot and drill and tap for the water outlets and use some 90 degree steam fittings... then think about a thermostat housing somewhere between a 2 into one fitting and the radiator. Suppose I better find some carbs now.

 

The reason for all this isn't so much twin carbs as it's about making the engine upright as opposed to the 30 odd degree slant it has now.

[artyone]

[artyone]

Last week a blower finally appeared, well not literally as in it actually arrived but a friend up north has one and was going to bring it down this previous Thursday but didn't have enough petrol money so is going to try next week.

 

An MR2 blower... with intercooler and carby too. Then the other day I dropped into an old friends place and this old friend has twenty odd years on me and grew up in Southern California as a petrol head before becoming a guitar maker to the stars... very informed fellow who gave me a whole bunch of info about putting centrifugal blowers on things that didn't previously have them.

 

So I've been reading up on yet another dark art where the store of knowledge is just as much this as it may be that though there does seem to be some consistencies prevailing. One thing though, that rushed past me, and I should have book marked but I was looking though Roadkill videos so it shouldn't be too hard to find, was a plenum chamber design that relied on length of feed from the blower to the input manifold that had the carburettor sitting in the middle with the advantage being that this cooled by a factor of half the temperature of the compressed air.

 

But it was ugly!

 

Anyways I like the idea of a blower as in crank driven rootsy thingies 'cause it goes way back to 4 1/2 litre bentleys and world war two aircraft engines while also cutting out a whole bunch of work on heads and cams to make things breathe normally aspirated and sing like demons... or at least make the fine details of such not quite as significant. Well, maybe just puts the significance in other directions.