Hello,

As i said in other thread i'm planning to build a Locost by myself.

I bought the book Build Your Own Sports Car: On a budget by Chris Gibbs.

Can i build the chassis following this book?
Is it a good choice of a chassis or there are other betters?

Thanks,
Pedro

The book is good, and the chassis is good. Obviously you will need a Sierra donor and you will need to either already have, or be able to learn, the necessary skills (especially the welding)

You will also need to get on the forum specific to the Haynes Roadster, as there are a number of minor errors and ommissions in the book, and corrections can be found here

http://www.haynes.co.uk/forums/index.php

John

[Edited on 20/8/08 by mr henderson]

And the author frequents this site too

It's also worth knowing that someone on here is selling pre cut steel to amuse yourself with - for not a lot more than you could buy it for.

ATB

Simon!

quote:

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Originally posted by Simon
And the author frequents this site too

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quote:

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It's also worth knowing that someone on here is selling pre cut steel to amuse yourself with - for not a lot more than you could buy it for.

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There are several builders in Portugal, including this very nice build: http://viseudesign.com/Sevenesque.htm

And a Yahoo group: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/locost_portugal/

Take a good look around so that you understand all your options. They are many!

Nice links pbura...

Thank you all for you answers...

I'll follow the book from the Mr. with the monkey avatar then...

Has good old Ron sold the rights then?

or is this a different car?

quote:

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Originally posted by The Doc
Has good old Ron sold the rights then?

or is this a different car?

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Differently put: do Haynes now have two books on the same subject or has this one subsumed Ron's?

Is it the same book attributed to a different author?

Just curious

Just a test

quote:

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Originally posted by The Doc
Has good old Ron sold the rights then?

or is this a different car?

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I have both books and from reading them both, is:

Ron champions book:
Designed and built by Ron Champion
Uses a mk 1 or 2 escort (off the top of my head)
Different Rear Suspension (only I can't remember which)
Bits from Cortina's
Bits from older other cars which are now very rare and/or expensive
Chassis was designed without the use of fancy stress analysis software but is still very good...
Erm, that's about all I can think of...

Chris Gibbs' Book:
Designed and Built by Chris Gibbs with help from Martin Keenan
uses a sierra donor but also gives some introductory info on using other cars like an MX5, Toyata Donor and a bit of advice on using bike engines.
Has fully independent rear suspension
Chassis was designed on computer (not sure what with) but the plans were then put through the same stress analysis software which Lotus use for their cars = chassis is at the top of its game in terms of strength/design quality
Gibbs' book also has the dedicated haynes forum to back up the book with regular updates, info and lots of very helpful people including Mr. Chris himself.
Gibbs' book came out in February 2007 so it has more relevant/upto date info on the SVA.

And personally I find Chris' book easier to make sense of because the actual page layout has been cleaned up & organised a lot more effectively since Champions' book back in '96. I would definitely recommend reading both to anyone who's considering building since there's a few bits in Champions' book which add to your overall view of what a "build" will entail.

Hope this helps

p.s. last time I looked on amazon, champions book was out of print and 4 amazon private sellers had them available for between £75 and £235... Quickly becoming a bit of a collectors book

[Edited on 23/8/08 by paul the 6th]

And to think I gave a couple of copies away to people whom I thought might help me but were nowhere when my build started...