I am considering building my next locost with a ford mustang 5.0 donor. How would you beef up the chassis to handle the added stress, The motor will have aluminum heads and produce 350hp.

I will have a full roll cage anyway, but I am hoping adding that and some gussets will do the trick? Any suggestions?

I think it's a twofold problem -- you're adding weight to the front and sending a lot more torque to the back.

You'll need to worry about the front suspension being happy about carrying the extra weight (see all the threads of late on overstressed wishbones) and you'll need a beefier (heavier) driveline with a stronger rear axle, driveshaft and u-joints. The book rear setup (5 links with a solid axle) is probably a good one to stick with for big power as it provides excellent axle control.

The BEC boys seem to be getting massive performace improvements for minimum cash outlay -- less than the cost of your ally heads alone I'd guess.

Big V8 power seems better suited to the CanAm style cars like the Ultima that use the weight to best advantage.

Cheers, Ted

However if your daft enough to want to go ahead, an increase in the diameter of the tube, and better triangulation would work better than gussets on the chassis. Consider building the whole lot wishbones and chassis in CDS as well. It might be worth running it past one of our stalwart Automotive engineer/designers for his tuppence worth You know who you are
Shug

I seem to recall a similar thread a while back and a good suggestion was to increase the chassis tubing to 2"x1" and keep the same wall thickness or perhaps increase it slightly to 2mm.

Also, take a look at my website to see what modifications I made to accommodate the Rover V8 engine. In particular you may be interested in my extra triangulation at the front which incorporates my engine mounts. Here is a clip from the website in the Apr 2004 section:



My chassis is also 4" wider than standard and you may also need to think about some extra engine bay length as well.

I'd agree with the comments about 5 link suspension and would suggest a de-dion axle for the reputed better traction this yields. I think you are going to have a hell of a hard time getting power down and will need to get as much weight to the rear as possible and use the fattest stickiest tyres you can find!!

It'll be fun mind!!!



Craig.

Meant to say, you'll need to put some thought into the suspension mounts as the standard ones are a bit spindly for your purposes. I'd suggest 5mm thick bar suitably bent or even better, 5mm thick box section cut down to size.

[Edited on 16/11/2004 by craig1410]

Have you measured the height of the Ford engine? Between the stock intake and wet sump, I think it'll be too tall. A dry-sump($$$) and/or a different intake will probably be required.

Tirgis, (real name? )

Talk nicely to 'timf' on this forum - he's fitting a monstrous V-8 into an uprated McSorley-style chassis.

rgds,

David

I cant remember if the 302 is a 60 deg or 90deg but one with alloy heads is probably within 150lbs of the normal weight 4 banger. A 7.5 inch ford rear should be strong enough to handle the torque from it as its going to be very hard to hook up with the weight of a seven and is about 60lbs less than an 8.8.
I am building my car as a 1930's ish lemans sevenis thing and am using a ford lima block that is turbocharged which is not much lighter than the 302 and can get me up to the same torque and close to the same hp-- I used 1 inch 16 awg square for everything except the bones which are 1 inch x .125 wall. and the sides have 1 or 2 more diaginals for stregth. Being styled after the 30's cars the wheelbase is quite a bit longer but balance looks to be like it may actually be just slightly heavier on the back once occupants are in. I doubt that its much higher than a rover v8.
Dale

Take a look at
http://locost7.info/
Look in the files section under chassis and you will find a word document called kitcaranalysis.doc issue 2
In this is a finite element analysis, done by me, of the chassis including some suggestions on mods for big engines.