I tried this yesterday but it appears I wasn't logged in so I will cut to the chase instead of the longish post from yesterday. Yes I am a Newbie, first post after about a year of trolling the site.



"Has anyone done any analysis on the added strength versus weigth of a steel skinned locost? It seems that the steel skin would add rigidity to the chasis with a weight gain of 50 to 70 lbs (20-30Kg)"


I have seen some brilliant posts and indepth thoughtful responses. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. I recently saw the Peuto Rican steel bodied build too....very nicely done.

I searched and saw a similar thread the other day and it went off topic on the weight of gold.
In case their are any questins I am building a McSorely +442, w/a 2004 Mazda B2300 Donor, 2.3 L Duratec, 5 Speed, with 400 miles on the drivetrain. (front end colission insurance totalled it, but the drivetrain is pristine just the sheet metal and the frame are bent up.)

Isn't the whole concept meant to be as light as possible and I don't think the chassis has any real problems with rigidity in the first place.
Why add an extra 20kg when ali panels will do the job without the rust risk?
Pat...

the trick to light weight strength is to make all the components do 2 or more things.

Aluminium pannels just keep the weather out. welded steel pannels keep the weather out and add rigidity. extra rigidity is not really needed.

welded steel pannels will allow you to remove some of the steel tubes - still maintaining enough rigidity - whilst lowering the weight back down to the original, or even less.

you would be making more of a monocoque and less of a spaceframe. It works for ordinary cars.

Its been done before with Zintec same stuff as used on busses.......cheap but very heavy......only a cost advantage over ali.

The chassis has a lack of stiffness in the area of the cockpit this is due to the fact in only has structure on 3 sides of the space frame -- the cockpit sides tend to bow under load -- using steel sides won't help that much and add an awful lot of weight.

When building a Seven the trick is to think minimalist for delicate handling and best performance.

stainless sides are an option with luego if memory serves correctly and I'm sure the isonblade was stainless panelled...

Ned.

it was too ned, 0.7 fick, the number of times people asked, 2how do you get ally to polish up like that"?