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Chassis for car with doors
Schrodinger - 19/10/07 at 12:10 PM

I am thinking of building a car with doors and so the standard Locost will give me some problems. I am thinking of something along the lines of the Stylus which has a sort of spaceframe chassis or maybe a backbone chassis. Are there any dimensions available out there or will I have to work from scratch?

speedyxjs - 19/10/07 at 12:13 PM

If you look in the back of the second edition of uncle rons book there is a locost with a roll cage an it says the builder intends to fit gull wing doors to the roll cage. Why not try that?

wyatt - 19/10/07 at 12:29 PM

Westfiled did a gulwing at some point to as a prototype

iank - 19/10/07 at 12:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by wyatt
Westfiled did a gulwing at some point to as a prototype


Did you ever see it? Shockingly ugly thing, painted (badly) duck egg blue when I saw it at a show years ago IIRC.

Putting doors in a 7 style spaceframe will either require a much stiffer tunnel as a backbone or a full cage that is more structural than most racing cages.

Werner Van Loock - 19/10/07 at 02:18 PM

TBH there's not a single descent chassis photo on our clubstylus website i just noticed, but I can take some pictures of mine (now completely stripped to bare chassis) and measure some stuff.

Mark. - 19/10/07 at 05:27 PM

If someone was to buy these moulds I might be persuaded to help out with a chassis...

Mark.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=300162615656&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=020

kreb - 19/10/07 at 05:41 PM

Cymtriks drew up a nice chasis set up for doors with reasonably good stiffness. If you were to add a roll cage it would be quite stiff. I'm seriously considering building such a thing with removable side protection for track days.

gottabedone - 20/10/07 at 09:58 AM

If Keith wants to built a car with doors the we should help him rather than go down the route of flaming him for straying away from the norm.

I'm not a chassis engineer but...........

If the sides of the car were built similar to the book chassis but lower and have 3 or 4 steel members triangulated all ways ( a la lambo LP400 chassis ), with a similar section side to side in front of the seats, on the front bulkhead and behind the seats etc then a lot of rigidity will be added obviously at the expense of weight but I'm sure that one of the many chassis engineers that we have here can find the smallest tube sizes in order to find the best chassis weight/strength combo. What difference would there be if these members were covered in a stressed skin.

I wonder what difference in rigidity there would be on a book chassis with either a decent sized tube or 4 triangulated box sections across the chassis floor in front of the seats and underneath the legs - maybe again with a stressed skin over.

regards

Steve

Schrodinger - 20/10/07 at 12:28 PM

Thanks for the replies.
I am having problems with my web access atm so I can't get on here to reply as I would like.
Werner, thanks for the offer re the Stylus, I am registered on the Club Stylus site under the same name. If you could let me have those photos and dims it would be great. IIRC the floor and sides are steel welded to the chassis?

kb58 - 20/10/07 at 03:26 PM

On my mid-engine Mini, getting the doors to fit properly was the most difficult, aggravating and annoying part of the entire build. Just so you know what you're getting into!

Schrodinger - 22/10/07 at 03:37 PM

quote:
Originally posted by kb58
On my mid-engine Mini, getting the doors to fit properly was the most difficult, aggravating and annoying part of the entire build. Just so you know what you're getting into!


Yes I am aware of the "problems" with doors. Thaks for the heads up though.