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Is it big enough? ;-)

James - 30/1/02 at 12:12 PM

Sorry to basically ask the same question again but no-one answered the last one and I really need help with this before I can start building the chassis.

I'd really like to know if the cockpit area is big enough (mostly I mean long enough as I'm quite skinny!) for someone who is 6'3" and may do quite long journeys in it?
Mainly due to using a Sierra donor I'm going to make the chassis 4" (approx 10%) wider. To keep the car in proportion the easy thing to do is make the whole chassis 10% bigger just by cutting every piece 10% bigger than the plan- that way I'll add 10% to the cockpit area too which will help on the height side of things. The point is though, if the standard cockpit length is enough for someone of my height then I'd rather use up the extra length by increasing the engine bay size and so making installation of engine etc. easier.

So, basically, what I want to know is: is the cockpit area big enough for you?

Your help on this matter would be greatly appreciated as one way or the other it means I'm going to have to do quite a lot of chassis re-design!

Thanks,

James

And no, I don't normally ask a bunch of people if it's big enough- but this thing that is Locost makes one do strange things... :-)

bob - 30/1/02 at 12:35 PM

James
I dont have a problem with fit in escort based cars and i'm 6'1 and 16 stone.
Think about your seat and pedal config.
I've got the MK Indy which as far as i can see isnt any different apart from height.
I do have floor up pedals,and i feel they give even more room.
Anyway you dont really want to be to loose in there,a snug fit is best on our roads!

Dunc - 30/1/02 at 02:36 PM

Hey James,

I'm about the 6'3" mark too. After reading the book and working out the seating width and measuring the width of my butt I concluded that if I did fit into it I would never get out again. I've therefore added 120mm to the width and 50mm to the height of the chassis. I didn't change the length any but I fit in my chassis quite comfortably now. It's just a case of making sure the pedals will fit and are comfortable. I did, however, have to widen the transmission tunnel to fit the bell housing of the gearbox which did narrow the footwell width.

Another point is that you will either need to make your own nose cone or find one wide enough to fit your chassis.

PS. Make sure there are no women present when you sit in your bare chassis holding a steering wheel and playing with a gearstick pushing imaginery pedals making brmm brmm noises. You'll recieve no end of slagging no matter how often you state that you were just trying it out for size.

Dunc

ChrisW - 30/1/02 at 03:23 PM

Hmm.. now I'm worried!! I'm 6'6 and my chassis is the same size as the book!! Will be a right downer if I build it and can't fit in!

ChrisW

Dunc - 30/1/02 at 04:19 PM

Chris,

It's all down to your choice of pedals and how much you bend your legs when pressing the pedals. The width is not really an issue. I made my cockpit wide enough so I could fit the standard 500mm seats you can buy from Demon Tweaks. I sat in a few standard chassis at various shows and although I found getting my legs in was awkward (not a car to wear a kilt in) I did find it very comfortable once seated. How far on are you with the chassis now?

Dunc

James - 2/2/02 at 12:37 PM

Well, seems this is a tall man's hobby!

Thanks for the advice, the reason I'd started on the whole chassis widening thing was that I thought it was pretty much standard to do so if you were using a Sierra donor (because the track is bigger than on the escort by about 4"). Especially as I was planning to use the Sierra steering rack etc. to keep the front and rear tracks the same.
Are you saying I don't really need to bother? I was thinking it's a worthwhile plan anyway, just to make fitting everything in easier in addition to compensating for the Sierra track- can anyone confirm about the track being 4" greater? And therefore whether I need to go down this road.

Thanks,

James

bigdaddyadd - 8/2/02 at 10:09 PM

doesn't really bother me this one as my legs are about 6" to short for my body but I came across a post on the yahoo email pages from a guy who has developed cad drawings for chassis with an extra 4inch in width and for chassis with 4inch in width and 2inch at the foot well and engine bay. They are very good drawings and use the same mounting points for the suspension as the original sounds like some of you may find this a help http://www.mcsorley.net/locost you will nedd adobe accrobat reader to view them free download with link from the site. Be interested how you get on as a friend of mine is planning also to use these drawings when he starts his build in a couple of months.
Adam http://locostbuild.tripod.com

jbmcsorley - 29/3/02 at 01:30 AM

Hi Adam,
Thanks for the spotlight on my 442 drawings. I'm also 6'3" (strange world) but I haven't built anything yet to prove if the foot well is sufficient. I'm just assuming the more space down there, the better.

An interesting side note however is that I won't be building the 442... it puts the engine too far forward and I don't fancy making a shift remote. Oh, and do keep an eye out for revisions to the 442 design as it currently has a very strange front end width and I hope to revise it with a front end design that will retain the book style nosecone.

Feel free to email me directly if you have any ideas or questions.

Cheers,
-Jim M.
Orlando,FL

locodude - 29/3/02 at 07:50 AM

Hi Guys
I'm 15 stone 6'2" eyes of blue and fit nice and snug in my 'to the book' chassis. For your info - floor mounted pedals and richfield RX777 seats. Little cars for big men eh?
Chris

interestedparty - 29/3/02 at 09:00 AM

I am 6'4" and have driven a wide variety of cars. The thing is, people's proportions are different as well as their overall height. A friend of mine, same height, whenever I drove his car I had to adjust the set and mirrors. If you are long legged, as I am, then the length of the cockpit and position of the steering wheel will make a big difference to how easily (or not) you can get in and out. If I were you I would make the chassis longer if not wider, you can always move the seat forward if you need too, not much you can do if the legroom isn't there to start with. Obviously there is no substitute for trying other cars.
John

nik - 31/3/02 at 12:28 PM

I'm no good at translating the english measuring system to centimeters. Since I'm a bit over average I'd appreciate if someone could translate 190 centimeters into feet and inches (is that it?).

Best regards,

theconrodkid - 31/3/02 at 01:17 PM

Yo Nik 190 cm = 6foot 3 inches
25 mm=1 inch aproximatley 305 mm=1 foot
1 meter is roughley a yard (3 feet)easist way to convert is to look at a tape measure!

error - 31/3/02 at 06:29 PM

This is what my HP48 calculator had to say about length units. Hope this helps.

1 meter = 1.094 yards
1 yard = 0.9144 meter

1 feet = 0.3048 meters
1 meter = 3.28 feet

1 inch = 2.54 cm
1 cm = 0.3937 inch (1969/5000") <- thats practical ;-)

1 mile = 1.604 km
1 km = 0.6214 mile

Tricks to help us metric pepole to remember
1 mile is almost 1,5 km
1 yard is almost 1 meter
1 inch is almost 2,5 cm
1 feet is almost 30 cm

(Please lets NOT start a debate about metric vs. imperial)

/Mikael "Error" Westerberg

nik - 1/4/02 at 01:05 PM

Thanks both of you! It seems that I too am in the risk zone of having to increase the chassis size.

Best regards,

merlin - 1/4/02 at 06:48 PM

Oi John! where can I get a tape measure with yards on it then?

theconrodkid - 1/4/02 at 07:09 PM

OI Steve you can get a tapemeasure like mine it has feet n inches millithings pouns n ounces makes tea and tells jokes but you have to know where to go

theconrodkid - 1/4/02 at 07:11 PM

Ps any luck with my number plate thingy?

James - 2/4/02 at 01:38 PM

quote:
Thanks both of you! It seems that I too am in the risk zone of having to increase the chassis size.

Best regards,

It's actually quite a lot harder to do than I thought it would be- atleast the way I've done it is....

You need to be really careful with what dimensions you change because of what else it may effect.
I wanted to make it a bit wider to accomodate the Sierra track but what I didn't want was a short, wide looking car as I thought this'd look silly. Naively, I decided that as the 4inch width increase I wanted was 10% of the rear width I could just increase the length of every part of the chassis by 10% and it'd just scale the whole thing up by 10%. The problem with this, of course, is that the diameter of the actual tubes won't change so with precise angles like those of the chassis you need to compensate for this otherwise all sorts of angles change that you want to stay the same like the angles of the rails that support the front suspension brackets change and you can then end up with very funny suspension bracket angles.

With every tube length you plan to change you need to see if any other tubes intersect with it in any way (either by being attached to it directly or otherwise) and then subtract the width of this tube (and bear in mind the width may not be 25mm if the tubes lie at an angle to each other like tubes C and F1&F2).
Having subtracted this width you can then alter the tube length by your chosen percentage and then you can add the subtracted width back on.

ie. it's takes bl00dy ages to do the whole chassis and is rather complicated- you need to be very good at trigonometry- I've spent ages on this and I'm still not sure it's correct.

The moral of this story is: learn to use Autocad if you're gonna start changing the chassis- or just go on a diet coz it's much easier!!!!

James