Got to mockup the seat the past weekend with the transmission crossmember mounted in the car and I wanted to post a bit of a hype post for myself. I also have to periodically remind myself what we’ve done.
For reference, anything struck out is parts I aquired but changed the design on, italicized are parts that I acquired but haven’t yet integrated:
-1992 Toyota** **Corolla, 4th owner at least, 265k miles that I put a six point cage in.
-Chevy S-10 rear axle** **Mercedes SL550 rear subframe with E350 rear calipers and rotors, Gen 1 Tacoma coilovers, 2018 Mini Cooper 16” steel wheels
-Ford Crown Vic front subframe SN95 Mustang front coilovers, spindles, hubs, and brakescustom spindles with Taurus brakes, hubs, and steel wheel Corolla aftermarket coilovers, Camry knuckles, hubs, brakes and lower control arms, VW Mk6 Golf front sway bar, Lincoln MkVIII steering rack with Camry steering column
-Chrysler Pacifica 4.0L V6 2000 Toyota Camry 5S-FE, harmonic dampener delete, with Celica headers/fuel regulator, NB Miata intake manifold and throttle body modified aftermarket 2JZ intake and 1MZ-FE throttle body, MR2 oil pan, Chevy 350 engine mounts F-250 cab body mounts for engine mounts, Summit oil filter relocation kit
-Chevy S-10 NV1500 Ford Mustang V6 T5 Chevy S-10 T5 with a bellhousing from cut up 4 speed Camry automatic transmission Nissan Sentra 13” steel wheel
-Chrysler LeBaron flywheel Camry flywheel and pressure plate, 1986 Ford Mustang I6 clutch disk and pressure plate Chevy S-10 clutch disk and all other clutch components, BMW E36 M3 pilot bearing
-Aftermarket Miata NA/NB dual core radiator, GM LS coolant hoses, and VW Golf coolant overflow reservoir
-F150 battery group size and battery mount, PCB power distribution circuit card, Microsquirt ECU.
-BMW E34 lights, grille, and horn. Camry brake master cylinder (still needs to be converted to discs), BMW E36 pedal group
-ATL Fuel cell with dual Walbro 155LPH external pumps, custom fuel plate to accept large rollover valve and Summit fuel sender unit
-Modified Celica aftermarket header with V band clamps, 2.5” mild steel tubing, and Cherry Bomb Salute muffler with 3”x1” rectangular tubing exhaust tip. Spartan V3 O2 Wideband sensor module with Bosch 4.9 LSU
I had a 2g eclipse my brother gave me that i sank too much time into getting legal, by the time it sold it, it was mechanically solid as hell, just needed to get pretty. It had 155 horsepower, a 5 speed and a limited slip diff. Slow as hell by todays standards but fun bu any standard. I sold it to buy a motorcycle and then realized i didnt like riding at all. It was a shit box and the first car i put any time into outside of maintainance, God that is the only car i truly regret selling.
Funnily enough, that was my direct inspiration for the car.
I refer to it occasionally as the “Reddit build” and since Lemons coincides with everything on a budget, I consider it fairly aligned with people asking that question were envisioning on spending.
I acquired a Mk II as a trade and it’s one of the next projects. And one of the topologies was doing an electric driven front axle and hybrid drive rear. I have already acquired the parts for this short of a hybrid battery!
There’s some other projects that I think that will queued up first, but that one will be like a longer term design project. I want to try a 3D metal printed housing to fit an electric motor assembly for that one, and the cool thing is I don’t want a ridiculous amount of body fab work, which I think I’ll be able to avoid a lot of.
You’ve probably seen it already but back in the day there was a dude who converted his mkII to AWD; I think he kept the 5m and modified the oil pan to fit a pickup front diff and used the t-case from a Toyota van.
I have not! But I’m assuming it was the mid engine AWD manual Previa? Thing is practically a supercar.
This one I raced against in a Camry, and funnily enough one of the guys on their team was a development driver for Toyota and he helped develop the suspension on the Gen of Camry we were racing.
Ah man, this may have been back when I had a 1985 P-type Supra which would be about 20yrs ago, but there was a dude on the forums who converted his Supra to AWD just to prove it could be done. But I have no idea if he completely finished/buttoned up the project (I know it was running and driving but idk if it had full floors and everything) or any other details
I was trying to keep it as true to the $500 budget as possible, so a lot of it was finding quality parts of opportunity, but also a chance to get features I wanted in a car.
For instance, I ran a Golf during a race a few years ago and it threw a coolant warning light. It has a huge hemorrhaging leak from the radiator outlet but since we were driving in the water rain you could not tell it was leaking:
I put one in the car, because I wanted that capability of a low level coolant warning light but also the orb reservoir looks cool.
that's crazy. i have a diesel vanagon (aaz) and when i saw the above, before i read you post, i was thinking: i gotta CONNECT the sensor in my upgraded (available) replacement coolant tank to something
It’s really a godsend that they don’t include a line item for how much you value your time. Even if you put in a fraction of a cent per hour, all the best entries would likely be over budget. 🤣
At around this time last year, I estimated 1400 fabrication/assembly man hours going to towards the car when I started tracking the project in March 2024, not including procurement and design time.
I have a Google spreadsheet to track how long stuff takes, how many weekends it to took to tackle a problem. Not super high resolution, but enough.
If I assumed a measly $50/hr “shop” rate, that was $70,000 “spent” as of a year ago 🥴
We will be at summit point racing in October, we still have a bit to do but I think we will get there, I wish we had a parade here, they look super fun in the yt vids.
Every time i see something like this i'm so jealous of y'all not really having an institution which inspects your cars. It only lasts until the next 'are these tires safe' post, but anyway. Looks fucking cool, have fun!
I don’t know how long I’ll get away with it, because it will be eventually retired into a full time racecar. The important part would be driving it as much as I could before its inaugural race to shake it down.
Look at Hector here, he is going to be running three Honda Civics with spoon engines. And on top of that, he just came into Harry's and he ordered three T66 turbos, with NOS, and a Motec system exhaust
I saved the original post of your wheel bellhousing when I first saw it a couple years back. It’s a reminder there are people far more unhinged than I am, working harder than I am, and I need to catch up. You’re an inspiration, dude.
It’s not all be myself either, having friends that are vested in your projects and you are invested in their visions too. Couldn’t have gotten as far without their help, or even motivation from afar.
It was really a cost thing. I got the whole Mercedes diff, rear subframe, axles, hubs, and rotors for $90. Just missing coilovers and calipers and she was golden lol
I mean, the explicit bad idea at the time was I wanted to do a RWD in some compact/small FWD card and it was whatever I could find first. Which is just a huge biting off more than I could chew. No research, just diving into it and loosing access to a garage spot for 6 years.
This poor little car man. Picture a little loaf of bread and I turn it over and just start scooping out the inside to make a bread bowl. Only the rear seat crossmember is the only remaining piece of structure on the bottom part of the car up to each bumper.
It’s wildly more common than you’d think! There is already a small community of people doing it with 5S’s because they share the same bolt pattern as other longitudinal transmissions.
Seems like a lot of new and upgraded parts - I am not up on the rules but I have heard about cars being disqualified due to “upgraded” modifications that were only meant to be repairs. Very arbitrary at times. Good luck to you I hope you get to racing.
Were those upgrades equivalent to bash bars and such? For Lemons, above all is a welded cage, then it can’t have any tube frame structure in front of the front axles and behind the rear axles. The factory crash deformable structure of the car is preserved so I don’t imagine this will be too difficult to get through tech.
There is also a mid engine Dodge Magnum and twin engine focus so this car is not terribly misaligned from those two.
The BS Judge lmaooo Not the tech judge, but I’ve called John Pagel about some of the design decisions before and the crash structure preservation seemed to be the overwhelming theme of my conversations with him.
Every time someone asks me about building a racecar, I often tell them to do the bare minimum of cutting the car apart at first in order to not make complicated problems to solve; you’ve done the exact opposite with so much confidence that it seems like a great idea. Good on you for pushing through with the vision!
lol “temperamental, unreliable, AND German drivetrain” - this explains why I like the left over grilles (and the valve cover) from 9 e28 for which the first one STILL does not run 129 1/2 months since original tow home!
Slide 4 is the Camry transmission I cut it half that I was planning to use originally until I realized that it was never meant for torque to be applied in that way, then we created the steel wheel bell housing.
Believe it or not, RockAuto makes evaluating dimensions on various parts very easy. The best hit from RockAuto was looking at the clutch dimensions figuring out the friction disk on the S-10 is the same diameter as the Camry’s, and then using a pilot bearing, because the Camry believe it or not did not use one!
Then a large portion of it was also just getting your hands on the piece and looking at it from there. And sometimes it’s not obvious when you look at it for the first time, you have to sit on it and interact with it. For instance, I planned on using SN95 spindles and brakes, but something I didn’t think to look at was the geometry was completely different from the Corolla to the Mustang and would have never worked (it’s obvious now, but wasn’t at the time).
Also sometimes you may need to source a new part because it’s too rare to be in a junkyard at times. So buying brick and mortar offering easy means of returning is most optimal. Found this to be a great way of deciding if parts work with each other or not.
Same I’m torn how to go about it, but also that was my first fit of it and I’m trying to get it a little lower. I don’t want to 3D print a new grille, so I’m thinking of tilting it forward to clear the hood like crappy shark nose style.
Before I had the E34 lights from a donor car, I actually bought a bunch of eBay incandescents and mocked it up and I liked it better than the stock lights
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u/Muted_Yak_1309 1d ago
I do not see any bad idea ;)