Biggamehit

iTrader: (2)

http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=219069

sr91240

iTrader: (2)

haha holy **** thats ****in awesome lol

Fries

OMFG what I would do to be able to do that kind of crap!

Ayuaddict

fries: please resize your sig.

and im still reading through the thread but it looks awesome as ****.

cliffb75

Hi All

At the special request of Ayuaddict, I've signed up here.

Here is a brief history of the MadMinor project so far.

So, what do you get if you take one of these;


and one of these;


and an angle grinder? Answer..


At least I will do eventually!



So anyway, the story is in the following pics. First prepare your bodyshell;


After which you will get a few bits left over, which you won't be needing any more;


Then you can set about preparing your rolling chassis - snow is optional;


As is a garage too small to fit the car in without chopping the front off (you won't be needing that bit anyway...);










You now have the main ingredients;


Trial fit them together;


At this point you can measure how much needs removing from the wheelbase - 9 inches was the final amount, which actually leaves the wheelbase a bit longer than a standard minor, but makes things easier to fit together.

Once you're happy, get cutting!






You should now have something that looks like this;


However, that still sits a bit high, so with a bit more trimming of the inner arches etc;




You get the body sitting just nicely on the chassis;


Now you can hang a few panels on and see what it might look like








And put the seat in to see if it fits (and maybe make some 'broom' noises, or is that just me?)





And finally, with a bit of help from photoshop, get a glimpse of what it will become


the pile of bits you no longer need has reached its full height


You can now turn you attention to re-fitting bits






And once you're happy with the way it sits, and that the major bits fit, you can put it together properly - starting with taking it apart




And from there in its just a case of putting some strength in it
















And so on.....








Then you can try some new bits on it













You can see pretty clearly how much the car has been shortened by. new prop is substantially lighter than the old one since it doesn't have the centre bearing or extra joints. Its also now rebuildable, just in case.



The mouting rails are profiled to the floor.



Since the 200sx is a lot wider than the minor, I've had to mount the seats as close to the trans tunnel as possible, so Ive used angle against the tunnel, and then added another side to make a U section out towards the sill.

With a bit of fiddling about, the seat is still reasonably central to the column though



And I can always adjust the column to hang a little further towards the centre of the car if I really need to.

The passenger seat was also tricky, as it's 50mm wider (I'm a skinny bastard, but it turns out Erika is not as skinny as she looks :no: ), so it really needs to be as close to the tunnel as possible and very low.



The shoulder 'wings' on both seats actually go under the lower window bar.



I've probably gone a bit overboard using 5mm, but thats what I had in my shed :thumbs: MSA regs state minimum 3mm for reinforcing plates anyway, and the side mounts with the seats are 4mm, so I'm not that far off. I may also put a smaller bar across the floor to tie them together and replace the standard nissan pressing thats been removed, but I don't want to over do it as I'm conscious of keeping the weight down.

While I was at it, I had a quick look at how the cage might fit, if it will get past the seats, and how much space that left me in the door aperture.




Blue book says between 1/3 and 1/2 of the door height (depending on which bit you read) as the max you can bring the braces up to, and this arrangement pictured is at about 2/5ths at the front, to tie in with where the dash bar will go. I don't think it looks too bad for access, as the low bit happens to fall where its needed - near the seat!

thinking about the best way to sort the boot floor was making my brain hurt, so I turned to the front of the car for a bit, and did this




Nissan have helpfully spaced the original mounting holes near enough the same as a standard aftermarket master cylinder, although the two cylinders are a bit further apart than would be ideal, but will be OK. Started on making the hole in the pedal for the balance bar assembly, but got a bit late to be making too much grinding noise.

There's a few other little mods that need to happen to fit the twin master cylinders, like filling in that big hole and modifying the spacers that are spot welded to the bulkhead, but it doesn't look like its going to be too hard. Once I've done it I'll post up a 'how to' showing what I did. In my opinion, anyone looking to turn their 200 into a track car should have this mod as one of their top priorities, since the reduction in weight is huge (I'll weigh the bits and let you know later) and the improvement in brake feel and response is immense when you get the servo out of the way.

cliffb75

Got the clevis extensions made up by my friendly machinist


Assembled it all on the bench to check it works


Then tried it in the car


Seems pretty good, but cant get pedal to the floor without some fouling on the pedal box, so there is still some tweaking to do.

Anyway, cracked on with filling the bulkhead. My welding is improving! (shame it wasn't quite in the right place though )



Got a bit late to do any more grinding, and I'm away for the weekend, so thats probably it until next week. I'm quite pleased with it so far though.

Oh and I weighed the bits. Old servo is just under 5 kgs. New mastercylinders and balance bar are just under 2 kgs :thumbs: Didn't weigh the ABS pump before I skipped it, but was probably going on for 7 or 8 kgs, so total weight saving of about 10 kgs and better brake feel and adjustability.

First thing was to finish installing the seat mounts. This was also basically my 'learning to weld' period. Only got pics of the drivers side at the mo (forgot to take any others ) It was interesting as the mounts are pretty thick, but the floor is obviously quite thin material, so I was able to keep the heat in the thick stuff and just kind of 'flick' the weld pool across to the floor to get a good join. There are a fw odd spots, mostly caused by poor fitting causing gaps that let air into the back of the weld, poor cleaning of the weld area (lazy worker ) or me just missing the spot I intended to weld Still, you've got to learn somehow....




After that I moved on to fabricating the boot floor. I'd been putting this off a bit, as I still didn't have it clear in my head exectly how it would go together. But in the end I had got to a point where I just had to 'have a go'. Its actually turned out pretty well so far, but I ran out of welding gas again, so this was as far as I could get today. Hardest part was putting the 90 bends in the long bit, without doing too much damage. Wish I still worked at the old place where we had a big sheet metal folder. Instead it was clamped to the bench and folded with a hammer and block of wood. Turned out pretty well though








I'm quite pleased with it so far. I'll get some more gas tomorrow and try and get it fully welded in this week. That little lot is 2 weeks of evenings and 1 weekend. The time is flying by......

So, have been getting on with a few bits. With the rear panels fully welded in the floor had shrunk and was not holding its shape properly, so I have added some stiffeners





Also finished tidying the seat mounts properly, and checked them for flatness etc



So this was how it has looked since the end of October



and the rear subframe was already out



So all that remained was to get the engine out of the way. I don't have an engine crane of my own, and since I was stripping back to a shell anyway I figured lifting the shell over the engine was just as easy

So first I removed the front suspension



and then after lifting the shell up high enough on some axle stands, rolled the engine and box out (they had been dropped onto a crawler board already)





Then seperate





and we have a bare shell ready to be rolled over for seam welding :thumbs:








Mmmmm holes........

Seam welding - no pics but most of the rear is done around the turrets and inner arches. The front turrets and engine bay was this Friday and todays work



My welding is improving, but still not great. It is solid though.

Unused holes in the bulkhead plated over


Scuttle repaired


Shell fitted to the rollover rig



My crappy welding improved upon


and all the underside stitched





With the shell out of the way I'm trying to crack on with getting the suspension prepared, starting with stripping the old subframe. Out come the bushes.


Over at Steve's some more progress. The front strut brace mounts are now welded to the shell


The tension arm mounts are also chopped and welded to the shell, and an 'IKEA formula) front powerbrace is fitted. I call it IKEA formula since it is fashioned from an old IKEA curtain rail


Rear chassis legs are closed to the boot floor


And the effect of the seam welding



And finally the dash is welded back in place



New outer sills


so that they are clean and straight for the sill extensions




Which will give me somewhere to attach my flat undertray



And thats it from Nov 2005 to 12 June 2007

If you want to keep up with progress, check the thread on SXOC, link in my sig.

Cheers for now

Cliff

Biggamehit

iTrader: (2)

NICE bro.... damn man glad to have you lol. i thought about asking you to sign up here, but im like ............ hes across the Atlantic Ocean lol..

frosti108

amazing! this thing is the most original RB powered car EVER

Biggamehit

iTrader: (2)

thats a CA18 bro

RuizXIII

iTrader: (2)

I ****ing love the UK
MAD MINOR sick as hell!!!!!

Great Great Great :Bow

SilviaVerT

Good Work!

Ayuaddict

amazing, thank you for joining!

driftpirate_s13

that is a very impressive project you got goin on. points for the orignality

jramosthe1st!

iTrader: (1)

i take my hat off to you for your work, but i'm afraid i just don't see the appeal.
it's original so i defiantly appreciate the work thats gone into it.

Initial Daniel

Wow, awesome. Thanks for joining. That's crazy man--I admire people with the skills to do what you're doing. If I could make my own car almost from scratch, I definitely would. Haha, thats so cool and it gives you a great sense of accomplishment after you've finished building something so hard.