MINI LITE'S: Race Car

[Tut]

Please visit Mini Lites official site for more details and information
http://z15.invisionfree.com/MINI_LITES


Mini Lites our selling these frames. If interested contact me.
Frames starting at $650 for standard frame & $800 for race frames

SUSPENSION FABRICATION PACKAGE
(All your suspension parts/bungs/heims/bulkheads/rear housing/tie rods/spindles/front & rear arms all built for you)
$2,000
This Includes:
Front bulk head & bracing.
Front Spindle kit with combo spindles
Front 1 1/4 bottom & 1" top, A-arms custom width/length/size with threaded bungs already installed to be used with 5/8 heims.
Rear Custom width 1.5 tubing by .250 wall thick Pivot tube (torsion housing) with 3/4 threaded bungs in the ends.
Rear trailing arm pivot brackets & bracing installed.
Rear 1 1/4 inch trailing arms custom width/length/sizes. with bearing carrier flanges with brake brackets built in.
They also come with threaded bungs for use with 3/4 heims & inner pivot bushings.
Complete Heim Kit with 18 heims, 18 Jam nuts & 28 High Miss alignment spacers
(Steering Rack & Shocks sold seperately)

The buggy can be built from 8.5 to 9 feet long depending on your motor and racing preferences.
It is under 6 feet wide to the outside of the tires and has a wheel base between 85 to 100 inches.
Again depending on what your going to be racing etc. the car can be set up for you.
It has 18 inches of front wheel travel and zero bumpsteer and 18 inches of rear wheel travel also.


Current photo of car so far:














The current specs on my Mini Lite are as follows:
-Car is under 9 feet long front bumper to back.
-70 inches wide, outside of the tires.. must not be wider then 72"
-95 inch wheel base which is the max for class
-Engine... not purchased yet but must not be greater then 800cc
street bike engine.. so looking into GSXR-750 motor?
-18 inches of wheel travel at all four corners
- 4.5 inches of ground clearance at full compression
-running a spool and sprocket for now.. need more cash flow to uprgrade to a full rear diff set up and FNR... But built in room to upgrade later.
-Full 930 race gear and rear micro stubs.
-26.5 inch tall BFG all terrains.. after motor and set up I may go larger in the rear as I think I will have the power.
-DOM 1 1/4 lower .120 wall A-arms with 3/4 outer heims & 5/8 inner heims at the bulkhead
-Top arms are 1" DOM with all 5/8 heims
-Chromoly 1" with 5/8 heim tie rods
-Rear traling arms are 1 1/4 by .120 wall with 3/4 heims and 3/4 outer bolts and 7/8s inner pivot bolts.
-Front end weight at each wheel 220 lbs each.
-Rear (without motor) 210 lbs per wheel. (no motor)
-Total Weight as a full roller minus motor/radiater/battery/wiring/brake & clutch/throttle lines and computer cpu etc.
860 lbs currently as a full roller. Thats a complete roller with wheels/tires/brakes/floors/pedals/seat/body/6 shocks & coils springs/Hid front lights/rear brake lights/brakes/bumpstops/fuel cell (no fuel)/front rack and steering with shafts and well everything you see and then some.



Current build log...
Please check back and read my entries on how the build is coming along.
You can follow along and see images of this car being built and post comments and questions if you like.

Info about this build:
I have wanted to build a mini single seat buggy for racing for awhile now.
With my 2 seat a arm frame design completed and with me being very happy with that design I set out to copy that into a much smaller motorcycle powered single seater.

I looked over the specs put out by a lot of people, race organizations, and especially the info on minibuggy.net and took all the info I could and then took what I know and enjoy working with and now have 3 note books full of info and drawings of designs.

So with that and with my own ideas, ease of building in my own shop, cost of over all fabrication of parts needed and all kinds of other factors I set out and built my mini single seat frame based off my two seat frame.

I have set up a new fixture table to build two versions of this frame.
The first #1 my frame shown here. It is larger and has a larger motor compartment for a bigger engine etc. and will be built for desert racing with the ability to hit the pro motorcycle powered class at places like Glen Hellen or Parris etc. It will have larger everything including wheel base, motor, tires, well everything really.

The other version #2 is going to be smaller for stadium racing and will have a 4 inch smaller cab and 6 inch smaller motor compartment for running a smaller motor, cvt and parts. It will be a more true stadium built buggy.

The frames will not be much different in Looks but the parts and motor etc. will be the biggest changes. The smaller frame and changes from desert to stadium style will save you approx. 23 pounds just in the frame already though just to give you an idea of size.

Basically I took the style and shape of my new 2 seat a arm car I just built and made it into a very small single seater.

But a couple things had to be built into this frame. 1 it had to pass rules for racing in the local organizations I race with. So they all use the SCORE rule book and 1.5 inch tubing is the only size they allow. So I needed to design it small enough but yet use 1.5 tubing. As I have watched Protodie build several cars in this size and asking him for info I was able to build my frame to pass SCORE rules.
(More X bracing and gussets still to follow this is just the main structure at this time)

2 it had to fit in the size restrictions for a "Mini Buggy" as posted by everyone on this site and most organizations that race mini buggies so I could race it at and against other minis. Not just at the track but also with the organizations I already race with.

So I thought a lot on it, took notes talked to people and built my frame to be 9 feet total front to back with an approx. 90 to 95 inch wheelbase. That should work out well for what I want. I can build it shorter both in size by half a foot and have a wheel base 85-90 then. Or go longer by half a foot and be upwards of 100 inch wheel base.

I plan on racing it in a pro or open class so suspension is open and motorcycle engine will be around the 1,000cc range. It will need it as this will be a little heavier car. Safe but heavier.

I am using a front single bulk head for the front part of my A-arms to connect to and the rear part of the a-arm will mount to my main cage support bars. I have played around and done some mock up work and am about ready to get started making some well more mock up arms but some that can actually hold up the car. They lay to the back a couple inches from the bulkhead to allow the a-arm to almost swing back with the rake I built into the front end to help the ride. Should work well.

Im at 18 inches front and would like to maybe 16 inches of travel rear and be about 72 to 76 inches wide. I can be as wide as I want for where I race but for short course I don't want to get to crazy.

The rear is going to be swing arms. Simple, easy to set up and adjust plus plenty strong. Also I am going to run the same bearing carriers and parts as my 2 seat car I just built so it can be both a pre runner, chase and well donor car should the need arise.

Back I am hoping for maybe 14-16 inches of travel.. the 16 is yet to actually work.. but will see. 14 seems reasonable with the 26 inch tall tires and at the 72 inch wide range, plus a narrow center drive sprocket with 930 cvs will help. I will run coil overs and a small bypass just to have the ability to make on the spot adjustments at a track and actually during a race even if I want to change how the car handles for each track I go on.


Here it is next to the 2 seater


and side shot showing the 3 foot shorter size and no I did not slide the car back it really is that much shoter.



it without the photoshop body.



another angle




Something I did why I built this was set up its own fixture table.
I made this table slide into the bigger table so the two tables fit together.
Then the single seater sets into the new table and you build it to fit it.

Here is a pic


here it is without the closed in body bars. Just open like my dual sport car is. It can be left open but I wanted to close it in like desert cars do and other cars do too.


You can see it clamps into the 2 seat table and has adjustable heigth mid rails. Nice.

Also when I want to pull the car off the table the side mid rail fixtures you just pull a pin and they drop down and out of the way.


I also played around with some different bumper ideas


and the finished frame




Thanks for looking more info will be added as I get to it.
Also if your interested in the stadium or short course car you can see the post and talk about it here in this topic.
http://z11.invisionfree.com/Tut_Tech_Racin...p?showtopic=264

Thanks.

[Tut]

Well I managed to fit in a couple hours and ran over and picked up the front bulkhead plates I had cut out for it. Then some material for the front arms and enough heims to mock up the front.

So I started mocking up a pair of arms. I didn't want to be to far forward as I think a car rides better if the a-arms are to the rear a little it may dive a bit under breaking etc. but I think the trade off is worth it for a smoother ride all the time and some drop on braking. At least I think.

So here is what I mocked up so far.
Front bulkheads plated together, bracing going up and out.
A-arms mocked up 1.5 inches to the rear of straight. Then just enough room for a full size rack to squeeze in behind the bulkheads and then once I put that in then finish bracing the front end.

Well once I liked the arm I went to the trusty mock up table I had made with all the holes in it and set out to make a quick fixture to hold my mock up arm in place. Then I could make 4 new arms to correct specs.


Made the arms the same from left to right all you do is flip them over for whichever side your running and add a set of tabs for the lower arms. So I could carry one spare bottom & one spare top and then wait if I damage one just weld on the shock tab for whichever side it ends up being if its a bottom and if it's a top just bolt it on. Done.

Here they are in place on the car.


These are DOM 1 1/4 by .120 wall lower arms and 1 inch by .120 wall uppers. We will give that a try for starters on a single seat car I think I am going to be ok. Will see.

This car is all set to be 72 inches wide depending on size of tire and rims I go with.

Thanks for looking more updates as I can add them.

[Tut]

Ok was able to make up one of my rear trailing arms.
(Not fully done but good enough to put onto car to set it up. As this is my desert car also I went about as long wheel base as I felt I should. Total wheel base is 90 inches and I am going to be 72 inches wide.)

Here is a quick pic of me making the arm on the fixture table.


Ok mocking up rear trailing arms pivot tube and rear arm. The pivot tube is 1.5 inch tubing by .240 wall. I think that will hold solid and add some strength and great support to this little buggy and its rear arms.





Thanks for looking.

[Antioch]

Tut

Looking good.

I am really looking forward to how it turns out & what kind o speed you are going to get out of it.

Bob

[Tut]

Thanks Bob.


Just to try to give a scale shot here is a quick pic of this new smaller frame next to my old 31 inch BFG tires taken from Kitt, which measure 30 inches tall sitting next to it.



Sheesh makes it look like one of the King of the Hammers Rock Crawling buggies.

But you can see how much smaller it is I hope in that pic. I will be going with some 26 inch tall probably Maxxis Big Horn UTV tires at this point.. Seems better and as you can tell it needs some smaller UTV tires not car tires. Plus this buggy is 10 inches longer then the smaller short course or Stadium buggy version. So just think of how much smaller that buggy will be.

Also here is a pic of the front arms now hooked up to the front spindle.. well part of the spindle I still have to put it together. Cool. Just cycleing it to see what my clearances are with the heims I get 20 inches of free movement with steering working. Just wanted to see with the heims laying down I wanted to make sure they did not bind to soon. That is plenty and I won't come close to that when the steering is hooked up and shocks are on so I am good to go.

[Tut]

Some updated pics.








Thanks for looking.

[Tut]

Ok so I set up the light bar with a strut rod with left and right threads so I can do quick adjustments of the entire light bar. Makes it much better then trying to adjust each light one at a time. Now just crank the strut rod and all your lights quickly move up or down. Nice.




I am using some cool little 4 inch HID lights for it. The light bar will hold 4 of those small lights and I will have 2 more on the buggy at all times.


(I will only need the light bar for night races or playing at Glamis etc. other wise I will just run 2 of the small HIDs on the car and pull the light bar off.)


Now on to the good news.
I was able to set up and work on the front suspension.
I set this car up really different then my other cars. Different a arms, rack in front etc. and I set the car up to run the same size shocks front and back so should I need a spare, need to switch, or whatever I could be all set with just one size and type of shock. So that went well and worked great.

Plus the best news of all is this little buggy did way better then I thought and has almost 18 inches of wheel travel with Zero bumpsteer! Nice.. I never thought it would get so much but it did. Thats awesome.

The best part is it has 10.5 inches of droop and 7.25 of compression. So this means with the 26 inch tall tires im running I will have 5.75 inches of ground clearance minus some compression from the tires. Again wow super nice. Great little buggy so far.

Front showing the new set up


couple more pics





Well hope to start on the rear end in about 3 to 4 weeks. Lots of stuff going on over the next 3 weekends. So won't get to do anything major for a bit. We have the racers picnic next weekend then prep Kitt for the race and then the Sept. 11th race. So little busy.

Anyways cool thanks for looking.

[Antioch]

Tut

Have you got a better idea what you might be using for an engine yet?

Bob

[Tut]

Right now no I don't have a motor picked out. I had almost a 700cc Raptor motor but didn't work out.
I am looking for something a little bigger for this car anyways as it is the bigger version and can use the extra power for it's larger size and weight.

So I am still waiting to see what I end up with now at this point.
I would like the quad motor for example as it has a good gearbox with lower gearing and closer ratios already set up for dirt and the Yamahas and some others have built in reverse. So would be a good choice. I think that would be a great choice normally. Or any quad size motor etc. actually for those reasons.

But for now motor is going to be kind of towards the end of my build as I have so much more to do for now until I reach the point that I need it.
So I will continue on for now and keep working on it.
Something will come up in the size/power this buggy will need.


But on the smaller, lighter not built so big car you can use almost any size motor. Think of this car as my 1 up size so I can work on it easier, test it and get it all dialed in.. then race and proove it is well built and going to last.
Then people will know theirs will hold up for the smaller stuff after I take it through the smaller stuff and then out into the bigger stuff and really put some abuse on it and thousands of miles on it. That will be the true test of how well it is designed and built.

Thanks for checking in on it and asking questions I appreciate it.

[Tut]

I haven't had much to post while I was working on my bigger dual sport.
But why I was working on my other car I did order some parts and what not.

Here is what came in the mail the other day.


Thats Protodies rear carrier and it is super nice, super clean and really well done.
Next to it is the bearing carriers and 930 cv cup and axles I am running with it.

I have some more parts too so I will be getting back to it in a couple more weeks. My wifes Powder Puff race and other stuff going on right now but soon I will be back at it.
I am waiting on the sprocket I ordered because I need it to check clearance height for mounting my carrier so my sprockets don't end up sticking in the dirt. I want it protected by my skid plate.

So just waiting on that and then I can start mocking the entire rear section up. Then mount shocks, see what I end up with for wheel travel etc. and then make it a roller.


Well thats my plans anyways. Thanks for looking.