I'll have to divide the project into four major parts:
1) handling and rigidity
1b) safety (ties into chassis rigidity)
2) weight and aerodynamics
3) power and drivetrain
Weight and aero
I'm thinking I'll start with the weight and aero first, because it's something I'm familiar with. Won't be going AS crazy as I have in the past, but the thought has occurred to me that the battery should be down the back. I'm going to focus less on raw weight, and more on weight distribution. When I'm going to be adding things like a turbocharger, half-cage and other bits of metal to stiffen the chassis, losing 10kg of sound deadening becomes a pointless endeavour.
The vehicle will need undercar air effects similar to what I had on my VQ but with a couple of major differences:
1) I want to be able to remove it QUICKLY for the regular service the car will require, and it needs to be FAR more extensive.
2) The undercar air dams will serve dual purpose as a barrier between dirt and the engine bay
3) It's all going to need to be layed out with black-and-white blueprints, so I can recreate any damaged sections without too much hastle.
Handling and rigidity (also safety)
Luckily the majority of the suspension work is done in the course of getting the car roadworthy, so we're halfway there. I've had to make BIG compromises between what I want, and what is practical. Ideally, I'd love the car to be sitting up on tall coilovers wrapped around bilstein adjustables, but the reality is that I'm going to be BREAKING suspension components, so a $800 set of shock absorbers is probably an unwise investment. I'm going to have to make do with stock, cheap, readily accessible components, and attempt to do as best as I can with that.
The standard suspension can be improved to cope with the rigours of off-road work though, largely through reinforcement of major pivot points, and major linkages.
The rear trailing arms are going to have to come off for boxing, and I want to tie some of my cage work in the boot into the areas of the floor pan that these arms (and the panhard rod) bolt up to. Somehow try and bring it all together gracefully, without having bars poking out everywhere.
I'm going to throw an extra length of tubing between the front extremities of the K-Frame to square up the front end, along with a strut bar, and some bar work back from the strut towers in a triangle, moving through the firewall to another bar hidden behind the dashboard - the idea here being to square the strut towers off with the A pillars, and somehow make that front section sit more rigidly on its own.
For street legality reasons I'm going to have to hide a lot of this, and I'm not going to be able to go full-cage style - probably only a half cage cleverly disguised with... well... I'll worry about that later.
I'm considering at this stage doing a little front-end reinforcement to protect the radiator in the event of the inevitable whoopsies, but we'll see how that goes ^_^
Power and drivetrain
TARBO LULZ
Yeah, less because it's a reliable way to make good power, and more because I havn't done it before, and I'm really keen to throw a conrod.
I have grand plans to hide the turbo under the standard airbox. This may require cutting and raising the whole airbox panel up a couple of inches, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make ^_^ I REALLY want this thing to be as stealth as possible, and I'm sure I can do it. Block hugging pipes, TIGHT cooler work, and maybe even moving the radiator back a little bit if I have to. I think if I get the right sort of cooler core, with the right dimensions, I can work it all in there. I've spent hours staring at the subframe and guard area around the front, and I think if I do it cleverly with something the size of a T70 or thereabouts, I can squeeze in everything, and bring the piping up through the standard airbox area, and around to the throttle body without anything immediately appearing out of place
At the end of the day, nobody's going to know if the panels have all moved a little, the radiator is further back, the fan shroud is shorter and bits and pieces have been massaged for real-estate
I wouldn't mind a quick bolt-on nudge bar to protect the front left area while I'm out on the dirt, so something like that will be on the cards - if not for actual development, for at least a bit of investigation.
tldr; stuff gonna happen, just have to get it rwc first ^_^
IF you actually took the time to read all that, I do apologise, it's just easier if I get all my thoughts down in words first, then I can look back and pick things out as I get the motivation
ALSO: if anybody has any tubing that would be appropriate for cage work, or sections of 3mm metal that I could use for boxing control arms etc, let me know - I will need some down the track!!
An exciting year is ahead!
Morton.
