Things that would have made the book better

[Chris Gibbs]

Well.

I'll try to sort some of this out

The dimensions of the car. Hmmmm I can't remember someone asked and I went out and measured the car but I don't have it these days, maybe whoever asked noted them down or someone with a completed car (or nearly complete) could measure it? The track is the same as the Sierra at 1468mm so the overall width will be about 1800ish.

Performance? with the 1.8 pinto at 86bhp and a weight of about 550kg it was no ball of fire but plenty fast enough for normal road use, I'd say 0-60 in about 6 seconds and a top speed (limited by the aerodynamics) about 125mph.

Metal working, it's difficult to pitch the amount of information to complete beginners without insulting the intelligence of the more experienced. I decided to take a middle course. I think that to take the reader through a complete metalworking course was beyond the scope of the book and much of the work is pretty straight forward, it's a matter of knowing when to stop. I'm sure nobody wanted to trawl through six paragraphs describing the drilling of a hole! The way I saw it was that it was likely that an experienced metalworker would make the plates from the drawings and someone with no experience would have the parts laser cut. Now there would be a lot of people who fell between these two types and I tried to give enough information to let each individual decide which path to take. I personally could easily have made all the plates but if I were building another car I'd ask John at 3ge to cut me the plates because of the time involved.

There wasn't space in the book to detail all the alternative donor parts. Each individual part would need to be analysed and Ideally a car built using the parts. There's a domino effect of changing parts too, a change of upright means different geometry, different wishbones and possibly different pick up points. Suspension should really be designed from the wheels inward, although compromises can be made, the suspension should be designed before the chassis to optomise the pick up points. In essence the book would need another 2 chapters for each donor.

The forum was always intended to be run along side the book and I made the decision to help anyone who decided to use a different donor on here for the mutual benefit of everyone. In hindsight I could have provided basic dimensions for the GRP parts but honestly I don't know of any builders that are making their own glass parts, Fabby's are too nice!

With regard to the CAD drawings, Haynes see them as comercially sensitive, and I have to say that I agree. I understand about the computer analogy but what these computer authors are supplying are essentially tools to enable end product, the Roadster drawings are the product. The chassis has been redrawn by book purchasers and I don't have a problem with that but If electronic versions had been available, and knowing the workings of the internet, I don't think we'd have sold as many books and I give a lot of money to charity or something.....

As I said it was always the intention to run this forum as back up for the book and we did have most of the stuff pinned down. Unfortunately we were the victims of a childish, cowardly attack but we're much better placed now, with so many builders, to answer anything that comes up (fingers crossed!)

Oh, and welcome

Cheers

chris

What would really have improved the book would have been naked ladies, each one more naked than the last......

[dooner02]

cheers for drawings and "pics" ash ahem. i agree about the amount of info. chris, besides if you don't know how to cut metal, should you really be building a car. doesn't mean you can't learn though there are plenty of cheap courses out there and there is always da interrweb...

[baz-r]

one thing i do find real odd it there is no datum point and refrence points to check over your build of the chassis as you build and to check everything afters
we could use say the rear side of br11 and center line for all the front rear placements
that wonky chassis i got of the bay gave me right brain pain!

Always work from the centre line and If I was you I would set the front section as your datum and work things back from that....if nowt else you will end up with a car that has equal wheelbase (a lot don't).