1984 Ford Laser KB - Rover 3.5L V8

[drewowner13]

great work you guys! ... wats the finishing deadline or when would you like to be finished??

this is gonna be a quick little car

[accomotors]

Hey Drew, we're hoping to have it on the ground rolling by the end of August but hadn't really thought of a deadline for completion. Hopefully we can have it moving under it's own power by the end of the year. As I've said before we're building it concurrently with my HQ historic touring car which is at a bit of a stand-still at the moment while I wait for some parts to arrive, so once that is going again progress may slow slightly.

Thanks for the support, keep watching!

[Toyzda]

Considering I got flak from a couple of you about questioning the front end I will word this to sound encouraging. I will consider it equally as hasty of me commenting on an unfinished project as it was thinking you have solved the geometry issues. I appologise if this still sounds rude, but i am just concerned.

I am glad you are learning as you go. Have you checked your roll centre with the acheived ride height? You may need to modify the inner pick-ups on your subframe or the outer on the hub? Have you worked out a desired roll centre to acheive? How is the static bump steer with the modifications? What about the dynamic bump steer due to the increased caster and KPI? These are some very important things to keep in mind when designing front suspension. Thinking and planning these (and more) things into your build now may take longer for the car to hit the track, but may save you time and money chasing problems that lay within the chassis design.

[toranaracer]

Ah, like the old days, just build it the best you can with what you know.

There will be plenty of time to fix up the mistakes, just get out there and have some FUN! B)

Too many good cars with perfectly calculated geometry still sitting in sheds!!

toranaracer.

[MrBoost]

Is that the finished control arm?

[accomotors]

Thanks for the input there Toyzda, we do appreciate every bit of advice and help and I didn't mean to jump on you last time. To be honest we hadn't thought of half those things you wrote there. Many of them I would have to research just to know exactly what they are! We pretty much just thought of what we could make up that would both locate the upright and provide up/down movement. We added the adjustment in because we could and because it gives us at least some options in final wheel alignment. If we were chasing every tenth and looking to run right up front we would certainly be using a more scientific approach.

Toranaracer has it in one. Build it up with what knowledge we have and what we are learning along the way. To be perfectly honest if it runs and drives at all that will be a MAJOR acheivement as far as we are concerned! Not looking to break any records.

Control arm isn't finished MrBoost, we will remove it and finish welding everything up properly. Pretty much just to get it in there and working at this stage.

[Toyzda]

Well I really recommend some light reading of any good race car engineering books. The Carroll Smith series are the easiest to read and very very good. If there is one thing that I cannot recommend enough if getting as much bump steer out of the car as you can. It will make your driving experience far more enjoyable.

Simply, bump steer is the toe change that occurrs throughout the suspension travell. This means having bump steer on a car that is cornering or going over bumps (ie: whenever you drive it!) changes the angle of the front tyres without moving the steering wheel! Not fun!

[accomotors]

Hey guys, thanks for the support and tips. We checked the bump steer beyond the projected suspension travel and it is zero because the rack and the suspension pivots are on the same plane. That was a fluke so we're glad it happened that way.

After a few weeks we finally have the diff in the car. Hopefully next weekend we can move my HQ out of the way and roll the thing out (if we can get it over the hoist, it bottoms out on the floor hump at the moment).

First off we supported the diff on a cabinet to put it at a more workable height where we could get underneath and around and see where we were at. We lowered the car onto it and just cut away everything that was getting in the way of the wheels and everything. We also beat the hell outta the stuff that was really close to save on cutting and welding.



We then were able to measure the distance for to make the lower control arms. We are using a regular fore-aft trailing arm design using 2 lower, 2 upper and with an XF Falcon watt's link for lateral location. We are using the factory Laser lower arm mount points as well as the existing diff lower mounts for ease of construction. We used the same design as the front arms with the large threads and nuts for adjustment. After construction we will probably make another length off the same arm to pickup on the other side of the diff mount. This will work for now for location and for to get the car rolling.



Cut a seam weld off the lower box sections and beat the hell outta them too to make some clearance. Next up welded in a square box (same as the box in the front) to weld the pickups for the upper trailing arms. Because the car is so low and we are again using the factory pickups on the diff the arms would have to be inside the existing passenger compartment. After the box was welded in it was a simple case of measuring up for the location of the upper mounts.



We raised it back up, pulled the cabinet out and that was it. The diff doesn't hang too low because the upper arms bottom out on some of the floor we haven't cut out yet. Looking forward to cutting some of the floorpan outta the front so the wheels can turn and seeing if we can get it rolling back and forth. See how we go.

[drewowner13]

great work guys... caint wait to see it on the track

[Stevedat]

Good onya guys for havin a crack. Me and my old man are starting a similar project soon involving a certain datsun 1200 coupe and a leyland p76 v8 (very similar to your rover). and very similar engine placement.

GOOD LUCK
Might be able to join each other on the track one day