Just to stir the pot a little.

As I get closer to doing some actual cutting and welding, I have been really pushing myself to think outside the box and make sure I am starting something that I will not grow bored with in a year. I do most of it in my head and when an idea really sticks I sketch and/or model it to see how it would translate into reality. Somehow, in the process of working on a side-view sketch of a sedan concept I remembered the Deco Rides cars Gokart posted - the wheel pants in particular - and ended up mentally flying across the salt flats. As my mind tore across the dry lake beds the body parts started blowing off and before I knew it I was staring at a side-view sketch of a bare-bones belly tanker! Spend a day with me and your life will never be the same again

I was intrigued enough to play around with it in 3D. The particulars include a whopping 130 inches of wheelbase, a transverse powertrain spun 90-degrees to twist a conventional stick axle, full tubular chassis with the main rails and rear suspension busting through the sides of the body, narrowed Fiero front suspension, and back to a tandem twin-seating arrangement. I thought about trying to keep the three-seat deal but it would interrupt the flow of the tank-style body. I haven't cut the cockpit or engine out yet. I just made a quick belly tank and slapped it on one of my pre-existing model chassis. I didn't follow the shape of the common P-38 tank either - I did it my way! I wanted a long radical taper back into the pig of the stick axle, that I emphasized by truncating the rear end of the body for the driveshaft to flow out of. The mock-up SBC motor is just there because it already was there. Ideally there would be a fat-n-sassy Northstar exploding out of a small opening. Big DOHC heads just kind of hanging over the sides of the body, and maybe eight tall Hilborn-style injection stacks reaching for the sky.

Am I changing the plan and doing this? I don't know. Right now I am just having a blast thinking about it; which makes me wonder if I should be thinking more seriously about it. Then I began to wonder what the PFF crew would think about it?

Careful, peering into my imagination is a slippery slope...

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toddshotrods.com - wanna ride?
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[This message has been edited by toddshotrods (edited 01-17-2008).]

sorry again...

quote Originally posted by toddshotrods: The particulars include a whopping 130 inches of wheelbase, a transverse powertrain spun 90-degrees to twist a conventional stick axle, full tubular chassis with the main rails and rear suspension busting through the sides of the body, narrowed Fiero front suspension, and back to a tandem twin-seating arrangement. I wanted a long radical taper back into the pig of the stick axle, that I emphasized by truncating the rear end of the body for the driveshaft to flow out of. Careful, peering into my imagination is a slippery slope...

Transverse powertrain mounted sideways with stick axle...
hmmmm........

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all wheel drive......

[This message has been edited by Gokart Mozart (edited 01-18-2008).]

It probably shouldn't be legal for us to talk about cars That's a BIG car! Not quite in the league of the Blastolene cars, but pretty substantial...

AWD crossed my mind, but not in the cards - this time.

The chassis in the belly tanker model posted above is already partially built and sitting in the shop. Actually the narrowed Fiero suspension was originally being done for it. Earlier this week I stuck it back in front of the chassis, approximately where it would be at 130-inches, and then propped my pedal assembly up in front of it; with the master cylinder hanging directly over the axle centerline. This set up look awesome, and was also a part of what led to the belly tanker sketches and modeling.

Today, I decided to stick the 31000/4T60E in place (spun 90-degrees, as mentioned) to see what that would look like. Pretty nice actually, and the narrow 60-degree V6 would actually work well with the narrow tank body. I had this thought of turning a tranvserse powertrain to drive a sick axle before and have done a little more research on it recently. I found out that a 35/35 tooth sprocket set is available which would put the motor and transmission at the desired 1:1 ratio. ALl I would have to do to make it work is fabricate a replacement for the final drive that converted it to 1:1. It would be really cool if I came up with some type of quick change type of assembly that would allow me to change the gearing for the street, drag strip, and salt flats. As for driving the stick axle, the forward output would be eliminated and a conventional driveshaft would run diagonally from the rear output to the rear end.

I am going to try to clean up a little next week and post some pics of this mock-up. My shop is a wreck right now because I am doing some "spring cleaning". The goal is to get rid of everything that isn't absolutely necessary. So far, I have gotten rid of a good bit of stuff and made a HUGE mess.

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toddshotrods.com - wanna ride?
crazy projects, features, articles, art & more

------------------
toddshotrods.com - wanna ride?
crazy projects, features, articles, art & more

If you're looking for opinions, I'm thinking the 3 seater would be the way to go too. You could build the Pontorpedo later. Sister cars, sit'em side by side at shows. Of course, you'll need a second driver. Dibs.

-fh

[This message has been edited by fierohobby (edited 01-19-2008).]