12/22/11

Ok, so I mentioned the N600 yesterday, right? Well, here’s the poop. Last week some time I walked past one of the Mules that the facilities guys use around campus and glanced at the wheels. They reminded me that I have a set of super bitchin’ 12” wheels that came with the N600. I shot John an e-mail asking if there was decent rubber available for them. He sent me a link to some 215/50-12 Innova tires for $74.00 apiece. I haven’t ordered them yet but it is all I can do to stop myself. Here’s what I'm thinking for the car: the front suspension from a Datsun 1200 has “huge” brakes, compared to what the N600 originally had, and they ran 12” wheels. They should fit. As for the rear suspension… well, that’s where I'm a bit murky. I'd like to just plop a 1200 rear axle in there and bada bing, bada bang, we’re done. However, these wheels are such a CRAZY size and offset that we’re going to have to flare the hell out of the thing just to cover them even if the suspension width doesn’t increase. I think a stock 1200 axle would be too wide. Ok, narrowed 1200 axle? Possibly, but I'm not so sure I want to go through that. Of course that is moist likely the way we will go, but I'd like to explore other options right quick. Ok, so it is really only “option” rather than “options” but… whatever. So, the other option is an independent suspension. This was actually my original thought when I asked about the 12” tires. I was thinking inboard brakes, you see. Ideally we’d put one rotor and caliper on each side of a Hitachi R160 differential, but then we started thinking, “Why not just one rotor and caliper on the driveshaft?” Hell’s bells, it could even be right at the output flange of the transmission! Sure, in a 100%/0% traction situation the 0% traction tire would spin backwards and little to no braking would occur, but any time both wheels have even a teensy bit of traction it should work. Besides, the rear brakes don’t really do a whole lot of work anyway. Ok, so now I'm thinking that a narrowed 1200 axle is the right way to go so that we’d have a “balanced” system engineered by pointy headed pencil pushers who have forgotten more about brakes than I will ever know. Plus, that will get us a parking brake. Ok, I just did a little research and found that the 1200 rear axle is 1245mm wide… or at least that is the advertised track width. The N600’s track width is 1148mm. That means we’d have to trim a 1200 axle 97mm total to get it under an N600. 97mm is about 3.8” so we’ll call it four and say, “Chop out two inches per side.” Of course that is assuming we can get a 1200 front suspension tucked under the nose at the stock track width. Hmm, I guess what we’ll have to do is get the engine located in there, finger out how the front suspension is going to fit, then decide how much to chop out of the rear axle. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Actually, now that I think about it some, I doubt I would use the 1200 suspension as it came out of a car. Here’s what I'm thinking now. Take a 1200 strut and cut the tube off somewhere north of the cast knuckle. Fabricate an upper ball joint attachment, basically a stud pointing out the top, for a Heim joint. Build a set of upper control arms with said Heim joint as the outer apex. The lower arms can be regular 1200 lowers and T/C rods… probably. Although a set of lower arms that the lower ball joint bolts to wouldn’t be all that tough to build. The coil over shocks could pick up on the arms and go up to the regular strut towers in the chassis… if they still exist when the engine goes in. Have I mentioned the engine? We bought a wrecked Honda Gold Wing bike last summer to use as a donor for the engine and transmission. We fingered that since the bike used a driveshaft, it would be the simplest solution for our problem… well, once we decided to go rear wheel drive of course. Sure, we won't have a reverse gear, but the car won't weigh more than 1,200 pounds soaking wet. It should push pretty easily. I'm going to install a pair of grab handles on the “B” pillars and label them “Reverse.” Hmm, what is that, way up there in the distance, ahead of this horse? Oh, it is the cart! Yeah, I just sent an e-mail to a hot rod shop right down the road from my shop which does axle narrowing. Wait a tick! John just reminded me about that narrowed Toyota AE86 axle we had floating around for so long! If we still have that, I'll bet it will be perfect! And we can get just about any ratio we want from George. Unfortunately I think I sold the limited slip 4.11 it came with. Crap. Oh well, we think an open differential would be better in that short and narrow of a vehicle anyway. Hmm, interesting. Well, this project is dangerously close to becoming a front-burner, I need to tap the brakes and concentrate on Nadine before we go off halfcocked on this new bunny trail. So, on that note I think I'll call this a rant and go have lunch with Larry.