Stownsen914's car, Let's see some pics Options

[ThePaintedMan]

Hey Stownsen914, you've done a lot of work to your car over the years, but I've never seen any pictures of it bigger than your thumbnail. Can we see some details of the car?

[sixnotfour]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) ive called him out before,,,,no pics... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/thisthreadisworthlesswithoutpics.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thisthreadisworthlesswithoutpics.gif)

[stownsen914]

Sorry for the delay guys. I seem to be caught in Apple icloud password reset Hell (it's where I keep most of my pictures), but I just found these from a PCA club race at Monticello ...

Here are some of the car with most or all of the bodywork on. In the first and third pictures, the thing sitting on top of the roll cage is the engine cover that has an integrated headrest fairing.

The rear shot shows the diffuser I made for the car a few years ago. The lighting isn't great, but you can see the outline of the diffuser if you look closely. I had to move a lot of stuff in the rear of the car to make room for the diffuser. The car is flat-bottomed in front of the diffuser with aluminum sheet and a carbon diffuser at the front.

[stownsen914]

Some details about the car:
- Started life as a 74 914 that had the usual rust issues. I stripped the chassis, fixed the rust, and welded in a roll cage and lots of additional tubing to triangulate out to the suspension pickup points.
- The bodywork is mostly custom fiberglass or carbon that I made or modified. I made a mold for the front clip, which is based on a 935 front piece. The doors and rear fenders are modified 914 pieces. I also made a tonneau cover over the passenger area.
- The scoop you see protruding from the engine cover is a modified piece from a formula car. There is a carbon airbox under the engine cover that leads to the intakes.
- I redesigned the front suspension using a suspension modeling program called susprog. Then welded new pickup points to the chassis, and made new A arms and shortened struts according to the new dimensions I came up with using susprog. I modeled the rear suspension as well, but haven't gotten around to building that out yet. For now it has reinforced 914 trailing arms mounted to raised pickup points.
- I moved the pedal box forward about 10 inches and moved the seat forward, lower, and leaned it back to about 45 degrees to put driver's weight where I wanted it. I moved the steering wheel and shifter as well.
- The engine is a 2.7L six that makes estimated 260 hp. I spun a rod bearing at the 2015 Monticello PCA race where these pictures were taken, and haven't rebuilt it yet.
- The trans is a 901 with custom gearing and pressurized lubrication to the gears and R&P, and also an oil cooler. Current gearing is GA-KA-P-S-U, which has been a good compromise for the NE tracks I usually drive on, with 2nd through fifth (and occasionally first) usable on track.

Here are some "naked" pics showing details under the bodywork:

[jd74914]

- I redesigned the front suspension using a suspension modeling program called susprog. Then welded new pickup points to the chassis, and made new A arms and shortened struts according to the new dimensions I came up with using susprog. I modeled the rear suspension as well, but haven't gotten around to building that out yet. For now it has reinforced 914 trailing arms mounted to raised pickup points.

Very cool! Thanks for sharing pictures and details! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

What did you do to the front suspension? And what were your goals? Just out of curiousity if you wouldn't mind sharing.

I've been lucky enough to have access to Lotus Shark and modeled the whole suspension. I'm more of a powertrain controls kinda-guy, but it seems like it would be beneficial to move the strut tops inboard, lengthen the control arms, and remove the added camber from the spindle [while raising it] in order to tame the camber gain curve (somewhat) and modify scrub radius. The caveat being that bringing the inner pivots too close messes up bump steer.

My build is "street-ish" and I've been considering narrowing the strut towers and building new front struts from scratch with bolt on spindle (like a 944 of other car) which would allow some independent tweaking of the KPI and wheel camber with inserts. Then adding on threaded perches to remove the torsion bars. Seems like a shame to cut apart 5-lug struts when they are so valuable.