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Old 03-05-2009, 10:14 AM   #12 (permalink)
Coyote X
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Southen West Virginia
Posts: 654

Metro XFi - '93 Geo Metro XFi Convertible
90 day: 62.17 mpg (US)

DR650SE - '07 Suzuki DR650SE
90 day: 55.26 mpg (US)
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Some considerations to look at are strength, weight, and reliability. Using an ATV suspension will give you a light weight setup that is not that strong or reliable. Having driven/owned ATVs for years I can tell you they hold up to 5-10,000 miles of use and are pretty much done for. The ball joints and other pivot points are just not made to last that long. The brakes on them are usually undersized to start with and they make up for it by going to softer pads. So typical easy use you get at most 1500 miles on a set of brakes. The cable operated brake systems on some of the older ones are junk and would be really dangerous on the road. Hydraulic brakes are much easier to maintain and use.

Motorcycle brakes are usually bigger and will last longer. You could probably get 5-10,000 miles on a set of pads as long as the total weight was around 750lbs. Motorcycles will have a lot better suspension reliability so it might be possible to use them.

If you want a setup that is light weight(for a car) and reliable the main choices seem to be a VW beam front end or a Mustang II. Both of them are pretty light weight. Places like Jegs and Summit sell complete Mustang II front suspensions that use light weight parts if you can't find one at a junkyard. Any custom made parts will also wear out over time so you will have to make new ones as the old ones wear. So using existing parts as much as possible saves a huge amount of trouble later on.

I guess a lot of it comes down to what you ultimately want the car to do. If it is going to be driven for 20 years and last 200,000 miles it needs a totally different design than one that is just driven occasionally and mainly just to see what you can push the limits to. Designing for long life means it will end up looking and acting much more like a standard car and end up being heavier than you want. It is far easier to find existing car parts that do what you want and adapt them onto your frame than try and make anything and have it reliable.

My first car I built was using lots of custom parts and parts of a dozen different cars. It is nearly impossible to work on it without using a welder to just make something else fit since I can never find replacement parts or even half the time remember what car the part came off of to get a new one.

My second car was much better, it stayed 100% Metro parts at the expense of making it heavier and less flexible in overall design. But I can pretty much go anywhere and get parts to fix it. That makes a huge difference if you plan on driving it daily.
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