What is it? (Spotted: rear engine TDI, custom aero body)

[mikeyjd]

Originally Posted by More air less fuel

The Seinfeld episode with Jimmie and his third person persona cracked me up, so I thought that I would have fun with it. I see that it didn't work....

Anyway, the car is mine, I designed and built it back in 1985-1987 and it's only purpose was to get great fuel mileage. It was originally powered by a 1980 VW diesel that I added a Rajay turbo to and ran about 9 psi of boost. It got about 65mpg at 65 mph back then. Now it has a 1.9 TDI AFN motor in it and gets 74 mpg at 60 mph. The tune that was in it was more performance oriented and dumped a lot of fuel during hard acceleration. Fun, but not as efficient. The newest tune is much cleaner, albeit not as fast. Engineering tradeoffs....
I made the body out of poly isocyanate foam board and covered it in glass and epoxy resin. The frame is a space frame made from 316l stainless steel. I know, what was he thinking! (I hate rust!) Front suspension is modeled after the Ford Mustang II/ Pinto set up, just copied it out of stainless.
The rear suspension is made up of the strut and brake/spindles from a 1972 Datsun 240Z. Front and rear have coil-overs. The engine/transaxle is in the rear as a mid engine layout. DLC PP520 injectors, VNT-17 turbo, water cooled intercooler, fabricated intake, 2.5 exhaust with Magnaflow muffler, tune,
thinnest head gasket, port clean up, unshrouded valves, air/oil separator, and I forget what else!
The windshield is from a McLaren, the door frames, hinges, and latches are from a 1967 Corvette, taillights are 1982 aftermarket Corvette, side markers are Ford truck, front directional are 1972 Camaro.
I designed this car on paper after being hit broad side on my motorcycle at an intersection by a drunk chic. Cops never figured that part out....my friend did.
I had plenty of time to do this as I was laying in a bed for a good part of a year with a couple casts on.
Hope that helps.

want to do a build thread?

[UltArc]

I have been intently following, and look forward to more information. Excellent work on the vehicle, it looks fantastic as a 2014 production model, let alone a home built 1985!

[mcrews]

wow!
just WOW!

[Xist]

The car companies cannot match a genius with a garage.

[AntiochOG]

Glad the mystery has been solved!

[igo]

Wow, very cool! This car is amazing! Love the corvette rear end

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

This is a fun mystery! Posted to the front page.

I'm sure I'm not the only one questioning the design behind the rear wheels, and would love to know more about the builder's thinking there.

The front & greenhouse looks great, but that "reverse slope" behind the rear wheels raises a red flag as far as conventional low-drag shapes go.

And the soot on the back? Doesn't look like a "Clean Diesel (TM)".

The soot is a giveaway that the diffuser is too steep,otherwise the flow would not allow the deposition.You can also see the separation line along the flank of the skirt in the side image denoting a rapid transition into the boat tail in plan-view.
The owner/team has gone 'deep' with the car.I hope it sparks much debate for those who see it.
The windshield alone speaks X-Prize candidate.Any high school or junior college team would be proud of such an effort.
And AeroCivic should be blushing.It's quite a compliment to basjoos.
PS Now that I've read deeper into the thread we'll have to figure where inspiration originated!

[aerohead]

More air less fuel,I'm ever grateful that on any given day,I can sit down to the computer and be rewarded with an image as rewarding as with your project.
Glad you popped onto the radar screen.
Life just gets better and better!

[More air less fuel]

I was 23 years old and working out of my parents two car garage. I had next to no money but lots of ideas...The whole thing was done by one guy with no help of any kind and went from idea to a finished car in 2.5 years. Looking back on it, I have no idea how I did that. The shape of the car just sort of evolved as I watched how snow drifted, the shapes of animals, airplanes and race cars. No computer, degree or any of the like.
The car is a bit heavy, weighing in at 2600 lbs. The gearing is custom, with first being as low as VW ever made and 5th being as high as I could buy in the aftermarket. The final drive is from a VW trans that had the highest they offered. I forget what it is, but 3.14:1 sounds right. It was from a CTN code tranny.
I didn't have any of the major tools required, like a TIG welder, lathe, band saw, drill press, etc. so I traded things like putting an engine in my friends dads Monza for an OLD Lincoln stick welder which I then modified to a TIG machine complete with pre and post feed Argon, internal back purge Argon timer, foot controlled amperage and start, high freq. start, and vent fan control. The little South bend lathe was borrowed from another friend that owned an airport. And on and on....
The headlight covers are made from vacuum formed polycarbonate, but I didn't have a vacuum forming machine....so I made one. It had 3 foot square electric heaters with resistance wire made from 316l stainless TIG filler rod, an old electric stove thermostat, two shopvac motors to pull a vacuum. It was the size of a minivan!
I needed a paint booth to paint it so I made that too. It was really nice, all made from OSB board, I had 4 feet of room all the way around the car to maneuver, second hand fluorescent lighting, old whole house fan and a ton of furnace filters. I even made an air supplied mask that piped in fresh air directly to my face mask from the great outdoors.
Had some quirky handling issue in the beginning but it turned out that the spring rate up front was to low, all better now.
There are many more stories to tell, just can't think of them all right now!

[More air less fuel]

I would add pics, but they are to big. How can I get around this?