The Roofus Special

I think the fact that you are using a front bumper makes a big difference too. Looks much better in the front.

Flipper_1938 said:

I could use those inches on the front end now. At 100" wheelbase, the front end looks a little too thick and stubby.

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Is there a specific reason you are using exactly 100" wheelbase?

BigIrish said:

Is there a specific reason you are using exactly 100" wheelbase?

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100" seems to be the magic number for old racecars and sportscars.

Also, if I keep the car small, the 15 inch wheels will look OK (not great, but OK).

i agree w/ your conclusion on the flatbeds-his may be shiney-butyours looks
RIGHT!!!

hotrod preacher said:

i agree w/ your conclusion on the flatbeds-his may be shiney-butyours looks
RIGHT!!!

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Making Roofus look RIGHT is what I am after.

Having nice pieces doesn't automatically make the car nice. It all has to fit together and look like it is supposed to be that way.

Flipper, I love watching this build! Tremendous work, I've always wanted to build something similiar but have never tackled it. However, speaking as a previous safety manager at a shop, please tidy up that work area before you hurt yourself

Old Gold said:

Flipper, I love watching this build! Tremendous work, I've always wanted to build something similiar but have never tackled it. However, speaking as a previous safety manager at a shop, please tidy up that work area before you hurt yourself

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I've ever been accused of being a neat freak; neither has Dad.

I just hate to waste shop time cleaning up. I don't have a garage where I live. The shop in the pictures is at my dad's house...which is 250 miles away from my house. I drive four hours each way to go play with my toys.

Rather than completely trashing the car to try and get the motor to fit under a track nose, I am going to stick to the original idea for the car and copy the little blue/gray 1930 RALLY that was pictured earlier.

Here is a front view of a similar car.

Personally, I think the type of nose on the Rally that you pictured would look better on Roofus anyway. I know it's all subjective, but that's what I think.

Not that it matters but I'm with Gastrick on this one.

Hey, that's a cool picture! I'd love to take that little car for a drive. I'm with the majority; the roofus will look great with a grill like that.

No pictures to post, but I spent the weekend playing with front end parts. Mostly taking the jag front end apart amd cleaning everything up. Looks like I need to replace lower ball joints on both sides. I also picked up a manual rack and pinion from a Toyota Tercel from Pull-A-Part this morning.

Still sorting out what I want the A-arms to look like.

Are you making your own control arms?

Gastrick said:

Are you making your own control arms?

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Yep. I am using the jag spindles, brakes, knock-off wheels and making everything in between. I hope they end up having the feel of the Miller-Ford Indy car that I posted a picture of, way back when.

This car actually has IFS and IRS. Mine will just have IFS

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Keep up the good work. This is an awesome project.

The Miller design for the control arms aligned the arms with the center of the wheels due to the fact that the Miller arms encased the drive axles. Top arm dipped down, the bottom arm dipped up and hid under the top arm.

Since I don't have to work around front drive axles, I am thinking about "dropping" the control arms....lowering the attachment point on the car and the upper control arm would come out flat like miller's design and then bend up the outside end to attach to the spindle. The inside end of the upper arm would also be raised up (inside the bodywork) so that arm geometry would be closer to parallel.

Anybody see a real problem with this idea? ...other than the fact that the upper arm will need to be beefy?

Another idea for IFS

I-beam shaped upper and lower control arms that will mate to the jag spindles and use a "traditional hairpin" as strut rods to control front to back motion.

If the arms were close to equal length and close to parrallel, would a single hairpin live? or should it be two seperate links?

I'm not possitive Flipper but I believe they would have to be seperate. Tha margin for error would be very small on running single hairpin. But it would really depend on how you mounted the hairpins to the arms, there would have to be movement capability. The more I think about this the less sure I am. HMMM Great poser.

I went looking for pics to get me fired up again about this project. I found some more Rally pics....