I sustained water damage yesterday, but not from malicious actions. It was raining yesterday and I had to pay my mobile bill or my phone would be shut down, and there were ankle-deep streams over the sidewalks in places because drainage was directed that way, on purpose, because it was cheaper than installing a culvert to direct runoff under the sidewalk. This resulted in soaked shoes that are still drying out this afternoon. It was basically just drizzling so my hat was a little damper than desired and the rest of my clothes were only slightly damp. But my shoes are still wet, after I dumped the water out yesterday.
Because the Sprint-T design is almost frozen because of drivetrain choices and previous purchases, my mind wandered back to the TGS2 with a FWD drivetrain installed as a mid-engine, because I might get a free one. (Hey it still could happen). Basically I didn’t complete the front part of the frame for the center-seat design of the TGS2, and I didn’t like what I had very much in light of what I had for the Sprint-T. After considering pull rods and rocker arms I decided direct-acting coilovers mounted next to the kingpin would be lighter, and most importantly, less expensive. And I can make it more rigid that way than I can with pull rods and rocker arms, plus as the saying goes parts not on the car won’t break or leave you stranded. Or get out of adjustment and cause bad performance. So, no suspension rocker arms. The design for the TGS2 has the frame rails running through the top and bottom of the firewall area of the fiberglass body with the front axle 13″ in front of the firewall, which will look a little strange, especially with the frame members running from the top and bottom rails to the top spring mounts, but that is the closest it can get without hitting the body at full steering lock. Any further back will hit the original bucket and look really strange. I mean really, really strange, like cab-forward taken to the nth degree. Also the 13″ distance allows for placing the battery between the firewall and the front axle, next to the steering box. This helps the front-to-rear balance but is terrible for the polar moment. But the polar moment was pretty good (I don’t have the actual numbers because I don’t have a theoretical engine and transmission, but the minivan engine and transmission had pretty low numbers when I ran them back when I thought I was going to get them any day), so moving the battery from the top of the transmission to just behind the front axle doesn’t make that big a difference.
Another good thing about the TGS2 is automatic transmissions are easy to hook up as mid-engine installations. Just run a cable from whatever I use for a shifter and connect it to the shift arm on the transmission, routing to miss exhaust pipes and other obstructions. And by whatever I use for a shifter I mean I could literally use any lever I want to move the driver end of the cable as long as the housing is marked with the lever location for each gear and there is some kind of detent to keep it from moving out of gear if accidentally bumped. And the brake pedal assembly is much simpler than the clutch and brake pedal assembly. Steering is simpler because there is much less junk in front to route around. The main drawback is Goodguys might not let me compete and only do “demonstration” runs. 😦
Witch on a Bicycle 