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Building my Metro Supercar
Topic Started: Jul 31 2011, 11:28 PM (19,360 Views)
Coyote X


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So part of the plan is to put the entire front suspension of the Metro in the back of the new car. The first thing is to see if the the tires will even fit. Apparently a 15x10 rim with 7 inch backspacing is a bit much for a metro front suspension. It makes the 175-70/14 tires on the metro now look tiny :) So since I am going to have to get new rims I will probably go smaller than the steamroller sized tires the car uses now. I am thinking of using 245-50/15 tires to give me a good balance of looks and handling and not so wide it kills all the economy of the car.

Does anyone know the maximum backspacing that can clear the strut? I am thinking if I run 15x7 rims I can use 3 or 4 inch backspacing and be good. I will have to try and dig up a few random rims and see what I can figure out. I don't need steering since it will be on the rear.
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HelterSkelter
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#1 Pizza Driver

i have 15 by 6.5 with a 40mm offset and it fits just fine. i dunno if that's what you were asking, hope it helps.
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Coyote X


So after digging around for tire sizes forever here is what I think looks good

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CLL-9197806545/ for the rims and

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=BFGoodrich&tireModel=g-Force+Super+Sport+A%2FS+%28W-Speed+Rated%29&partnum=44WR7GFAS&i1_Qty=4 for the tires

that would give me 17x8 rims with a 5 inch backspace and 245/40ZR17 tires. That still leaves me a quarter inch more clearance than HelterSkelter's tires. It also means it is 5% larger diameter than the 14s I have now so I will really need the 4.11 gears to make it go. 2300RPM at 60mph seems about right to me.
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Coyote X


Does anyone have a spare set of mounting rods for the front control arms? Those heavy parts that are bolted to the frame horns and the front of the control arm is mounted to. I need a set so I don't have to cut them off my vert frame. I am trying to build my new metro without tearing up the frame I built last time so I can let someone else use it for a project car.
Edited by Coyote X, May 24 2012, 01:20 AM.
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Coyote X


Finally got to the steel shop and picked up enough stuff to get started building the rear frame. I got some 1 inch and 1 3/4 round and 1 inch and 2 inch square tube. That should give me enough to get the frame roughed in on the back. I am still not sure if I want to take the Pinto front off the body and rebuild it but I am thinking for now I need to just get it rolling. The Pinto is far heavier than the car needs now but it is on there and working. I will prob drop over 100lbs from the front rebuilding it lighter but for now I don't have time.

On a side note. My estimate of the weight of the car without the lead batteries looks like it will be just a tad heavier than the stock metro. So that is not bad. But to get the acceleration rate I wanted out of it that means I would need 35 gallons of hydrogen peroxide and 2 tanks of nitrogen. I know I don't have that much room so the car might not be able to accelerate quite as fast as I was hoping. Plus having 35 gallons of 90% hydrogen peroxide in the car seems a bit scary. Even for me. :) But on the plus side I would only need a 8 inch diameter nozzle so it would not be that noticeable maybe. And an exhaust velocity of 1200m/s means it would not be that destructive to anything about 30ft behind me.

I really need to quit thinking of crap to add to the car and just start getting it to drive under it's own power.

So I think my plans for it are basically in place for now.

1 Get the rear built and stick the motor in and run it gas only stock computer if I can find it, no hybrid drive yet. Hopefully have this part done by fall.
2 Get everything in the car working 100% Again, hopefully by fall.
3 Add the turbo and megasquirt. Probably not that hard of a job so maybe over the winter.
4 Add a hybrid drive system Next spring or summer at the earliest.
5 Add the hydrogen peroxide rocket. Distant future....

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Coyote X


I went out back and got the junk 87 turbo sprint out to see what I could figure out on it. Turns out there is nothing on the sprint suspension that is the same. Even the strut towers that I figured would be the main thing to cut off and reuse are different. So I put it back away and probably won't mess with it for a while until it is time to put the turbo on the car.

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I am going to have to either cut the strut towers off the vert, that means it mostly ruins the frame I built or I will have to make my own strut towers. if I have time tomorrow I will see if I can make a strut tower out of 16ga that I have laying around here. If that works out I am good.

I think I am pretty close to actually starting on this project so if the strut tower setup works out I will probably take the front suspension off the vert in the next few days and try and start building something with it. With 5 inch backspacing on 8 inch wide rims I know how wide to set the rear suspension and with that I can locate it all properly. I am debating using the stock axle on probably the driver side and letting the motor sit over to one side. That will give me plenty of room to mount the future electric drive system. I am not absolutely sure about that but I have plenty of time to deal with it later. I like the look of the sprint motor mounts so I will be using them on the car most likely if they are not bent.

So maybe soon I will have a rolling car.
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bogs
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Duct tape heals all wounds

Man I love the planning process :popcorn
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Coyote X


First step in trying to get the chassis rolling is to build the suspension parts. The first part I need is the top of the strut tower. So I pulled the suspension off the vert body so I could get a template of the strut tower.

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I traced out a pattern and cut and drilled it out of 11ga steel. It is 1/8 inch thick so it is more than strong enough to get the job done. I cut one out and test fit it on the strut. After I knew it was good I cut the second one out.

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Next I will be building the lower suspension mount. Then connect the top and bottom together.

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So with that post that ends the planning since I actually started taking my metro apart now. It is now official that it is going to get done. But that leaves me with one big question. What to call this thing? Calling it a Metro Supercar seems egotistical to me since it is still just a Metro :) Anyone got any ideas of kind of a name to give it so I can create a section on metroxfi.com for this stage of my Metro's life?

Also will the XFi cam fit in the 87 turbo sprint motor?
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Coyote X


Still leaving this project listed as uncategorized on my site until I can come up with a good name :)


Today I cut out the brackets out to make the lower mount for the suspension. It took a while to get everything shaped properly so I only got one side built. I will weld up the other side tomorrow. Once I get the lower sides built I can bend and form the connection between the strut tower and the lower mount. After that I can start working on positioning the setup properly on the car and starting on the rear frame.

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Coyote X


Went to start making up the second suspension mount and ran out of welding wire....

So tomorrow I have to get a new spool of wire. I was talking to Potter and we were thinking that if the XFI cam will fit the 87 turbo motor I might just use it. That motor has 60k on it compared to the 165k on my stock XFI motor so it would save me the trouble of having to rebuild it soon. I figure the turbo seals and prob front and rear seals on that motor are gone since it has been 15 years since it has been started but it looks real good so it should be possible to get it running again. Once I get a rolling chassis I will probably try to get that turbo engine running and if it runs ok I will just use it. Hopefully the car has no major problems that keep it from starting. I will find out soon either way.
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Coyote X


Building rear suspension

The last two days have been getting the car squared up. Since the concrete was flat and the lift arms were square it made getting it lined up much easier. I started by squaring up the front end and getting some chalk lines on the floor. From there the lines were transferred to the body and the rear locations could be measured easily. After getting the rear tack welded in place and using some furring strips to keep the strut towers in line I measured diagonally and across all the points already laid out on the floor and body. The farthest out of square of any measurement is 1/8 inch.

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After I got it tacked in and sitting square I cut and welded some tubes connecting it to the old subframe. There are some extra tubes that need cut off from the old rear end. But for now it is fine and I will clean it all up later. Right now the lower control arms are sitting right where they need to be and the upper strut towers are all that need to be located and welded in. It looks like the strut tops will have to be mounted about an inch lower than stock to clear the hood. I can cut the springs to get the ride height back to stock if I can't move the struts down lower in the brackets.

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Coyote X


More rear suspension work.

Today I got one strut tower located and some framing welded up to hold it in place. The passenger side is now located where it is supposed to be but it is not fully braced so it can’t support the weight of the car yet. The drivers side will be next. I also dug out a spare engine and transmission to see how they fit. I am not really happy with how the suspension is close to the motor. I might swap the suspension arms side to side and put them to the rear of the motor. I wanted them to angle to the front so they had a better movement when going over bumps.

I will probably go ahead and weld up the strut tower on the drivers side and get the rear sitting totally square and in the right locations before I change anything. I can then properly locate the motor in the correct position and see if I have clearance. If it is just the tube going down to the passenger side I can work around that pretty easy.

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It is coming along pretty good. Maybe in a couple of weeks it will have the motor in it and be a rolling car.
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Scoobs
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:D

Why is it that it looks like your engine is in backwards? am i missing somthing? or just not paying attention
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Coyote X


The motor goes in the back. When I carried it over to the car I put it in backwards to start with since that seemed to be the right direction :) It doesn't help the look either having the control arms on the wrong sides.

The motor is just sitting on a block and not actually attached to anything. I just wanted to see how it looked and if it would fit in with that tubing I put in. Once I get the other strut tower built I will probably pull the XFI drivetrain and mount it in the right place. I am hoping there is enough slack in the axles so I can just bolt them in. I will probably have to cut them and add a section most likely.
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idmetro
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Wow! I am sensing the need for a road trip to observe this amazing transformation in progress. Looking GOOD!
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