FIREBALL'S not a 4wd project (4AGZE sandrail)

[FIREBALL]

Well, as many of you know I got rid of my runner, so here's my new project already underway.
First a little history. Before I built my runner I started an MR2 project. After while it became clear that not only was it going to be more work than I really wanted to get into, I probably wasn't going to be able to smog it when I was done.
I bought the MR2 off ebay. It was in so cal, so I had to go pick it up. The guy said that it hadn't run in a long time, but everything worked great on it. I ended up borrowing Marlins car dolly and his truck to bring it back up as far as Fresno. On the way home I hit a dip at the bottom of an overpass outside of Bakersfield and the MR2 started fish tailing. The car and Marlins toyota were waggin back and forth at 60mph. I thought for sure that I was going to roll his truck. Anyway, got it to Marlins shop and had BigMike help me get it fired up. Was running a little rough when we noticed oil running from under the car. Started looking closer from underneath and found where the #3 rod had ventalted itself through the side of the block.
So, long story slightly shorter, I bought a complete front clip from a Toyota Levin and had it shipped over. This is the ae92 1600cc dual coil supercharged motor.
After deciding that I wasn't going to finish the car I got the bright idea to build a rail. So onto ebay I went again. I found the frame in Oregon for $350, brought it home and started building.

So here are some pics of how it's comin. The first thing I did was cut off the front so I could make it a longer travel front suspension. The previous owner had also started to lengthen it to make it a 4 seater, so I cut out his extensions too. I am going to try and keep the car at or under 10ft total length.
I used pvc to mock up how I wanted to bed my bars.

[FIREBALL]

starting to get the first tubes bent up and working on the suspension ideas. Captain Morgan and I have been spending hours debating the best way to set it up.

[FIREBALL]

Radiator mounted, motor mounts tacked in and more of the front coming togeather.....

[FIREBALL]

Most of the major front tube work done, starting on the suspension. Waiting on the Fox Air Shox so I can build the mounts.

[FIREBALL]

Rear cage for the motor tacked up, just need to tack in the last motor mount.

[FIREBALL]

Couple more pics of the front.
Now i'm gonna have to get BigMike up here to help me clean up some of the wiring.
Another couple of weeks and I should be able to pull the motor, finish weld everything, clean it up and start painting it. At the same time i'm going to clean the motor up and try and get it down to only the necessaties.

Here's a pic of what it might end up looking like.

[Hottrod81]

I love sand rails.  They are a lot of fun but can be dangerous.  A bit of advice, get rid of those plastic seats and get some good suspension seats.  I broke my back in a sandrail 3 years ago and I was sitting in the same type seats you have.

[FIREBALL]

How'd you do that?

[gotrocks]

wow fireball this looks like its gonna be fun.  Got a question though.  What are you going to run for CV's.  Will T-100 CV's work.  I know thats what they put in the long travel pickups but I don't know how you'd mat that to a MR2 Tranny.  Anyhow keep up the work man.  It looks like its gonna a handful when you get done.

[BigMike]

[Marlin]

Looking great....

Just a quick side note
I just heard of a pvc-metal welder that can now fuse hollow structural tubing [pvc pipe] to extruded ferrous bar stock.

However, this process will only work properly in higher elevations and requires windy conditions that at times have been known to blow over trees that could fall on grey Toyota long bed 4x4 trucks.

And just one other comment. This process has possibly been blamed for at least one home owners garage that just blew up and cracked other structures in surrounding neighborhood.

Other than the above comments;
Looking good dude

[Hottrod81]

How'd you do that?

I did it going over a drop off in Pismo.  Probably wouldn't have gotten hurt with suspension seats.  Just wanted to make sure you didn't have the same thing happen to you that happened to me.

[FIREBALL]

Mike, don't think you're going to get off easy.....i'll hunt you down!

Marlin, thanks for the info. I did research "pvc-metal welder", however I thought that the front would be too light with that combo, causing it to pass long ass red toyota's in the snow and in turn having the jealous driver of said red toyota run into me. I'm also still a little twitchy about loud noises so we'll opt to not have anymore garages explode.

Gotrocks, I haven't totally decided what to do about that yet. Because the toyota transaxle is offset the axles aren't going to be as long as most of the long travel cars. I'm kinda thinking about having jesse at high angle build some d-shafts with slip yokes. This way the geometry wouldn't have to be perfect and it would be easier to deal with than cv's. But i've got to do somemore research.

[lilbuddy]

This process has possibly been blamed for at least one home owners garage that just blew up and cracked other structures in surrounding neighborhood.

Haha the funny thing about that is that I know about that and it was right next door to my aunts house and it knocked down all of the stuff on her walls.

Looks pretty sweet Jason. I think next time I am cruising around in Paradise I am going to have to check it out for myself. If you need any help give me a call and I can come up there to give ya a hand. Its not like you have ever helped me or anything though so youll have to owe me 

[FIREBALL]

Ya, you've got to come by so I can check out that new rig too.

[FIREBALL]

Hey, BigMike.....what about that header? What other header will work on this motor? Will any na 1600 corolla header work?

[kneedownnate]

I just hafta say it...forkin sweet

Did you get your levin halfcut through jarco or local? 

That looks like the buggy that kept showing up on craigslist down here, was up in medford I think

I totally wanna build a buggy with atleast a corolla gts/mr2/fx16 engine.  Lookin good man!

[FIREBALL]

Can't remember the company name I got the motor from. BigMike hooked me up with the guy. Yep, the Levin was the full front clip.
I picked up the frame about 10months ago in Sheridan, Oregon, a little north west of Salem. Gotta love ebay..$350.
Thanks for the props!

[6.72:1]

This should be fun!

[FIREBALL]

   hope so!

[FIREBALL]

Well no new updates yet. Just got some more of my heims in the mail and i'm still waiting on the Fox Air Shox. Mean while I took a little trip for some motivation....... 

Should be back at it this week.

[Shamb]

I'll leave the "going fast stuff" to you.

I prefer the slower speed activities so IF the chance of a roll over it'll be somewhat of a "controlled roll"  or.. atleast I hope!


Looking good, can't wait to see the finished product.

On a sidenote, did your 4runner ever sale or did you end up keeping it?

[FIREBALL]

Sold it awhile back. Got pretty much what I was asking and the last I heard the guy was happy with it.

I know what you mean about the roll overs but after 15 years of going slow I felt the need for speed. I'm building the rail so I can get my speed fix and still have a belt and cage. I'm hoping that will keep me from doing stupid stuff on my quad.

[FIREBALL]

Finally got some time to work on the rail again today. Fabed up the a-arms and spindles. I still need to order the spindle spuds but at least I can see if everythings is going to move freely and the steering is going to work out the way I planed.
Here a couple of pics, sorry about the blury one. The last few show the travel. I can actually get some more out of it I just need to clearance the spindles around the steering heim joints.
Now i'll build the other side and hopefully the Air Shox will get here so I can build the mounts and re-enforce everything as needed.

[FIREBALL]

 

[gotrocks]

looks good so far.  Do you have an idea now your exact travel.

[FIREBALL]

Well, i've ordered 14" for the front and 16" Air Shox for the rear. Depending on how I mount them I figure i'll have at least that much respectively, but i'm thinkin it will be more. (especially up front)

[gotrocks]

Very nice.

[86bobbedtoy]

love the 4agze (supercharged 4age) I have had several mr2s and always loved the motors how is the rear suspension? are you going to just weld up the mr2s suspension with different struts? also are you going stock cvs They will break call up husk brothers in oroville ca (530)533-5890 and they can get yours rebuilt with new bearings and a new 200+ hp bearing cages for under 300 total including shipping.

[BigMike]

Jason,

Where the upper and lower front bars attach to the frame, you should make the vertical distance between the two shorter than the vertical distance between their opposing ends out at the spindle.

If the bars are perfectly parallel to one another, then it will minimize any progressive camber, depending if the bars are equidistant to one another.

Keep the lower bar as you have it now, but drop the top bar down a bit to create the difference.

This way, it will induce progressive negative camber which will help with hard cornering when your suspension cycles.

It's nice that your trailing bars can alter the caster (will effect your toe at the same time), but what about your roll center? With your triangle setup, it will take a lot of work to control the roll center under hard braking if it is not set right the first time.

Think like an R/C buggy and then build a 1:1 R/C buggy.