Bought the domain midlana.com, the future site for Midlana builders. Granted it’s early but I didn’t want to find the domain gone if I wait. Looking into various forum software packages, I’m not sure what I’m signing up for, probably hours of removing spam for enlargement devices, Nigerian bank offers, and on-line pharmacies, lol.
The garage is filling up, with few nibbles but no offers on Kimini. I realize it could be a long time before finding a buyer; I need to get off my butt and start advertising more seriously. I figured I’d post it here first to give longtime readers first shot at it, but all it proves is that the Internet will beat a path to your door – as long as everything’s free. So I’m going to start showing it at the “Cars and Coffee” event in Irvine, CA, where some very expensive hardware show up, along with some rather wealthy car nuts. That venue should be good for finding buyers.
A buddy said I should have held off buying an engine (which will always be the case.) He said the one to have “today” is a direct-injection turbo engine. The big advantage is that there’s no detonation (no fuel in the combustion chamber until needed), so a turbo 10-11:1 engine has very little lag. Oh well, there’s always something better that’ll come along. Eh, I’m fine with what I’m doing, and like I said, there’s always a better engine next year.
I’m reminded that I’m leaving out project details again. It’s not on purpose, I simply forget to include them. The suspension uprights are Miata all around. While they’re not perfect, the reality is that they’re widely available and affordable. Going through the design process with Kimini taught me how make things easy to build. While Kimini has excellent suspension geometry, it’s because the front uprights were heavily modified and the rears fully-custom fabricated. That’s fine if you don’t mind spending weeks and weeks making them, including using a lathe to fabricate bearing cups to an accuracy of 0.0001″. However…
That said, I’m not sure I like the Miata rear uprights. Even as I work through the front suspension, I’m eyeing them with more of a glare than satisfaction, especially the top mount. In the Kimini book I note how some builders used bolt-on rear spindles – and how much easier that is than making bearing cups. In fact the latest Locost book specifies fabricating rear uprights using bolt-on Ford Sierra hubs. I’d use something domestic, but I’m torn between making the car fast and easy to build and slightly slower to build but having better rear geometry. Of course the question becomes, “How much better would it be?” I’m certain enough of my, um, uncertainty about the Miata parts that I’ve already ordered a different pair of rear hubs that bolt on. This allows making a fully-custom upright with the pick-ups where I want, unlike the Miata parts that force the issue. It’s too early to tell which path will be taken, and so you see some of the endless behind-the-scenes dithering going on. Again, whichever uprights don’t work out, back to Ebay they go.