SkinnyG's Lotus Lethal Locost: Readers Rides: Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

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Readers’ Rides:
2006 Lotus Lethal Locost
Added on May 19 by SkinnyG

Locost Se7en using a 1986 AE86 Corolla GT-S as a donor. Based on Ron Champion’s “Build Your Own Sports Car for £250 …and Race It!” The car is licenced and registered as a 2006 Ubilt Super 7

The chassis was built by me - 1” 16ga square tubing. Most of the aluminum was bought from a scrap yard. I started making a buck to make my own nosecone, but after spending 100 hours of shaping, and pricing out fiberglass and resin and hardner, etc…. I bought the fenders and nose from Curtis Unlimited out of California for $500. I painted it at work using a cheap-o spray gun and single stage paint (there would be inevitable rock chips - I built it to drive it). Spray-bomb box liner eventually went on the leading edge of the rear fenders.

The seats are made from marine vinyl, some 4” foam I took from a rotting tent trailer that came with my house, foam from a wrecked Hyundai, and scrap plywood. The dashboard houses the Corolla gauge cluster as well as lights and wiper switches.

The engine was re-ringed and new (Toyota) bearings. I shortened the driveshaft myself (e-gad!). I fabricated my own intake manifold, still using the factory fuel injection, fuse panel, diagnostic connector, etc. The radiator is from a Hyundai Excel, with the fan mounted in front with the fan blade reversed and the motor wired backwards. Fueling comes through an Ebay 8 gallon plastic tank, to a Mr.Gasket low pressure electric pump (which has a short life span, it seems) into a surge tank, which feeds an external fuel pump from a Ford F-150 pickup.

The brakes are Chevette calipers up front, Datsun 210 hubs and rotors, the rears are Corolla GT-S. Brake pads are Porterfield R4S. I am running twin Wilwood master cylinders, a balance bar and an adjustable Wilwood proportioning valve.

For the street I run Sumitomo HTR 200’s on OEM steelies. For autocross I’m running 13x10 Aero wheels with Goodyear Formula Atlantic fronts in 20x9.5x13 R175 compound. They might be a bit too large.

I have a bikini top that clips onto the windshield and attached to the roll bar, and a lockable vinyl-covered plywood “hard tonneau” for the back.

For transport, slicks are attached to a threaded pipe, and then cable clamped onto the rear deck and roll bar.

The Lethal Locost was driven all the way to the Canadian Autocross Championship in 2007 in Pitt Meadows and back (900km round trip) with nary a problem (except unloaded everything to refill the 8 gallon fuel tank every 375km’s)

Total cost: $5700.
Total time: 2-1/2 years.
Total weight: 1275lbs.

In 2009 I removed the factory Toyota fuel injection, and ran MegaSquirt II v3.0. I lopped the plenum off and adapted a set of GSX-R/600 ITB’s, Ford EDIS and a wideband O2. This was a significant improvement!