Oh I thought your were going to simply use the front and rear subframes. Your ambitious to take the hard way!
Oh I thought your were going to simply use the front and rear subframes. Your ambitious to take the hard way!
I love those wooden control arms so much.
I am only using front suspension from the Lexus. The rear is an 8.8 with 3.73's and LSD out of an Explorer, that I bought at the 2016 Challenge swap meet. The plan is 3-link + panhard bar. In fact the heim joints from eBay just arrived yesterday. All 8 heavy-duty 5/8" heim joints "pulled off a race car" for $34 shipped!
The engine cross-member is tacked in, so I started building the engine mount platforms. The stock Lexus mounts will sit on a universal through-bolt cushion, which sits on a 1/4" plate welded inside the angle between the cross-member and frame rail. This whole time I was balancing the engine on a floor jack and 2x4 to keep the correct height.
Trans cross-member is next, then I'll take the engine out and weld everything up. After that is the hard part - control arm mounts.
Love it. Hopefully not a dumb question: Will you be 'gusseting' that 1/4" plate to the frame?
It's hard to tell in these pictures, but the edge 90 degrees from frame rail side (with the paint arrow pointing to it) will weld to the cross-member. The 1/4" plate fills the corner created by frame rail and cross-member. There will also be a reinforcing rim around the opposite edge of the plate. Tomorrow's pictures will be easier to understand.
Are you going to be able to get the oil filter in/out?
Looks like it's going to drain out onto your cross member if/when you do.
In reply to Crackers:
Like a Saturn! 
Like a lot of cars. My GF'S Dakota actually has a small plastic "gutter" under the filter so it doesn't dump all over the front cross member.
However the actual drain plug hole will pour directly on top of another more different cross member if the front end is jacked up even slightly higher than the rear. You know... ...like most people do to change their oil. To make it extra exciting there's a small lip on the edge that makes for an impressive fan-like wave of hot oil that makes you drop the plug and watch hopelessly as you watch the oil spill all over while you go inside to treat your burns.
Cross-member and engine mounts welded in. I might add a gusset on that free edge of the mount.
I feel lazy now. Must finish cleaning garage so i can catch up
Crackers wrote: Like a lot of cars. My GF'S Dakota actually has a small plastic "gutter" under the filter so it doesn't dump all over the front cross member. However the actual drain plug hole will pour directly on top of another more different cross member if the front end is jacked up even slightly higher than the rear. You know... ...like most people do to change their oil. To make it extra exciting there's a small lip on the edge that makes for an impressive fan-like wave of hot oil that makes you drop the plug and watch hopelessly as you watch the oil spill all over while you go inside to treat your burns.
So one of these for the oil pan...
and one of these... (in the 8 5/8" wide tractor size)
Good to go.
maschinenbau wrote: Cross-member and engine mounts welded in. I might add a gusset on that free edge of the mount.
Could you run a 1" strip all the way around the edge? Cut it to length, bend to fit. It would stiffen up the whole mount. Whether or not that's necessary, I don't know.
Or an oil filter relocation kit, which gives you the opportunity to add either old fashioned looking copper lines or fancy AN lines.
I plan to bypass the goofy angled oil filter housing and thread the filter straight into the block. Then the oil drips just behind the engine mounts. You can by a specially-made part for $55, or just use a short piece of threaded tube. This gives me more space to use the nicer, bigger V8 filters too.
Mazdeuce, I will probably add a triangular gusset on the opposite edge parallel to the cross-member. The rim around the edge might collect water, and I didn't leave much room for a weld bead on one of them.
When I read a strip around the edge I was thinking he meant on the underside rather than the top, shouldn't be able to collect water if you do it under instead of over would it?
that said, seems to me the bending force of 1/4" thick steel should be absurdly high relative to a lot of custom engine mounts I've seen so you likely don't need much of anything besides a bit of gusset on the outside.
I was also thinking down, but that was mostly because you would be the one welding from underneath. 
Has to be on top unfortunately. The mount plates are pretty flush with the bottom of the frame. It's probably fine without the gusset, but would be so easy to add.
I am a literal structural engineer running a few FEAs as we speak, but I refuse to do math on this car because that is work. I like this whole "winging it" thing.
Oh, and the frame flips over pretty easily. It's still light enough to carry around the garage.
So it looks like I should add one below that connect to the cross-member. The gusset-to-frame provides negligible stress reduction. The gusset-to-crossmember has an incredible effect.
In reply to maschinenbau:
Bravo! Interesting approach. Looks 'bout right is often mine. This is mightily entertaining, as always.
In reply to maschinenbau:
Oh getting all fancy now! Interesting the difference in gusset direction makes.
Everything about this is awesome.
Great work man, keep it up!
That whole "I'm not going to run FEA" thing didn't last long, did it?
Guess I'm not parking my DD inside until the front end is sitting on tires. Also my garage is now infested with little fishies.
Here's my method
They are so cute
Threads like this make me feel like a lazy sack of potatoes. I think I'm going to go change my car's oil so I feel like I'm not a complete failure at being a gearhead.
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