Berzerkley wrap up?

GLCs are pretty hard to find too. How about a 929 with a LS1 Miata as a running gear/drivetrain donor?

walterj wrote: I like the outline that goes: -ridiculous idea -plan for idea -implement plan -resolve things overlooked in plan using any means necessary -race the result I like it because it nobody knows going in what comes out the other end.

Oh, you're gonna wanna follow our wartburg build up then, sounds like our recipe to a tee.

I just got back from looking at a fire victim C4 corvette because it has the same wheelbase as a wartburg. Sadly it was too far gone to be useable, but what fun it would have been. Back to our original and equally odd build plans for now.

Let's face it: it was the automotive equivalent of "hey Bubba hold my beer and Watch this...."

So just how was this thing to drive? Was it pretty fast?

Ya know, maybe if they'd just had one more beer....

what was the real "failure" ?

looked pretty awesome when i saw it 2 years ago, frame only, and looked even more awesome when we saw the trans blow up.

AWESOME

i think it needs more you-tube videos

Famous last words:

fastmiata wrote: "hey Bubba hold my beer and Watch this...."

I second the You-tube vids!

The experiment is not a failure if the hypothesis is proven wrong.

confuZion3 wrote: So just how was this thing to drive? Was it pretty fast?

I didn't drive it because I have a family that loves and depends on me, but it was... evil. Not eVil, just vicious. Tom, who also has a family that loves and depends on him, but is a man so was sure nothing could ever happen to him, DID drive it and said, "Directional control was more like a suggestion." The wheel lift in corners made me recheck our insurance policies and rehearse what I would say to Rhonda, his wife. (I settled on, "Uh, Rhonda?" then just running the hell away as fast as I could as the best response.) At Ocala it posted H Stock MINI-ish times because it really couldn't be, you know, driven.

If failure is success, then that thing hit it out of the ballpark.

Margie

Marjorie Suddard wrote: If failure is success, then that thing hit it out of the ballpark.

That got a chuckle.

So you built a very expensive front engined go kart.

Nothing wrong with that.

My fastest time at Ocala was a 41..which is about the same as my HS MINI on street tires.

The real cool part was the massive direction change when it would get on its cams. Which was followed by violent torque steer back the other way...and then back again the other way. It's about the only car I was ever unable to keep going in a straight line on a straight.

....And that 2-wheeling shot in the magazine that Tommy took was at a surprisingly slow rate of speed. It was actually kind of fun to balance it up there like that. But, it limited how quickly you could corner.

I'm hoping Steve Eckerich sorts it out—he's reengineering the rear suspension considerably.

Clearly, Per, you didn't study the tapes of the in-car communication between legendary NASCAR coach Dan Amon and prodigy driver Curtis Rutherford at last year's Sears Classic.

Rutherford: 'Is this straight enough?'
Amon: 'Straighter!'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG2OcW_Hwkg

DILYSI Dave wrote:

Marjorie Suddard wrote: If failure is success, then that thing hit it out of the ballpark.

That got a chuckle.

Not from me.

Denny, I gotta say, Superman has his cryptonite... you got Berzerkeleyed.

John Brown wrote: Denny, I gotta say, Superman has his cryptonite... you got Berzerkeleyed.

You're thinking of cryoing brake parts, Superman had his Kryptonite!

carguy123 wrote:

John Brown wrote: Denny, I gotta say, Superman has his cryptonite... you got Berzerkeleyed.

You're thinking of cryoing brake parts, Superman had his Kryptonite!

Superman needed a retirement didn't he? The newspaper biz is in the crapper and all.

dcrabill wrote:

DILYSI Dave wrote:

Marjorie Suddard wrote: If failure is success, then that thing hit it out of the ballpark.

That got a chuckle.

Not from me.

Hey, I'm not casting aspersions on Denny. We handed him an impossible assignment, and he did some very cool things with it despite the unrealistic plan. Not his fault we wanted him to take something with virtually no wheelbase or track, add lots of horsepower, and then make it handle. Stupid physics.

Margie

Exactly. The car is cool not because of how well it works, but because of what was done. The differential article was awesome.

I was very impressed by the entire series of articles. As a reader, and potential challenge builder, I'd like to know what, specifically, went wrong? Was the car just too narrow? Was it the drivetrain layout that dorked it up? Was there a specific geometry issue that was causing the handling madness? Etcetera, etcetera.

If it's at all possible, I'd love to see short or long updates as the new owner (presumably an expert?) sorts the chassis out. I wanna know, how'd he fix it? Could he fix it? What dimensions had to change?

It seems the key editorial value in a failure like this is to clue readers in on what not to do, and specifics towards teaching that lesson would be invaluable, even if it's just a few words every couple issues or so.

So far, Steve has discovered that what we thought was a reasonable rear roll rate was essentially near zero. The actual wheel rate of that rear anti-rollbar (which was the only roll control in the rear with a monoshock in the center) was under 100lbs/inch. Steve is adding two seperate motorcycle shocks/springs on each side of the rear axle.

He's also been working with the steering, reducing the amount of play (which contributed to its odd direction changes) it has between the steering wheel and wheels themselves.

He also found that the front uprights (cut down CRX pieces) were actually different sizes...he's since evened those out.

Finally, he found that was a very small amount of travel in the front control arms before they hit the frame...essentially making the wheel rate go to infinity after a short bit of travel.

Steve is both smart and looking at the project with a fresh set of eyes. We had seen the possible need for the extra rear shocks, but totally missed the front travel issues.

We've yet to hear if these changes have made the car drivable or not.

It'd be cool if it turned out to be the car we all hoped that it would be, and that it was just a matter of setup.

at the last auto-x that Steve and Vicky came to he said he hoped to have it ready to run at the last nite series of the yr... it's the 14th ... hope we see it there... and yes he is a pretty smart guy

i thought that sway bar looked a bit excessive!