F600 Proposal

With all the F500 drop in interest, smallest class in SCCA, etc., etc. I've read on the interweb you'd think there'd be some of them for sale someplace.

I've looked all over but can find nothing. Actually I'm mostly interested in data on a CVT but when I google it all I get is info on the new iCVT that Ford and a couple of others are considering building.

Can anyone point me in the direction of information on the CVT as to limitations of use and a source for one down south. I was looking at complete cars thinking that might end up giving me a better price.

The pics of the F500 I've found make it look like an oversized Go Kart chassis. Looks like fun.

They come up on eBay once in awhile.

www.eformulacarnews.com often has one or two for sale and seems to have the most active discussion board - it's pretty much the most active forum on the site and needless to say, the F600 proposal is a hot topic.

www.f500.org is a bit better for general info.

From what I remember, the engine and CVT are divorced with the CVT belt connecting them and then there's a chain-drive back to the axle (fixed, w/ no-diff).

F500 cars are pretty much like big karts... with a bit of suspension, although the suspension is usually lever-actuated elastomer shocks rather than more familiar coilovers. The obvious benefit there being shock-rebuilds & tuning consist of swapping out different hardness elastomers... which are really cheap. Of course, if you come from old-school mtn bikes like I do, elastomers are an evil term. Personally, I'll reserve final judgement until it's something I need to worry about.

Gators use a CVT, so you may be able to find more info about those.

I'd been to both of those sites in my original searcy but both had very little info or details available.

It appears that everyone abandoned f500.org long about the end of 2007 based upon the dates of the posts.

I went back to eformulacarnews and noticed they had forums which I hadn't noticed before so maybe some of the forum posts will springboard me into more details and info. I'll begin reading now.

I'd like to figure out that elastomeric suspension too. None of the pics I've found show anything that I could call a suspension elastomeric or otherwise. But I've only found rear views with the body off.

Yeah... f500.org is pretty dead.

There isn't much to figure out with the suspension. Front is basic double-A-arm. Rear is a typical 4-link. There's only a few inches of travel and with a car that weighs well under 1000 lbs, it isn't very stressed. They use linkage on the shocks (sic) to tune the leverage ratios and thus the suspension. Pretty basic stuff... The main benefit again being cheapness and light weight. The elastomers are really cheap and easy to replace. Of course all of this was designed back before small, light weight shocks (from mtn bikes) became easily available.

On a semi-related note, I was at a hill-climb event a few years ago and one of the Mod cars (would be A-Mod in autox) used the same Fox shocks I had on my Intense M-1 DH bike. Furthermore, that car used a larger 3-cylinder 2-stroke/CVT snowmobile drivetrain. It moved.

Where can I see pics of this suspension? I've not been able to find anything on the web.

Also what does one of those CVTs cost and where do you find them?

Would they be suitable for a 4 cycle motorcycle engine?

I don't have time to do lot of picture digging right now, but there are a couple on Novak's site. I sort of know my friend's car, but he and his brother apparently completely redesigned it to their own ideas, so I'm not sure it would be much helps anyway.

I haven't a clue about CVT costs.

Have you seen this site? http://www.twintechcars.com/

There's also this: http://www.jaxports.com/ which is apparently designed to take the output from a MC gearbox and add reverse. Unfortunately, the website is nothing more than a tease.

Slippery slope here guys. I race microsprints.For years the top class used a 250 2 stroke engine (mx type, cr, kx, rm etc.) Then came the movement to go to 600 sportbike motors for the same reasons I see discussed here.. 10 years later you have 600 motors that go for $15k and up and Penske adjustable shocks that got for upwards of $1200 for a set of 4 (www.hyperracing.com if you wanna see some examples). Mapping fuel injectors, dry sumps, modified cams, crank and data accquisition costs skyrocket in a hurry. It was supposed to be an economical solution to the $3500 we were spending on the 250's. JMO

look on www.apexspeed.com/forums and scroll down to the F500 section, and post your questions, there's tons of guys that will answer. (say you're a new guy, and are wandering about CVT, and Suspension, and they'll be even more excited to respond.)

Steven

Bamaquick17 wrote: Slippery slope here guys. I race microsprints.For years the top class used a 250 2 stroke engine (mx type, cr, kx, rm etc.) Then came the movement to go to 600 sportbike motors for the same reasons I see discussed here.. 10 years later you have 600 motors that go for $15k and up and Penske adjustable shocks that got for upwards of $1200 for a set of 4 (www.hyperracing.com if you wanna see some examples). Mapping fuel injectors, dry sumps, modified cams, crank and data accquisition costs skyrocket in a hurry. It was supposed to be an economical solution to the $3500 we were spending on the 250's. JMO

Yep a slippery slope, but lets see, no shocks in F600,(so no $500/corner shocks) no modified cranks, or cams. Data Aq is already there, so really we're talking.... mapping fuel injectors, and possibly injection/ignition tunes... which you already do in F500 with carb tuning.. Sounds like a win to me.

tpwalsh wrote:

Bamaquick17 wrote: Slippery slope here guys. I race microsprints.For years the top class used a 250 2 stroke engine (mx type, cr, kx, rm etc.) Then came the movement to go to 600 sportbike motors for the same reasons I see discussed here.. 10 years later you have 600 motors that go for $15k and up and Penske adjustable shocks that got for upwards of $1200 for a set of 4 (www.hyperracing.com if you wanna see some examples). Mapping fuel injectors, dry sumps, modified cams, crank and data accquisition costs skyrocket in a hurry. It was supposed to be an economical solution to the $3500 we were spending on the 250's. JMO

Yep a slippery slope, but lets see, no shocks in F600,(so no $500/corner shocks) no modified cranks, or cams. Data Aq is already there, so really we're talking.... mapping fuel injectors, and possibly injection/ignition tunes... which you already do in F500 with carb tuning.. Sounds like a win to me.

Unfortunately, I've heard of similar complaints regarding engine rebuilds for Spec Miata. Apparently, one can spend a bucket-load of money building a 'stock' engine. GRM hinted at this a bit in the Pros vs. Schmos article. The rules governing 600 engines would be even harder to regulate, since now there would be four different makes to keep track of. If NASCAR has given us anything, it's that restrictor plates are a band-aid fix at best and it's been painfully obvious over the years that some teams build better 'plate engines' than others.

Ian F wrote:

tpwalsh wrote:

Bamaquick17 wrote: Slippery slope here guys. I race microsprints.For years the top class used a 250 2 stroke engine (mx type, cr, kx, rm etc.) Then came the movement to go to 600 sportbike motors for the same reasons I see discussed here.. 10 years later you have 600 motors that go for $15k and up and Penske adjustable shocks that got for upwards of $1200 for a set of 4 (www.hyperracing.com if you wanna see some examples). Mapping fuel injectors, dry sumps, modified cams, crank and data accquisition costs skyrocket in a hurry. It was supposed to be an economical solution to the $3500 we were spending on the 250's. JMO

Yep a slippery slope, but lets see, no shocks in F600,(so no $500/corner shocks) no modified cranks, or cams. Data Aq is already there, so really we're talking.... mapping fuel injectors, and possibly injection/ignition tunes... which you already do in F500 with carb tuning.. Sounds like a win to me.

Unfortunately, I've heard of similar complaints regarding engine rebuilds for Spec Miata. Apparently, one can spend a bucket-load of money building a 'stock' engine. GRM hinted at this a bit in the Pros vs. Schmos article. The rules governing 600 engines would be even harder to regulate, since now there would be four different makes to keep track of. If NASCAR has given us anything, it's that restrictor plates are a band-aid fix at best and it's been painfully obvious over the years that some teams build better 'plate engines' than others.

thus the claiming rule does Arnold Horschack and goes, OOH! OOH!

carguy123 wrote: I'd like to figure out that elastomeric suspension too. None of the pics I've found show anything that I could call a suspension elastomeric or otherwise. But I've only found rear views with the body off.

The suspension is basically what you would expect of a normal suspension, but in place of a coilover is a canister with a piece of rubber (or whatever material) that about looks like a hockey puck to do the job of a spring/dampner.

Apexcarver wrote:

carguy123 wrote: I'd like to figure out that elastomeric suspension too. None of the pics I've found show anything that I could call a suspension elastomeric or otherwise. But I've only found rear views with the body off.

The suspension is basically what you would expect of a normal suspension, but in place of a coilover is a canister with a piece of rubber (or whatever material) that about looks like a hockey puck to do the job of a spring/dampner.

Got any pics or sources? I've not found either.

In reply to carguy123:

Found one for you. Happens to be a F600 as well and shows the suspension a bit:

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k224/johnny_3301/f600.jpg

Thank you very much for the picture. Many parts of that build go against current "wisdom" for Locosts which surprises me.

I'm guessing the little bulge in the bar of the rear suspension is one of those elastomeric suspension pieces people mention.

Rather more sophisticated than the one pic I've found which just looks like an oversized gokart. I didn't see any rear suspension on the other pic. It looked as if the rear axle was hard attached just like a go kart. The front suspension wasn't shown at all in the one pic I found.

I'm presuming the chassis has gotten more sophisticated over time. I did find an article on the Formula 440 from about 1979. They mentioned how brutal the ride is. That must be why there's a suspension now.

I found a constructors list, but it only lists about 5 people worldwide.

I understand some of the early F440 cars had a sort of 'unit-rear' suspension. Basically, the motor/CVT and rear axle where mounted to a subframe which was suspended from the forward section of the car. With so much unsprung weight for the little bumper to control, it's not surprising they rode like crap.

According to my friend (IIRC, his car has a basic 4-link w/ a panhard bar), the car rides pretty well. During my short auto-x drive in a different car, I don't remember the ride being that bad either, and I was literally sitting on the unpadded bottom of the car (it is set up for a larger driver). Many newer designs are using a Watts link rather than a panhard bar.

I posted a link to that $2010 thread car on another forum and a more knowledgable guy posted it definitely looked like an older car and likely had the unit-rear end. He pretty much assumed the new owner would need to completely re-engineer the back half of the car if it has any hope of being competitive even in FM. Along those lines, that would make it a good F600/FM car since most of the back of the car would need to be chopped off anyway.

The only thing is that I wonder how long it will take for the F600 stuff to get approval AND filter into being Solo-2 FM legal....

From reading the Solo rules for F-Mod, if it's GCR legal car, it's legal for Solo.

The only other difference is that Solo rules are less strict on a number of GCR safety requirements that are obviously less important when not w2w racing at 100+ mph. Hence why many F-Mod cars are older F500 cars that would be difficult or impractical to bring up to current GCR requirements (the roll-hoop diameter being the big one).

At this point, the 600s are not GCR legal so you could not run in F-mod (yet) however you can still run A-mod. Around here, I would have the same competition in either class!

If your weight was high enough, and the wheelbase is long enough (I don't know what it is for F500s off hand).

I've always liked the 'Locost movement' and there are quite a few running in the surrounding regions.

It would be great to do something similar with a 600cc formula car... think open source chassis design w/ lots of square and rectangular tubing for ease of fabrication(purchase the roll hoop?), use motorcycle shocks, minimal bodywork. Keep fab simple, parts cheap, and the builds fun... Anybody in?

PS122 wrote: I've always liked the 'Locost movement' and there are quite a few running in the surrounding regions. It would be great to do something similar with a 600cc formula car... think open source chassis design w/ lots of square and rectangular tubing for ease of fabrication(purchase the roll hoop?), use motorcycle shocks, minimal bodywork. Keep fab simple, parts cheap, and the builds fun... Anybody in?

The typical problem there is having a place to run it...

memories of daydreaming of a gixxerkart...

Altnough F5-600 does seem to be a place where a homebuilder who does his homework has a good chance. From what I have read the suppliers seem to be people who work out of the back of other endavours or their own garages.

There is A LOT of research in 600cc powered formula cars. FSAE. With the amount of engineering going into some of those packages there will be a good amount of stuff to read into for you.

I guess you could build it for FSAE autocross and have a place to run with the shocks and stuff, or go cheaper and just build an F600 car for FM autocross and club racing.

Or just bump it up to 1000cc and run in B-Mod and not be bound by the F500 GCR restrictions. Oddly enough, the locost that runs in our region is classed in B-Mod and runs against a Legrand like Per's. One of my pipe-dreams is to build a street legal locost sport racer similar to a Legrand.

The initial allure of F-Mod to me is cheap w2w racing in F500. Auto-x would just be a learning stage to get used to the car. There are too many non-GCR legal and neglected F500 cars collecting dust in garages to bother building a dedicated auto-x car from scratch.

The FSAE cars I've seen in the last few years scare the heck out of me... way too advanced for me.

"go cheaper and just build an F600 car for FM autocross" is probably great advice.

Anybody know what I should expect to pay for a "non-GCR legal and neglected F500 car"? Probably my best bet...