Midlana inches along

An infrequent update:

After the dyno run, ugh, a year ago, time has been spend on endless brackets, paneling, redoing paneling, wiring, lighting, grills, and more brackets.

Brakes are in, including some cool CNC-fabricated units to adapt Wilwood rotors to the Miata front uprights. What else... the car's just under 1500 lbs, so not "too" bad with its 400 hp :)

Aircleaner box, properly fabricating the gas pedal linkage, a ton of odds and ends.

I don't really have a proper picture of the entire car other than this one, taken before the hood was fabricated this last weekend. That's still a whole project in itself because it still has to be final trimmed and the locking pins carefully installed such that it closes and lock properly.

And people are bugging me, "So when you going to drive it?" Well, honestly, the pile of things left to do won't get any smaller if I drive it, so I don't have a real good reason to, never mind also breaking about a dozen traffic laws. Eh, it's getting there, then once "the drive" happens, it has to come all back apart for paint, then all back together again. However, once it's going out for paint, that's when the real fun starts! You can watch the slow antics at Midlana.com

I keep hoping that one day you'll throw caution to the wind, let a few things get done less than 100% perfectly and tear through to the finish line.

Something tells me I'm going to be disappointed

keep it up...we all love your project

What is up with that freaky roof X in the cage? I'd be certain not to make the first test a rollover should you cave a little on the todo list

Yes that's been pointed out, but the "broomstick test" shows that the windscreen frame can only deflect downward about 4" if it gets on its head. Structurally, a tube should run diagonally from the front top corner of the windscreen to the shoulder-height junction of the side tube with the main hoop. The catch is, it makes it near-impossible to get in or out!

Another way to look at it is that a typical Seven-type car has effectively zero windscreen frame and no connectivity between the frame and the main hoop, so I don't think this can be any worse.

That said, I may run a tube down, maybe even vertically, from the front top corner of the windscreen, through to the bottom side rail. We'll see, it's still a work-in-progress.

Could you run a curved tube from the front to back on each side to complement the cross bars? It would add a little more weight, but it would still allow an easy enough ingress/egress while providing a bit more peace of mind.

Forget about the engineering and fabrication skills, you really nailed the lines on that car. Very nice.

MitchellC wrote: Could you run a curved tube from the front to back on each side to complement the cross bars? It would add a little more weight, but it would still allow an easy enough ingress/egress while providing a bit more peace of mind.

Yes, that's being considered. It'll likely be that or "windwing support" tubes. The direct support would be stronger, easier, lighter, and keeps the CG low, just not sure how it'll look.

And, Woody, thanks for the kind words!

I've been following your builds since you started posting kimini's updates way back when. You and DP have been really good (or bad?) influences on me, which is why I really started my own beetle track car project.

I'm not sure if you've riden in or driven a car with the hp/weight advantage that midlana will have, but the phrase "mind altering" sounds about right. Also with the heavy rear weight balance, I'd imagine turn-in won't be as crisp as you'd like at speed. You'll also have to be precise with your throttle control coming out of corners because the front end will just want to ski under power.

Kimini, with 40/60 f/r weight distribution was awesome on turn-in - probably its best feature. It never failed to impress passengers how it handled transitional turns. Midlana will - unfortunately, have a bit more rear bias so I won't know what I've got until I drive it. I agree that coming out of turns will likely cause understeer, but mid-engine cars are good at riding the edge of the traction circle, too. A long time ago I got to drive a Formula Renault car and was amazed how easy it was to balance the car with the thottle - I hope that Midlana is similar.

There's an awesome YouTube video of Jackie Stewart showing Captain Slow (James May) of Top Gear how to knock 30 seconds(!) off his lap time. His best advice I still remember is, "don't put your foot down until you know you won't have to lift." For a high-power rear weight-biased car, that's going to be doubly important. Mid-engine cars have the ability to go faster, but many drivers do themselves in by lifting mid-turn...