All of those cars were designed to be low from the start. Notice anything similar about them? Their all mid engine cars. My neighbor had an Elise, and there was probably 3" between your toes and the ground. We have a transmission and exhaust going under the passenger compartment which means in order to have a car as low you would have that much less headroom. And a Lotus seat has no gap under it. Its sitting flat on the floor and you stretch your legs out under the dash like sitting on the floor. Our engine is in the way of that.

Just get a gtm supercar. Its close to your goal at about 40" and you can put your engine in that. Thats your best chance at having a cool, low car. Plus, its much better looking and much faster.

 

Yes but if you read the title, his goal is "the lowest Trans Am in the world". Getting a GTM car kills that goal...dont you think?

He already has stated the mods to floor and roof will need to be made, I think Jason has a very good grasp of his idea and what it needs to be done. It is doable...the main ingredient to see this through would be perseverance.

 

It's not my mind that is slipping. Go back to posts 294 and 300. I clearly explain I'm leaving 3" along the bottom and the reasons for that. Therefore, the new height will be approximetly 38" total.

 

Well maybe you will have a greater appreciation of what I'm doing then.

I'm also going to be removing a lot of the sheetmetal and replacing it with spaceframe design front and rear with sort of a ladder frame design in the middle area. I'm doing away with the unit body construction. I plan to get the base shell lighter while being stronger than stock.

I just got my donor 98 TA body today. First thing I want to do is weigh that sucker. I was thinking 600lb, but after moving it around it seems more than that. Then I need to stop borrowing my brothers mig and get my own. I think a simple $370 unit with some flux core wire should get the job done.

 

Yes, those cars were designed from the start to be low, but not designed for midgets. My point was a 5' 10" person can comfortable fit in a car that low. Now don't go confusing the ride height for total height. I'm measuring my car at full drop, not at the normal ride height. The fully adjustable air suspension will have 7" or so of travel at the push of a button. So if I lift the car 4" to drive it, it will be 38+4=42 off the ground. 42" tall at ride height isn't wildly radical as far as low cars go, but it's 10" lower than a stock TA PLUS it will ride very comfortably at 42" ride height. Make sense?

The GTM is a pretty nice looking car, but not as nice as the TA lines. Plus it's about 10 times my budget. I do like the overall construction, though. It uses a mild steel tubular chassis with riveted aluminum panels. It's basically a mid engine corvette that's 1000lbs lighter. Hence the better performance. Now if I can get the TA down to a similar 2300lb weight we'd be talking some serious performance improvements.

I too thought I may have to go midengine, but that wasn't the case. It is quite easy to make a mid engine f-body if anyone is interested. My limitation was the front tire height. I didn't want it poking through the hood nor did I want to replace it with a shorter one. The engine looks like it can be raised a good 5", but you only need to raise it 2" to get the side skirts to touch the ground.

Now if I added some kind of bubble over the front fender and hood so the tire could travel higher, then I could cut the height another 3". But, those 3 extra inches almost doubles the work involved. So I decided to stop at 38" tall. Less labor, no ugly fender bubble over the front tires plus a bit more interior room made it the easy choice.

 

GTM's are ghey....

 

They are 2300lb vettes. What not to like about that?

How about this for an idea. FFR can make and offer for sale a tubular C5 chassis you swap all your C5 parts over to. I bet you they could knock a good 700lbs off the stock weight. Now that's something you can feel!

 

Check sig...

Actually I just noticed you're in houston...weeeeellll my GTM's in the katy area for the moment being put together. If you'd like to stop by and take a look, you might just realize it's worth it...Mainly 'cause you can put it together as slooooow as you like. It's like financing it with 0% interest! lol. The frame alone is what sold me actually. I've seen your fabrication work so I know you're very capable of putting one of these together. There's very minor fab work with these, but if I know your style, you can't leave anything alone. PM me your number and I'll set it up for you bro.

I agree about the Trans Am lines being very beautiful. I'll never not own one! From all the LT1's, LS1's, Ford Modulars, and modern Hemi's, the T/A is the Ultimate "new muscle" car. When you start it, it should scare children. The GTM's lines are for a different car though. The amount of R&D they put into this thing is truly awesome. The performance is awesome through and through and it only costs about $20k to start.

 

Hey, that would be great. From my understanding the aluminum panels are structural and help stiffen the frame. Now I don't know if they made the frame a bit on the soft side to keep the weight as low as possible and then bring it back to the stiffness they desire with the panels or what exactly. If so, thats smart as it gets the stiffness they want and the panels isolate things as well. Sort of double duty. It's mild steel square tubing, so it's not exotic which means it's possible to duplicate. Maybe not the computer design of it, but generally speaking.

The frame work on this project is going to need a thread just for itself. I think I'm going to brace the he'll out of everything and just start hacking all the "flat" sections out. I'm not sure whether I should invest in some aluminum sheets or use steel sheets for the new panels.

I assume the GTM uses some kind of seam sealer along the riveted joints. See, I need to research all kinds of little crap like that.

 

cool design would look awsome

 

The project is starting to get under way.

Right now I'm working of the frame design. If you want to check that out go to this thread and subscribe.
https://ls1tech.com/forums/tools-fab...lid-frame.html


I've also had a few more ideas to make this complicated build a bit simpler while still being reallly cool. (I always need ideas like that)

Since the roof will be removable, I really don't think I need a functional hatch. If I rearrange the fuel tank and mufflers so as to make a flat floor in the back, I can just seal the back end of the car off.



I can add some tubing going over the rear hatch area and then cover it with sheetmetal. The wing would bolt though the sheetmetal and into the crossover braces. Once welded in it would get rid of that big seam above the rear fenders.

 

 

Yeah, that's kennys car. I'm going to be 2" lower than him not counting the chop top.

 

I can't wati until you get it done I know it's gonna take some time and money but it wiil be worth it ! I think it's gonna look badass

 

IMO, I would try to pick up a cheap somewhat wrecked TA and do some trial and error on it, before you go cutting into your nice car. That way if you don't think its gonna work then your not out much.

 

the chopped top would look bad ***, but being 6'3", i have a hard enough time fitting in mine as it is.. i'd have to sit on the floor. lol

 

Which nice car do you mean?
My running black car or
the stripped white donor car?

 

Let me just say something, when your trying to build something crazy and unique you tend to hit a lot of obstacles. Since money can pretty much overcome any obstacle, let's say that all my obstacles relate to money. Therefore when one road hits a point where it's going to cost too much to fix, then I back up and take another road. The result looks like i'm always changing my mind, but there is always a reason for it.

So now then, I looking deeper into the mid-engine design again for several reasons which I wrote in my mid-engine thread.

The only real way to not alter the wheelbase is to mount the engine sideways (transverse). It will just barely will fit.

The only acceptable transmission is the new G6 6speed manual. After all the Internet searching I've done and then talking to my own trans specialist, I just don't think it's going to hold up to the roughly 450hp I plan to make. Cryo treating the unit plus the cost of the adapter is going to push the cost way out there beyond what I see as practical. Plus there is no LSD for it.

So I'm looking at one of my older ideas. A longitudinal mount with the trans facing the front of the car and then a gearbox (transfer case) to redirect the power next to the oil pan and then to a diff mounted right in front of the harmonic balancer.

I know the T56 trans will hold up to the power. I know the Ford 8.8 IRS diff will hold up as well as has an LSD. All for very little money. There's no adapter and no clutch parts to buy. All I really need to buy is the transfer case. I think I can attach it to the transmission and have the output be low and on the passengers side which is typical of most units.

Now this is all good from a money perspective, but it also means I'm going to have to move the rear wheels back quite a lot. So how do I do that? I'm thinking of making a one piece fiberglass tilting rear cover just like the Lamborghini Miura. Now how do you do that?

I know if I can get it to fiberglass, I can reshape the rear fenders to move the wheel openings further back. Can I just cover my complete black car with a protective layer of something and then lay fiberglass over it to create a plug? Then go in and smooth out the plug like the seperation lines between the fender and bumper, add in the mold of the rear tail lights and filler panel, etc...?
Or should I make a mold of each piece seperate and then make a single plug?
Or make a seperate plug for each piece and then mold all the finished pieces together?

Then what do you do up front? I really don't think the front wheels can be moved back any more than they are now. The brake booster is the biggest obstacle there. What I can do is shorten the nose so the short front overhang with match the short rear overhang. I'll try to do a pic and see what it comes out like.

Any advice on the fiberglass stuff would sure help.

 

Here is the updated drivetrain layout:



Maybe I can modify the rear Diff like so:



Now I need to figure out which rearend shape looks better.

Traditional on top and Radical on bottom




What do you guys think overall? Is the body too long? Wheelbase too long? Do the proportions look right?
Overall, I think the radical tail is closer proportion wise and I'm starting to dig the looks of it. It makes the car look more compact and sporty and puts more emphasis on the rear wing.

 

If you could bring the stock bumper in a bit, making it a hybrid of those two pics it would look good. The cut off one looks cool but detracts from the lines of the car, for me at least. My point being that this should still be recognizable as a T/A.