designing and building my own rotory powered car
 

I have been thinking for a while now about what it would take to design and build my own car.

What I want to do is build a light weight street legal rotory powered 2 seater car.

does anyone know more about the subject so that I can do some reading

I figure Ill make the body out of carbon fiber with as little pieces as possible prefferably one piece that gets lowered onto the car and bolted on.

As a first step is there anywhere I can go to learn how to design the outer "shell"and designing a frame.

I was thinking maybe taking an rx7 cutting it apart building a new frame to support the body.

go to your local book store and look around at what they have. do a ton of research on frames, more importantly think about the end result, and maybe the suspension. have you thought about doing a kit car? and dropping in a rotary? keep us imformed on your project

Building a kit car is what I would be doing but Id be chopping the frame of an rx7 building a new frame and designing a new body to put on it

I thought of building an updated Lotus Elan with a rotary drive line.
200 hp and less than 1800 lbs, ya that would be nice.

yep the local tech school has a cnc machine that the teacher said i could use to cut the molds out of foam blocks. I already know how to make molds out of foam and how to use them. That solves the problem of making body panels or a shell

I need information on making the frame the local borders was no help at all I went there a couple hours ago.

Check Amazon.com for book titles

I'm building a TII powered Lotus 7 using my own frame design and front suspension design and let me tell you it's a pain... but if you can get it started, it's very much worth it just in satisfaction. The only advice I can give is if you're starting with your own suspension, design it from the tires inward and design the frame around those mounting points. The best book for chassis design I've found is Michael Costin's Racing and Sports Car Chassis Design. The downside is that book is from 1967 and kindof expensive. Herb Adam's Chassis Engineering book is a good read for both suspension and chassis design and anything by Carroll Smith is a really good idea. Hope this helps...

On a separate note, if you know a place I can get custom spindles made for CHEAP, it would be much appreciated.

girlzlover12, How old you I checked your profile and I didn't see your age listed, my thinking is you are realy young and a long ways to go befor being able to start this type of project, not saying it can't be done, there has been dummer peaple who don't know how the fly a plane and spend a lot of time building one an then go and fly it, the point is, make a good reality check on your dreams frist

If you are wanting to do that another good plan would be too buy a tube chassis plan like i have, i have the art morrison one, but other companys sell plans too

Here's a good tip: If you decide to make a your own frame and build a jig out of wood to weld it up, don't leave that jig outside overnight in a rain storm. Now I've gotta start all over again...

fiber glass
 

Use fiberglass instead of carbon fiber unless you have $10k to burn on carbon fiber alone go for it. But fiberglass is so much cheaper and you won't see much of a difference in a performance. I had made a large post for you but when i tried to go advanced the internet ate it. If you live near the occean go to a yatch store and get resign there i forget the name of it but they have tons of different ones. You want to spend most of your money on your roll cage that will save your life. ultmately body panels do noting for safety. There sole purpose if areo dynamics. Buy an aerodynamics computer program. Or copy the body of an existing car. After all most high taged sports cars if not all have been wind tunnnel tested. Good luck. and don't use carbon fiber. it sounds really nice and wonderful. But it will cost you an arm and a leg.

Carbon Fiber is also a big pain in the butt to work with, do fiberglass you won't notice the difference. Also I'd recommend starting from scratch with the frame, better in the long run. Try a search here: http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/index.php they are a decent forum of car builders.
Grant

I was under the impression that fiber glass is just as hard to work with. You just don't feel as bad if you waste any.

thank you for the help Ill keep that all in mind Im still researching and I will keep you updated once I get started