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My second car ever. Will i make it better or worse than my last one?

Something thin and lightweight to protect from small stuff flying up and hitting engine related parts?

Proper Skid Plate that you can slide over stuff and keep on going with no real damage?
 
Proper skid plate. I want to be able to drive this thing hard. Thinking about either modifying the front bumper or building a new one from scratch and running a plate from the bumper to the engine cross member. Then a plate from engine cross member to trans cross member.

Not sure if keeping the front bumper shocks to prevent frame damage in small collisions is a good idea or if going solid is the better route.
 
do a front end like this

truck-1.jpg
 
Tube bumper/skidplate is tough to do and have look good on these cars. I was planning on building a tube bumper then using a stock plastic bumper cover over it to hide everything. Then using 1/4" aluminum sheet for the skid plate.
 
How committed are you to this pre runner look?

If you were pretty committed, you could do it and make it look good I think. You would have to be willing to chop of the bottoms of the front fenders though where they stick down after the bumper. Then you could bend up a tube that followed the body line, in the front, Don't know if you are looking for lights or anything up front, but if you pull it out a little in the center and then do an aluminum filler panel up to the header, it can look pretty bitchin.

This was a filler panel in 1/8" aluminum and was pretty easy to build. 1 3/4" dom tubing for the front bumper.



I liked the dimple dies in the panel, but it was just there for looks, no real protection.



Obviously you are going for a little better approach angle and a little bit of protection.

I think 1/4" aluminum is overkill, but I don't know what you are going to crash into....not to mention it is going to be very expensive stuff, and working with it is going to be a little difficult. I would probably go with 3/16" and do a panel from the bumper as far back as you can get it, maybe the k member if you can get it that far back without a bend in it. Would look awesome if you could, just depends on the bumper height and the angle from the bottom of the tube down to the member if it will clear the lower core support/radiator mount.

Just my .02

Sean
 
hackster said:
How committed are you to this pre runner look?
Click to expand...

More interested on how well it works and how it looks overall. I want it to look good if that happens to be similar to how the pre runner style bumpers are then so be it.

hackster said:
If you were pretty committed, you could do it and make it look good I think. You would have to be willing to chop of the bottoms of the front fenders though where they stick down after the bumper. Then you could bend up a tube that followed the body line, in the front, Don't know if you are looking for lights or anything up front, but if you pull it out a little in the center and then do an aluminum filler panel up to the header, it can look pretty bitchin.

This was a filler panel in 1/8" aluminum and was pretty easy to build. 1 3/4" dom tubing for the front bumper.
Click to expand...

I really like what you did on the truck and i like what you're discribing. I will pretty much be doing something like that. I dont mind trimming the fenders at all in fact the tires did rub there at the lower ride height so i know that will hit under full compression. 1 3/4" seems about right. I cant help but wonder if you might have a bender and dies to shape that material? I have a bender but cringe at the idea of buying those dies just for this project.

hackster said:
Obviously you are going for a little better approach angle and a little bit of protection.

I think 1/4" aluminum is overkill, but I don't know what you are going to crash into....not to mention it is going to be very expensive stuff, and working with it is going to be a little difficult. I would probably go with 3/16" and do a panel from the bumper as far back as you can get it, maybe the k member if you can get it that far back without a bend in it. Would look awesome if you could, just depends on the bumper height and the angle from the bottom of the tube down to the member if it will clear the lower core support/radiator mount.

Just my .02

Sean
Click to expand...

I think 3/16 will be fine with enough bracing behind it. Im assuming 6013, or something similar would probably be ideal? Im really glad you had some input i know you have a little experience with fabrication ;-) I do want to build a steel skid plate frame with tabs to bolt the plate onto. I would like your opinion on what diameter and wall thickness you think would be appropriate?


I have not priced anything out yet. Do you think $250 is going to be enough?
 
Yeah after adding up material costs im not sure this is really what i need to be doing with the car right now. Id rather spend $300 on replacing failing components. Im pretty sure my bolower motor just went out. Or the switch is failing. Speeds 1 and 2 do nothing 3 and 4 run it but the rpm sounds like its all over the place speeding up slowing down and after a while i can smell something getting hot. Could be wiring thats failing causing a high resistance.

Anyways i dont think ill be doing the bumper right now. :(
 
Posted this in the other build thread for this car, forgot that i made a new one. So sorry for bumping two threads. I want the other one to die this will be the thread i update.

Lowered it. Im really preferring the lower ride height after trying it with the 1.5" spacers for a few months taking them out and dropping the back a little lower has significantly improved the on road handling characteristics. Offroad the suspension seems to feel better im not sure if roll center had something to do with this but with the control arms flatter and the ass end a little lower it seems to have improved traction and control. the spacers i made raised it another 1.5" these spacers worked great for what i wanted. I no longer need them. Id rather have the car raised 1.5" over stock than 3".
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After not having a front sway bar for a long time putting the 20MM bar back on makes a HUGE difference. As far as street driving its a big improvment on higher speed corners. Lower speeds, it feels better but theres a little less traction up front. I cant turn in quite as fast as i could with no front bar. I do prefer the added stabuility at higher speeds though. Makes me feel like i have more control of the car. Im thinking i can dial some of this negative camber back out now. Im getting easily sidetracked with turbo components. Sent a paypal for a 90+ and left RSI with an aw71. On the drive home i was thinking i need to press pause on the +T and finish the suspension first. I still need to do rear bushings and sort out what shock and spring are going to work best for what im trying to accomplish. Once i finish the rear suspension all focus goes towards turbocharging.

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I dig the side profile picture above, needs steel plate bumpers, almost has an old Land Rover look...like a mix between a Defender and some other models.
 
Today was a lot of fun and im completely blow away at how well this setup is handling onroad and offroad. I was just about ready to pull the trigger on some bilstien rear shocks and now im hesitating because these cheapo pro comps are doing such a fine job. The rear suspension does need a bit of tweaking though. The front suspension has really come together. Now with the swaybar on, some fine tuning of the front struts, and a slight ride height adjustment, im stoked at how well this setup is working. Its driving better than i could have hoped. Im going to love this thing after i dial in the rear suspension and introduce more power! A manual trans would be really nice but im still having tons of fun in second gear with the auto. Ill rock an aw71 for a while until i can maybe eventually put a T5 in this car.
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