Bueno muchachos les comparto este proyecto que e seguido desde hace casi 1 año e estado esperando verlo terminado pero ba algo lento segun los ultimos voletines de nigel ba todabia para largo si quieren seguir el proyecto aqui les dejo un link aquel postea nuevos avances casi que diario
Engineered To Slide
My good friend Nigel Petrie from Geelong, Victoria is keeping himself busy working on cars, which is no surprise. Putting aside his addiction for building S-Chassis Nigel knew it was time for a change. This is his latest creation, a Toyota Hilux built to slide.
Doing all the work yourself gives you so much respect for the car you have created, to then go and undo all of that work and redo it is a harder pill to swallow than to just restart with another car. Sometimes the costs can be fairly equal and you will end up with a lot more. I started getting the feeling that I was reinventing the wheel; I had two S15's that I picked up for a decent price and thought I would turn my attention to those.
But what could I improve that I had not already done on the previous S13's? I thought long and hard about building the S15 but couldn't work out what I wanted to do. Later in life I want to do club sprints and I would decide to leave the S15 for that purpose. I had owned two S13 Silvias, two 180SX's, one S14 and two S15's, can you see the pattern here? I needed to break the S-Chassis addiction but I had an itch that needed to be scratched. I pulled the driveline out of the damaged S15 and my 5 year dream began to take shape.
I spent a night drawing plans and getting a rough idea on wheelbase lengths and motor/sub frame heights. This was exciting, I could finally put the S15 driveline at the height I needed it. I would then drive around my city measuring Hilux's that were sitting in car parks, yep weird I know. I then made up a jig to sit everything onto and then the hunt for a body shell was on.
The last thing I wanted to do was to pay full price for a body that I hardly needed any of, it was then I found a drag racer with a stripped 2004 Hilux cab selling his project 800km away. I filled up my ute with gas and started the journey.
After nearly 20 hours of driving I was home, I waited till my neighbors left and then got stuck into the floor removal job. All I needed of the cab was the outer shell, something to stick windows to, hang doors off and make my space frame car look like a Hilux.
In half an hour I was off to the recycling centre with the majority of the sheet metal I had just traveled 20 hours to get.
I tried to remove as much factory sheet metal as I could; the plan was to have the cab removable off the chassis. This will allow me to work on the chassis with a lot less hassle.
It does however present a heap of issues with sealing the cabin area from smoke; this will be the hardest part of the build and something I am not looking forward to.
So now the pieces of the puzzle come together, at this stage the angle grinder and tape measure were the biggest part of the build, things were going well and the union of the S15 and Hilux were working incredibly well together.
By now I had the floor and trans tunnel and I needed a few items to get ready for the arrival of my tube. As a fitter and turner by trade I knew what tools I needed to progress to the next stage of my DIY ability.
I would need a tube notcher, tube bender and a TIG welder. To buy all these items was going to cost me around $6,000 AUD so I started researching what makes a good notcher and bender because I was sure I couldn't build a TIG welder.
Here is the finished product of my own tube notcher, it's made out of alloy, has a stainless steel shaft, bronze brush adjustable angle and adjustable tube grabber. It cost me around $100 in materials and works unbelievably well. Now onto the tube bender.
The tube bender was modeled of an Australian company called Speedwerx, I bought two dies of them for the two types of tube I would be using. 13/4 and 1 1/2 and made the rest. I was pretty exciting to see it all come together.
It took a week of planning and building but the feeling of achievement at the end was incredible. These tools I will have for life and will make everyday race car building a lot easier. You see the more you can do yourself the less people you have to rely on, I go by the old saying "If you want something done right, do it yourself".
I had a call from my good friend at GWorks Custom Motorcycles and he informed me that my tube had arrived, this was super exciting! My everyday car is a Ford Falcon ute. I made up an airbag setup for the rear end and 1 off coilovers for the front. I tow my race cars all around the country in this thing, it's a great work horse!
This is the time my relationship with my girlfriend started going down hill, I was addicted to tube work and would spend every spare second in the shed measuring, notching, bending, planning and adding strength everywhere I could. I was in love with my new tools. I bought a 200amp AC/DC TIG which will be used for the final weld of the entire chassis.
The rear cradle was positioned and tacked up first.
I had all of this bar work planned in my head long before I would actually do it. I would go to sleep thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. The quest for the perfect fit up was always a tricky one.
I just love this shot. What is the final ride height going to be you ask? Well, it's planned to be around 65mm from the ground to the sill/floor that makes this wheel drop about 65mm and that's it. How am I going to turn at that height? Well I am thinking custom hinged doors in the guards but I'll worry about that problem when I get to it.
Braking consists of a reverse swing Willwood pedal arrangement with short master cylinders; it's a neat setup with the reservoirs mounted below the S15 dash airbag lid. S15 dash you ask?
The front tube work is taking shape and I am currently waiting on MCA Struts through my good friend at fellow competitor Josh Coote up in Queensland. Josh and his father are building me S15 front struts and S13 rear struts for the ute. We will be corner weighing it to choose the final spring weights. I am looking forward at a total weight of around 850kg when it's complete.
During our Builds month, Speedhunters exposed Australian Nigel Petrie's Toyota Hilux drift build. A lot has happened to the Hilux since then, so here's an update from Nigel on what he's been working on in his Melbourne garage.
Hey guys! I'm Nigel and here we are again, peeking into the one-car garage that I spend most of my after hours time creating all types of metalwork art. Since you last saw it on Speedhunters a lot have things have changed.
Motivation and progress slowed down a little as a lot of my time was taken up by preparing for a five day set of demonstration drifting at the Melbourne Show Grounds for the Top Gear festival. What a great way to bring drifting into the spotlight.
After the Top Gear festival was over I vowed to return to the ute build. My new TIG helmet arrived and after a quick respray and ETS sticker job it was time to get back into it.
In all honesty, the more I looked at what I had done the more demotivated I became. I was so happy with my tube work (let's face it after $1300 worth I couldn't afford not to be) but I wasn't happy with the floor, engine mount and gearbox surround. So the decision was made to cut the tracks off the floor and remove it to start again.
A workmate whose father recently passed away kindly gave me this lathe, it's a great little machine that makes those small jobs a whole lot easier. It lives at my parents place until I save for a house and shed of my own.
While at my parents I always unwrap my PS13 coupe, I absolutely love this car and it's a shame I haven't driven it in over a year. I'm looking forward to being able to get classic club registration in a few years time.
It only took a couple of hours to remake the floor. I got my local steel shop to precut most of my steel, for a small fee it's definitely worth the time saved doing it yourself. The S15 motor has now returned back to the S15 it came from and a blown S13 SR20 is now in place to dummy everything up.
The floor sections that form an X in between the 25mmx75mm outer sections are made from 20mmx20mm box tubing and will form a mount for the alloy sheets to sit flush with the underside of the floor. This will create a totally flat and sealed floor.
I also made the floor extend past the end of the cabin 400mm to help mount the fuel tank, battery and rear diffuser. In the foreground you can see the RB25 gearbox mounted to the SR20 motor ready for dummy fitting.
I'm a whole lot happier with the new floor layout and front end structure, theres another 7m of tube to be added to the engine and strut tower compartment before the chassis is finalized but I'm really starting to get excited to see it finished.
I've added more steel than needed in the floor but with the proposed height being so low and our Australian racetracks having such large ripple strips it's cheap insurance.
TIG welding is a new passion of mine, I have always been a race car fabrication geek and no single tool is used more than a TIG welder. I had never used a TIG before this project and that's the reason I started it; I wanted to learn how to weld, notch and a build chassis like the top race teams and there's no better way than throwing yourself in the deep-end. MIG will always have its place but TIG has my heart; it's quiet, clean and precise.
Heres a small detail you may be interested in, it's one mount that does three jobs. When building a race car I found you have to think far ahead about what you will need and where can it be mounted to save weight and clutter. I decided I'd integrate my gearbox mount with a brake bias lever and handbrake all in one. The handle for the handbrake raises up next to the gearshifter for comfort.
As you can see it's mounted very low for maximum leverage and screwed into four tapped crush tubes pre-welded in the floor.
After finding a Hilux tub for a decent price I picked it up and started measuring. It's an Extra cab which means it's the short-bed version, so this will need to be lengthened 150mm forward of the rear wheels to ensure the wheelbase is correct. The width needs altering with the new rear tracking being 1700mm with the 18x10.5 +15 wheels planned to run on it.
I had Josh and Murray Coote from MCA Suspension build a new set of coilovers for my ute. Some of you may know Josh, a fellow drifter who competes in Australia and New Zealand. I sent Josh a few measurements around a month ago and they built these struts for me. Having some incredible adjustability they will allow the setup process to be much easier. Also having the option to talk to the people who actually hand build the struts is invaluable.
The rear struts will bolt onto another removable crossmember giving me more adjustability when it comes time for testing.
I fabricated some strut tops for the rear and front struts. Tube will be welded and gusseted directly to these, setting up the front caster and camber is a little tricky so it takes a lot of clamping and tacking until the final position is found.
The engine mounts will run off a tube crossmember that goes under the motor and supports the lower control arms and steering rack. There's around 4 meters of tube that still has to go in the engine bay to finalise it. I'll be using the low port S15 version motor to keep the inlet manifold low, while the exhaust side will run a low mount turbo design.
Ride height will be setup to leave the floor 65mm for the tarmac, at that point everything is optimized for functionality. One of the biggest reasons for this build was to raise the suspension and lower the body. Looks and performance come together!
Lots of tube, a pair of Brides and 10.5-inch wide wheels with 235 stretched on them. This is not your regular Hilux!
Undertaking a build like this is a massive test. It's a test on your vision, your persistence, your patience and your skills. It occupies most of your mind, from when you wake up to when you go to sleep, it's not glamorous, you miss out on a lot of life's simple pleasures and it re-scalps the person you are. To me it's more than an automobile, it's an extension of my personality. With hard work comes rewards and I guarantee there will be tears of happiness when this hits the track for the first time.
Here we are again with the third instalment of Nigel Petrie's Drift Hilux build. It's a story of innovation, dedication, improvisation and self reliance. One man's quest to build a world class race car on a budget as big as his shed.
Since Part Two of my guest blog back in April a lot has happened. I had the VicDrift Drift Attack Competition in May and as a result of this, work was put on hold for a week while my focus on pre event preparation for my RPS13 took over.
It was all worthwhile with a podium finish and no mechanical dramas to hinder the progress of the Hilux.
The idea behind the Hilux has nothing at all to do with competitiveness, in fact it's quite the opposite. The RPS13 is my competition car and always will be. Tube frame cars are outlawed in nearly every national series around the world and Australia is no different. Our upcoming series, Australian Drifting Grand Prix has rules in place so that cars like my Hilux cannot compete because of the advantage they posses over their manufactured competitors.
I believe tube frame drift cars have a place in the drifting community but far too often they are built by big budget teams sacrificing style for outright performance and gaining an edge over their competition. The reason I am building my Hilux is for style reasons. Please don't get me wrong, I want it to work well on the track just like my RPS13 does but seeing a long and low Hilux entering a corner backwards at speed is the reason I am doing this.
I've had to learn to switch my motivation between the two cars all year, my RPS13 must always be ready for a battle before I start work on the Hilux. Driving is just as important to me as building, and I want to be the best I can be at both aspects of drifting.
The tube bender I fabricated has been the heart of the operation, precise bends are only a few pumps away.
But the one tool I have used more than the bender is my self fabricated tube notcher. With the bender, tube notcher, TIG welder and simple tools like a drill, file, angle grinder and some CRC, this entire chassis can be made.
In Part Two I discussed the idea behind the entire floor being remade. That decision had really paid off. With a total flat floor and squeeze frame to work off, brackets like this lower control arm mount are a breeze to fabricate and attach to the floor.
For now I am running S15 front lower control arms but will be fabricating my own rose jointed tubular control arms with an integrated caster arm mount.
