- Feb 18, 2001
- 30,990
- 5
- 81
Overview: In 2003, I decided I was going to build a gocart. A fast gocart. The planning stages were mapped out in a thread here, and history is at the end of this post.
Current Update: Will wonders never cease. I have not done a whole hell of a lot on the project due to R/L interfeering with my plan to get a piece of steel past a buck fifty. However, I did get a few physical things done.
The first was getting the cart into paint. I decided to toss on a coat of primer at this point not because the frame is done. No, far from it. What happened was one of the neighberhood kids (7 years old btw) decided it would be funny to toss a water balloon into my garage while I was welding. There are 2 things that make this a bad idea. The first is that the frame was entirely uncoated, which made it rust when it got wet. The 2nd is that I was actually welding at the time, and an electric MIG welder and water do not agree. Thankfully, when I built my workbench I put in GFCI recepticles, so all that happened was a blown GFCI and toasted transformer in the welder. Both of which are quite better than a trip to the emergency room.
The first thing I did was presurize the main compartments of the frame to make sure I did not have any pinholes in the welds. There are a ton of individual 'cells' in the frame, and I checked each one. I did this because once the frame is finished I will add some rust inhibitor to the inside of each cell so the frame does not rust out from the inside. It is much easier to weld without having to remove a bunch of paint, so I did that now. Yes, I did have a few leaks, all of which I filled.
I started preperation with a through cleaning with a new 9 inch grinder to clean up the edges and some spatter; a grease remover, then acetone for final pre-paint prep. I wanted this paint to stick until forever.
The first paint was applied with a Foam brush in the corners to make sure there was sufficent coverage. I didn't want rust to get a handhold in these spots. After each corner and edge had 2 coats, I busted out the HVLP Spraygun and moved the frame into my back yard.
Once there, I proceeded to kill some grass by coating it along with the frame with 4 light coats of Rustoleum Primer. All in all, I think it came out pretty well without any runs. Just in case you are wondering, those 4 tabs at the front of the frame are where the nose cone sub assembly will be mounted. It will be created out of 3/4" tubing that can be replaced if I hit something (such as say, a owl) at extra legal speeds.
Most of the other stuff I did was planning. I worked out the final suspension geometry and wheel travel issues I found out would be there, along with working in an anti-dive geometry so I don't smach the noce on the ground hauling myself down from triple digit speeds. I also finaly got in one of the rear drive shafts for mock up purposes. Unfortunately no pic, because I lent someone my camera, and it has not been returned.
Oh, I almost forgot. I also decided that 103 HP was not enough to get me to my desired speed. I did some addmitiedly brief calculations that involed a lot of educated guessing. The gist of it is that I figured I would need at least 140hp to get to the speed I wanted without changing the shape (frontal area) of the cart. (lower and longer = faster with less power) To this end, I aquired a brand new roots type supercharger with full sensor suite and throttle body that was actually destened for a 3800. That should get me closer to my goal.
So thats what I did this week. Just so you know. (ok, more than a week. so sue me.)
New Tools Used This Week: (first time I used these tools on this project, but I already had them. well, for the update, not technicly a week)
9" Grinder from Chicago tools $39
HVLP Husky Spray Gun $49
Additional Tools I broke, or Needed
Transformer for welder $280 (I am not going to count this in the final price tally for the cart)
Materials and/or "Expendable" Tools Used this week:
one 9" grinding wheel $5
10lb spool of electrode $44 (Ouch.)
4 mounting tabs $1 each
Total Cost of materials and Tools Used (even though I already owned the tools)
Tools: $542 (including welder)
Materials: ~$174 for metal, $54 for wire for welder
Total so far: $770
Build Time
Total build time so far: 101 hours + 17 hours for paint.
History:
Evadman's Go-Cart Update for the week of June 6th, 2004
Evadman's Go-Cart Update for the week of June 13th, 2004
Evadman's Go-Cart Update for the week of June 20th, 2004
Evadman's Go-Cart Update for the week of September 4th, 2004
Current Update: Will wonders never cease. I have not done a whole hell of a lot on the project due to R/L interfeering with my plan to get a piece of steel past a buck fifty. However, I did get a few physical things done.
The first was getting the cart into paint. I decided to toss on a coat of primer at this point not because the frame is done. No, far from it. What happened was one of the neighberhood kids (7 years old btw) decided it would be funny to toss a water balloon into my garage while I was welding. There are 2 things that make this a bad idea. The first is that the frame was entirely uncoated, which made it rust when it got wet. The 2nd is that I was actually welding at the time, and an electric MIG welder and water do not agree. Thankfully, when I built my workbench I put in GFCI recepticles, so all that happened was a blown GFCI and toasted transformer in the welder. Both of which are quite better than a trip to the emergency room.
The first thing I did was presurize the main compartments of the frame to make sure I did not have any pinholes in the welds. There are a ton of individual 'cells' in the frame, and I checked each one. I did this because once the frame is finished I will add some rust inhibitor to the inside of each cell so the frame does not rust out from the inside. It is much easier to weld without having to remove a bunch of paint, so I did that now. Yes, I did have a few leaks, all of which I filled.
I started preperation with a through cleaning with a new 9 inch grinder to clean up the edges and some spatter; a grease remover, then acetone for final pre-paint prep. I wanted this paint to stick until forever.
The first paint was applied with a Foam brush in the corners to make sure there was sufficent coverage. I didn't want rust to get a handhold in these spots. After each corner and edge had 2 coats, I busted out the HVLP Spraygun and moved the frame into my back yard.
Once there, I proceeded to kill some grass by coating it along with the frame with 4 light coats of Rustoleum Primer. All in all, I think it came out pretty well without any runs. Just in case you are wondering, those 4 tabs at the front of the frame are where the nose cone sub assembly will be mounted. It will be created out of 3/4" tubing that can be replaced if I hit something (such as say, a owl) at extra legal speeds.
Most of the other stuff I did was planning. I worked out the final suspension geometry and wheel travel issues I found out would be there, along with working in an anti-dive geometry so I don't smach the noce on the ground hauling myself down from triple digit speeds. I also finaly got in one of the rear drive shafts for mock up purposes. Unfortunately no pic, because I lent someone my camera, and it has not been returned.
Oh, I almost forgot. I also decided that 103 HP was not enough to get me to my desired speed. I did some addmitiedly brief calculations that involed a lot of educated guessing. The gist of it is that I figured I would need at least 140hp to get to the speed I wanted without changing the shape (frontal area) of the cart. (lower and longer = faster with less power) To this end, I aquired a brand new roots type supercharger with full sensor suite and throttle body that was actually destened for a 3800. That should get me closer to my goal.
So thats what I did this week. Just so you know. (ok, more than a week. so sue me.)
New Tools Used This Week: (first time I used these tools on this project, but I already had them. well, for the update, not technicly a week)
9" Grinder from Chicago tools $39
HVLP Husky Spray Gun $49
Additional Tools I broke, or Needed
Transformer for welder $280 (I am not going to count this in the final price tally for the cart)
Materials and/or "Expendable" Tools Used this week:
one 9" grinding wheel $5
10lb spool of electrode $44 (Ouch.)
4 mounting tabs $1 each
Total Cost of materials and Tools Used (even though I already owned the tools)
Tools: $542 (including welder)
Materials: ~$174 for metal, $54 for wire for welder
Total so far: $770
Build Time
Total build time so far: 101 hours + 17 hours for paint.
History:
Evadman's Go-Cart Update for the week of June 6th, 2004
Evadman's Go-Cart Update for the week of June 13th, 2004
Evadman's Go-Cart Update for the week of June 20th, 2004
Evadman's Go-Cart Update for the week of September 4th, 2004
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