those meguire shells are pretty cool. can you get roundy ones

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Potato

The last time I looked you cannot use a fiberglass shell in sports sedans, unless they have changed the regs. If you build a spaceframe mini you will be able to use it in sports sedans, but the MRA will not allow it. I checked with Brian Waldon on this as I am building one. The CAMS rule for Sports sedans also use to state that if the car was pre 86, the end at which the car was driven must stay the same, so if you used an Australian build mini as your base, it must remain FWD. Unless they changed that as well. I've noticed that the CAMS manual has now deleted the clause relevant to Morris/Austin vehicles which explained how the air inlet on the bonnet for eight port heads was to face down.

As for the U2L sports sedans, this category has it origins in the demise of the Victorian Super Mini series in 1992. Leigh Warren (who was president at the time) and John Bell were the main instigators who got the series running. We didn't have enough mini's to make the series viable anymore. If you look in the archives section of the U2L website you will see a number of photos of mini's competing. Unfortunately Mini's are now very uncompetitive in this category.

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Member VMCI #19

The date for frong wheel drive to rear wheel drive used to be 86 but they changed it to 80 and now have dropped it altogether.
You still can't use a fiberglass body. (why would you want a fiberglass body in a car that has to weigh 780kg?)

so you can take it off to work on the car in the workshop. and any weight saved in the car can then get put into the right spot.

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Potato

A lot of the Sports Sedans I worked on could have the body removed. It was just easier not to. Where do you stick the body once it is off? You have to double your floorspace to work on the dang thing.
Way back when you were allowed to use fiberglass doors we found that steel doors were lighter than the fiberglass ones. You have to keep strengthening the glass doors to stop them blowing off. But a steel door is only really two sheets of steel once you strip the guts out of it.
A fiberglass body is not going to help you because it is not allowed anyway!

Apparently you can use fibreglass doors again in sports sedans. Go figure. My car run right till March 1991 with fiberglass doors until it was pinged by CAMS

I weighed my doors the other day and this is what I came up with. All doors stripped, no glass and no internal guff.

Fiberglass door 3.48kg
850 door 7.77kg
Deluxe door 9.28kg
Bare deluxe without skin 6.61kg.

I putting my car back to how I bought it, Fiberglass on the LHS, and some metal on the RHS

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Member VMCI #19

They should all be allowed to run "Clip off" full lexan body,,, just like a remote control car

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

i repeat



A steel spaceframe chassi with a fibreglass non-load bearing shell attached to it complies. No ifs, no buts. Sorry Morris1100, but the current rules do allow it!

The number of spaceframe cars in the country now that are ex-canam/tranzam things based on cars never sold in Australia is astounding. Having seen the quality of the fibreglassing on some of these I ams surprised that it all does not get ripped off at speed.

For some proper fibreglass panels check out the progress on my brother's soarer sports sedan build here. The bonnet and boot can be easily picked up by my ten year old nephew with one hand, yet they are as stiff as the steel originals. By the way this is a floorpan car, not a spaceframe. Hopefully will be on the track next year.

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the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates

I have been out of racing for a while, I didn't know that all the rules on body panels had changed.
We were building spaceframe Sports Sedans with non-load bearing bodies over 15 years ago. Is is just that our body panels were steel.

Just face it Morry,,, we`re gettin old & out of date,,, i did hear about the rules (Possibly) changing to allow fibreglass shells, but hadn`t heard the final facts ,,, Freddy Sayers was talking with me about it ages agao but i didn`t follow up on it,,, i`m not sure about old pre-log booked cars tho,,, maybe the old ones have to stay the same???

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

yep, 15 years ago the rules said that the floorpan, roof, A, B, C pillars and doors must be the original steel items. Then you put a full spaceframe type cage inside that stuff and built the front and rear spaceframes to hang off that. A lot of the cars from those days are still running but are classed as "floorpan cars".

About 3 years ago the ex Graham Bailey 300ZX was sold for $50k, including transporter. 15 years ago this was state of the art in Sports Sedans, but these days is mildly competitive at the national level

Notice that they also state it must be a front engine car? That means no one is likely to build something as crazy as the Thomson VW any more




i think if your log book has a date on it, you have to keep it to the rules of that date, or get the log book updated with the changes to keep it current. Who knows?

The whole thing with the rules changing so much was why Fred was having problems defining the rules for Historic Sports Sedans so that the anoraks in historics would allow them to play. How do you give/get a historic certificate for a category with so many freedoms, and ensure that the cars are representing how they were back in the day?

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the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates

The stewart and ardern sprint and sprint gt are elegible under rule 1.
They were a car that was supplied by a authorised manufactuer's agent and sold world wide thru a authorised dealer net work.
During 1967-69 there were more than 10 sprints sold in aust as new cars.I saw 2 for sale[ brand new cooper s] at adelaide motors in 1969 when I bought my mini deluxe.
S&A got the body shells from BMC and carried out the mods. They were then supplied with the componets to complete the cars and sold thru dealer network.
As for panels you can replace the steel panel with a alumin one of the same thickness except the floor which must be a minimun thickness of 1.6mm
With the min weight restriction use steel or alumin, it won't crack/burn like fiberglass . As for remavable panels my car has flip front and I can lift the whole front assembly off quite easily. the rear of the eng is under the wind screen and the front in the midle of the car. Very easy to work on

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Research is the difference between speculation and investment. Anyone who copys some one else will always be second
www.minisprintgt.com

ahh, did not realise the sprints were sold through dealers. you might have to prove it to the eligibility guys if you win anything though

I'm not saying fibreglass or even carbon fibre panels are what should be used, only that they can be.

The biggest advantage of a spaceframe with fibreglass panels is the weight distribution. You build it well under the minimum weight and then distribute balast to get ideal handling at minimum raceweight.

The advantage of fibreglass panels over aluminium is that when you break one you can quickly make a new one to the exact shape. Unless you are a whiz with the english wheel or hand beating it over bucks old school style . You can get fire resistant resins that will char a little bit, but won't burn or emit noxious fumes, so that is not a major problem.

The biggest advantage of steel or aluminium panels is the energy absorbtion they offer in a crash. As they deform they use far more energy than snapping fibreglass panels. The use of carbon fibre crash energy absorbing structures is a high science used at the top end of racecar design. I doubt that a spaeceframe Mini builder is going to go to that extent.....

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the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates

That car runs in Japan, some crazy class whereby you can run anything you want.

BTW - that Mini is rear-engined, so ineligible!!







But still certainly a beast none-the-less.

Cheers,
Tricky

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"Not Speeding Officer..........Qualifying"

Go on,,, build one like that Tricky,,, you know you want too

Who cares what class you run,,, it has the potential to beat almost anything else on the track anyways,,, AASA rules will let you run it,,, hillclimbs entered as a formula Libre will let you run,,, almost all the street sprints will let you in,,, almost every form of racing is avaliable to you with such a car

i know you want too

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.