I'm away from home at the moment so can't help with photographs, but:
I wouldn't get hung up on lowering the chassis. For a road car, anything less than 4in ground clearance would make life difficult and technically illegal in the U.K. Anyway. Too low a centre of gravity, in my opinion, makes it difficult to feel what the car is doing around corners, for example. I'd be far more interested in arranging the suspension to reduce the roll centre height.

Thanks for the reply Alan. The last car I built has flat springs front and back which I flattened myself. My front axle has 2 1/2" of a bow as I bowed and stretched it myself. It is a stiff car to drive. I was hoping to take my next project 'to the extent level'. As in stiffer, lower and with a more competitive engine. I will post some photos of my new rear springs and front beam for the next car.


Something like these

Location: Ireland

John L.

Thanks for the reply Alan. The last car I built has flat springs front and back which I flattened myself. My front axle has 2 1/2" of a bow as I bowed and stretched it myself. It is a stiff car to drive. I was hoping to take my next project 'to the extent level'. As in stiffer, lower and with a more competitive engine. I will post some photos of my new rear springs and front beam for the next car.


Something like these

Location: Ireland

I do not know if these pictures help, but they show the chassis mods for the above low car.





Bryan

Location: Hertfordshire

Thanks Bryan. Appreciate the photo's. I see your crossmembers were removed and replaced with pipe. Does anyone have photos of the chassis on pigsty's last car?

Location: Ireland

Hi John,

I would be very interested to know how you went about bowing the front axle in the photo.
Did you build a jig for doing this? A description and photos, if you have any, would be really interesting

Thanks

Marcus

Hi Marcus, I fabricated a 'jig' from 6'' channel iron to bolt the axle beam to. It was a ruby axle that I used so I utilised the larger radius arm holes as well as the smaller ones. The jig was drilled and reamed accurately and machined bolts were used to hold the beam in place. I then had a sleeve welded to the top of the jig with a piece of box that slid through it pointing at the centre of the axle beam. On the end of this box I fitted a shaped former to give the desired shape to my axle. At the other end of the box I had a hydraulic ram.

To heat my beam all the way across I used a piece of 6'' channel with the ends blocked up. I had a piece of small steel pipe with holes drilled in it sitting on the bottom of the channel and connected to a compressor. I set a good coal fire in the channel and slid the lot under my beam. (the beam was partially covered in hot coals). It took a while to be fair but the beam eventually got to a nice consistent glow and I could see it beginning to droop! It was now or never! I applied lots of pressure with the ram and guided the drooping beam up and let it cool with the pressure on. So my axle stayed the same width and bowed 2 1/2''. My father tweaked it slightly the next day on the bench using two 1m lengths of rod going through the king pin eyes.

I will try and dig up some photos.

Location: Ireland

Location: Ireland

Thanks John,

I would love to see some photos of the bending jig if you can find any.

Cheers

Marcus

You must be very fortunate in your part of the world to contemplate a low slung car for road use;my enjoyment of my "65"is constantly ruined by those wretched "speed bumps"round here.

Location: The pits,Leicester

John - re your initial statement that you want a fast road car that you can competitively race on the track, I think many who have tried will agree that there's no such animal. To be successful and eligible on the track a car quickly becomes unsuitable for road use (apart from the legal ramifications) and the obvious mods and additions on a road car make it uncompetitive on the track. Most of us who've tried found the idea disappointing. If you can succeed, let us know, as I'm sure many on this Forum would be interested. Good Luck with the project, whatever you decide. Cheers, Bill

Location: Euroa, Australia

This is my jig. Unfortunately I cannot find the photos of my axle being done. I will keep looking. I will show my progress as I go with this project.

Location: Ireland

John L.

Thanks for the reply Alan. The last car I built has flat springs front and back which I flattened myself. My front axle has 2 1/2" of a bow as I bowed and stretched it myself. It is a stiff car to drive. I was hoping to take my next project 'to the extent level'. As in stiffer, lower and with a more competitive engine. I will post some photos of my new rear springs and front beam for the next car.


Something like these

Location: New Forest

Can I ask if the floor sat on top of the chassis runners or was it placed under the original cross members?

john

Location: Ireland

The floor is on top the chassis rails.

Location: New Forest