Painted car, engine cover ready, panhard bar

Even after painting it twice, there is still a big flaw in the dashboard. Have to paint it again...

Painted car.

The spacers for the rear suspension. Here's enough for two cars.

Assembling the rear suspension.

Finnish cell phone culture, all the time on the phone.

Fitting the hump on the engine cover.

"Take a picture from here."

A picture taken. The sides turned out great, from the right angle it looks like an ice breaker.

Camber adjustment in the front.

Making of the panhard tube was a quite last minute deal.

Painting the front sides

The left side got a hole so we can fit the exhaust tubing. The hole is just the right size so it is easy to install and remove the exhaust.

We moved the other frame outside so we would get more room in the garage.

Me and Mika lifted the car on the jigtable, so it's quite lightweight at this point.

The fixture to paint the nosecone and the dashboard. We had to repaint the nose because we managed to get a pretty bad scratch on it when fitting the engine cover.

Masked car, ready to be painted.

Testing how the tires fit

Putting a tire on the wheel. According to rules we can only use Yokohama A048 tires in Medium or Soft compound. Tire sizes are restricted to 185 or 205 in 13" and 195 or 205 in 15".

Testing how a tire fits the car.

The fender fits surprisingly well, even though we have 205mm wide tires instead of 185mm which the fenders are made for.

Reverse gear arrived, front end assembled, exhaust continued and fitting the fuel tank

Revers gear, weight approx. 300g.

Front end assembled.

Making the exhaust...

Welding the last tube of the header.

Fitting the fuel tank. The car will be a twoseater so we can take passengers along for a ride. The fuel tank will be under the passengers knees. The fuel fill we be on the side of the dash.

The stuff from england finally arrived, putting shocks on, 2nd version of race numbers

I moved to live at the garage. We have quite a bit to catch up before the car show.

Finally the stuff fron rallydesign arrived, it took 3 months. First time with shocks under the car.

Second layer of clear coat on the carbon fenders.

Second version of the race numbers.

Continuing to make the Exhaust headers.

Locost battery. Panasonic 38Ah regenerating dry battery.

Side panels, race numbers, fitting the engine cover, exhaust, installing the propshaft

It's 25th March, and the car should be ready before 5th April for a car show. Starting to feel the pressure...

First version of the racenumbers. In our class the racenumbers come from the chassis number, this is the 19th Locost in Finland to get chassis numbering.

Testing how the side panels fit. We decided to make them the easiest way, just a plain sheet of aluminium with a couple folds. Thanks to Reiska for making them!

Reiska made one that he said wasn't up to his standards, we tried it on and it fit perfectly. I guess we don't need to have it as accurately as some as his customers do.

Fitting the engine cover. We had to make a hole to fit the carburetors.

The carburetors stick out a bit. According to the rules no mechanical parts can stick out, so we will have to make a small addition to the engine cover to raise it over them. The air filter is allowed to stick out.

Fitting the painted front suspension parts. It feels a bit bad that the car hasn't been in rolling condition yet.

We also started making the exhaust.

We sprayed a clear coat on the carbon fenders to get that last bit of shine.

The support bearings for the propshaft, this is where the reverse will be installed.

The engine end of the propshaft. Here you can see the adapter to fit the propshaft to the bike engine.

Filling and sanding the dashboard. It was in pretty bad shape because the mold wasn't straight.

Final adjustment of the engine mounts, making the engine cover and fitting the rear discs

Final adjustment of the engine mounts. Just making sure that the engine is easy to install and remove.

"Gelcoated" seat mold. No one told me that gelcoat needs hardener...

Making the model for the engine cover.

The cardboard model.

The cardboard model ready to be cut. The lines were drawn on the inside.

Bending the engine cover wasn't an easy task. It took three men and a lot of force to get it into shape. Atleast it's stiff.

Fitting the Lada front disc to the rear axle. The diameter of the mounting flange had to be reduced a bit to make it fit.

Measuring the center of gravity

This thursday the car felt complete enough to measure where the center of gravity is so we could reduce the guesswork when ordering springs. There's still some components missing, so we replaced them with additional weight. Measuring without the wheels on is probably more accurate than with them because now there isn't a flexible tire that messes with the results, and you don't have to lock the suspension. The weight and location of each suspension was compensated in the calculations. We will do the same measurements when the car is ready. Then also probaby without suspension.

The wrench is instead of the upper waterhose.

The lead weight instead of the fuel tank and exhaust.

The car ready for measurement.


The mandatory "without hands" shot. This was the easier side because the driver wasn't as heavy when lifting the car, so we could afford having one of us taking photos. It's the second measurement and you can see the drivers neck getting tired.

Those who have a roll angle gauge in their car might be interested to know that without tires it will tip over at 60 degrees.

Big thanks to Kalevi, without his help we wouldn't have dared to lift the frame.