New Floor 87 - 90 Reynard

[Purple Frog]

Does anyone know a good reason not to extend the permanently attached floor on a Reynard all the way back to the bellhousing?

Obviously one would have to have a jig, or leave the bellhousing bolted up to the chassis to keep it all aligned during the process.

[jim morgan]

what the hell does alignment matter when you can adjust around with great driving
Man up Frog! or should that be " Bull up" frog

[carnut169]

what the hell does alignment matter when you can adjust around with great driving
Man up Frog! or should that be " Bull up" frog

Bet James Lee can answer that one for you Jim....

[Richard Learned]

Oh Purple One,
Great minds think alike, been there, done that, when we did ground up on the ol' Reynard during winter of '07. We did exactly what you wrote, bolted up and went to town on the thing. I have had no loose or even weeping rivets at the tail end of this thing over 21 race weekends. And...when I do post race set up check (everything coming back from the track in one piece, sometimes that didn't happen) I have no adjustments to make other than those I could contribute to the temperature in the garage and the phase of the moon. This was not the case before. Now...I'm not saying it helped a bunch but somewhere in there (prolly in my head but where else would it be) I felt like the power could be put down earlier. It might have been we just got better at set up and rust was coming off my butt, who knows. Bottom line is the no loose rivets or weeping thing under the engine if nothing else. Oh, and I don't hafta pry around on one of the upper frame rails anymore at engine install (well...not as much anyway).

Richard L

[rickb99]

Does anyone know a good reason not to extend the permanently attached floor on a Reynard all the way back to the bellhousing?

Obviously one would have to have a jig, or leave the bellhousing bolted up to the chassis to keep it all aligned during the process.

Frog,

BOTH of our chassis have the floor running ALL the way back to the bell housing. No problems.

But you are correct, I have one pan off now and when it's time to redo, You MUST bolt the bell housing on or have a pretty accurate fixture to take its place. If you don't you'll never ever get the bell housing back on when you're done

I've always believed this was the original belly pan? But if the cars were built without it all the way back then I guess it has been replaced at least once.

P.S.
Part of the reason for redoing it is, from the roll bar back there were perhaps 6 (instead of about 40) rivets left holding it on. All of the epoxy was shot too. "Could" have been caused by removal on occasions of the bell housing. Gotta put a lot of stress on the epoxy bonding as those frame members try to 'flex'.

P.P.S.
Put a hole in the pan under the starter to get the big nut off

P.P.P.S
It's a Reynard. Keep a BIG box of wipes around and a long thin screw driver. Helps when trying to clean the oil off the inside of the pan. But, we don't drop oil on the track

[rickjohnson356]

Are you gonna use an AL pan or a steel pan?

Any advantage/disadvantage to using a steel pan (min 14 ga per GCR, I believe) and welding it on?

No rivits to work loose or hysol to become un-bonded...

[kea]

Mike,
The original pan did go all the way back.

[rickb99]

Are you gonna use an AL pan or a steel pan?

Any advantage/disadvantage to using a steel pan (min 14 ga per GCR, I believe) and welding it on?

Rick,

I don't recall the exact numbers at the moment, but as I recall, you need 18 gauge steel (about 0.50 thick) or 0.064 T6061 aluminum per the GCR? Am I wrong?

Going with 0.080 T6061 aluminum (0.98 Lbs per sq. ft) aluminum or 0.047 (18 gauge) steel 2.06 Lbs per sq. ft, On the Reynard (when I was hot on this issue) has about 14 sq. ft. of belly pan area and a weight calculation showed the steel adding 14 pounds to the car compared to aluminum.

Welding is sorta semi-forever and would complicate any (heaven forbid) lower frame repairs required. Although, the idea of not dealing with loose epoxy or rivets has its good points

Right now, in racing trim we are 53 Lbs over 1200. Don't want to 'weigh down' Jeff with 14 more pounds to carry around.

[rickjohnson356]

Rick:

Have Jeff be the crew and you drive!

That will take care of the extra 14 lbs...


for reference, I welded 12 ga on the bottom of my "Caracal"-like FST chassis. Gets the weight low and less risk of scraping skin off of my (own) rear end.

I'll have the mass to keep any downhill momentum going further on the straights, too.

extra weight is not an issue with FST as the rules specify an additional 100 lbs, anyway.

I can understand the need for weight saving in the FC/CFC world, though

[rickb99]

Rick:

Have Jeff be the crew and you drive!

That will take care of the extra 14 lbs...

Good idea Rick.

Unfortunately, it won't work. I might be about 4" to 4.5" shorter then he is but our "mass" is about the same