lightweight buggy

2 things influenced my engine choice,  cost and weight  im trying to make it as light as possible  so ideally an alloy block  and a common engine so as the info about wiring it up is floating around the internet some where,   so l went with the rover K series 
l know l know head gaskets  but thats curable  and it has some plus points, its a common engine countless metros have had engine swaps and there are forums like metro power where there loads of info,  i find forums much friendlier places to look for help as they are full of like minded folk who have an interest in the same things as yourself and are more than willing to help with advice  where as facebook is full of keyboard warriors looking to attack/make fun of,  anyway the engine and box i have which was free so thats a good price is from a 1996 1.1 metro  very basic single point  injection, its also got a cvt gearbox so thats another plus,  but theres plenty of scope for alteration with this engine  a year early model and it came with no electronics  just an SU carb and a distributer   so if i get into trouble  i can always swap to a carb  but  thats a backward step really as carburettors  have a float bowl in them which relies on the vehicle being somewhat upright where as injection will work upside down,if you need it to    then there is the opportunity to go larger later with an engine and box out of the mgf  1800 vvc  has a very flat torque curve that would suit a rockcrawler   so although this is an  automatic box i will probably build in a clutch pedal for future upgrades,    so im starting on stock axles stock springs and shocks to get a base line of what it can do  then start modifying  such as plus 4" springs shock to see if its better or just falls over easier

I quite like K series engines. I used to have a Rover 200VI. The 1800 VVC engine was a hoot in such a light car. The bottom end torque was amazing. I did buy it with a dead head gasket but this was probably caused by a dodgy radiator. Even then it had done over 120K miles on it's original gasket. I still have the engine, ECU and loom tucked away, waiting for a suitable project car to drop it in to.

It will be interesting to see how the CVT handles off road use. I used a 1.4 Corsa auto in my buggy which has a similar engine layout to what you have in mind. The auto works pretty well. With the extra 3.9:1 in the diffs, shifts do tend to be a little harsh but otherwise it works great. The buggy is documented here . The suspension is very different to what you have planned but it may give you some ideas.

Hi Les
           just had a quick look at your buggy,  it looks very very interesting,  will dig out my laptop so I can see the pictures  better,   funny corsa auto was on my shopping list but I couldn't  find a cheap one
Where abouts in the country are you ?
Cheers Andy 

Hi Andy,
I'm in Devon. Whereabouts are you?

Hi
   im i a place called alvechurch  its just below birmingham

ive just read your write up on your Chinese buggy, excellent  stuff  i take my hat of to you  must have been loads of work  i have a Chinese buggy too and can confirm they use chocolate where metal would be more suitable  but will rebuild it from scratch one day,

l also built one using an mgf as a donner it worked well apart from the suspension travel was far to limited for using off the road  but the drive train held up just fine,

im interested in air shocks  i need to investigate them as i would like to build a long travel  buggy after this jimny based one

my china buggy,  was originally 650cc 2 cylinder  but that kept breaking and when it did get fixed it promptly ate the gearbox  so it wasent long before it became home to a nissan micra engine and box

 

That MGF buggy looks great for hooning around in fields. It's difficult getting decent clearance and travel out of transverse engine setups. Some early VW buses used reduction hubs. I have some hub bits and keep looking at them, trying to think of a way of adapting them to use modern drive shafts and CVs. 4" lift portals!

The engine conversion in your Chinese buggy looks pretty tidy. Even better it's road legal.

I have to admit I really like air suspension. With decent shocks it just floats over bumps. I keep looking under my Jimny trying to figure out a way of fitting air bags to it. I wouldn't recommend going for a coaxial bag/shock setup like I did on the Copelander and the trials car. In my case it was the only way I could package them but it's a lot more engineering and prone to leaks.
I recently worked on an air conversion on a Fourtrak using Discovery air bags. We basically cut off the rear half of the chassis and made a new one, moving the back axle 16" further back. This is a heavy towing rig and we wanted the towbar as close to the axle as possible for stability.
I wouldn't mind trying some Fox air shocks sometime. They are rather expensive though. They also have a lot of seal friction so they don't react well to slowly changing loads.

more progress, chassis is finished  and ready for paint,  i  welded up the stiffeners inside the chassis first, then closed up the opening and ground it down then made some stiffeners to weld on the out side just to make sure

i used 5mm plate which  i think is overkill but it makes the side of the stiffening plate in the same plane as the radius arm brackets so that then makes it easy to drop a bracket down to beef up the radius arm mount   which i seem to remember folded over very easily on my first jimny when you started to get serious off road

something like that but with a bigger drop plate, maybe 2 or 3 holes so i can move the radius arm fixing bolt forward when i go to longer springs

 

axles have gone to the shotblasters   and i found another set of alloys under the bench so they went too

 

well the metro engine might not be usable after all,   i took the air cleaner off to fine mice living in there 

the throttle body is full of crap and jammed,   i might see if i can find an su  carb  and inlet manifold for it

failing that i will go straight to an mgf engine and box  
 

Well that sucks. Might be worth pulling the inlet manifold to see if mouse pee has managed to get into the engine.
Just a thought with CVT - they use an automatic clutch to take up drive. If you do a lot of low speed manoeuvring off road you could overheat it.

ive dropped off both manifolds   engine looks ok  on the inlet side,  early  rover 100's had an Su carb , will try and find one along with the manifold,  its a nice small light engine, would like to use it if i can   if not plenty of others out there

i think the transmission will hold up, keen to experiment with it