Designing a small buggy as side by side (UTV)

[neneossa]

Hello, this week Ive started designing my third buggy. The intention of this one is to build something smaller than a buggy, using some dimensions of UTV as wheel base and track width. I drive mainly in sand dunes and the road are to narrow to use my other buggy (100" width)

The number up to now are:
Wheel base: 100"
Width: 78"
Front wheel travel:18", unequal a-arm, Fox Podium 2.5 Internal bypass 10"
Rear wheel travel: 16" Trailing arm, to be defined if 3 link or typical trailing arm. Fox Podium 30 Internal bypass 16"
Tire and wheel: 31x10,5 tire and 15x8 with beadlock wheel
Chassis: A53 seamless pipe 1 1/4 (main parts) and 1 1/2 tube 2mm
Mid engine
Engine: Nissan SR20VET 280HP turbo 228 lb⋅ft
Transmission: Subaru 9R WRX 5 speed MT 4x2
Rear CV joints: 930 CV 22-24°. A good alternative is try to fit can am X3

Im managin an alternative to buy a reverse drive crown for subaru to put the engine back and use the AWD transmission to connect the rear diff of the car as fornt diff and get 4x4 permanent. Right now is under evaluation. I love the idea to convert the buggy to 4x4.

I'll be uploading information daily in
www.facebook.com/opcdesign
www.instagram.com/opc.design

 

[E.Hagle]

I like the look. Except I’m curious about the door bar design and why the bend instead of an X ?

Is that fusion 360?

 

[neneossa]

I like the look. Except I’m curious about the door bar design and why the bend instead of an X ?

Is that fusion 360?

Me last buggy that I designed had a x in the door so I want to change a ilttle bit the design so the idea is to create the x But bending the tubes and welding it between them.

It is solidworks

 

[E.Hagle]

Me last buggy that I designed had a x in the door so I want to change a ilttle bit the design so the idea is to create the x But bending the tubes and welding it between them.

It is solidworks

Solidworks, man I envy you. If you’re just out in the dunes and having fun I guess the small amount of strength isn’t the end of the world. I would bet my money that x is a little tougher if you were side blinded in a bad situation.

 

[michael.gonzalez]

Hello, this week Ive started designing my third buggy. The intention of this one is to build something smaller than a buggy, using some dimensions of UTV as wheel base and track width. I drive mainly in sand dunes and the road are to narrow to use my other buggy (100" width)

The number up to now are:
Wheel base: 100"
Width: 78"
Front wheel travel:18", unequal a-arm, Fox Podium 2.5 Internal bypass 10"
Rear wheel travel: 16" Trailing arm, to be defined if 3 link or typical trailing arm. Fox Podium 30 Internal bypass 16"
Tire and wheel: 31x10,5 tire and 15x8 with beadlock wheel
Chassis: A53 seamless pipe 1 1/4 (main parts) and 1 1/2 tube 2mm
Mid engine
Engine: Nissan SR20VET 280HP turbo 228 lb⋅ft
Transmission: Subaru 9R WRX 5 speed MT 4x2
Rear CV joints: 930 CV 22-24°. A good alternative is try to fit can am X3

Im managin an alternative to buy a reverse drive crown for subaru to put the engine back and use the AWD transmission to connect the rear diff of the car as fornt diff and get 4x4 permanent. Right now is under evaluation. I love the idea to convert the buggy to 4x4.

I'll be uploading information daily in
www.facebook.com/opcdesign
www.instagram.com/opc.design

Be mindful of the limitations of the reverse cut ring and pinion with power. We ran our AWD buggy for a season with a EJ25 pushing ~350hp in Glamis and the ring and pinion couldn’t hang. Those ring and pinions aren’t cheap either!! Ending up swapping in a mendeola and going back to rwd.

You may have better luck with your setup though. AWD is a blast in the dunes! Total game changer on what you can and can’t do. Sometimes I miss it.

 

[neneossa]

Have you seen a Side by side door? Can-am or Polaris… that is nothing.. the X member here is a tube of 42mm diameter per 3.6 mm of thickness. Anyway, when the design being finished, I had to check the roll cage design hitting big forces in different points of the cage in order to see what are the weakness parts and then reinforce if is necessary! I I will post that analysis when it is done.

 

[neneossa]

Be mindful of the limitations of the reverse cut ring and pinion with power. We ran our AWD buggy for a season with a EJ25 pushing ~350hp in Glamis and the ring and pinion couldn’t hang. Those ring and pinions aren’t cheap either!! Ending up swapping in a mendeola and going back to rwd.

You may have better luck with your setup though. AWD is a blast in the dunes! Total game changer on what you can and can’t do. Sometimes I miss it.

For now the design is considering mid engine with Subaru wrx transmission but id love to convert it to awd but my concern is this R&P could hang the engine torque. The good thing of awd you distribute torque and power 50/50 between both ends so it should be support the stress.
A mendeola wold be the best but is too expensive to Import to chile (South America) taxes and shipping.

 

[jon coleman]

gotta lock the viscous coupler, drill it, and use steel dowl pins, you toob video out there, auto trans is a clutch disk pack like a motorcycle, i had to weld mine up and make it a rwd only,i also ginded down front drive gear so old broken fwd is out of the picture, strictly rwd, front r&p poppped, got about 3000 miles on it so far, better mpg!, got rid of old front cv axles too ( note, if your awd subaru auto chatters Really bad making a sharp turn, its because the steel drive plates have cut into the clutch basket and are Not releasing from drive plates, hi mileage subi's)the rear diffs are farely strong, drifter guys use em , & there are a S load at the junk yard, i would build it rear engine, flip the rear diff& stick it up front, main trans diff,,,,, can it be flipped? i looked a little, maybe after market reverse cut r& p's is the answer so you can reverse rotate, research & home work time

 

[jon coleman]

i also think there is a viscous coupler eliminator kit out there allready, i would go this route because subarus are Everywhere, Lottsa them in the junk yards, as for running the stock rear diff up front, just flip the Whole unit, modify the oiling / passages to make sure every thing is OIL happy upside down

 

[neneossa]

I was checking the space to install the subaru diff in the fornt end but is a little bit complicated. First of all, the front travel will be less than the current due to CV joints. Also there is not enough space for the steering rack and ís important to check the bumpsteer. I had to turn the engine position and relocare the front shock support in order to get space for the half-shaft but is ok.
Id like to see if its possible to adapt can-am X3 CV joints that have 40° of angle.

 

[bullnerd]

Widen the front track to match the back (or wider?) and regain the travel.

What's the hoop in front of the pedals for? Dead tubes at the frame?

Frame looks cool! Nice job so far.

 

[neneossa]

Widen the front track to match the back (or wider?) and regain the travel.

What's the hoop in front of the pedals for? Dead tubes at the frame?

Frame looks cool! Nice job so far.

Only in the image the rear end is wider than the front end casue i moved the tires to check interferances but is the same width for both ends ( 78") and is enough for sand dunes where the roads are very narrow

When you ask for the hopp you mean this one?

That is to sopport the tubes to install the brackets for the upper arms

Thnaks for your comments

 

[nimrod]

You should start taking deposits!

 

[10 shot]

You should start taking deposits!

He may have one available before robby

 

[bullnerd]

Only in the image the rear end is wider than the front end casue i moved the tires to check interferances but is the same width for both ends ( 78") and is enough for sand dunes where the roads are very narrow

When you ask for the hopp you mean this one?

That is to sopport the tubes to install the brackets for the upper arms

View attachment 245233

Thnaks for your comments

Yes that one.

Im not telling you what to do because I'm no expert, Just suggesting, But I would go back and take a look, You have a lot of dead tubes in this area.

 

[neneossa]

Yes that one.

Im not telling you what to do because I'm no expert, Just suggesting, But I would go back and take a look, You have a lot of dead tubes in this area.

View attachment 245253

Yes, you are right, in fact in some places like the rear of the car I need to put more tubes and in the front add some and remove others.

I have to make a decision on whether it will be AWD or 4x2. The final design of the front and back will depend on the selected configuration. Anyway that arc must be fixed in order to avoid movements when the front suspension hit the ground

 

[neneossa]

Yes that one.

Im not telling you what to do because I'm no expert, Just suggesting, But I would go back and take a look, You have a lot of dead tubes in this area.

View attachment 245253

When I finished the design I´ll run the math for the model. A good example is this case, a front crash (it show at big scala how the cage will be deformed. Of course, is necessary more parts here that will help to reduce the shares in the specific areas

 

[E.Hagle]

AWD or selectable 4x4 ?

If it was first go around building a chassis I would build it RWD to get my feet wet. Not sure how much fabrication you’ve done in your day though.

I imagine you could save yourself at least $15k easy in parts by avoiding AWD and quite a few headaches. Or go full send on her and we’ll sit back and cheer you on.

 

[neneossa]

AWD or selectable 4x4 ?

If it was first go around building a chassis I would build it RWD to get my feet wet. Not sure how much fabrication you’ve done in your day though.

I imagine you could save yourself at least $15k easy in parts by avoiding AWD and quite a few headaches. Or go full send on her and we’ll sit back and cheer you on.

AWD. I have the subaru transmission with the rear diff so the plan is to reverse the transmission with the reverse drive R&P and install the driveshaft from the transmission to the front diff.

The easy and cheap way forward at the moment is to build a mid-engined buggy and I think I'll go with that setup.

I built 2 buggies and they were sold. Now I am designing and I hope to start building in the next week, while the tubes arrive at my workshop I am preparing the drawings.

 

[partybarge_pilot]

Mid engine. Then use a chain or gear box to reroute the driveshft to the front.

Cheaper than buying reverse cut gears.

Downside is you are stuck with the stock gear ratio.

Or, rear engine with stock gears and use portal hums to get the gearing you need and correct rotation.