My Corsair fiberglass buggy build.

[hotrod100]

I'm going to use this body. (At least that's the plan today!)

[Ol'fogasaurus]

If... I was going to do it over... I think I would go with a full size body rather than a shortened body. The shortened body are good in tight places but the ride is choppy because of the ~80" wheelbase. You need to limit the amount of travel to somewhere between 6" and 9" because of the shortness. I have seen people go with more but the rule of thumb seems to be 6 to 9".

The 14 1/4 to 14 1/2 wheel base (~95") does allow for longer suspension travel and not become quite as unmanageable.

W/longer travel you need to go longer in the wheel base. The newer 'glass buggies now have the fenders raised ~4" allowing for more travel w/o having the body lift. If you don't have the body lift you need to stiffen up the perimeter of the pan to keep body flex to a minimum.

If you plan on jumping your buggy some or some rough whoops and terrain at speed, then the pan needs to be reinforced as the tunnel can bend, usually by the front cross-piece or as mine did, start to crack at the e-brake hole.

As far as tube chassis goes, not convinced yet on round or rectangular tube as each has its own benefits. If you look at some build here like Central WA Baja, Hedrock, and a couple of others, the chassis and cage are quite complex and strong. I should have added: http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic ... 8&t=138615 and there are other commercial body and frame kits out there too.

Rectangular tubing has some benefits too. If you look at Berrien’s or John Barretts rectangular tube chassis you might get some ideas there.

Whichever way you go, be sure to tie the front beam and the rear of the chassis together and stiffen thing up.

For what its worth.

Lee

[hotrod100]

Ol'fogasaurus, that's some good information. Thank you. That will give me something to think about for a while. Right now everything from the front bumper to the rear bumper (including the front beam) are tied in to the roll cage.

[hotrod100]

Here's a few more pics from the Glamis trip that I thought I would share.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

HRC, I notice that you are running coil-overs in front. I also noticed on your video that you have a tendency toward hard bumps at times. Do you still have your stock torsion bars and do you have cut and turned torsion tubes or what.

The reason I am asking as I went through this myself and found that by removing the coil-overs and going to a good off-road shock, going with adjusters so you could tune the suspension better that life was a whole lot softer. I am building another beam to see if I can get the suspension to interact with the sand dunes a bit better. I'll PM you with some video as it has been posted here way too many times.

I don't run in long stretches like you have on the Imperial dunes but we have a lot of trails w/close whoops which can beat you to death.

Lee

[hotrod100]

Lee,
Thanks for the videos. There are no torsion stacks in the front end, only through rods. The shocks are Fox 2.0 with 150 over 250 springs. I still need to do some fine tuning on the preload and I may switch to a 225 lower spring and see what that does.

[KUHLMANX]

The pictures of your passenger gripping the OS bar for dear life are quite amusing! Needless to say, the buggy is fantastic! Gonna make it street legal so I can follow you up some trails some day?

[560]

OK, lookin' good but you can't rest on your laurels; what are you going to do to it next?

Lee

Well, there will be a few months of resting then the work begins again. I'm going to be building a tube chassis with A-arm front suspension and 3X3 rears. I plan on building all of the components myself so it should be a lot of fun.

If you decide not to fab the parts yourself hit me up, I know a guy.

Mike