i know theres a few US builders that are doing this, and maybe some in germany or the netherlands. my question is does this upset the handling any because most of the weight of the engine being to the left hand side of the car? do people who build left hand drive BECs try to move the engine over to the right a bit more? the way im thinking is when your driving by yourself, the engine is sitting more to the left than the right and the driver would also be to the left side also. If there is any difference in handling could this be fixed by setting up the suspension any different?

Go to this site:
www.dpcars.net
and go to the PAST and you will see a very detailed build diary of a Westfield with a Hayabusa engine left hand drive. Awsome detail and really cool

This smart guy is building a 'locost' racing car well more like a hicost!! But its magnificent and you will learn a lot

cheers

Mine will be LHD. There is just no room to move the engine over. Have a look at my website.

hmmm, that does sound interesting. i am not familiar with the yamaha fj 1300. is it an inline 4 cylinder or arranged in a V? the way you said it, sounds like its a V so you could have dual exhaust. if it is inline, how exactly did you mount it? is it mid engined? how much power does those engines make by the way?

Sean, its also in an Indy which is not a middie

sounds realy cool, i didnt now if it was a "special" indy, thats why i asked if it was a midi. loads of torque in a lightweight BEC sounds like fun to me

Hi Sean,

For starters...My car is a Caterham sized seven with R1 power. It will be LHD.

I solved the steering (and footwell issue) by moving the engine further to the right than they do in the uk. However, I also rotated it 5 degrees off axis, (Clockwise if viewed from above with the front of the car pointing forward). The driveshaft is a 2 piece unit, the front 2 u-joints work at approximately 2.4 degrees. (As a note: U-joints will still cancel each other if they are angled in the same direction as long as the angles are the same). The rotation of the engine helped move more mass to the right side of the car and will also allow me to feed the steering shaft past the Left side of the engine (I am using a LHD Caterham rack).

Their is a LHD Hayabusa powered Birkin running around (in Pittsburgh I think) that uses a similar design. Guys name is Walt I believe.

Regarding Dennis Palatov's car: I have spoken to him regularly during my build, in fact, the reverse box in my car was originally bought for the dp1. His Westie's corner weights were very close to 50/50, unfortunately I cannot find the Email, but it was within a couple points.

Brian

It seems that weight distrib. would be an issue with LHD BECs. My locost 7 is 10" wider that the book chassis, hence my busa engine is more in the center than on the LHD side. I'll have to wait and see..

Yahshuatwo
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thanks for all the input guys....
Brian,
youve sent me pics of your car before. it is going to be amazing. did you ever get the supercharger sorted? last i remember you were looking for a place to drive it off of. by the way i saw a pic of your completed exhaust manifold in an old thread, that thing is a work of art. you should polish it, put a peice of glass on top of it and use it as a coffee table. i have checked out the dp1 website, his westie looked like it was set up very well from the videos of it in the corners, to bad he had to sell it. but whats taking its place is one of the coolest contraptions ive ever seen.

[Edited on 8/2/05 by sean951]