"Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
10/26/2019 at 16:59 • Filed to: Mitsubishi, Mitsubishi mirage, mirage, normalcarnonsense, project car
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"Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
10/26/2019 at 16:59 • Filed to: Mitsubishi, Mitsubishi mirage, mirage, normalcarnonsense, project car | 5
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Tomorrow is a fun day for the Mirage. As I hinted at in my last post, the orange econobox gets some aero enhancements and a little something extra!
There’s the pieces modifying the body of the car. Some carbon fiber front bumper canards and some lovely JMF billet rear bumper diffusers that are ironically meant for a 1G DSM.
But there’s more too. Last weekend you all got to see (and seemed to enjoy) the hand fabrication of my chromoly strut brace. This weekend we are building something truly awesome, a rear torsion/sway bar to solidify the twist beam rear suspension. 7 foot of solid chromoly hit the shop floor yesterday. Tomorrow the magic happens.
We have our work cut out for us, but once done it will totally change the manners of the car. The one that went on the Veloster I built made a world of difference. This one shall do the same.
Future plans only get crazier from here. As many of you know, I’ve hinted at boosting it and doing a manual swap. That is all still very much on. As far as handling and chassis goes we are going wild. Mirage owners have picked up some strut braces from us and the torsion bar has generated crazy interest. We are working on a 4 or 6 point chromoly brace to fully solidify the subframe and tie that together.
Over winter when the interior gets pulled out for wiring of the stand alone engine management, we’ve decided we’re taking big steps. We are literally going to seam weld the chassis. For those not familiar, this is a huge practice in racing cars and rally cars. The factory seams are spot welded and definitely get exploited as a flex point as suspension and tires get really good. Seam welding the chassis just ties the whole package together and offers a very large increase in rigidity. I’d wager nobody has ever done this on a newer generation Mirage and it’s a step I’m excited to take.
I’d worked with a large coilover manufacturer and have thrown a deposit down, and my custom coilovers come in 6 weeks. I’d settled on 6.8k front springs 4.8k rear. The shocks and struts are going to be progressively valved as well. This will pair perfectly with the R compound Advan tires going on next summer.
The stock seats suck in terms of bolstering, but the Sabelt GT3 bucket seats should nicely alleviate that issue. Based on the interior measurements I’ve taken, they’ll fit wonderfully. Space is tight in this small car, so I need to be very careful about that constraint. Sabelt is world recognized as one of the best, and the weight and price perfectly fits what I’m shooting for. The idea here is to use top quality components with a focus on weight savings.
There’s so much more to come, I’m just dropping a preview on you. You’ll want to stay tuned, trust me ;) nobody else is doing anything quite like this, and I’m just ridiculous enough to take this all the way.
MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick)
> Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru
10/26/2019 at 17:32 |
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Seam welding!!!!! That is frickin sweet and in my opinion seam welding is the coolest part of a bunch of special cars like all the rally homologation specials I couldn’t accurately name off the top of my head. Changes it from a normal car with some hot bolt ons to a truly unique machine.
I may bug you in the future about your custom coilovers as well, DIY coilovers are apparently the way to go for my Volvo and there’s lots of instructions but I don’t know where to buy the bits.
DIY sway bars sounds very cool too, can’t wait to see all that goes into making them as I would like to do a project like that and not spend $$$ on the IPD stuff, but make something nicer than just reinforcing my current sways
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Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru
> MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick)
10/26/2019 at 17:38 |
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What’s nice is that this manufacturer does indeed sell coilovers for the mirage, but the spring rates are rather low. They had no issue working with me on valving and spring rates. They cost me around $1300 which considering they’re one off, I didn’t mind at all. Well worth it. Shoot if you’re local to Ohio we may be able to make something else adapt. I assume you have a Volvo 240 or 740 or something along that line? I remember iPD. Those guys are sweet.
As far as sway bars go, it seems tons of manufactures like QA1, Hotchkiss and others use 4130 tubing. I’d say as long as the wall thickness is a minimum of 1/4” that material would give you what you need for fabricating. Hopefully that helps. Just bend slow, and fill the tubing with sand during bending to prevent kinks. Never heat 4130.
The seam welding part has us crazy excited. For me, in my mind it takes it from a economy hatch to a serious hot hatch/dual purpose car. It’s just one of those steps that’s often overlooked but totally changes the attitude of the entire build. I want this to be the most unique Mirage hatch in America.
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Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru
> Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru
10/26/2019 at 19:53 |
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I may or may not have just dropped some cash on a quick release and OMP steering wheel.
Drugs would be cheaper at this point lol