We made an outline of the shape of the bellytank and mocked up the axle positions and the length of the drivetrain.
Though we knew it wasn't going to be easy,
we soon realized there just wouldn't be enough room for our driver.
We decided that the throttle and brake pedals, and therefore Sascha's legs, should be positioned behind the front axle.
There also should be enough room for cooling and fuel system components, so we can make a decent firewall to seal it off from the driver compartment.
All for safety purposes ofcourse.
This means we'll have to lengthen the tank by approximately 40 cm.
The middle part of the tank shape is cilindrical so this shouldn't be too hard to do.
Now that the wheelbase was determined, the rear axle is mounted on the chassis table. Hanzl fabricated some adapter plates, so we could bolt the rear axle sidebells to the quickchange center section. This enables the rear axle to be mounted in the correct position during mock up and construction of the frame.
Next step, make a construction that'll place the engine in the correct position. Then our master fabricator can start building the frame.
After extensive contact with the SCTA, we decided on rectangular steel tubing for the main frame rails, which exceeds the minimum width the SCTA requires.
We're also busy planning an event concerning sponsorship for the bellytank project, we'll get the details posted on the blog as soon as we've got it all sorted.
