powertrain mockup tips?

toreadorranger · Jun 2, 2014

Anyone have any tips for mocking up the powertrain in a chassis? Doing my first buggy build using a bent fab evo 4 chassis. Motor is a lq4 bolted to a th400/np205 combo. Long wheelbase ~138 on Rockwells and 47" ltbs. Front suspension isnt built yet. Am I right in my thinking of mounting the motor up first then designing the suspension around it or am I ass backwards?

Eddyj · Jun 2, 2014

I just did my first chassis. So I don't know a lot. But the biggest mistake I made was not having everything for mock up.
Second build everything at full bump that way it will clear. You can always make taller.

FM5332FF · Jun 2, 2014

Measure, measure, and then measure some more. Then mount it up.

wont work · Jun 3, 2014

You will be time ahead to have it all there before you start mounting things up. Then after that you will still tweak it from where you thought you needed it.

Elliott · Jun 3, 2014

mount your seats before you mount anything, then mount your motor and transmission, and transfer case, but only while your considering where your 4 link is going to have to go.If you mount everything to to you will probably have clearance issues on your lower 4 link bars, to high and you have a crappy center of gravity. I like to have the bottom of the tcase mount about 1/2" above the top of my lower frame bar. and usually the back of the tcase will be pretty close to touching the seats. It's always nice if you can set the drivetrain where you can have equal length driveshafts also, where you can always just carry 1 spare. With all this being said I would wait till I had all the main parts before I started mounting, if you haven't done it before you will mess up if you don't. Theres really a lot to consider when building a good working buggy.Think 15 times then mount once.

toreadorranger · Apr 29, 2015

Im bringing this back up, Im finally getting around to starting the drivetrain mockup, only a year later :

For those that have been through this is it worth offsetting my motor a tad bit for driveshaft clearance or even a slight horizontal angle to maintain better driveshaft angle, I know that partly depends on chassis width but figured Id ask to see who has done it this way. I did just drop the buggy down to roughly full stuff so I will be using that advice. General guidance is to get the motor further back and lower in the chassis for stability correct? Im running rockwells so I have to pull the motor pretty far back to clear the Rockwell chunk anyways.