"Case Modding" a Nissan Sentra

Lawrence Person writes "Given all the interest Slashdot has shown in casemodding as of late, I thought they might be interested in an extreme "casemod" of a Nissan Sentra, turning it into a lean, mean race machine! Emphasis on the lean part..."

Comments

Better with a beetle

[Trailer Trash]

I did this about 10 years ago with an old VW Beetle that a friend and I bought for $250. Here's the only picture that I have of it:

http://www.michaelchaney.com/beetle/beetle.jpg

We removed the body, then welded a small frame for the steering column, and used duct tape to attach the speedometer. We welded on a battery holder, and I screwed the voltage regulator, an on/off switch, and a start button to another plate. The gas tank was simply a two gallon plastic tank that we ran the hose into. (not recommended) The last mod was welding the seat to the bottom of the unibody, we didn't bother to add a back, a fact which made driving it a bit more difficult.

Anyway, it's the same idea as this article. My friend and I were going to build a really fast go-kart, and we actually started welding one together. We had an engine, but when we started to buy parts to finish it out, we realized that it was going to cost another few hundred dollars. I decided that it was worthless, since we could buy an old Beetle for less and just remove the extraneous parts.

I personally topped the speedometer out (85MPH) with this configuration, the wind was difficult to deal with since I had no seat back. The acceleration was great, with the extra weight gone it was incredible. Dumb as hell, but incredible. Funny thing was, when my friend and I finished, his father admitted that he'd done the same thing 20 years earlier.

Michael

Thinking of Little Blue *sniff*

[MsWillow]

Many moons ago, I bought an old kit car. It was already built, a "Kellison GT", supposed to look like something between a Ford GT-40 Mark 1 and Mark 2. The basic car was a '65 VW flootpan and transaxel, with a 1964 Porsche racing 356SC engine bolted on. 110 cubic inches, 120 horsepower.

It leaked like a seive, when you turned the wipers on, the left turn signal came on, it beat voltage regulators to death in less than 24 hours. The steering was beefed up - 3/4ths turn lock to lock. The suspension was stiffened - drive over a cigarette butt and you felt it. It could hit 120mph before redline, turned on a dime (and gave you 8% interest!), and ran on regular gas. I even, once, push-started it by myself, *up* a slight hill. It was *very* light :)

I really miss that car. It used to destroy pressure plates and clutches with great frequency, and the last one I put in was a Kennedy Racing 1800-pound pressure plate. Even with that, the clutch was starting to glaze, just before the pedal broke. The idiot who was driving it at the time just gear-jammed it all the way home, destroying it utterly.

I really miss that car. It had more spirit than any car I've ever had, before or since. I'm glad to see a story on /. that's about a rather different style of "hacking", even though it's not quite what most /.ers are expecting. Thanks for showing us that not only silicon can be cool :)

Re:Can't believe it took this long...

[Osty]

Actually, slightly lowering your car by cutting off a half-coil is recommended by some respected motorsports books because it not only reduces the center of gravity but slightly increases the effective spring-rate as well. I also know people who've bent their front struts to gain some negative camber, but that seems a little sketchy to me...

I guess it really depends on the goal, but if I were trying to lower my car for better handling, I'd do it by replacing the springs rather than cutting the springs I already have. Sure, it costs more money, but then I have springs that were designed for lowering the car rather than springs that have been cut. Same with bending struts for cambe. If I can't get enough camber out of the suspension components I have, I'll replace them with more adjustable components. Once you start bending and cutting stuff, I'm loathe to assume that those components are still structurally sound, and that's the last thing I want to worry about out on the track.

I agree, though, that most of these modded cars are slower than stock, although if I see one with big floppy drag tires on the front wheels I have to allow for the possibility of it being fast.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about cars with drag tires on them, because I don't drag race (my car is not a drag racer, even if I wanted it to be). As well, the car may be fast, but if the guy is challenging me on the street I just shake my head and ignore him (like some jackhole in a MB C35 AMG tried to do today on the interstate -- he was driving like a maniac, and tried to race me and an S2000; we both ignored him, so he sped off like a moron, endangering the lives of everybody on the road).

My other favorite is the cars whose main modification seems to be sticking the wheels out an extra six inches or so--the thought of all that shearing force on the bearings makes me cringe...

When I see that, I usually assume the goal was to fit wider wheels on the car than stock. Useful in a RWD car to help reduce understeer/increase oversteer, since most cars have understeer dialed in from the factory. Pretty useless on a FWD car except for the larger patch of rubber, but then it's usually the rear tires these guys do, anyway, which gives absolutely no benefit. Personally, I might be tempted to put 10" or 10.5" wheels on my car (my rears right now are 8.5" fronts and 9.5" rears, with 205/17s on the front and 255/17s on the rear), but most likely I'll stick with the wheels I have and put 225/17s on the front when it comes time to change the rubber (soon). I certainly wouldn't go any larger than that, especially since I'm in a rainy area, and wider tires lead to more pronounced hyrdoplanning.