My Winter Project

Hi Guys,

One thing I have enjoyed on other forums is seeing people's builds, but it seems like there aren't many project threads on here; maybe people have a lot of secrets or something. Anyway, I have been working on rebuilding my Mygale from last year's crash, and I thought I'd share some progress with anyone who's interested.

I had a little run in with a tire wall at The Ridge last year (on the last day of the season around here, luckily). Since then I have been working on rebuilding the car, as well as making a few improvements while I have it apart. I also had a future racer show up last October, so progress has been pretty slow, but I am starting to make a dent in it.

Here's the damage:



Luckily there was no damage to the frame, but I did need to replace a lot of parts, including:
- F. lower control arm
- F. upper control arm
- F. pushrod
- F. tie rod
- F. forward LCA mount
- Steering rack
- lots of body work

I started with a new billet lower control arm mount, since it was too cold for welding in my garage. Not bad for a 70 year old manual machine I think:




I bought a lower control arm from HayesCages, but decided to make all the rest. I was able to repair the upper control arm on the left side as it was only very minor damage, and a couple of the left side parts are obviously trash. First step for everything else was to strip off all the paint, and I found some repairs I didn't like on the right (undamaged side) upper control arm:





I didn't think this was worth fixing, so I saved it as an emergency spare, spun up some new end fittings, and jigged up a new one (sorry, a couple of the pictures aren't great):







Took a break from that and fixed up the left sidepod floor:


Then back to suspension, made some other links, and re-assembled everything. I have some more pictures, but I can't find them right now:


I also tossed the old Renault style steering rack as I got a good deal on some Dallara Indy car ones. Problem was they didn't fit the mounting holes, and were off by just the wrong amount, so I made some new mounting bosses (again sorry for bad pics):




Next step is to tackle the rest of the body work, and make a new front wing, and a new one of these:


I have been doing some impact simulations at work and am about done with the new crash box design. Should be lighter, and more appropriate energy absorption.

I'll post up some more pictures as progress continues...

My Winter Project