Hi I'm new, but I plan on building a buggy similar to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8njOfc9WPc

but I want it to have much more suspension travel.. I plan on buying an old FWD car locally and gutting the front end to move to the back of a buggy. I can't seem to figure out how the various CV's match up to each other. I know I can do it the ghetto way and cut the CV's in half, put a pipe around them, and weld it up to extend them, but that isn't very strong. I will be making custom trailing arms to give the back end much more travel. Any advice on my "plans" would be greatly appreciated. If you can't tell, this would be my first buggy

send a pm to passat2800

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I messaged him. anybody else? I'm planning on buying a whole car so that I can use the stock wiring harness

I cut an old c/v in 1/2 with a high speed cutter and weld to the Ford axles with a 7018 rod and I have NEVER broke Anything.I don't now anything about pipe. Thread new bolt holes for the cut in 1/2 joints.I'd LOVE to see this set up in a 4 seater frame with a nice V6 or even a 4cyl.That Continnental irs diff multiplies your gears by 327:1.I did break the diff in the old fwd trans last year because I did a bad weld job on the spyder gears.Pull apart is full of $100 trans.Thanks for the email but hollar at me at 205 369 7406 sometime.

The only problems with setting it in the back just like it is from the doner car is
1 the suspension travel is limited because of how wide the point where the cv joints are on the FWD tranny.
2 the gearing is to high for in the woods with the larger heavier tires we run.

That being said, passats idea is great for low cost and durability. The concern I have with his setup is traction on flat ground due to the forward weight of the mid engine. Its halfway between a 2wd truck on a diet and a rear engine buggy.

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how much would i be looking at to get the fwd tranny locked?

and trust me I know about big tires and bad gear ratios, my last truck had 35" tires and 3.55 gears..

when it comes to adding another differential to lower the gear ratio (multiply power), is that continental the only option? And I have no idea how to attach that to the donor cars transmission. See my lack of experience is coming into play here. Thanks guys! keep me informed

You turn the engine and tranny side ways and weld the diff ( Redneck Locker )
Then use an axel just like a driveshaft to the diff. Several different differentials available but passat has liked the 8.8 for one reason or another.

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ohh like a Ford 8.8? That would be much easier to get. Can a solid axle Ford 8.8 be used in the same way? I don't know much about splines/CV's sorry.

And this would create a more mid-engined buggy

not saying a solid axle wont work but it would take a lot of fabwork, but the continental 8.8 that D D uses is an irs if im not mistaken, kinda like a jagaur or corvette and several other "fancy" cars are these days

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Chris

Hi nitro!(1) I've got fullest travel that the 930's allow. I even have stops built in to limit much more travel.(2) I'm roasting my 38's in 2nd gear.I never use nor need 1st.These trans and diffs come in many many ratios so you can dream up any desired ratio you want AND choose a small or enormous tire. And it does have lite traction on the flat ground but on a steep hill it's all there. Remember those 4.3 mid engine buggies that are absolutly violent in the hill climbs.Their seats sit nearly a ft further toward the front.

The junkyards in my area are very limited, so if i go somewhere that already has diff's or axles pulled, then how will I know which one to go with? If the car is intact then I can search for something with an irs, according to Passat preferably a lincoln. I think a few years of the mustang have an irs too.

Dumb question here but would that continental differential be different between an automatic and a manual? because I dont know how things need to match up if the donor car is an auto/manual. seems like it matters ha

and I'm clear on the concept of turning the engine and mounting it up to the second diff, I am just not 100%. But thats probably something that will vary slightly in all applications.

thanks everyone

the diff in an irs car should be the same regardless of whether its a stick shift or automatic tranny

and on the sideways fwd bit,

the fwd engine/tranny combo has to be mounted sideways so that the shafts from the tranny (normally goes to each front wheel) runs longways down the center of the buggy (like a driveshaft in a regular rear wheel drive setup) to the front of the rear irs diff, however you have to weld the diff in the fwd setup to make it like a posi as the other side (the side pointing to the front of the buggy) will just be "free wheeling", you just have to make sure everything rotates and/or is mounted the right way so you dont end up with 4 or 5 reverse gears and only 1 forward gear, i think D D used a vw axle and joints to make his "driveshaft" from the tranny to the diff

hope this helps and didnt confuse you

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Chris

Thanks yall. the Cont diff is mounted upside down.My ridin partner blew up a side shift , Calif.starter and heads came loose in THREE rides. I loaned him my $250 I.M. starter(which are junk).I felt bad for him but my grease ball factory starter is lasting forever plus go for $20 at the junk yard.I road mine hard this week end and the temp stayed at 180. I went with the Cont diff because the teeth are unreal.The Thunderbird/Cougar was too small. Same with Mercedes and Jag. A Toyota may be a good one I don't know.

I like MartinB's 2000 and up Passat trans set up,but I wish he still had the 200+ HP motor that went with it.Put small tires on it and come to the states and he would be unreal.The gearing would be perfect.I'm getting to old to start any new projects but I wish I could pass my torch to someone else.

You don't know how right you are! I soooo regret rebuilding this 2110cc type 1 motor.. I'm £2k into now I should have bought the alloy blocked quad cam 3.0 Audi V6 for about £500, I could have spent another £500 setting it up on throttle bodies and had double the power of the AC engine for half the price.. you live and learn..


BTW the output flanges on the VW/Audi transaxle are 108mm... 930CV's bolt straight up..

speaking of engines.. Any ideas on a good donor vehicle? I want to get a donor car for as little as possible, less than 800 or 1000 for sure (will scrap after I've got everything off of it). If I could find an eclipse that was wrecked in the back it would be a good option, they put out 140-160hp. There are a ton of cheap honda accords and mitsubishi galants out there that put out anywhere from 100-120 horsepower. I feel like anything 100+ should be acceptable if i add a second differential right? This is an extremely low budget build.

The 1st thing I would do is familiarize myself on vehicles.Find people who have split a particular trans and may know some ohyeahs or ahdammits about it.Then factor in size and weight and desired ratios. Some Hondas turn backwards so they are out, unless maybe the motor was in backwards.A 2.0 w/c VW would be nice, especially automatic.Use 3x3 trailing arms on a 4 seater or a 2 seater with the passenger seat removed.Or do like mine with 40" trailing arms and airbags.

If you're willing to go mid engined then look out for VW's and Audi's with longditudinal engines, like fox's and 5000's..

My combo is a transaxle from a european year 2000 1.6 passat and it has a 4.55:1 final drive and 3.5 first gear.. plenty for big wheels.. it cost me £50. There's a pic of it in my build thread..

Well there ya have it .Those 1 seater people are climbing with a 457(456) with a LOW 2nd and in all actuallity it's like having a HIGH 1st.I'm telling yall and yall are sick of hearing me and I'm 'bout sick of repeating myself aswell but get a 2000 and up Passat and lay the whole thing just like it came out of the car with 200+ HP.Like Martin said, it already has 930 joints.