[V8] Plan B (or L or M, I forget)

[Mike Arman]

Add me to the list of V8Q owners who can't get sufficient money to let go . . . and are not asking 
all that much, either.

I guess bloodied knuckles and sore wallets have a part in that reluctance, it isn't just a car, it 
is an experience.


Factory Five is offering a kit sports car called the 818, which is based on a (wrecked) Subaru. 
Subie is a front engine, AWD car, Factory Five takes the engine and transmission and moves it to the 
rear, making a mid-engine RWD car. They deal with the drive shaft to the no-longer-there rear wheels 
by making a collar of some sort which fits into and locks the tailshaft, so all the power now comes 
out the halfshafts on the transmission instead of also going to the (now non-existent) rear diff.

Understand it makes a heckuva car, about $20K all up.

Be really interesting if we could take a V8Q and do the same thing. We'd have a mid-engine, RWD car 
with a lightweight aluminum V-8, and we could even flip the exhaust headers so they'd exit upward 
like the old F1 bundle of snakes exhaust.

Lessee, get out the Locost build-your-own-Locost-7 book for ideas on the frame (welded square tubing 
space frame), and we all seem to have a donor car sitting around . . . and no further worries about 
sagging headliners.

Maybe re-use the rear subframe less the diff, connect the transmission halfshafts to the rear 
subframe's stub axles, wonderful if we could mix-n-match parts, at worst, we'd need some custom half 
shafts.

Who's any good with CAD? My welder is ready and I have a place to work. I also have a great set of 
A4 mag wheels (already on the car), I can do the wiring (and share the schematic). It looks like if 
we want a way out of this morass, we will have to find it ourselves.

Audi V-8 powered mid-engine two seat roadster . . . a D.I.Y. R8 . . . eats TT's as an appetizer, and 
sounds wonderful doing it. I'm in. I might even be half serious about it, and I *would* be willing 
to use my car as the donor, at least it would be going for a good cause instead of to some pimply 
teenager who wouldn't understand what he was wrecking.

(Yes, I have already switched to de-caf, but thanks for thinking of me.)


Best Regards,

Mike Arman
90V8Q, and I'm gonna do SOMETHING with this car by golly.