F 5000, well sort of

It seems the older I get the sillier I get, well according to my wife anyway, as I have had a dream for 40 odd years, ever since I had the unique opportunity way back in 1973 to do a few laps of Pukekohe in a F5000 that one day I would have my own, well the old girls are now worth far more than I can afford so I said to wife , bugger it i"ll build my own.
So here I am, it will be an over engineered tube frame with 3 x 32mm x 1.6 dom tube longitudal rails forming the main structure with 28mm x1.6 dom tubeing for all the diagonals,
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as it will be more for enjoyment than trying to win sheep stations. And according to a good friend who did the 3D drawings and took the time to do it Torsional rigidity is around the 16000NM per deg, so i'm pretty happy about that.and its not as heavy as I thought it would be, the completed chassis as you see it now is only 47kg
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I originaly was going to fabricate my own body out of alloy sheet, but a friend offered me a genuine 1967 F1 body from a popular marque and it fits like a glove so it looks like its a winner.
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a bit of alloy panelling for the sides and we're done.
Drive line was originaly going to be a late model roller cam 302 SBF coupled to a modified VW trans
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after a fare bit of soul searching even with new cams , alloy heads and a dry sump, it was still going to be a big under powered lump back there, so its taken a whole new twist, and a new owner, a fellow petrol head that I look after his Lotus 7 has decided to upgrade , he made me an offer I couldn't refuse so now i'm building it for him and we are fiting a 400hp LS1 coupled to a 5 speed Audi trans.
wheels will be 15x10 fronts , 15x14 rears with hand cut Avon slicks.
going the 15" in the front will allow for bigger and better brakes, a feature that the orig F 5000's didn't have
Hopefully Flat chat [Chris] will have the adaptor plate and flywheel etc done soon so I can fit it up.
and yes it will have a we bit of GT40 in it, as the rear uprites are coming from DRB here in Aus as Peter was more than helpful when I asked if he would sell me a pair.
so what can I say watch this space as it should start to take shape very shortly.

cheers John
 
John:
A very nice project indeed. That sure brings back memories for me as we worked on a Formula 5000 chassis back in 97 or 98 that was "Bent" up at Watkins Glen. I don't remember the owners name, as I did the car for another shop, but I can tell you the chassis was very rigid, and a bit of a bitch to straighten. If I remember correctly the front end was a set of cantilever upper arms with inboard shocks and radius rods, the rear was much like the 40 with radius rods etc. Power was a 302 Chevy with ZF box and Hilborn Injection.
I seem to remember the chassis had coolant running thru the lower tubes, but I could be wrong on that, anyway best of luck on your project, it should go like the blazes.
Cheers
Phil
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
Sounds like a fun project and Phil's right, it should run like the blazes!

The headers you have on that SBF appear to be maybe MAC equal length shorties that are mounted upside down correct?

The LS engine will be far lighter and will produce better horsepower numbers than the SBF with less money involved.

Keep us posted as this will be a fun one to watch.
 
Tim, bodies are available where are you, pm me if you like

Randy, those headers I got off flea bay, they were ex boss mustang factory headers, cant remember the year but they still have the id plate on them, and yep the're upside down.
cheers john
 
John:
I went back thru my stuff here and I found the notes I made on the 5000 I had here. It was a Lola 140, 302 Chevy motor and a Hewland gearbox. The owners name was Chuck..I don't remember his last name but he has since passed. He sold the car and it ended up in Australia...closer to you than to me by coincidence.
Just some interesting info I thought.
Cheers
Phil
 
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Hi Phil yeh its funny how most of them have wound up down here in either Aus or NZ, they run a series down here in both countries called the Tasman revival and its not uncommon to have fields of 25-30 F5000,s on the grid, and they drive em like they stole em. have a look on you tube theres plenty of footage up there.
cheers John
 
Had a very productive day in the shed, started on fabricating up the suspension, got the RH side altogether, not fully welded as yet but enough to see if my drawings were right, ive wound up with 3/4 of a degree neg camber gain on full bump, ie 50mm, so i'm pretty happy with that as the 10"wide Avon X plys don't like to much camber.
now all I have to do is duplicate it all on the LH side.
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Hopefully the new front hubs and Rotors arrive tomorrow so I can fit a rim which arrived today from Stateside, 12 days not to bad a service, I cant get that from interstate here in Aus sometimes.
cheers John
 
Hi John Frame is 32 x 1.6mm DOM, [Drawn over mandrel] tubing, suspension A arms are 25x2mm dom tube, its rated at 450mpa so should be plenty strong enough. frame is MIG , suspension will be steel brazed.
cheers John
 
Well I finaly got off my bum and finished the LH side suspension today, very happy with the way its all worked out, the figures actuly came out better in the flesh than they did on paper, gota be happy with that, and with the 10" rim fitted I get 65deges of steering angle, so it should get around most corners. so Monday I can safely fire the welder up and fully weld it all ready to move on to the rear.

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Brakes are 300 x 28mm and will run a wildwood 4 pot caliper
Wheels for the front are 15 x 10, 2 piece Weld wheels
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I'm going to get the centers powder coated black to look more in line with period wheels of the day.
cheers John
 
now all the front suspension was done I thought i'd start getting the engine read seeing as my trans adaptor and all associated bits and bobs will be here very soon.
I havnt seen an LS1 up close before let alone pull one apart but I figured out the oiling system after a bit of looking and worked out where all the bits went for the dry sump kit. so off with the old pan and front cover remove oil pump and plug gallery , then refit front cover with the new Canton dry sump pan. also had to have a trial fit of the new stainless headers, just because they had just arrived.
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I have a we dilemma someone may be able to throw some light onto, and that's how much radiator will I need, I can get a core, 400 wide by 300 high in the nose, but with those restrictions how thick would the core need to be to cool a 400hp LS1.
any help appreciated
cheers john
 
Spent a good day in the shed although it was bloody hot, managed to get the steering rack and pedal box finalised and mounted in position,

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Pedal box is adjustable through a distance of 100mm to allow for Dad who's the shorty and Son who's 6ft, i also have to get some extensions made up for the rack to get that sorted. Then once all that was done and the steering shaft was mounted, i went down to the business end and fitted the adaptor plate, onto which the Porsche G86 5 speed trans can mount,
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A nice piece of kit from Flatchat, thanks Chris, then it was bolt it all together and lift into place,
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now finaly i can finalise the positioning of the remaining diagonals and rear bulkhead to support the power unit and give something to bolt some suspension onto.
getting there slowly.
cheers John
 

Gordy

Lifetime Supporter
Hi John,

Beautiful work, the car is coming along quite nicely.

Keep those pictures coming, it's a good motivator to keep me plodding along with my little project.

You're suffering from the heat and we had snow this morning. Go figure.
 

Terry Oxandale

Skinny Man
I don't know if this will be any help, but the dip-stick hole was something I neglected to plug until the last minute (for the dry sump). Found out a 3/8" plug worked much better than the metric on the LS motor for some reason. Who would have thought that?
 
A little more progress, ITB injection system arrived today so i busied myself with assembling the nightmare that turned into the fitting it all up. one more peice of the puzzel in place, next step is to fabricate, and fit engine mount plates, front and rear.
a couple of pics.

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a look from the rear, not quite line of sight manifolds but damn close

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dont take any notice of the string, it was only to test the throttle to make sure i had set it up correctly as the set up didnt come with any instructions.
hopefully it will all work.
cheers John
 
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Personaly I like the string John, it adds an element of danger.

Your radiator.
You might be suprised LS1 400hp/5700=70hp per lt
Its not under any stress so it wont generate lots of heat.

I did some Cosworth sierra radiators I cant find the drawings but they were 220-250hp per lt and it was about 550-600 x 300 ish 2 row.
PWR cores.

I have to say cars that I have worked on with 3 row cores have never been as good as a 2 row core.

I did a crude drawing of a possible layout for 2 radiators to increase your area.
The rule of thumb is the area of the radiator you need 1/3 in and 2/3 out on the vent work.
You would have to increase capacity by at least 30%.

Jim
 

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thanks Jim, thats a great idea but unfortunatly the nose cone isnt big enough to accomadate that system, so what ive done is found the size of the original Repco engined car radiator, and went with that, except ive gone Alloy instead of copper and brass, so i wound up with a core 360 w x 300 h x 120 wide, 2 pass x flow. As you say the engine wont be highly stressed, so fingers crossed.
cheers John
 
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