Just thought I'd let you know about a slightly unusual Metro project that I am building.

It all started when I decided to get back into motorsports after a few years off. My last creation (a Scimitar with not-a-lot of Scimitar left in it and usung a Cosworth engine) won its class everywhere it went despite many people saying it was a daft idea.

A friend was selling a VVC MGTF that he had been driving in the road car classes, so I bought it and enjoyed myself for a season. It was, however, not a slick-shod modified production car so I had to make some changes. No use running it as a modified sports car because of Westfields, etc., so what to do?

The answer, of course, was a Metro Modified Production Saloon, using the VVC engine and transmission in a full ground-effect, 6R4 body-kitted, largely space-framed, very lightweight, highly modified chassis, sort of a thing!

I bought a little blue Metro from a bloke in the Midlands and pedalled it back to Scotland. It sat in the drive for a while until I got my thinking straight.

It needed to be stripped down to a bare shell and sand blasted.... and that revealed a collection of horror stories involving the tin worm.

sound like a big task. the result will end up being really cool though
if you are making it 6r4 wide you will need new suspension arms I would think.
please post pictures

You are not wrong about the suspension arms! Everything else was going to have to be specially made too!!

I would like to add a bunch of photos but don't see how to do it, unless I have to post them onto some other site and just put in links?

The strip down of the shell revealed a great deal of tin worm that needed to be cut out...basically the whole of the floor and most of the cills. My intention is to create a full ground effect flat floor, so that became the challenge! The 6R4 body kit is much wider than a std Metro, so that would improve the ground effects by increasing the floor area.

Calculations of likely down-force showed that the ground effects could be considerably more powerful than the wings if done properly. The design of the chassis rake and the crucially-important rear diffuser showed up as being essentials to making this work. Given that hillclimb/sprint cars are generally travelling well below 100mph, I decided to optimise the design for 60mph which would require a very long, shallow diffuser.

seems interesting this thing would love to see some photos. intrigued by the 60 mph ground effect sounds perfect for a road car

Ground effect on a road car... Only if you can live with 40mm ground clearance!

Divetrucker wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 9:39 am
I would like to add a bunch of photos but don't see how to do it, unless I have to post them onto some other site and just put in links?

Yes. Put the photos somewhere and link to them in your posts

This is the poor little Metro that got chosen to be modified to the extreme.

Strip down underway...the dog seems to like the seating!

Once we had cut out the rustiest bits...