Welcome to my Bugeye project

Welcome to my latest project. I am building a 1959 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite with a little twist. I'm putting in a 3.0 V-6 SHO engine.
Be sure to check back for updates on the progress and please leave a comment if you have any questions, feedback or advice for me.
Ben...

I'm still alive... so is the car

OK we've had some friends stay with us for a while and our driveway is looking like a small british car show. We now have, a Riley Elf, a Morris Minor Woody Wagon, and another Bugeyed Sprite in the driveway. And the fun thing with these cars is that all of them have been broken once, or twice or more in the past several weeks so i've been helping out fixing those as well.



But in addition to that, my friend Joe who is staying with us has been helping me with my project bugeye so progress has been made.

The engine is mounted!!


Joe helped me set the engine in and i made up some engine mounts


Here are the final mounts


We also made it to the junkyard to get some more parts for the project. Picked up a steering rack and column from an RX7, and some front hubs from a Lexus and a driveline from a Ranger.

yeah progress!!!

next is to get the front suspension set up. Need to do more cutting on the front frame to start to get some of those pieces to fit. I'm happy to get back into this project and get this thing moving forward.

9 comments:

Unknown | February 17, 2010 at 10:46 AM

Ben,
I'm doing the same with a SHO but in a 62 Comet. Can you give me some specs on the motor mounts

Ben.. | February 17, 2010 at 10:49 AM

not sure what specs you want. They are completely custom. I got some 2inch pipe, cut it to fit some polyeurothane bushings and fabricated the mounts to bold onto the existing motor mount brackets (after a lot of cutting and modification to them)

I can get you more pics if it helps

Ben...

Unknown | February 17, 2010 at 12:36 PM

Sure would like to see more photo's. I think mine will need to go under the Aircond. bracket and the power steering bracket. Your project looks great. Are you going to turn the intake around?

Ben.. | February 17, 2010 at 1:03 PM

thanks. Not turning the intake around. no room to do so. I'll post some more pics of where the mounts are located and mounted.

Unknown | February 19, 2010 at 8:09 AM

Ben,
How and where are you locating the air cleaner. I too will not turn the manifold around, but I have come up with a little different idea, which I will share with you later. On the motor mounts can you give some dimensions on them, and where did you find your bushings?
Thanks,
RN Scott

Ben.. | February 19, 2010 at 8:24 AM

the air cleaner i'm routing through the firewall adn then back around over the wheel arches. I'll post pics when i get around to doing that part.

for the motormounts i got the bushings here: http://www.suspension.com/4-bar.htm

I'll post more pics on the blog of the mounts

Unknown | February 19, 2010 at 8:28 AM

Ben,
I have pic's of my stuff on the merc. How can I get them to you? It will be later today though.
RN Scott

Ben.. | February 19, 2010 at 8:29 AM

more pics here:

http://bensbugeyeblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/motor-mounts.html

Ben.. | February 19, 2010 at 8:31 AM
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