LS350 Kit-Car

One day we decided that it would be a fun challenge to build a car entirely from scratch, using some parts from our donor 1986 Rover SD1 twin-plenum Vitesse (it was far too rotten to economically rebuild!).

It was decided that the car to be designed and built is loosely based on the Lotus Seven. A front-engined, rear wheel drive open-top sports car powered by a 3.5 litre Rover V8. This car will be built primarily for competition use but will be fully road legal so that it will still be possible to take it for a Sunday drive or even down the supermarket!

Chassis / Suspension / Steering

The chassis, although being roughly Lotus Seven shaped, was entirely our own design. It needed to be sufficiently stiff enough to be conducive to superb handling whilst taking the levels of torque provided by our tuned Rover V8 engine. We decided to manufacture our chassis from mainly mild steel box section purely for simplicity and to keep the build costs down.

The car has been designed with double wishbone front suspension, with the front hub carriers being modified Rover SD1 McPherson struts whilst the power is transmitted via a live rear axle from a late twin plenum Rover SD1. The axle is supported longitudinally using four custom-built adjustable trailing arms and laterally using a custom-built Mumford link, as used very successfully by the Mallock race-cars. The damping is provided by a set of fully adjustable aluminium Protech coilovers. Although we have currently built the rear suspension around the original Rover SD1 rear axle, we are already considering changing this for something with a limited slip differential (LSD). The idea of driving this kit-car with the original open differential is a bit concerning!

The steering is non-assisted to ensure maximum feedback for competition use and the steering wheel is a quick release type, to aid the driver in getting in and out of the vehicle!

Brakes

The front brakes consist of 258mm vented discs with four-pot callipers (more than large enough for such a light-weight car) and drum brakes on the rear.

Engine / Gearbox

The bottom end of the engine is a fully rebuilt twin plenum Rover SD1 unit with lightened and balanced internals. This has been fitted with a pair of modified cylinder heads and a Kent H224 camshaft with Rhoads anti-pump followers. This is a fairly high-lift camshaft but it should suit a light-weight kitcar such as this very well. At this stage we have decided to use a pair of Stromberg carburettors but this is a temporary measure, fully mappable fuel injection would be much more preferable in the long-term.

We have utilised a 5-speed LT77 gearbox from our twin-plenum Rover SD1 donor car.

As can be seen from the photos, the car is currently an incomplete rolling chassis. Watch this space to see how we progress!