Jalopnik: make magazine

Man Builds Ariel Atom From Scrap Parts, Sets New Bar For Home-Built Cars

Ben Wojdyla — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:00:00 EDT

We've hacked together some pretty hairy cars in our day, but a self-proclaimed "Maker" with the nom de plume Proximacentuari has put together a positively amazing home-built version of the Ariel Atom, the track-day speedster. The MAKE mag reader's called it "Z59," and powered by a four-cylinder from an Acura RSX, it's the result of over 800 hours of work. But, that work's been well-placed as the little devil's got a 0-to-60 time of 4.5 seconds. Not too shabby for a little roadster built with parts scavenged from home appliances, a doghouse and the contents of a dumpster. We'll let the builder tell you more about it himself below, but lets just say it's damn inspiring and we're measuring out the square-footage in our living rooms right now.

This is the final result of 15 months and at least 800 hours of work in the garage. This is not counting time spent designing, ordering parts, negotiating prices, etc.

The car was built from scratch. The engine is an Acura k20a3 from an RSX. It sounds awesome.

Special thanks for the Make community for inspiring the maker spirit in me. Building stuff yourself is a much better way to be a citizen than senseless consumption.

The car has a good amount of junk (recycled stuff) in it. The stainless panels all came from old appliances. The black body panels came from an ancient kayak and an old doghouse. The throttle pedal was made entirely from salvaged parts from a dumpster at an engineering firm around town. Of course, the engine was also recycled from a crashed car.

It's a blast to drive.

0-60: 4.5 seconds
MPG: 35+ miles per gallon
The best part: the bizarre looks I get from random strangers.

[Make Magazine, Flickr]

Little Rascals for Real: Depression-Era Locomotive Built by Kids

Mike Spinelli — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:37:31 EST

Those Little Rascals, always building some kind of contraption to haul around their latest moneymaking scheme or the He-Man Woman Hater's Club collection of BDSM toys (oops, wrong movie). The burden always fell on poor Petey the circle-eyed terrier to provide motivation for their homemade vehicles. If only the Rascals were as smart as these scamps from Minnesota, who built a ride-on locomotive out of a bust-ass coal furnace, an old bed frame an oil barrel and washing-machine gear. The early go-kart, profiled in an issue of Modern Mechanix in the 1930s, only produced a half-horsepower (probably a little more than Petey), but it captured the can-do spirit of the Great Depression, by cracky. – Mike Spinelli

Kid-built oil barrel locomotive [Make]

How to Void Your Toyota Warranty, 101: Hacking the Prius

Mike Spinelli — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:45:24 EST

We can't help but be in the CalCars guys' corner on their quest to give the Toyota Prius hybrid full-electric capability. After all, as someone once said (Mark Twain? Henry Ford?) "tinkering is the best revenge over those who'd just as soon spit in your eye as say hello." (Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right). CalCars is a non-profit group of "entrepreneurs, engineers, environmentalists and consumers" who take on projects that promote its interest in national security, jobs and global warming. At an upcoming MAKE magazine event, CalCars engineers plan to hack a new Prius to make it plug-in capable, installing a battery pack and tweaking hardware and software so it can go all-electric. We won't tell if you don't. Oh, wait...

CalCars.org to modify Toyota Prius to "plug-in" hybrid at Maker Faire [MAKE]

Related:
Steve Lapp s Photovoltaic Prius Project [internal]