So I made the first cut!
It went without incident, except that my second cutoff wheel of the night exploded as soon as I touched the sheet metal. I mean exploded. Fortunately, none of it hit my beautiful face. It left an interesting pattern of wounds on my leg, though... That was on one of my air tools. After that, I decided to switch to the new Metabo with some more respectable CGW cutoff wheels.
Where you see the seatbelt bolt in the floor just aft of the cut is a suspension crossmember. I didn't want to get into that just yet because I am not quite ready to immobilize the car.
Here are some thoughts in no particular order:
As expected, none of the factory suspension points will be of any help. I also expect that the wheel wells will be too close together for the powertrain to fit properly, so I will have to cut those back to suit. That crossmember-ish looking bit at the heading edge of the cut is no more than a support for the passenger seat, so it will be of no help as a starting point for a bulkhead.
There might be a little sliver of space left for cargo behind the engine. I think from a noise and usability standpoint, I will do what I can to retain a little piece of the cargo floor at the back edge--even if it's only enough for a suitcase and/or a duffel bag.
The current plan is for the engine enclosure to be an angle iron cage to which removable aluminum panels will be fastened. I have never worked on a mid engine hatchback, but working on X1/9s has taught me that one cannot have too much engine access. All non-horizontal panels will be bolted into place with a series of small machine screws. The top panel will likely be easier/faster to remove so that checking the oil can be done at a gas station without tools, or at least without a real investment in time.
Fuel tank: everybody puts a fuel cell in the original engine bay. I can see why people do that. But I'd like to make it more complicated if I could. I do not think I will have space to build an X1/9 style vertical tank that installs behind the driver. Behind the passenger is out of the question. Toyota placed the fuel tank in the tunnel, believe it or not. The Yugo tunnel is practically nonexistent, but I plan to make a larger and taller tunnel anyway because I can use it to add stiffness to the body and because I like shifting gears not to feel like I'm trying to pick something up off the floor while driving down the road. Building a larger tunnel would allow me to build a long and narrow fuel tank to go inside the tunnel and install from underneath.
- it does look like some clocking is in order - looks like the drain is pointed up into the manifold at the mo....
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