Updated 4:14:2006

This is a Shannon S2000 race car. the Shannon was a car designed by Eddie Jones who is the crew chief for Michael Andretti's Indy Car team. Only 7 car where ever build. They are one of the best and most advanced S2000 cars ever made. I have owned Lola's and Swift s2000 cars and the Shannon by far is the most advanced design and workmanship is second to none. But like most thing I plan to develop it even further.

All pictures are the property of Team Lorenz LLC and are not to be used with out permission

Like most cars of its age this one needed a little Rebuild and I noticed a few areas that could be improved on. The car as it came in was very straight with both bulkheads measuring 0.0 degrees level and cross measurements of the tub where within a 32nd of a inch.

The Rebuild Plan:

 The front of the car is a great design but I think the rear area of the bulkhead and front engine mount could use some new design work to make it more stiff. I plan to disassemble most  of the car and change the following:

 new .090 6061 T6  aluminum floor

 .090 6061 T6 with integrated honeycomb front Bulk Head,

.0625 5052 seat back panel,

.250 honeycomb rear bulkhead / seatback support.

 rear .0625 6061 t6 rear bulkhead

 make a front a-arm sub frame which will connect the 2 lower front a-arm mounts. this will greatly improve the front stiffness and serve as a anchor location for rub strips.

 the rear bulkhead frame will be completely redesigned and made of .0625 4130 tubing.

1/2" 6061 T6 top engine mount plate.

Use of 3M DP190 structural adhesive with 5/32 Cherry Q structural rivets

Remount all front A-arm pickup points.

.090 6061 T6 cockpit side panels

T6 with integrated honeycomb center divider.

Custom Skid Plates made of 6061 T6

Here is the car with body:

General Chassis pictures of car before the rebuild

Removed rear section of car as 1 piece.

Here you can see the top engine mount, this is a place that needs a major rethink as the old unit is not strong enough.

engine mount removed from tub

Now you can see how if mounted to the engine:

Next I removed the roll bar,

next comes the long and dirty job of removing the rivets to get the rear bulkhead off:

Once the panel is removed you can now see the fuel cell, this fuel cell is a custom made cell by fuel safe.

Here is the fuel cell removed, it looks to have been repaired before.

Cavity where the cell goes

Pics with all rivets out seat back panel removed and all epoxy removed and cleaned.

Now time to redo the floor, here are old pics of the floor

After lots of work the old floor is off

I am making a update to the chassis by making a sub frame that will stiffen up the rear mount of the front lower a-arms. the tub will have to be notch for the bar to fit. the new frame also has threaded bolt holes to attach skid blocks. the new sub frame will be welded to the existing a-arm mounts , in the picture below the sub frame is just sitting in the new notch.

Next is the new front Bulk Head. The redesign and install work on the bulkhead took about 16 hours of working time.

Old front bulkhead

with the bulk head removed you can tell how the front frame is designed

we added these 2, 4130 supports on either side of the honeycomb panel.

tracing old plate to the new plate.

This is the new plate and being checked for alignment.

for even more added torsonal straight we added honeycomb sections that are epoxy and riveted  to the plate

Ready for installation

New from bulk head installed there are around 200 Cherry Q rivets in this part.

Know we are working on the inside of the tub, these two panels are for the center divider (spline), it has a 1" honeycomb core. the white coating on the Aluminum is just PVC witch will pull off before we install it.

New front motor mount set up. the tub side of the mount  is made from 1 x 1.5 4130 box tubing with 3/8 24 treaded inserts. we made the spacing extra wide for possible future different engines. The engine side of the mount received a new 1/2 6061 T6 plate to bolt up to the tub.

Mount tig welded to the rear tub frame.

we added vertical frame supports to tie the top mount with the bottom mount. the area between will give the water pump pulley room to extend into the tub.

lower 5/16 treaded lower engine mount. lots of time was spent making sure everything was lined up corectly

Just to make sure nothing moves during added welding these braces where installed.

the car will be able to have 2 passengers just incase it is ever at a track day event.

this is a test we did on the 3m dp190 epoxy  the 2 angles glues together on the left where glass beaded first and the angles on the right where not.

here are some pictures of how the tub brackets are made.

New rear seat back is made. the old one was .050 and the new one is .0625

seat back installed

These are the vertical to floor tub brackets. as you can see in the first picture after all the holes are punched the bracket get glass beaded to give it a nice surface for the DP-190 to grip. in the first picture you can see the far left bracket is before glass beading is done. the last picture shows the DP-190 on the bracket just before it gets riveted to the tub.

Tub a-arm brackets where removed blasted and re epoxy and riveted.

Tub is now ready for the rest of the floor work

the floor was done in 2 section since aluminum sheets only come in 48" wide sections and the tub is 53" wide. the seem is directly in the middle of the new front frame support we made.

This is the seat back panel to rear bulkhead support it is made from 1/4 honeycomb panel, this is looking from the bottom of the car, before the floor is put on.

bottom section in progress.

here is the rear section ready for epoxy on and riveting, the sanded areas are the areas that will have epoxy on them.

putting some DP190 on.

We used .126 -.187 grip range 5/32 Q rivets model # BSPQ-05-04. The mandrel (stem) protrudes beyond the head so we go back and shave down every mandrel flush with the head. by having 100% retention of the mandrel greatly increases the shear strength of the rivets compared to the average rivet that only retains the small ball at the blind side of the rivet. Each rivet has a shear strength of 525 LBS. and tensile strength of 450 LBS.  the Largest amount of shear strength actually comes from the Epoxy that is used, we use DP-190 which has a shear strength of 1500-2500 PSI.

Floor completely riveted

we did a light polishing to the floor, at the top of the tub you can see the new skid plate at the top corners

custom skid plates made from 2" x 4"x 3/8 6061 T6

this is the rear bulk head. it is not done yet as we are waiting on the fuel cell and need to make the opening for the fuel fill plate. it is a 3 piece design made out of .090 6061 T6. the middle section is recessed to allow clearance for the water pump pulley. the shear plate at the bottom is the lower engine mount, it attaches to the from of the oil pan (swift style pan). the opening on the right panel is for access to the brake and clutch lines. there will be a cover plate made for the opening.

Time to start reassembling. everything was cleaned and inspected, we also removed the steering rack and cleaned it and regressed the gears. the car has LD65 calipers with vented rotors. the shocks are penske 8100 double adjustable.

Parts have been powder coated and the roll bar riveted in with 3/16 Interlock rivets, the front support plate uses 5/32 Cherry Q rivets

This is a Picture of the rear truinons (rear engine frame) after being powder coated

All new side pod floor supports where made and powder coated and new 1/4 rod ends where used. each support has a right hand tread rod end and a left hand tread rod end to make for fast floor height adjustments.