Wow, over a month since an update! First, I decided to push a little closer to the edge of insanity on the design. Back to the earliest, turn of the century, automobiles - when doors, and a lot of the other body panels, weren't so commonplace. Also, I nixed the Ferrari red for exposed carbon fiber. This rendering is the concept art pic, hotlinked from my site, so it will update as I update it - hopefully there won't be any more radical changes to make that description invalid.
To make the shifter work, with the engine in back, I am going to make a custom mount, with rocker arms that push and pull rods, that push and pull the factory Honda shift cables. No boot, no housing, no cover-up, so this whole assembly has to be a mechanical, performing, art piece.
We also started working on the rear upper control arm mounts. Machining holes in the tubing that will accept a fabricated assembly of the factory Honda mounting bushings, and a fabricated countersink for the nut. We broke the collet in the process, so that has been on hold for a bit. I also needed to re-think my plans for how the frame rails run back to them, so the brakes are on this for a bit.
The front knuckles have been cut off, machined, drilled, and tapped (.750-16) to allow us to use a .750" rod end in place of the upper balljoint. We can adjust the spindle height with spacers between the rod end and the knuckle. The goal here is to cost-effectively develop the specifications for what's really needed, and eventually machine or cast new knuckles - unless these happen to work well enough as they are.
I had to revise a lot of my plans because it was going to take longer to accomplish some of my original goals than I had hoped. The new plans are just about written in stone, and we should be back to work on it next week.