Here are some pics of my 1958 Bugeye, some history and my mods.

The car has always been a race car as far as I can tell. I've owned it for 10 years. Interestingly it is car no 733, which would put it in the first few days of production, the first car being no 501. I have log books from the early '70's and it was the first SCCA car registered in the MidWest region.

In various guises it has been the A&W Root Bear race car, a race school car and many years in H Production.

I bought it in St. Louis, MO,, in HP form c/w 948 cc engine, fender flares, 9" slicks etc. I returned the body to vintage race spec, that is basically stock. I have vintage raced it as 948cc, but more recently Solo 1'ed with BMC 1275cc, fully modified..

I have just finished (ha!) a 2 1/2 year rebuild and am using a 140 HP Datsun 1200 engine, moved back 8" for 50/50 weight distribution. I built the headers to run forward to the original Sprite exhaust location.

The gearbox is Datsun also but with straight cut gears, very close ratio, with 1:1 5th gear. The rear axle is a narrowed Datsun 1200 pick-up unit with later innards and limited slip. I built a sheet metal beam between the wheel arches to carry the tops of coil-over units, eliminating the 1/4 elliptics. Rear suspension is a 4 link system using radius arms on the bottom and parallel links on top, plus a sway bar. Rear brakes are Nissan 240SX discs, which fitted nicely inside the 7" x 13" SuperLites. I'm currently running 215/50 x 13 Goodrich TA R1's.

At the front, I narrowed the frame by 4 1/2" to move the suspension inboard in order to keep the wheels inside the arches.

I shortened the rack accordingly, at the same time fabricating new steering arms and lengthening the tie rods to improve bump steer and increase the Ackerman effect. The steering column had to be changed to pick up the new (inboard) position of the rack drive pinion, so I built a new column with u joints and a final chain drive box into the rack with a 14:12 speed-up ratio to make the steering even quicker.

Front Armstrong shocks were replaced by (modified) FrontLine Spridget fabricated upper arms and tube dampers. I triangulated bracing to the tops of the suspension towers from the under-dash hoop and back to the frame rails inside the footwells. This (of course!) necessitated fabricating new clutch, brake and accelerator pedals to offset around the upper brace on the driver's (right) side.

Front discs are Spitfire (as are the hood clamps) and the front calipers MGB. The front sway bar is turned back to front to anchor it to the more rigid part of the frame below the engine. The radiator is a Bugeye unit with a thicker core and 2" taller as it is also moved back 8", same as the engine.

The car is a joy to drive, although I am not completely happy with the rear suspension as yet, it gets a little squirrelly at out and out race speeds. In the first couple of events I was flying the inside front wheel around 4" on most corners so have made up a rear sway bar to transfer more of the roll moment to the rear. The car is very quick and more to come next year! I plan to put the (different) radiator in the rear and am building up a 1400 cc Datsun A14 engine with Eaton M62 blower to give approx. 200 HP net. This will go in after the handling is fully sorted.

I think we're all more than a little nuts but isn't it fun!

Keep up the great work and the chatter.

Richard Paterson