Looking at the photos from some of the other vehicles I have been referring to, I am a bit uncomfortable with the tubing sizes that some of them use. My primary reason is because of crash protection.
Jim Musser's chassis is the most attractive to me because it forms some protection around the occupant. The tubing he employed was 2.00 inch square tubing with 0.12 (1/8 inch) wall. I like that, but wondered if there was a readily available square tubing that might be an improvement.
I have settled on 2.00 x 3.00 x 0.084 (14 gage) rectangular tubing. It is about 10% lighter than the 2.00 x 0.12 square tubing, and is about the same stiffness in the 2.00 direction and almost twice the stiffness in the 3.00 direction. Orienting the 3.00 side vertical in the bottom rails and the 3.00 side horizontal in the top rail of the frame should result in a stiffer frame with a minimum weight penalty. A stiffer frame should be better for performance and definitely better for crash protection.
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