alistairolsen

Can I suggest before you waste ANY money on this project you gain a LOT more knowledge about EVERY subject you hint at. Go and read some books on suspension design, chassis design and construction, read project threads, good ones where people actually know what they are doing. research the skills required to design and fabricate it and gain a good general knowledge of cars, their layouts and the general components they offer.

For my money, it's not that crazy in terms of feasibility, but obviously utterly pointless.

Comparisons to an Enzo or touring car are nugatory, the Enzo is a facotry car with millions in R&D thrown at it while touring cars are highly specialised race cars within a strict and specific set of rules you do not need to consider.

Best chassis for what? Do you want it to look like a van, or still be a van? Ultimately a spaceframe will be lighter, but only if its done right. I suspect Id use bits of the transit, a partial ladder frame and a weld in cage but it again depends on budget, time and end use.

Layout broadly dictates a transaxle, or a normal rwd speed box and floor mounted diff with a very short prop. The latter may be an option as you have length on your side and good transaxles arent cheap if you want big power. Again, the choice depends on your use and budget and desired performance. Id probably look into a box and prop as Id want 500bhp and that means a porsche transaxle which is expensive. Id also want to move the engine as far forward and as low as possible in order to reduce the loss in load space.

Suspension is a big sticking point and again there are pros and cons to everything. F1 cars use double wishbone independent rear suspension, M3s use trailing arms. If I did a T45 spaceframe with grp panels id go double wishbone. In real life I doubt I would want to afford the boxes in the floor to clear the upper wishbones and their mountings, so I might look into trailing arms instead.

Basically, the tone of your post makes it clear you have everything still to learn and i would suggest books are a lot cheaper than a rusty transit and a welder and will be a far better use of your time. The outcome of your project and every choice you make along the way will be a compromise, only you can decide what you wish to trade. You will trade everything against justifiable cost, performance against space lost and virtually every other variable and you need to be aware of why you make these decisions.

Good luck!