With no weight on the frame......the forks are not compressed at all (static sag).  It just appears that if you hit a pothole....the tire will drop into the hole, the forks will compress....and the low clearance will be used up.  It might even be gone in hard braking.

What happens if you take the springs out and allow the forks to drop to the bottom of their travel?  Does the frame touch the floor?

It was mentioned earlier in the thread, but basically i'd set the height/clearance at the standard savage height at the bottom of travel and added a little. 4 inch might not sound a lot but the savage only has 5.3" as standard.

Nothing is set in stone yet, it's on it's wheels tacked together for this very purpose - to check everything is ok. Before i do the final welding (it's actually being bronze welded) i need to wait to find a tyre, plus the longer drive belt (i ordered the wrong one!) and some suitable bar to make a new rear wheel spindle. Then i'll give it the final verdict on clearance before proceeding. I'm still hopeful i've done my maths right lol

A four inch speedbump leaves an inch on the stock bike.

Ok, so i think this the final version of the mock up. I decided yesterday  that it was just too long, and i also managed to find a slightly shorter length belt,  so i removed all the tacks, shortened the bottom tube and the backbone and killed two birds with one stone - It's now nearly 2inch shorter and it's added a good half inch (or more) to the ground clearance.

Got half the engine mounts done, just the back and top ones to make out of aluminum, and the stubs tacking to the frame.

I'm pleased i finally got the belt length calculations right. It fits perfect. This belt puts the engine approx 5inches further forward from standard.

New bearings fitted in the back wheel, i went for 20mm ID and put sleeves in to take a 16mm axle made from EN24T which i've cut to length but yet to cut the threads or make the nuts. Might make some 12sided fancy ones out of a lump of stainless.
What do people think of the stance so far?

I can't see post #68 on my phone, can't see any of it on my work pc.
I looked at the link... really strange, extremely long... and no jpg

Think i fixed the pictures? Bad link courtesy of google. I uploaded them to google images and copied the link from there. That obviously doesn't work.
So this time they are linked to images on my FB page.

Thanks for the info Batman, i did do some scouring on eBay for other axles but not many of the listings give the length - no reason they would really. I messaged a few that i thought looked unusually long but to no avail! If there was a decent bike breaker near me i'd have paid them a visit and no doubt found one.
The problem with making one is you can't get decent bar in 17mm, and if you go 16 or 18mm you can't get any bearings ... so stuck between a rock and a hard place, this was the solution i came up with.
The EN24T is surprisingly nice to work with, i've made a few dragbike axles out of it which have to be immensely strong. It machines beautifully, but i'd much prefer to have picked up a 17mm one off eBay for a fiver lol.