Vehicle Development Project - Interests

Ciro Pabón · Post 01 May 2006, 12:57

Scuderia_Russ wrote:Hey Ciro. I'm building my Lotus 7 replica to the plans loosely in that book. Although my build is going to be more like £2500 rather than £250. I think the record is £49!!! That's alot of scrounging!!

Yes, I've heard opinions are divided: half the people wants to burn the Locost, the other half wants to throw it out of a cliff.

Monstrobolaxa · Post 01 May 2006, 13:14

Well I'm building prototypes for the Shell Eco Marathon....since I barely have any sponsors everything is built by me!!! Except the welding.

We are the smallest team in the paddock...only 2 people in the team...me and the driver.

http://www.f1portugal.com/correra/ProtHist.html

The 3 I've built....each costing around 1500€!

The first one (the one on the top ET-01) was built when I was 17! hehe

The F1 Challenger wasn't finished when the pic was taken....but in 17 days will be arriving in France for the race....

Scuderia_Russ · Post 01 May 2006, 13:16

Do you know car builders over your neck of the woods then Ciro? What's wrong with Locosts anyway?

Cost about 10% of what a Caterham would and you have the satisfaction of knowing you hand built it from scratch to your own specification. I'll post some pics of where I'm at with mine in off topic.

Ciro Pabón · Post 03 May 2006, 19:14

Scuderia_Russ wrote:Do you know car builders over your neck of the woods then Ciro? What's wrong with Locosts anyway? Cost about 10% of what a Caterham would and you have the satisfaction of knowing you hand built it from scratch to your own specification. I'll post some pics of where I'm at with mine in off topic.

Sorry, Russ, just a lame joke, originally by Mark Twain ("opinions were divided: half of the people wanted to hang us, half wanted to shoot us" or something like that). I think that he intended to show that when you innovate, nobody "gets you", you infuriate everybody. I can see why you don't find it funny, if you take it out of context. Been there, done that.

Seriously, I consider the Lotus 7 one of the best cars in history, if not the best by simplicity and efficiency. I think your project is awesome. You can blame my comment to my envy...

Keep your welding torch illuminating the world!

premos · Post 10 May 2006, 10:03

Hi Everyone,

I am Premo, from South Africa. I am very excited about this project and desperately want to be part of it. I have a National Diploma in Mech Eng.

The only design experience I have is during my final year project where I was tasked with re designing the Lotus 7 chassis to make it stronger and lighter.

Other than the above, I am studying race car vehicle dynamics, aerodynamics and suspension/chassis design.

I know I can help with this project and look forward to working with you guys.

Regards
Premo Sewnunan

Tom · Post 14 Jun 2006, 18:26

Allright, now all our exams are over when are we gonna get on with this? I've seen this happen too many times before where we have plenty of people willing to take on a project but no-one takes control and it never gets started, I don't want F1tech-team to do this so I think we should start ASAP.

Sorry to sound so demanding and rude but we tried an F1 in schools project and it never got off the ground, I'm starting to recognise the symptoms here too.

[edit] powerslides URL below.
http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?image=corelxn8.jpg

Powerslide · Post 31 Jul 2006, 01:11

[img]http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?image=corelxn8.jpg[/img]

Just a thought. Barchetta'ish shape.

Powerslide · Post 31 Jul 2006, 01:52

Tubolar chassis, bird cage style (talk is cheap, i know)

S2000 engine mated to a rear transaxle from a Porsche 968 6-speed all from ebay

battery too is rear mounted.

Anyway, first, we need a name for the project and start looking for a name for its life.

Tom · Post 31 Jul 2006, 01:55

Well, i'm still interested in doing something like this, although I posted a wake up call above and no one replied.

Looks lkie its just the 2 of us for now.

Tom · Post 31 Jul 2006, 02:00

How about a single seater afair with a 250/500cc motorbike engine right at the back?
They are so light I can lift them above my head, yet they have the same kind of 'horse power' as my AX, and near enough the same torque.

It would need a light chassis too of course, aluminium possibly, but thats hard to join, steel is heavy but easy to weild.

Powerslide · Post 31 Jul 2006, 02:26

Your point of it being a single seater meant that it would also be road worthy? Probably we can budget with an existing car engine from an old model just to start the idea and mate it to a box from a longitudally mounted front wheel drive car, probably from some cheap Subaru and shift it to mid-rear. Bike engines are cool for sure but the convertion to a differential can be fussy.

Single seater would make it a lot easier (not to say it would be easy). What about a seating configuration like the Arrows 3 seater F1 car?

EDIT: [url]http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/1866/untitledbc8.jpg[/url]

Larnach · Post 07 Aug 2006, 01:53

Well I'll chime in on the project...

I myself and building an open track/hillclimb car, both for personal use and small volume production for whom-ever wants one.

It is going to be quite similar to a CSR, hell I might even homologate it with IMSA Lites, anyway... the specs are as follows.

Tubeframe/alumnum chassis
four wheel independent suspension (wishbone and coil-overs, no pushrods) 13" wheels
Suzuki 1300cc inline four cylinder engine (possibly a twin engine for open track car option)
Quaife reverse/differential box
Single seater (center position)

Overall weight goal is roughly 800lbs wet (365kg) and a power output of 180hp/230hp/360hp

Base model I would like to sell for $25,000 to customers, maybe 6 a year at the most.

Anyway, I've been working with SolidWorks and TurboCAD for setups, designing the suspension is the current bottleneck at the moment, maybe we can swap notes on various matters. Hell, the shifter mechanism alone has taken a few weeks to design to perfection (4-5 hours a week at the most worked on)

If you are concerned about using a motorcycle engine, it's not much of a problem, you figure with the low cost of a motorcycle engine with a gearbox is roughly $2500USD + a Quaife differential unit w/reverse +$3300USD, you'r at $5800USD for the drivetrain... not shabby.

Tom · Post 07 Aug 2006, 17:44

Sounds good. I have TCAD, try e-mailing me the design if you like (tomdawson1990@yahoo.co.uk).

I like the bike engine idea as the are cheap and have gearbox attached, they're also light enough to provide good acceleration and power to weight ratio. Also they are easy to work with and Aluminium is very durable. No revere on these though and fuel consuption will be high, also cooling might be hard..

Larnach · Post 08 Aug 2006, 05:35

Will do, I have very limited suspension experience... I really do think I need to invest in a good program to get the geometry right. I would also like to learn more about how a suspension is affected by geometry changes. Herb Adam's Chassis Engineering is comprehensive but doesn't elude too much to what is actually going on.

Do any of you have experience with suspension design and/or software to test out geometry?

NickT · Post 08 Aug 2006, 17:17

How about a folded aluminium honeycomb sheet chassis. I was investigating this a couple of years ago and if you can get the origarmi bit right it is beautifully light, stiff and cheap. My design extended the full length of the car but was only used as the floor and lower side sections at the rear, this was supplimented by a bird cage over the motorbike gearbox and engine.

You can design and test in cardboard to get the basics right and then build a mock up in ply to test the design. All can be done with a DIY router although it would be much easier if you could get access to a CNC machine.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with