I've been busy the past few months, but I'm finally
getting back to working on the car. While I haven't worked on much of
anything tangible during my hiatus, I have been mulling over the idea of
going with a two-seater vs. a single-seater. I've just about convinced
myself that it is the way I'm going to go. My main concern was
packaging everything together in a way that made sense, while still
maintaining the styling that I want. On that note, I wanted to play
with the bodywork some to see how it will fit together with the chassis I
currently had drawn up. So I printed a side view drawing of the main
assembly file and drew some hypothetical bodywork around it (for
reference, each grid block is 6" x 6"):
It seems like it will work, but as you can see I noted a few things
to change after I had let it sit for a while. In the meantime, I also
widened the chassis to hold two people. Additionally, I lengthened the
wheelbase and pushed the driver and passenger slightly forward in the
chassis. I then printed out another side view with the new two-seater
chassis and repeated the process:
It looks better, so I decided to draw a top view to see what that would look like:
It turned out well, and I'm starting to like the two-seater idea. Of
course, I'll have to see it in 3-D before I really decide, but it's
heading in the right direction. I would have done it in CAD right away,
but I've found I can change things much quicker and it feels more
natural on paper; plus it's fun. I'll probably leave the drawings alone
for a couple days and then come back and see if there is anything I
would change after giving it some thought. In the meantime, I'll
continue browsing the internet to see if I can find a reasonably close
CAD model for the LS# engine. I would have thought that would be
somewhat easy to find, but I was wrong. If anyone out there in
Internetland wants to help out, feel free. Otherwise, I think I'll be
making a trip to a junkyard to try and take some measurements myself.
Yeah, so it's been a while... haven't gotten around
to doing much CAD lately. Hopefully, I should have some progress on the
engine mounts in short order. And while we're on the subject of
engines, I've been having some naughty thoughts about making a switch of
engine choice...
Chevy LS3
Now, I know what you're probably thinking, but there may actually be
some practical benefit to be had here. Those that have ever driven a
high-revving light weight car (like an FSAE car, for example) on the
street know that they can be uncomfortably twitchy on the throttle if
the engine tune doesn't deliver a smooth torque band. You hit a bump,
the revs jump, and suddenly the back end decides it refuses to cooperate
with you. The LS3 is nearly the polar opposite. It delivers a heavy
torque, but it's very smooth and comes in at low RPM. Certainly, there
is no doubt that shoving ~400hp into a car weighing 1000 lbs. could be
quite a machine to handle, but as I have mentioned previously, my
original intention was to build a two seater car, but I was worried that
a little 1.3 L bike engine wouldn't be quite up to the task. Besides,
what wouldn't be fun about driving a car with a Corvette engine in it
that weighs about half that of a Corvette? I can practically feel my
face sliding off my skull already. :)
Going back to the closed-cockpit vs. open-cockpit
debate, I'm leaning strongly in favor of the former, especially if the
car will be driven on the road. As I mentioned previously, there are a
few down sides to going this route, but most of them are mere nuisances
in the design stage and won't present any real difficultly. The only
real downside is a slightly longer egress time, but it's worth it if it
means I won't get hit in the face with a rock while I'm driving. I
think Felipe Massa would agree with me:
So I've been tweaking the CAD model to see how the change in body style could be accomplished. For aerodynamic drag purposes, it makes sense to have the driver closer to the front of the car so that the roof line can taper back to the rear bulkhead, and reduce boundary layer separation to an extent. To do this, I have kept the wheelbase of the car the same, but repositioned the front and rear axles relative to the driver. ca This may be advantageous, but it may present a simple option for making the engine easily removable while still maintaining frame rigidity (which is easier said than done). I should have something to show regarding this in a couple days. In the meantime, below is a picture of the previous chassis layout followed by the new layout. You may notice the addition of some tubing around the driver. More on that in a couple days, as well...
So I've been tweaking the CAD model to see how the change in body style could be accomplished. For aerodynamic drag purposes, it makes sense to have the driver closer to the front of the car so that the roof line can taper back to the rear bulkhead, and reduce boundary layer separation to an extent. To do this, I have kept the wheelbase of the car the same, but repositioned the front and rear axles relative to the driver. ca This may be advantageous, but it may present a simple option for making the engine easily removable while still maintaining frame rigidity (which is easier said than done). I should have something to show regarding this in a couple days. In the meantime, below is a picture of the previous chassis layout followed by the new layout. You may notice the addition of some tubing around the driver. More on that in a couple days, as well...
Old
New
Of course, at this point, the wheelbase and
track widths are not set in stone. I'll still need to do some
analysis to see if I would consider changing them, but for now they are
at least in the ballpark, so this should give me some idea of how
things can be laid out. I've been feeling motivated to work on the
design lately; there is something about all the new F1 and Le Mans
designs being released that gets the creative juices flowing. I can't
wait for the F1 season to start. Also, I may be acquiring some
sponsorship funding (i.e. I may be finally finding a job) soon. I really can't wait for that.
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