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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: January 31, 2012, 9:29 am 
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arfter a couple of hard knocks the Chassis was a bit second hand


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Well said...


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 1, 2012, 2:25 pm 
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Yeah, I know I felt a little "second hand" last weekend. It's a great expression.

Crewe, looks like a very nice Formula V...

In your Subaru rear upright models do you know where the wheel mounting surface is? Is there a stub axle with flange that belongs there or is that already included? I could really use even a centimeter or two more clearance for my long trailing rods...

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SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 2, 2012, 5:00 am 
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Hi there Marcus...I have a hub plus rear disc for a Subaru but I think its for a different model Subie....If you look at my drawing of the I have drawn a cross to mark the rear track width of my car 1430mm....My thinking is to find a wheel with an off set that gives you what you need.....with out having a real Subie to measure its one the parts I have not found on the Net that I can model....I will dump the stub axle drawings I have at the warehouse....hope it helps....Crewe.

PS if anyone can supply good pics with measurements of any parts they want happy to have a go at drawing them...they wont be perfect but should help for trying different ideas...Crewe.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 2, 2012, 11:47 am 
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I will dump the stub axle drawings I have at the warehouse....hope it helps....Crewe.


I think the flange and hub will help. I can get measurements but that car is parked in mud right now so cannot be jacked easily...

I didn't realize you were uploading so much so quickly! This is great. I'll import as much of your stuff as I can use.

Would you like to create a SketchUp "collection" to hold all your drawings? I can update the one I made for your drawings, but at the rate you are adding to it, perhaps it's more timely if you do it. I don't mind maintaining it, so it's your preference...

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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 3, 2012, 4:17 am 
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Hi Marcus have now got my own collection under the name Woodys Racecar Projects.I will now download to this...Having trouble with sharing my collections so maybe you can help....Thanks Crewe.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 3, 2012, 2:12 pm 
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Having trouble with sharing my collections so maybe you can help....Thanks Crewe.


I added your collection to the "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!" collection. I'm not sure what your question is. When I visited your collection, I just clicked on the item that said "add this to another collection" and that's all it took. Then I deleted my collection for your models.

I did create a Google Group for discussion on the Car9 collection, but no one has used it yet. I was posting my revision history there, which I think could be useful. Skipped the last update though.

I meant to create a Google Group for the top level ( Dream it .... ) collection, but didn't get to it yet. So I will do that today or tomorrow. I don't mind giving permissions to edit modify or maintain whatever in these groups or collections that you are part of. How best to handle all this stuff is still an open question. Perhaps a topic on this forum for these models is a good idea? My goal is to get more people to see you can do this and then to get them over the hurdle and actually building something.

You might want to put a pointer to your collection and the "Dream it" collection in your signature...

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Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 6, 2012, 2:52 pm 
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I will dump the stub axle drawings I have at the warehouse....hope it helps....Crewe.


It does. I took the disk off one model and put it on the other of the flange and mounted it to the upright. I measured what I think is a GC8 Subaru the other day and the wheel mounting surface seemed to be about 5.75" (14.6 cm) from the middle of the bolt on the lower arms. That's good news because I have been in fear the last couple of weeks that the trailing arms on my chassis wouldn't clear a wide tire or rim. It looks doable now.

I also took your MX5 front upright and put it in my model. It was close to my model, but I had a mistake on the lower ball joint location and I knew the angle was off. The angle is interesting because I was thinking of using a spacer on the bottom to lower the lower wishbone. I am not sure that the spacer is a good idea, but I see now that the angle would make a good change in the scrub radius with the spacer.

Thanks for sharing these models, they are a help.

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SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 7, 2012, 3:59 am 
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Hi Marcus ....glade to here you can use the models.....and they work with what you have.....It gives me faith in the information Im getting from this great site and other car fourms......I may not get to start my build any time soon....so more than happy to lend a hand where I can....Crewe.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 14, 2012, 1:35 am 
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There has been some more progress, but not really a lot to show. I spent some more time trying to improve my SketchUp drawing skills, which are pretty poor really. I have also been looking for some plugins to help with the bodywork and other parts.

I wrestled with the soap bubble tool for making skins and found it difficult to use. When going thru the options it requires an extra carriage return after the first input, it took hours to figure that out. I don't know why that was happening. The shapes I want to make are not soap bubble type things anyway so that turned into a waste of time.

I finally just generated some curves and committed to trying to mesh up the front body by hand. It wasn't that bad. I'll revisit some other tools one of these days.

I have a passenger now. Fooling around the other day I had scaled the human model and put it in the passenger seat and showed it to one of my kids. They were disappointed to see it go away so today we measured ourselves and scaled the model to be proper proportion, 58"/70"...

Here's the bodywork in progress. It does look too tall, so it will get shortened and a bump or bumps for the motor will be made. Not sure I'm happy about the curves, but I will fill in the bottom of the nose somewhere, shorten it, put in the bumps and call it done for awhile and get back to the running gear.

I think I am stalling a bit because I'll have to go back to trying to figure out some Windows stuff for the suspension. So "wishbone.exe" is the current basic free program? I so wish there was something for Linux or Mac. Does anyone want to help do the suspension numbers?

Need to make or find some better models for 13" rims too... I don't care what they look like, I want to see how the parts fit...


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SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 14, 2012, 11:27 am 
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I think I am stalling a bit because I'll have to go back to trying to figure out some Windows stuff for the suspension. So "wishbone.exe" is the current basic free program? I so wish there was something for Linux or Mac. Does anyone want to help do the suspension numbers?
Marcus, I'd be happy to give you a hand doing Wishbone runs. I'm not an expert in the area but can collaborate with you on the numbers and turn the crank on my PC. Shouldn't be too hard to figure a way to quickly exchange the input/output iterations. Perhaps start by using the Wilwood Mustang II front spindle case since their geometry is so well documented.

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My Car9 build: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14613
"It's the construction of the car-the sheer lunacy and joy of making diverse parts come together and work as one-that counts."

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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 14, 2012, 1:19 pm 
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Tom, thanks that would be a great help. I haven't forgotten about your C4 rear end or the FEA pictures I was going to do for the contribution of different tubes in the rear. I did do more FEA work and the diff supports are stronger then I thought. I think the big V8's just intimidate me a bit. ( That's probably what they are for, basically :rofl: ).

I still don't know what keys I used to take the screenshots. I just banged my head on the keyboard for awhile and then it worked. It's just embarrassing though.

Maybe you can install Wishbone and let me know when you have it running. I'll clean up the suspension mounts a bit and start coming up with numbers. The fact the Thunderbird and Subaru rear uprghts turned out to be similar and the MII and the Miata are also similar should make the numbers we come up with basically cover all our cases.

Hmm, I was going to say use the Subaru parts for the rear because I think I have better numbers for it and found one I can measure. Then I remembered you're interested in the C4 so I will do some checking and see what it looks like on the car with a very simple model. My first thought was it might need to run with the uprights upside down so the lateral link was on top. The other choices would be just run a flexible car ( which can work, just like the one in your photos ) or find another way to stiffen the rear bulkhead.

Stiffening the rear bulkhead is what those 4 roll bar braces are doing by coming together at a point. There are other ways to do this - the bulkhead has to become thicker effectively. Other choices might weigh a few pounds more, but not much. Now that I've been looking at providing sturdy diff mounts something might become apparent in combination with that.

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SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 14, 2012, 2:19 pm 
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Quote:
Maybe you can install Wishbone and let me know when you have it running. I'll clean up the suspension mounts a bit and start coming up with numbers. The fact the Thunderbird and Subaru rear uprghts turned out to be similar and the MII and the Miata are also similar should make the numbers we come up with basically cover all our cases.
Marcus, I have Wishbone running and can send you an input sheet to get some starter data. Perhaps if I made some runs with your front geometry while you were massaging the IRS set-up we could get some of the work done in parallel. I'm babysitting twin 2 year-old grandkids today :shock: but will try to get you the input sheet by this evening.

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My Car9 build: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14613
"It's the construction of the car-the sheer lunacy and joy of making diverse parts come together and work as one-that counts."

Ultima Spyder, Northstar 4.0, Porsche G50/52


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 15, 2012, 9:38 pm 
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Marcus,
I don't know if you have tried DOS BOX (http://www.dosbox.com/), They do have MAC OSX listed as a compatable platform.
Walt


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 16, 2012, 12:04 am 
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Hey Walt, thanks. I am going to keep that in mind as a fall back.

For the moment I am really appreciating Tom's offer to lend a hand. There is a lot of work left to be done and I think when someone offers to help it will make the end result better and more attractive to more builders.

I spent an hur or two on the body work today. It's like a moth and and a flame. I lowered it a bit. so it looks just a bit smaller. I think I will re-visit a couple of dimensions. Along those lines I think I will post a picture of this frame stripped down a bit super imposed on a Caterham frame model. This car has an 8 degree taper towards the front and I think the Locost has an 11 degree taper.

I noticed looking at JD's recent pictures that his engine is much further back in the frame. Probably 12" or more. The frame tube across the top of the foot wells seems to get in the way of both the V8 and the I4 motors. So I've thought of a way to move it back and still provide good bracing and also the required protection for the motor intruding into the passenger space in an accident. I'll draw that in soon.

This change also allows more space for the motor because the frame is wider towards the rear. I will also try to make a basic model of the headers that JD posted pictures of. Just to help figure out clearance issues and see if I can drop the upper frame rail a couple of inches. It is about 6-7 inches above a Locost or Seven rail now. I need a model of the headers to do this properly...

Tom, I am trying to get you the info for the front end. I will upload the model again tonight because I have put in a different model of the MII spindles. This one looks better and include the steering arm, but it is different then the Wilwood spindle. I like the Wilwood because it is the most minimal, almost like the traditional British Spitfire/Herald unit that modern racing was built on - but larger and twice as heavy. One of the Spitfire style spindles in my spare collection is bent, so I don't think the 9 pounds here is poorly spent.

This other MII spindle is about 5/8" different in distance between the ball joint mounting surfaces though. I went back and looked up the blueprints on the Wilwood and my model is correct for that. I have a picture below of the other unit and I have seen it for sale, just don't remember where. This is why everything seems to take longer then you would expect :( If anyone has one of these or knows of dimensions for them please let me know. They are 2" drop and with 7.5" between the upper and bottom balljoint mounting surface. The steering arms are the same length as the Wilwood.


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Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.


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 Post subject: Re: My messy new shop
PostPosted: February 16, 2012, 3:59 am 
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horizenjob wrote:
I like the Wilwood because it is the most minimal, almost like the traditional British Spitfire/Herald unit that modern racing was built on - but larger and twice as heavy. One of the Spitfire style spindles in my spare collection is bent, so I don't think the 9 pounds here is poorly spent.
The Wilwoods make a pretty good base case for initial Wishbone runs. The detail drawings available online help a lot in determining the outboard pivot locations. Some of the weight of the forged Wilwood uprights might be offset by their forged billet aluminum hubs. No data to support that, though. Ultimately, a family of Wishbone set-ups could be developed for different uprights, tire sizes, ground clearances, etc.

If anybody has accurate measurements for the upper and lower BJ's distances from the Wilwood spindle casting, please post them. I'm using a nominal 1" offset for preliminary calculations. Same for the distance of the outboard tie-rod pivot from the steering arm.

Quote:
Just to help figure out clearance issues and see if I can drop the upper frame rail a couple of inches. It is about 6-7 inches above a Locost or Seven rail now. I need a model of the headers to do this properly...
If the top rails were to drop a couple of inches, then the exhaust could run over the top rail sprint-car style, a'la Kipperman's Seven below. 8)

Quote:
I noticed looking at JD's recent pictures that his engine is much further back in the frame. Probably 12" or more. The frame tube across the top of the foot wells seems to get in the way of both the V8 and the I4 motors. So I've thought of a way to move it back and still provide good bracing and also the required protection for the motor intruding into the passenger space in an accident. I'll draw that in soon.
Does adding a mid-plate (between block and bellhousing) as part of the motor mount system help with these issues?

Keep up the good progress, Marcus. There's metal to be cut...


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Cheers, Tom

My Car9 build: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14613
"It's the construction of the car-the sheer lunacy and joy of making diverse parts come together and work as one-that counts."

Ultima Spyder, Northstar 4.0, Porsche G50/52


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