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Learning how to build Lotus Seven replicas...together!
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PostPosted: September 24, 2008, 11:00 pm 
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Snarky, Chet! :wink:
There's always some put-down clown around to denigrate others' work.

It's posted on Jalopnik, too!


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PostPosted: September 25, 2008, 1:17 am 
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Location: San Antonio
chetcpo wrote:
Way to go!

PS. I teed off on some fools in the comments section. I hope they don't delete it. :P


This must be you.

Quote:
You bozos criticizing this car's performance and calling it a "rip off" of the At-om, need to check your childish selves and give credit where it's due. His concept may have been inspired by the At-om, but the build is a one off designed and built from the ground up by a high school kid. No not copied from someone elses plans, but engineered and built by a kid on his spare time. I'd like to see what you clowns were doing at that age, probably eating boogers and watching beavis and butthead.

Show some respect for this kid's skills.

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PostPosted: September 27, 2008, 12:11 am 
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Wow, this car made it to wired.com http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/09/gearhead-builds.html

congrats


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PostPosted: September 27, 2008, 1:11 pm 
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Joined: August 25, 2008, 6:26 pm
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Location: West Michigan
http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=4046633&page=1

I love how people assume that since its "factory" it must be better. The guy I was debating with is a wealthy toy owner. I love any Lotus owner who is holier than thou, Loti (great cars certainly) have always been a pretty small step above a kit car. The Caterham included, of course now of days the Caterham is nothing like the original 7, though a much much better car without doubt.

In any case, great work and good luck in the future. Keep it shiny side up.

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PostPosted: September 27, 2008, 8:35 pm 
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Prox, you've become an internet legend. Nice work.

Its just a shame ignorant people have to go and mess it up.

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PostPosted: September 27, 2008, 10:35 pm 
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Joined: March 16, 2008, 4:49 pm
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Location: Richmond Kentucky
Those who cant will always trash on those who can....what the hell else do they have to do?
AWSOME car Prox!!!!
PooK


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PostPosted: September 28, 2008, 1:43 am 
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Critics seem to be a long-standing cause of frustration to people who actually do stuff...

"I know that many will call this useless work; and they will be those of whom Demetrius declared that he took no more account of the wind that came out their mouth in words, than of that they expelled from their lower parts: men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and the only true riches of the mind. For so much more worthy as the soul is than the body, so much more noble are the possessions of the soul than those of the body. And often, when I see one of these men take this work in his hand, I wonder that he does not put it to his nose, like a monkey, or ask me if it is something good to eat."

"I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy:--on experience, the mistress of their Masters. They go about puffed up and pompous, dressed and decorated with [the fruits], not of their own labours, but of those of others. And they will not allow me my own. They will scorn me as an inventor; but how much more might they--who are not inventors but vaunters and declaimers of the works of others--be blamed.

And those men who are inventors and interpreters between Nature and Man, as compared with boasters and declaimers of the works of others, must be regarded and not otherwise esteemed than as the object in front of a mirror, when compared with its image seen in the mirror. For the first is something in itself, and the other nothingness.--Folks little indebted to Nature, since it is only by chance that they wear the human form and without it I might class them with the herds of beasts."

Leonardo da Vinci (looks like he could have held his own on a message board).


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PostPosted: September 29, 2008, 12:31 am 
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Posts: 51
Thanks guys,

I went over to vvvortex forums and tried (probably in vain) to dispel some idiocy. Since what I wrote may be of interest to people here, I'm posting the same thing here:

All right...there seem to be a few questions, so I'll do my best.

First me:

I'm an 18 year old former high school student (now in college). I built the car over a period of 15 months, as the many blogs say. I spent a grand total of around $11000. I spent my entire life savings ($4000 or so) and worked for two summers to support it. Last summer, my schedule: wake up at 8, work on the car for an hour, go to work, get back around 5, and work till midnight or 2 am. It wasn't much fun, but I had to get it done before college. Also, I did it almost entirely alone - my dad thought I was crazy and no-one else in my family has any engineering experience. I contracted out the metal bending and the suspension bits were lasercut, but that's about it. I built a welder out of microwave ovens, which would work for 7 seconds before the circuit breaker cut in. I ended up having to put in my own 220v line and buying a real welder, before learning to actually weld.

Components:
yes, the components may not be spec for an Ar-i-el At-om. First of all, Everything that is on the car is there because of price. The reason it isn't 300 HP? Price. The reason I don't have carbon fiber things? price. The reason the front and rear black panels are actually cutouts of common plastic objects? Again, price. Many of the components are actually race spec components. The steering rack is from an circle track car, the ball joints are the exact same as those in the At-om, The steering u-joints are from the racing company Sweet manufacturing. Also, in many cases, there are a couple improvements on the At-om's design. The greatest improvement I made was in the bell-crank system in the suspension - I used tapered roller bearings in the cams. The At-om uses phosphor-bronze bearings, which tend to wear out quickly. Also, the friction created by the bronze bearings requires the shock valving to be adjusted specifically to compensate. On my car, the shocks are from (presumably crashed) four yamaha R1s. The shocks don't have as much travel as those on the At-om, but that's compensated with my cam system. Plus, you have to pay thousands more for the adjustable shocks in most race cars. The R1 shocks have 12 rebound and compression adjustments, as well as 200 lbs of preload adjustment or so. And, they're really pretty. And, they're around $30 each, compared to around 1000 each for a real one. They work just as well for what I'm doing. This is the same deal for basically every component in the car, from the shifter extensions to the throttle pedal I built from scratch. The only area where I didn't try to skimp was brakes. I'm using a Wilwood aluminum racing pedal set with four front Civic SI brakes.

But before I continue with the comparisons, it's worth nothing that I didn't set out to copy the Ar-i-el At-om. I set out to build a car that looked like the Ar-i-el At-om. The perceptive among you will notice that the difference is in the method. Instead of copying the At-om step for step, part for part, I had a general goal in mind.


Safety:

As some of you saw, I did crash simulations on a rough outline of the frame. It turns out that because of the lack of doors, the frame design is actually incredibly safe. I actually used thicker steel than that on the real At-om, but my welds are probably more suspect. The frame was one part where I didn't use "junk" as the blogs seem to say that I did. The frame is ERW 1018 steel. The roll bar material is 2.5" .120 DOM 1018 steel, which is larger that the steel used in most off-roader roll bars. The "Junk" was for several small things, like the body panels and the throttle pedal.

Suspension:

I spent three months learning about, understanding, and designing the suspension. I can tell you pretty much every angle.
KPI: 16 degrees.
Caster: 12 degrees
Roll center: 1.5 inches
Bump Steer (theoretical): .001" toe in over 5" bump
Bum Steer (measured: .1" toe out over 5" bump

The Suspension was the hardest problem I've ever solved in my life.

And so on and so forth. I had to deal with Camber gain in roll, ackerman compensation, scrub radius, steering axis, and around 10 more terms. I used a freeware program called Wishbone to do the suspension calculations. On a related note, I used Alibre Express (free!) to do the CAD model of the frame, and solidworks to do the suspension, once I found enough money to buy a real cad program.

Also, the At-om uses custom-made knuckles. I don't have the fabrication capability to make my own knuckles (uprights if you're British) So I had to build the suspension around these knuckles. Since the Civic SI knuckles are designed for a macpherson strut, converting them to double wishbone took a good 20-30 hours, primarily in CAD design.

Despite all this, it handles incredibly well. The steering is unbelievably sharp. The car doesn't randomly oversteer. The car is stable at 80 mph. (without alignment. I just eyeballed it, and it tracks almost straight) I haven't been on a race track, so I don't know if it oversteers or understeers.

And finally, prettiness: I had two weeks to do all of the bodywork and the painting. Also, I don't have any of the normal sheet metal tools: I have a hacksaw and a belt sander. Weirdly enough, wood jigsaw bits cut stainless much better than metal jigsaw bits. Even when dull. Don't ask- I don't understand. Also, it's the first time I painted anything. The paint didn't turn out so well. By the time the bodywork and everything else was done, I had 4 days left. 1 day (8 to 2 am) disassembly, 1 day painting, and 2 days reassembly (also 8-2am or so). My goal was to finish it at that point, not to enter a car show.

Once again, head on over to Locostusa to check out my build log. Also, check out my friend JonW's build log in the mid-engine vehicle build log "locost vtec At-om." He has a lot more experience than me. For pictures, register at locostusa.com. My log has a bunch of pictures

Any other questions? I hope I've answered a few. If you want to hire me, I'm in college right now, but I have a couple summers available.

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"I've just been paid a visit by Q. He wants to do something nice for me."

"I'll alert the crew." (Picard and Riker)


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PostPosted: October 21, 2008, 9:48 am 
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Joined: October 21, 2008, 9:37 am
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any chance i could possibly ask for some CAD drawings of the frame with detailed measurements? I really like the structural design of your frame, and after viewing your pictures of the entire project i saw the one CAD picture for the frame, and you said you were basing your build off of that. Any chance you could tell me whether you designed that drawing, or where you picked it up from? ANY help will be appreciated! I am currently embarking a similar project with an electric engine that we already have working. We put it into a civic thats running in the 12.6's and we want to build something similar to yours to see what we can really get it to do! It seems like everyone on here is willing to help so i figured id ask!

Thanks!!!!!


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PostPosted: October 24, 2008, 7:32 pm 
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Joined: September 3, 2008, 1:30 pm
Posts: 11
Location: Tampa
Hey Tkrizzy,

I cant answer your question, but if you need maybe a bit of inspiration, your project immediately reminded me of a car ive been watching

http://www.evalbum.com/1479

good luck embarking the EV route. Ive done tons of research and my mind has wandered alot down that route (Im an EE so i guess its natural?). I feel that if I wanted to do an EV, id have to do everything right, which takes alot of money and expertise. I wish you the best of luck with your project and id love to see it come to be

Oh, another interesting car that is a bit more well known is the Wrightspeed X1. That will spank Ferrari's and my personal favorite Carrera GT in the quarter mile. I know the creator actually toured around flaunting his car, challenging people on accelleration. Eventually a Bugatti pulled up on him so he made a new one that achieves 0-60 in 2.5

Again, good luck.

Prox, any clue whats happening to the car now that your are in school? I know that your away from it, but such a project would always be on my mind. Any ideas in mind?


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PostPosted: December 26, 2008, 9:37 am 
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proximacentuari wrote:
Gaaah...I can't believe this is so difficult:

Finding caps to weld on to the end of several of my chassis tubes.
Mcmaster Carr won't sell me anything thinner than a 1/2" disc. Help, locosters, where can a find 1.5", 2", 2.5" diameter thin steel discs for covering tube.
.


Easy as, get some 2.5x0.60 to 0.80 flat or slightly narrower, cut 2 rounded ends via 3 angle cuts (cut across first then cut the corners off) with a 4" angle grinder and grind the left over corners a bit. The welds will hide the fact it's not perfectly round. These will take but minutes each to make.

Don't waste your time looking round discs, you'll go crazy and you would have finished a set in the same time it takes to not find the discs.


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PostPosted: December 26, 2008, 9:39 am 
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By the way, 18? Your a legend. But don't forget girls and beer.


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PostPosted: March 5, 2009, 4:36 pm 
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Joined: August 4, 2008, 4:43 pm
Posts: 167
Awesome job! Put that project on your resume, and you will get a great job in any entreprenurial engineering type of field. Don't listen to those that look to put you down, they clearly suffer from poor self esteem. While the At-om inspriation is obvious, the car has a tinge of Mad Max to it, which is uber cool!!! I know some people that work at Mosler that would like to have people like you on their team.
Way to go!
BT


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PostPosted: March 6, 2009, 2:47 pm 
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Joined: November 20, 2008, 10:20 am
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Location: Subs of Detroit, MI
great to see another young guy building his own car. Im 23 but ive been dreaming of a project like this since i was 16. I noticed that you decided to make the front "hood" portion from fabric. If you could would you make it out of carbon fiber or maybe carbon backed by fiberglass? Do you have any knowledge on or experience with making molds or parts with carbon or fiberglass?

PM me next time your on... i have some Carbon Fiber id be willing to donate to your project (couple yards or so). It is a regular weeve, not 2x2 twill, but it still looks amazing in the sun. Ive been in your position more times then i can count with low money, working my butt off, and still having people that find doubt in me. Just figured id offer if you want to replace that black fabric. :cheers:

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PostPosted: November 3, 2009, 5:17 pm 
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Joined: March 17, 2009, 11:49 am
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hello,
As I have already told you very nice realization
What do your chassis weight (just the tubular part?) and the whole?
thank you in advance

Vincent

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