The car is undergoing the winter development, and I was lucky enough to be invited to go to MIRA by Simon McBeath, for articles in RACECAR ENGINEERING later this year. Not having any CAD models of the car to simulate this was going to be very interesting, and we all hoped we would learn something, and we certainly did!
Archive for the ‘Modifying’ Category
Ducting
Monday, September 6th, 2010There has been a bit of a drought of updates, but this one is fairly long to compensate! It actually covers a LOT of work and writing it into a single post does not do it justice!
The updates to the car continue at both ends. The front wheels have been fully enclosed. The bendy shape here allows is for steering lock. You can see that the diffuser is now totally separated, well as best as possible, from the air circulating with the wheel.
Radiator Ducting
Monday, August 23rd, 2010The coolers are now mounted in their new positions, and it was time to start thinking about the ducting. The plan is to duct the air to roughly the centre line of the wheels. By this point the lower pressure out the back of the car should then draw the air out. Due to the current suspension design there are a few blockages in the ducts, radius arms and dampers etc, but there is not much that can be done at the moment. Hopefully it will still all work though.
The rest of the weekend was taken up with reprogramming/recalibrating the gearpot for the ECU and GCU (The gearpot has been replaced as the previous one was faulty, I think it got too hot…). Whilst lowering the engine the orientation of the gearchange arm was reversed so the solenoids also needed reversing, and of course the circlip holding on one of the solenoids, ended up being lost for about an hour! Eventually it was found though and everything sorted!
Rear Wing Supports
Monday, August 23rd, 2010As the wing support frames are larger than before, they needed a bit of stiffening up. We have seen a number of wings effectively part company from cars over the years through them vibrating and then fracturing the supports. We used some steel tube and just tapped the bore. This made it much simpler and quicker to make.
Looking More Like A Car
Thursday, August 19th, 2010It is now all starting to come together, thankfully. Previously I have posted up pictures of the planned louvers in the bodywork to help keep the cabin etc cooler. These were of course cardboard, but they have now been made from ally sheet, and the bodywork cut to suit. The body is still in development, and we are learning as we go with some of it, so ally things will sprout up from time to time. Once it is all sorted I will alter the moulds and get new panels made, but until it is finalised (ish) there is little point in that!
