Rear Engine Modified Roadster Build

[Peter Jack]

Good call on the tub Tony. They are a really sturdy piece.

Pete

[krusty]

Damn straight it's Sears Point! (Just as the local track is Charlotte Motor Speedway). I saw Joe, Jr. Huffaker @ PRI and he told me that ALL the buildings in the former padddock are gone! @#$% progress! Nostalgia sure ain't what it usta be (or something like that). Your RMR is going to blow everyone's minds when it gets to the salt. Keep up the good work and say hi to Sean Mc for me.     vic

[maguromic]

Yep, Its still Sears Point and nothing is going to change that!  Vic, I had lunch with Sean yesterday and he also said to say hi. Steve took home the tub to model the tub and chassis structure. It will take a bit to get it done as Steve is re-engineering the suspension on the Flying Lizard Porsche after the powers to be penalized them with a 5 mm ride height difference. They are crunching to get the car ready for the Sebering 12 hrs next month and the LSR car is on the back burner till it’s done.  Tony

[maguromic]

Finally finished the charge cooler.  The biggest problems were turning the ends for the Wiggins clamps and the ID of the 5” aluminum tube was out of round and the cooler element would not fit in properly. My buddy who made it didn’t have the proper fixture to hold it while turning it (almost 18’ long)”.  Finally the parts are starting to come together. Tony

[maguromic]

It was too good to be true.  The tub is 3” too tall and would need to have the floor cut and have the height of the tub shortened.  This will turn out to be major surgery and I don’t know how the integrity of the tub will be after a major modifications like this.  It looks like we will have to go back to the original plan and build our own tub.  The other tuff part on the chassis design has been anticipating what events can occur in a crash and to design for it.  I will post chassis and tub drawings soon.  Nothing is easy, but that’s the fun part of it. Tony

[Stainless1]

Something I learned in the AF from TSgt Orland T Cox.... "nothing difficult is ever easy"... 
Great build, keep up the great work and photos.

[maguromic]

This is a basic sketch of how the driver will sit in the car.  I am using 24” for dash reference till we can settle on the actual lean back of the driver.  But this should give a better idea of where the bodywork could go from the “nose cross section to” “drivers area cross section” to “Ford bodywork” mate.  The roll cage is an approximate and won’t be finalized till the driver’s position is finalized.  The ground view is about 35’ from the driver.  Tony

[krusty]

Tony - Can't you move the driver more backwardser? Or do you need room for a straight 8?      vic

[maguromic]

Vic, Actually the driver will sit inside the cowl area.  I arbitrarily put the driver without modifying the body model so it’s easy to visualize the seat angle.  The only 8 planed for this a AA engine eventually.  The 6-cylinder block in the model is longer than a BBC, so I think we are safe with the space. Tony

[maguromic]

Still working on the frame drawing, so in the meantime Steve did some preliminary nose and front of cowl body drawings.  Ignore the spots where the tubing is sticking out as we are still changing the frame drawing around.  Also missing are the windscreen, rear wing, headrest and parachute faring and the rear undertray.  The drivers’ position and safety honeycomb drivers cell are determined along with the splitter on the nose.  From the ground to the top of the roll bar is 32 ½”, 2” of this is from the ground to the bottom of the car, with front from the step in front of the cowl to the nose at 18”.  Tony

[mkilger]

Tony that looks good, I would make the front tire print the some as the rear. But thats just me LOL thanks for the visit.

[maguromic]

Mike, thanks for the suggestion.  JimL suggested the same thing, but unfortunately with the independent front suspension, the lengths of the arms were dictated by the geometry.  I will revisit the front suspension after the frame design is done.

By the way if any of you guys want to see a first class roadster build, get down to Mike’s digs and check out his roadster.  I could of spent hours looking at it (if it wasn’t for work) unfortunately I forgot the camera.  Thanks for the tour.  Tony

[mkilger]

thanks Tony

[maguromic]

The driver cell layout and drawing was finished today.  It took a few redraws to get all the parts to fit one 4x8 sheet of ¾” honeycomb material, but the wait was worth it.  We are finally getting closer and this should give a lot more of added protection to the driver.  Before anyone starts with the comments of the shape of the cell, we like to call it a “comfy drivers compartment”.  Being racers we are just a little superstitious about that other word.  Tony

Front View

Side View

See Through View

[maguromic]

It’s been a while since I updated the build.  We have been working on the body doing CFD runs with different models.  Even with the monster computing power of our CFD sponsor, some of the CFD runs have taken close to 20 hours of computing time.  Soon as we are done with the CFD runs we will build a scale model to run in the Swift wind tunnel.  Tony