Just finished my general design of the upright assembly.

As I mention in my first post that I would be using a brake kit from Wilwood that includes rotors, calipers, calipers braket, hubs, wheel bearings, seals and all the hardware. So the kit is modeled base on their technical drawings, although their drawings only gives you the critical dimensions for clearance. The pressed-in spindle dimensions are base on the Ford Mustang II spec to fit the bearings that comes in this kit. The upright is a very simple that I can machin myself using the mill at work. The steering geometry can see in the last picture.






Here is the steering Geometry. I used the Wilwood Pro Sprindle as my benchmark. The dashed line represent the Wilwood Kingpin axis and the solid line is my design.
Reduced the kingpin inclination angle from 11 to 5 degrees, Spindle length from 3.3" to 1.9", and scub radius from .97" to .85".

 

First, '04 Drexel FSAE FTW

If you want to get the car on the street you should check DE laws. In PA kit car titles are not very hard to get but the problem is finding a shop to do the state inspection, basically you need to know someone.

For safety and cost my advice is consider double wishbones and spindles/brakes from a production car.

Also for safety I recommend not putting the car on the street, too many crazy

 

Yeah I would need to look into how to get the car to be street legal. I know that DE laws are easier than those of PA's. We get our car inspected at the DMV not in a shop. As for using OEM A-arms and spindle packages, that takes the fun out of it especial production cars are designed with much more constraints. I have done preliminary FEA analysis on most of the critical components such as A-arms, uprights, spindles, and rockers and they all passed. I will do more FEAs once all the designs have been finalized.

 

By the way not to thread jack but here is a picture of my friends car for sale he didnt make it but its kinda the same idea just not as cool.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Malibu-Grand-Prix-Mini...%3A1%7C294%3A50

 

that's pretty cool. It's a lot bigger then it looks.

 

Seems like an interesting project. I would look towards the Ariel Atom for ideas since they use the same basic idea of a tube chasis with a honda in back.

 

So I got the steering system and the Hub assembly in now. The suspension and steering geometry is pretty much set. The rear half of the chassis, where the engine will be, will be designed around the engine. So Yesterday I went out and measure the s2k engine and also the FWD V6 acura TL engine in the garage, just to give me an idea of how big the K20A w/ tranny will be. And it is much bigger than I realized. So now the rear half of the chassis is completely redesign but still retains the orignal suspension mounts and geometry. Some of the other changes that I did was relocate the inboard shocks, elongate the cockpit to lengthen the wheel base which is neccessary for the steering rack, and square up the suspension box.

Steering rack will be a custom length from Woodward. $425

Here are some rederings that I did with CF body work with the old chassis design.

 

Engine is finally in now with some help from ephatch.com. A fellow member over there was able to provide me with some dimensions. The rear of the chassis now is complete. Side pods are added. The passenger side will hold a radiator (partialy inside the main frame) while the right side will direct cool air to the intake and the engine block. The center section between the driver and the engine will hold a 8 gallon gas tank. I might ncrease the wheel base a few more inches to give some clearance to the gas tank. Axle looks like they will line up fine too.

The chassis weights in at 93lb now. The additional weight was from the added rear frame members, swapping out some round to square tubing for ease of manufacturing, and from the added side pods. Still unable to do FEA on the chassis for torsional stiffness due to problem with my COMOSWorks. I need to contact Solidworks to fix this. The chassis too very from my experience, I just want to see the number and see if I can optimize it better. OH... I also checked the roll hoops on SCCA and NASA regulation and it seem like I would have to increase the diameter to around 1 3/8". The overall layout of the roll hoops and their bracing don't quite meet their specification either, but they are plenty strong so I would need to contact SCCA and NASA for them to approve my design.

I also figured out what I want to do for my pedal assembly. The brake and clutch pedal will both be from Wilwood while the gas will be from a dung buggy web store (much better option then a designing and machine my own). I will be machining a mounting plate for the pedals and hope to incorporate an adjustable mechanical in there for tall/short drivers.