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Old 03-04-2002, 01:09 AM
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texan texan is offline
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Since we're just dreaming here, I'll leave the particulars of how in the world you'd fund a billion dollar car project alone. It's cool, all of the best ideas come from dreams anyways, so let's run with it but ground some ideas firmly into reality.

First off, I highly recommend you buy the book "Race Car Vehicle Dynamics" by the Millikens. Though it's just a flash in the pan when compared to the whole of automotive knowledge, it's still the best single commercially available source of race proven knowledge out there. Buy it, read it, follow it.

Secondly, ground your material choices in reality and what works best for the intended application, not what sounds cool. Ti is a terrible material for suspension hard parts, chassis material and some of your other parts usage. It might sound sexy and is certainly a rare and expensive item, but it's also anything but rigid and galls the SHIT out of any other metal it comes into direct contact with. Hence gears, chassis parts, and other frictional items (such as bearings and the like) are strictly out of the question. You'll want to use a 6000 to 7000 series aluminum for the parts that need to be extremely rigid (this will work out to be both cheaper, lighter and MUCH more effective than Ti), such as chassis parts, suspension parts and some engine parts. You'll want to use low carbon steels or chrome moly for many of the engine and drivetrain parts, as this is about the strongest metal and fabrication friendly stuff you can find, which is why they're so commonly used in automotive applications today. Repeat after me: aluminum is rigid and light, magnesium is super light but intolerant to heat and friction, steel is VERY strong, and titanium is just damned expensive and difficult to work with. IMO, that's the short short version of the crash course to metalurgy.

Thirdly, your tire spec is simply silly. It is IMO worse to go too wide with a tire than not wide enough, and the widest you ever need go is around 10" for a lightweight car. The spec you have is so wide that any small camber angle will destroy tire adhesion (the contact patch would be almost nil), not to mention the complete lack of directional stability such a wide tire would produce. Making a tire wider does not appreciably make the contact patch bigger, it just makes it wider but shorter. A very short and wide contact patch is horrible in terms of longitudinal traction, not to mention intolerant to anything but dry pavement.

The last thing I'll give reality check to is the aero package. Making ridiculous amounts of downforce at low speeds (aero only starts to work around 45 mph) will ensure a hugely ineffecient package at high speeds. Besides, a proper body shape will naturally NOT create lift, so drag inducing wings and downfroce enablers are somewhat superflious in such an application. If you get a closed wheel body shape right, there's little need for such componentry.

Ps- You have everything to learn about suspensions. The suspension setup you have slightly outlined is horrible, the alignment is something you tune AFTER you do the basic design. Multilink is bullshit for anything race oriented, double wishbone is all you'll need. Ti is unsuitable for anything related to the suspension, stick with the basics there. Most things in the cockpit that are adjustable should have to do with the suspension, as the engine's power is already modulated with the throttle... the suspension is not. And nobody uses bushings on a serious race setup, you use heim joints and bearings; everything is solid and doesn't allow for binding or deflection.

Pps- Where are you going to fit that super complex flat 12 in?
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