I'm gonna get crucified for another seemingly "pittiful" thread about gullwings but what the hell... It's a learning experience.
I know We've all seen the idiots that ask about putting gullwings in their cars and stuff, and they're never
actually gonna do it and their just plain stoopid and kinda curious I guess.
I've already tried toying with the gullwing thing once and everybody in my city doesn't know a rotary from a piston so they're no help. Maybe somebody on here is.
I've been playing with the concept of gullwings for a long time now, (Lamborghini style) and I've been to a few places online checking out concepts and stuff. I've got the diagram basically down and I know the theory in my sleep. A few friends of mine and I even tried doing it once, (We played with doors and an old accord from a junkyard to test with.) And they worked. But not good. They didnt push out before they went up. They just went up. And they went up rather tediously but it was a small victory for us.
Now I'm looking to do it right this time and seriously instead of curiously. Basically, what I'm doing is adding a hydrolic lift (meaning something similar to the hydrolics pushing up a trunk in the back of a minivan, or an integra trunk) to push the door up, (tilted up lightly and on a free-moving-door type hinge attached to the body. The end inside the door is non-moving. The hinge I mean is like the doors in some restaurants that just freely swing in and out. This is to allow the piston to move the necessary few inches out. Maybe a better part would be a pivot-and-ball type configuration...) I've got a hinge at the top of the door (below the window, not actually at the
top... where a normal door has it's highest hinge) to allow it to move outward. The hinge is attached to a flat, circular swivel (kind of like how you spin your office chair). The hinge's two normal parts move side to side, but only a few inches. Then when the hydrolic lift pushes the door up, the circular swivel lets the hinge turn up with it. (If that makes any sense... if it doesn't, I'll scan in a few sketches.)
Use the OEM door latch to keep it down and in, [possibly turn it sideways if the door wants to push up badly due to the hydrolic.] When the driver opens the door, in order to get it pushed out far enough to clear the frame, I'm thinking I'm going to get one of the the 10 or 11 pound strength shaved door solenoids (?) from
www.autoloc.com and let it push the door out the necessary 2 or 3 inches. While the doors pushing out, the hydrolic lift takes its place and is pushing up.
The door goes down the same way it came up. Put an ohshit handle in below the cigarette butt holder to grab it to pull down.
There's really only 2 problems with the theory that I'm slightly concerned about. The first one: How to keep the door stable and supported. I've got a rotating hinge allowing the door to swing out a few inches and a hydrolic lift holding it up. The hydrolic lifts are strong, I think they'll hold the door up, but I don't want it shaking or turning or anything. With the addition of the outward hinge, I'd like to
believe it'll hold it but I can't be sure.
The second problem: The door going up. When it opens it's no longer latched down so the hydrolic will immedietly start pushing like it's supposed to.
theoretically, as it pushes it will naturally push towards the path of least resistance. Meaning, if it starts pushing out, it will start going up because continuing to push straight out means ripping the hinge off the door handle. It can't go down because the swivel doesn't go any further down than what it is at the bottom of the door. (there's going to be an 'L' shaped bar that prevents it from moving more than something like 90 degrees) It's easier for it to go up because the hinge swivles up, therfore it will do just that, go up. That's theoretical. I'd hate to drill everything on there and then try it out and immedietly the hydrolic lift just pushes the door straight out and off or something. Should I have another, smaller hydrolic lift pushing up while the first one pushes out? That might work...
There it is in a nutshell. Does anyone think this'll work? could work? Any problems, suggestions? I'd really like to be confident and know all the pitfalls before I do this to my car. I know what happened to that one we played with in the junkyard.
Thanks a lot for hearing me out.