Please discuss here all your remarks and pose your questions about all racing series, except Formula One. Both technical and other questions about GP2, Touring cars, IRL, LMS, ...
Does anyone know of any good self build sites? I'm trying to get some ideas together for a single seater possibly for hillclimb and/or for trackday use (time and money pending).
"Whether you think you can or can't, either way you are right."
-Henry Ford-
Russ I don't know any sites but Race Tech mag ran a couple of series of articles called "The Practical Racer" and "The Pashley Project". Both would be very relevent and one details building your own alunimum tub!
I've downloaded their articles already mate,some good bits on there.Like you said,they're running an article in the mag itself at the minute.I'm finding it hard to find info regarding single seaters as most of the addresses i'm given are of companies either selling their own chassis/tub (usually made of carbon fibre...pricey!) or they are only relevant to sports cars.It would be very easily to buy a car 'ready to roll',get a license off of the MSA and away you go,but that would be too easy,and would take away part of the satisfaction of driving the thing.I'm still kicking ideas around at the moment,but i know i want to do the lot myself (as much as i can anyway!) I'm waiting to hear off a few people on the FSAE site,and i've already spoken to one guy in Malta who's sending me a few pics of what he's done over the last year,so hopefully i'll start getting results soon. Ta Nick.
"Whether you think you can or can't, either way you are right."
-Henry Ford-
Location: Covilhã, Portugal (and sometimes in Évora)
Post
In 2002 Racecar Engineering had an article about a Single Seater that is used in Hill Climbing......I'll look for the reference and post back tomorrow.
starting with building a car from scratch is possibly not the way to go.First one should learn to run a given car and understand its advantages and shortfalls,in general and compared to the competition.By servicing the car and racingit you will learn most and avoid falling into the big traps as you will soon know what you wanr from your own car.Duplicating other designers ideas you will never figure out why they did what they did .And
not understanding your own design is the worst case when you look for direction in development...
Had to fire this thread back up as i've finally decided what form my Hillclimb car will take.Below is a link to a fine example of a Terrapin single seater used for hillclimbs and sprints. (i'd replace the low drag nose for a wing as i will probably need all the downforce i can get.) It's designer, a man called Allan Staniforth built the first version (mk1) about 45 years ago to take a Mini engine, (this weighty lump still taking it to 140m.p.h.) The updated book 'High Speed Low Cost' by Allan Staniforth is still available, and a set of plans are still available from Allan himself.
I'm hoping to use a 1997 Honda Fireblade engine and ancillaries as (lucky for me but not him) someone i know recently lost their licence so now has a bike they don't need.
The revival of this forum reminds me of our Mini Baja car; we begin testing in two weeks. Of course we have no test equipment, but hopefully, we can sort out our problems. The funny thing is, we are 70 lbs lighter than our "sister" car (our school has 2 teams). And the professor looked down at our team from the very start...
Well, we aren't the "official" baja team; we were supposed to run Formula SAE but the registration spots were all filled by the time class started (opened at 7am one day, class was at 4 pm and then all the spots were filled). Then our leader wasn't exactly polite to the professor, in answering his questions. So we were left basically w/ no advisor.
Fortunately, we had more car guys on our team, so they were dedicated in building the car. It was funny in the end though; he told our team that he expected the other team was going to finish first, but we finished a week ahead of them, and 4 days before scheduled.
Bring back wider rear wings, V10s, and tobacco advertisements
you can visit the Terrapin forum at http://jawfish.proboards43.com/ It's a bit slow since many of us a racing our other cars. Thers plenty of pics and info about the car.
The build isn't too complicated if you have the book and plans.
