Rear beam

[toymex]

Has anybody got a bare rear beam for sale pref down south ,needed urgently ,slight mishap at Silverstone today:cry:

[BRoadGhost]

Damage pictures please :)

Oh if you're doing a new beam, bin the ARB & weld it up.

[toymex]

No pics at the moment will get some tomorrow but 1 fcuk,d split rim ,door and side skirt to add to the list:eek: Weld what up ?

[nevidred]

where abouts are you fella i have a few in Camberley area
BRoadGhost whould welding it work in the forest or would it be too stif ???? any pics

[toymex]

where abouts are you fella i have a few in Camberley area
BRoadGhost whould welding it work in the forest or would it be too stif ???? any pics
Just up the road from you in Fleet how much you after

[nevidred]

how weird is that im in church crookham give me a ring fella 07796304555

[toymex]

Seriously i live in church crookham i will give you a call in the morning mate ,its nice to know there is another nova fan local

[nevidred]

ok mate but i need to be out by 11 i have the beam here in the van can meet in the morning if you want

[toymex]

No problem i will give you a call 9 ish if thats ok

[nevidred]

talk to you then

[BRoadGhost]

This is what I did

http://www.pixentral.com/pics/1UVp5UU7iK06d9pbnHrc9ADwkVnQDq.jpg

http://www.pixentral.com/pics/1yjiLfQi0hYjX0Yi5ePxYeUt7mbt.jpg

[toymex]

^^^
Interesting ,but why do you think its an improvement over the roll bar ,did your lap times improve ?

[nevidred]

i cant see any strengh advantage as they always bend where the midle section joins the sides and no roll bar less torsionall rigidity ??? i thought you meant you welded the midle in to a box

[BRoadGhost]

Well to begin with it weighs a bit less, the overall is strength improved due to most of it being seam welded, there's less deflection from the hub when cornering [more grip] while retaining the original semi independent design [for better compliance] a purely boxed version would not. As a bit of a bonus there's now nowhere for moisture to get in either.

As for lap times, the car's not been on any circuit yet; all it's had is 100 miles of road testing.

[Jonlem]

Sounds interesting in theory. I'd like to see it tested back to back over a stock ( ish ) one.

Nice bit of fab work on it though.

[toymex]

Just like to say a big thanks to Neville for dropping the beam round for me today ,i can now crack on and if i manage to get a new outer for my wheel i should make Brands on the 2nd

[toymex]

pics of damagehttp://media2.turbosport.co.uk/2011/5/2012051319419027950nova%20damage%20silverstone%205-12%20002.JPG
http://media2.turbosport.co.uk/2011/5/2012051319411782843nova%20damage%20silverstone%205-12%20001.JPG

[mowgli]

well, that'll take more than a kettle of hot water & some tcut to fix

[novarally]

Just like to say a big thanks to Neville for dropping the beam round for me today ,i can now crack on and if i manage to get a new outer for my wheel i should make Brands on the 2nd

Have you tried Dermot Healy for the wheel section?

E-mail me if you need his contact details please.

[toymex]

Thanks colin i have e-mailed MB wheels to see if they can supply 1 if not i will get in touch

[Royston]

i cant see any strengh advantage as they always bend where the midle section joins the sides and no roll bar less torsionall rigidity ??? i thought you meant you welded the midle in to a box

I tend to agree, I see no improvement in ARB properties, the additional tubing will improve lateral stifness.(like the welding, neat)


Sorry to see you've had an off Toymex

[Iain]

Ouch! You get an in-car video of the incident?

[toymex]

Ouch! You get an in-car video of the incident?
I did have the video running but just before the coming together the camera drops so you can only see the inside of my car and for some reason the sound just isnt right on the gopro i am going to have to try to mount it differently ,i might post the footage but tbf its about 5 min long and only 1.30 of actual racing

[nevidred]

Your very welcome Jez glad i could help and it was nice to meet you good luck with the repairs

[BRoadGhost]

Even a short clip of your nova would be good; you could just edit out the off :)

Well Roy all an ARB does is add weight because you don't have your spring rates right.

[mowgli]

Even a short clip of your nova would be good; you could just edit out the off :)

Well Roy all an ARB does is add weight because you don't have your spring rates right.

without a rear arb, your rear beam has about as much torsional strength as a cornflakes box, with the mods you've carried out, its slightly stronger, but nowhere near as strong as one with an arb.

arb's really do limit body roll. they work rather well... only forest stage rally cars don't need them so they can get decent suspension travel

[BRoadGhost]

I wouldn't say a beam without an ARB has the torsional strength of a cornflakes box nor would I say a standard beam with an ARB is stronger than what I've done.

I'm assuming you've done the exact same work shown above & are talking from first hand experience, because if not someone might be misleading others in this thread. Such thinking would also lend itself to bolting on upper and lower front strut braces & claiming it's better than seam welding an engine bay.

Either way I couldn't disagree more.

[Jonlem]

Just to clarify here are you saying no car on a beamed axle needs a rear arb or do you mean specifically a nova ?

[Mieran]

How come you haven't triangled the beam and just put bars at the ends? (if that makes sense?)

[Royston]

Twist beam rear axles have quite high stress levels in certain locations whilst in antiphase, i.e. cornering, the arb is used to tune the load/deflection curve to achieve a satisfactory respose, higher the torsional stiffness the lower deflection for the given cornering load.

All twistbeam axles are different and most cooking. high performance derivatives have them over the standard modded or have larger cross section. (road cars)

I spent may years testing such items from the humble Ford Fiesta's, Escorts and latterly the Honda Civic.

Obviously varying the spring/damper rates will affect cornering performance too

[toymex]

here is a link to some onboard footage from an integra that was directly behind me on the grid ,the red escort is a 2.3 warrior 16v and is stunning the blue bmw has a 2.5 16v s14 motor ,you can just about see if you watch carefully the caterham taking me out .
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3 Dh0xZCQSCfC8&h=tAQHJufF1AQFRGd5epk3Ck2trzmR7wPe7LuUNmgA0vbsFCQ

[mowgli]

I wouldn't say a beam without an ARB has the torsional strength of a cornflakes box nor would I say a standard beam with an ARB is stronger than what I've done.

I'm assuming you've done the exact same work shown above & are talking from first hand experience, because if not someone might be misleading others in this thread. Such thinking would also lend itself to bolting on upper and lower front strut braces & claiming it's better than seam welding an engine bay.

Either way I couldn't disagree more.

i know how strong nova rear beams are simply because i have about 150000 miles of experience since 1986 driving them... i keep a spare in my shed in case my current one goes. i have driven them with & without, and fitting one massively stiffens the car up.

as for seam welding the engine bay.. personally, i can't think of anything worse from an engineering point of view than stiffening up one part of a structure without stiffening up the rest of it. people always seam weld up the engine bay yet don't seem to bother to do the rest of the shell, so from the bulkhead back, it is flexing away like a good'un.. when i look at the metal a nova is made of, and having seen some very interesting welds in my time, and i'm the first to say i'm a crap welder, unless its 3mm or bigger & i'm on an arc welder..... yet, people insist on doing it...

actually, fitting top & bottom strut bracing that works would be very good thinking. the nova doesn't appear to suffer from engines falling out, more from attempting to hold down the extra power thru the suspension, but the ebay lower ones appear to be shyte.

[BRoadGhost]

No, what it suffers from is the additional stress every seam is subjected to from larger, more powerful engines.

I totally disagree that "...i can't think of anything worse from an engineering point of view than stiffening up one part of a structure without stiffening up the rest of it." Because what you're effectively saying there is people shouldn't at least stitch weld an engine bay when doing a conversion. I don't think the rest of the shell suffers adversely, "the bulkhead back, it is flexing away like a good'un..." fact is it would be flexing anyway. The middle & back of the car don't start breaking apart as a result of such reinforcements; I've cracked stitched seams at the front with and without the rest of the shell done.

Strut braces are better than nothing IF the rest of the shell isn't rigid, but as I've stated before they're in no way as good as stitch welding.

[mowgli]

No, what it suffers from is the additional stress every seam is subjected to from larger, more powerful engines.

I totally disagree that "...i can't think of anything worse from an engineering point of view than stiffening up one part of a structure without stiffening up the rest of it." Because what you're effectively saying there is people shouldn't at least stitch weld an engine bay when doing a conversion. I don't think the rest of the shell suffers adversely, "the bulkhead back, it is flexing away like a good'un..." fact is it would be flexing anyway. The middle & back of the car don't start breaking apart as a result of such reinforcements; I've cracked stitched seams at the front with and without the rest of the shell done.

Strut braces are better than nothing IF the rest of the shell isn't rigid, but as I've stated before they're in no way as good as stitch welding.

what i'm saying, is simple. grabbing a mig & running some welds round an engine bay is not some magic cure all. the structural integrity of the whole shell needs to be considered..do you know if there has been any accident repairs? etc.

i totally agree with the sentiment that the shell needs some strengthening, but chucking weld about is not as good as some people think.. the Harry Hockley kit is probably a good investment, simply cos he was there during the original development of the car for rallying, so knows where a shell is weakest.

i love your idea that the shell should flex, except the bit where the engine is flexing away on its mounts.....which must be rigid.

[BRoadGhost]

I didn't say the shell should flex, I said an unstitched one will. A welded one will flex too but in no way to the same degree. There's no point being pedantic about values when they're almost impossible to quantify, so yeah let's keep it simple:-

Welded = stronger & stiffer

Not welded = not as strong & not as stiff

HH has had business from me in the past, so far be it from me to speak negatively, but let's also realise HH off the shelf items aren't the final word in preparing a tarmac car.

[toymex]

Here is the video from Silverstone its not very good as the sound is rubbish and the camera drops down as i have got a bad vibration at high speed ,its the formation lap and then the 1 lap i did manage
http://youtu.be/LlCcUW3GjKs

[BRoadGhost]

It's good you took the time to upload, shame the camera's not proper sound. Fair play to you for using your nova as an actual race car; mixing with the rest of the field.

I guess slicks take some time to warm up.

[toymex]

It's good you took the time to upload, shame the camera's not proper sound. Fair play to you for using your nova as an actual race car; mixing with the rest of the field.

I guess slicks take some time to warm up.

The slicks take a few laps to come on the rear being the hardest to get heat into but when they do the grip is unreal the corner speed you can carry never ceases to amaze

[BRoadGhost]

Yeah I bet with your wide track. I'm kinda looking forwards to trying cut slicks, if I can ever afford them & get it on track.