Nice to see the Sprint C front wings are still on :d
Hope they stay
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Nice to see the Sprint C front wings are still on :d
Hope they stay
Sorry Edd, they're not stopping, I have taken a deposit on the full Irmscher kit and wheels!Quote:
Originally Posted by Edd
Sad news :( maybe not suited to your Nova tho
Has someone from the forum bought the kit then ?
make some vac form ones.........like RC cars.
a suggestion.
the mudguards/splash guards on the front.
could you replace them with ally or rubber. or is that against your regs?
Not permitted within the regulations, as they are an integral part of the body structure, and located within the wheel centres.Quote:
Originally Posted by bmw156
I'm looking into reducing the weight of the rear beam assembly.
I plan to remove the spring seats, and cut away the parts where the bolts for the rear anti-roll bar would normally fit, and then re-weld the seams.
The bulk of the weight must be in the 'V' shaped part of the axle.
For those of you with an engineering/motorsport background (Mowgli/MK999 etc.), I'm curious to get some thoughts on to what extent of weight reduction I can get away with........obviously Vauxhall will have built the rear beam to be able to cope with 4 adults and their luggage, so maybe an all-up weight of 1300kg.
My Nova weighs less than 600kg, so the load-bearing needs will be a lot less.
Thoughts please?
its the twisting that will be the real killer on the beam as its designed to be an ARB aswell as the moving suspension parts...
Working on a generalisation/basic principles of design; The load bearing may need to be a lot less, but Vauxhall would have designed it not to snap, not to not bend.
Certain parts of F1 cars tend to break off because of random direction/impact forces from them being lightened, but the tolerance for the wheel centres is around 4mm under use, which means taking into consideration the wanted movements from the suspension etc, the components bending, added up, is less than 4mm.
This is where it gets complicated on a rear beam though, because rear beams DO bend, and twist about their mounting points, as part of their design, from a pure principle not taking this into account they purely move up and down staying entirely level, which if you've ever parked on a funny angle on a verge etc or jacked it up on one side, you will know is not the true case. This effect basically turns into your roll stiffness, hence we add rear ARB's, stiffening the beam, rather than the traditional independant suspension style with 2 'arms' twisting a tube.
Basically, what this means is; anything you take away from the beam, to retain the same handling characteristics, you will have to add again to increase the roll stiffness back up to where you want it. The way in which a component like this is normally lightened for motorsport is either a different material or a complete redesign, changing to component shape to be stiffer with less material used.
However there could be an advantage to be had if your bladed ARB is body mounted Colin, as you could lighten up the rear beam, almost making it IRS in the way it twists, and regain this in the ARB, I'd suggest using a larger diameter tube, and keeping your roll stiffness so the 'middle' is still the same as your current roll stiffness, rather than simply adjusting it up a lot and making the lower end of your adjustment useless. This would reduce your unsprung weight.
colin chapman used to 'add lightness', so he would keep lightening something, until it broke, and then use the previous one that was a bit stronger..... unfortunately, people got killed by this process.....
the rear beam isn't massively heavy, and as stu says, it has torsion properties. i'm sure people have made lightweight tube beams for novas, but i'm not sure they run slicks.
are you allowed to do anything with the rear beam mounts? cos if you can play with them, then an irs might be the way to go, but you will obviously need to come up with some sort of centre mount.
am i right in thinking that you can't mess with the shell structure between the axle centres?