Nocones $2020 challenge build thread

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

I use a few techniques.  

One is to do many small bends with the conduit bender.  This works for some of the bends that aren't trying to be right against something that already has a curve like the rear vertical of the fender.

Another is to clamp the tube in a vice and put my hand next to the vice and then bend with my other hand.  This works well when I need a nice outer radius that varies in radius quite a bit along the tube or if the bend is near the end of a tube.

For very long gradual bends I just grab the tube about 3' appart and push it down onto one of the tires.  I can walk the tube along and just keep pushing on it and get a bend as tight as the tire diameter this way.  

I use the vice method to make fine adjustments to the tubes.  You just have to be careful to not to kink the tube.  The manual bender is about the best way to make a tight radius.

And Ill repeat my speel.  Conduit is inappropriate for 90% of automotive applications and should not be used in a structural application that failure would result in loss of control or occupant injury.   Use on this car works because the fenders are non structural.  I am also intending to frequently check the weld areas of the fenders for Cracks and am using more mounting tabs than I would use if more structural steel was being used.  

Also all welding is being conducted IAW the tube manufactures approved welding process.  The Tube is from a US supplier who approves welding of their product.  

In reply to MrJoshua :

I don't disagree and will try extending the flat top when mocking up the whole fender.  It's a pleasing look but not quite exactly what I was going for.  

There are plenty of LMP cars that have slightly more tapered fenders like the 919, but I do really like that camera view out of the LMP cars that have such vertical fender insides that they put Advertising on it.

I think some of the Pod look is enhanced by lense perspective.  Where the car is parked I could only get about 3' back from the car.  That makes the point very pronounced.  

Also the lack of the ~3" outer flare that will be added narrows the fender visually some.  

Shaping the fenders is also challenged by comparing my nose to a "real" LMP car.  Mine is much shorter length.  The wheels almost protrude when viewed from the side in front of the hood.  This coupled with the large steering lock of an Autox car drives the inside of the fender quite inboard.  With wanting the shroud this makes the tapper behind the wheel (when viewed from standing behind the car) very pronounced. 

Because it adds context (and because this page needs pretty pictures) I'm pulling the sheet back a little more on the finished fender frames.  

This is why I pulled a little more influence from cars like the Valkyrie as they delt with similar challenges.  But like I said I still want to try what you are saying to square the fender up a little more.  

I am definitely following along and bow to your final judgement on design. You have a pretty good sense of what you are going for and it is exciting to watch you get there.

I think the conduit is to large and heavy in most locations for the  task at hand. Once the steel fenders are welded up they will be self supporting across the panel crown. Thus most of the tubing could be 1/4" max diameter.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

I agree it's probably not optimum, but the conduit was the best solution I could find for thin wall tubing that was Cheap at $5/10'.  I am probably leaving weight on the car that could be optimized away.  

Depending on how much of the radius I use from the tubular shape of the conduit when I weld on the metal I may cut out some of the frame where it is no longer required.   Or I may make a 1-2 layer fiberglass layup and keep the frames to support the ultra thin fiberglass.  

I assume from the picture you are just welding Subaru 360 pieces to the conduit, that being said how is the conduit getting attached to the frame?

In reply to Gambit :

Yes the Subaru sheet metal is getting direct welded.  The chassis side I am flattening the conduit, drilling a hole and using some Grade 5 1/4-28 bolts into some tabs welded onto the chassis.  Each front fender has 5 tabs and will tie into the front wing for a 6th attachment.  I will get a few detailed pictures.

Thanks, that's really cool and informative. Just how fast might it go and how much load will the air place on the front bodywork? My only structural experience is looking at bridges, cranes, and farm implements, so I would build it super tough, (solid 1/2" rod). 

So, looking at those LMS cars, what is the first golden rule about airflow? Air always want's to flow (displace) over a curve and not a flat surface?

I took some pictures of the fender support tubes.  Realize please that all of this will be removed and finish welded it's just generally tacked together now. 

Middle of fender

Rear of fender

The front is a little different with a tube and a tab without the long supports.  This will be covered by the Shrouds.

I continued work on the front wing bracket and spliter side supports.  The outsides of the "wing" will be lower then the wing.  To acomplish this I attached some 1.75" long vertical pieces to create this drop.  I fretted for a while about how to do the structure until I realzied I could just cut tubes in half and save weight and have an easy surface to drill holes for attaching the material that will make up the finished Aero surfaces.  So these pieces where welded on and everythign was bolted together.  The mounts are removable from the car and for flexibility moving forward I chose to have the Wing itself unbolt from the mounts.  This is a little extra weight/complexity but it adds flexibility for construction of the wing.

The total for the entire wing structure is $14.92 and it took 4 Hours total for the brackets and Wing structure.

So that brings us to Yesterdays progress.  And oh it was a glorious day.  Also it was 3 hrs of work so that gets me to the 450HR update.

I wanted to validate the Aesthetic and clearance of everything before I made it in the final materials.  So some solid CAD work and Foam Board work ensued.  Not because I don't think you guys will get it, but to be clear this is ALL MOCKUP.  This isn't final materials, fit and finish, or even necessarily exact final shapes.  Sometimes these things get shared and people make comments about construction quality for things that are clearly unfinished.  None of this will be on the car when it is used without substantial finishing.  Most welds are Tacked together and obviously Paper Chip board and 1/2" Pink foam are not the finished product.  

I'll Jump right into some Glamour shots.  

And here is the Computer CAD model of what I was going for.

Overall I think I got pretty close.  The IRL wing is quite a bit larger then the model.  For autox it will be fine.  I may make a 2nd wing that is a little smaller for Track use as this one may just be to much.    

I considered squaring off the fenders as MrJoshua and I talked about a few posts ago.  After mocking up the fenders I agree that it would potentially improve the alignment with the initial desired Aesthetic of the LMP style car, but after sitting in the car it becomes apparent that it would be problematic.   In this image any amount of Squaring of the fenders would result in reducing visibility in the lower corners of the frame of view.  The outward taper on the fenders pretty much aligns with your site lines.   On a Track only car this probably is not big deal.  Some amount of loss of visibility of the APEX would occur as you are tracking it on turn in but since most of the arc is determined on turn in this sighting mostly occurs over to tops of the fenders and from a great distance.   For Autox based on my experience with the car is a suprising amount of the sigting occurs over the hood between the fenders.  sharpening the inside edge would reduce visibility in this area quite a bit.   So I think it will stay as is.  This was not something I planned or recognized and kinda got lucky with.  

So that's 450 hrs of dedicated garage time into this car.  That doesn't include any time spent on computer stuff, picking up items at stores, doing online ordering or planning.  That is lights on working in the garage time.  I suspect if I added all of that additional prep time it would be ~1:1 hours prep/planning to hours executing.  

450hrs, $2202.24  Non Exempt Spend, $500 Recoup, $1702.24 Current build budget.  

I posted a short Video walkaround and Glance around on Instagram.  

This is looking so awesome! I have no valuable feedback to provide. Just curious of the significance of this shape compard to something more rounded? Aerodynamics, structure, or just looks really cool?

In reply to maschinenbau :

It functions as an Endplate to tie all the wing elements together.  The shape is just because I felt it would look neat.  I couldn't figure out how to finish off the inside of the fenders and do a flap mount, and then I realized I could just use the endplate to function as both the Inside edge of the fender and the flaps.  I figure the step shape is probably not "optimum" but it looks cool.   The fact that those vertical pieces seem angled more open at the front of the wing is not paralax from the lense they actually do taper.  It's about 1" per side so they "grab" air and shovel it into the inner part of the wing.   At least that's the theory.  

All of the "wing" elements are just to look the part.  I will post in the Aero thread and discuss what is the best intersection of easy to build and functional to refine the design.   I love the look of the slotted flap leading edge and it could be a way to adjust the downforce for track use by removing it but we will see if it sticks around.  

Oh also my kids really wanted to be involved.  

Do great things Children be the Downforce you want to see in the world.

I'm digging the Aero bits.  I'm wondering about how hard it's going to be to judge the front corners of the car and if you could tweak the endplates a bit so that they're slightly taller and visible from the driver's seat.  I'm sure you'll eventually figure out where they are but perhaps not until after launching a bunch of cones into low orbit.

APEowner said:

I'm digging the Aero bits.  I'm wondering about how hard it's going to be to judge the front corners of the car and if you could tweak the endplates a bit so that they're slightly taller and visible from the driver's seat.  I'm sure you'll eventually figure out where they are but perhaps not until after launching a bunch of cones into low orbit.

When I drove the car (and I'm by no means a great driver), the front was not the issue. Launching cones with the rear end though, that's this thing's jam. 

Now that I think about it though, maybe nocones should call to have utilities marked in the yard, and then take the flags and attach them to the corners of that wing. Just for fun. 

nocones said:

All of the "wing" elements are just to look the part.  I will post in the Aero thread and discuss what is the best intersection of easy to build and functional to refine the design.   I love the look of the slotted flap leading edge and it could be a way to adjust the downforce for track use by removing it but we will see if it sticks around.  

I think you can do a lot by simply running a roundover router bit on the bottom of the leading edge (leave the top edge a sharp 90), but get the radius as big as possible. For the rear edge, you simply want it to come to a point, but router bits are probably not ideal. If you could use two 3-4 inch wide strips of aluminum, you could rivet one to the top edge and one to the bottom. Then curve them up a bit and rivet at the back to hold the shape. That would give you a sharp point at the trailing edge for not a lot of work. 

I'll still try to mock something up in javafoil soon.

The Pods and the flap behind the front wheel look awesome!

The endplate on the front wing looks too much like a fork-lift in the pic (to me), but maybe that's perspective?

Incredible Work, incredible Car!

In reply to Gzwg :

Lol your not entirely wrong.  It does kinda have that tiny forklift look.  Wonder what the Japanese name for Guido would be?

I will totally have to get a picture with boxes and stuff piled up on the wing when it's done.   During cone roundup at an Autox I'll just stack them in the "Forks".

In reply to nocones :

cone bulldozer?

nocones said:

This is simply EPIC.

Not so sure how well the cardboard will fare in high speeds or rain though 

Been watching this evolve (in full on lurker mode) since it came off the ceiling, and you just keep raising the bar with every post.

Just rediscovered the thread. I love this.  

Always wanted to take an Exocet or Locost and do somethign similar.. 

Piguin said:

nocones said:

This is simply EPIC.

Not so sure how well the cardboard will fare in high speeds or rain though 

Been watching this evolve (in full on lurker mode) since it came off the ceiling, and you just keep raising the bar with every post.

I think nocones should carry around a couple cushions so he can just lounge on the wing between heats. 

So if I've learned anything from posting an obscure attention grabbing build on the internet that's that you have to have a sense of humor.  Not everyone is going to appreciate the build or understand why your doing it.   And that's Okay.    Sometimes I'm not sure why I'm doing it either.   I read comments because frequently people will point out things I haven't considered and can help out with the build.  This last time buried in the comments are several pointing out a similarity between the front wing and a seating surface.  

So I've leaned into that fully.  

I'm absolutely going to make cushions to be able to sit on it.