kaBOOM's, uh, project?

Oh please make it curvaceous! Something like the racing cars of old would look great.
 
Read the thread...awesomeness in it is awesome!! UPDATE !! :D
 
O.K Sorry guys for the lack of updates:

The final delivery date is the 4th of December...3 weeks to go and I'm stress'd as hell!

I'm still frantically taking pics for presentations and the like,

A little tip: The two hardest things to design on a car are doors, and winscreen mounts. Everything else (comparatively speaking) is piss easy. The scope of things effected by any design decision on these two bloody things is, well epic.

Practically as far as the car is going, its a little toooo fast for my level of driving talent....then again a WRX engine in a 700kg car will do that, and also the springs I have in it for testing are not exactly optimal. There is a little too much weight at the rear since the actual bodywork isn't on to level it out....so I'm not exactly keen to push it.

As far as bodywork goes, here is one of my ideation hand renders...there is a much later pic of the car in the background....in that state its a bit lighter (and much faster than it should be....think 3.68 to 100km/h on a Gtech) than the final product...

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and a old pic of the custom gauge cluster

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Sorry not too many pics on this computer!

After my handup in a few weeks, I'll start doing up a internet log of the whole thing. It should make things a bit clearer
 
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do you still need people to proof read your stuff or are you all set?

as far as the renders i think it looks pretty great can't wait to see the finished product... good luck
 
MAKE IT CURVACEOUS! PLEASE!

There are enough angular designs out there. Frankly the picture you have drawn looks far too much like a cheap, dime-a-dozen kit car to me. I'd go for a more 50's/60's look, with rounded fenders and a sexy figure..
 
Fiberglass matting is hardly expensive..

It's very time consuming and fiddly to do smoothly on something like this. The easy way to do it so to cover the thing in styrofoam then sand/cut it down then smooth it to the shape you want and lay the glass over that. For his time frame, he doesn't have time to do a properly curvy body we'd like to see. It would just not good right if he threw it all together. Now perhaps after he's got it built and the project is done, if he keeps the vehicle I could see something like that as a future side project.
 
do you still need people to proof read your stuff or are you all set?

as far as the renders i think it looks pretty great can't wait to see the finished product... good luck

Nah its O.K man, I had very little access to internets, so I couldn't get you guys to do any stuff :(

I'll upload a few things after my handup date, I really want to finish off some of the assembly data and the like spot on....I'll see what you all think :)

It's very time consuming and fiddly to do smoothly on something like this. The easy way to do it so to cover the thing in styrofoam then sand/cut it down then smooth it to the shape you want and lay the glass over that.

Oh did I tell you I'm quite allergic to fibreglass gel? (mostly the MEKP)

The bodyshell is a grade of HIPS plastic which is more thermally stable, and raw polished alloy joiner sections. The plastic is then formed over the moulds I made out of MDF, expanding foam, plaster and bog.

The issue I've had is the moulds keep exploding in the vac former machine, I think the main issue is air from the expanding foam blowing up through the plaster and cracking the gellcoat which I cover the moulds in.....the problem is the surface finish is, well crap and I can't do anything about it.

If I made the moulds out of metal sheet and backloaded then with lead or silver solder there wouldn't have been a problem....what do you think next years project is gunna be? :lol:

The plastic I'm using is lighter, much (1/3) cheaper, faster to form (1/20th?) than fibreglass. Since the bodyshell is unloaded (not a structural member) the disparity in strength doesn't matter. FYI the material is similar to the material that Nissan use for the front guards on their X-trail SUV.

MAKE IT CURVACEOUS! PLEASE!

There are enough angular designs out there. Frankly the picture you have drawn looks far too much like a cheap, dime-a-dozen kit car to me. I'd go for a more 50's/60's look, with rounded fenders and a sexy figure..

I'd love to, but we have problems:

First off in a mid mounted car you can't have no wake (aerodynamics) otherwise there is no low pressure zone in the rear for the heat to get out. Also since this car is designed for Australian conditions, the cooling system is a bit over the top :) I also needed extra vents for things like the air conditioner condensers

Second I have a fabrication time limit, since its a production ready product. Curves make this very difficult. Part of my assessment is proving I can build another one in 225 work hours. When you start adding in compound curves (Eg Alfa Romeo 101, or a Spider long tail) you run into having to add hours on for fit, finish and trimming. You also have to take into account the limitations of your material, eg pannels have a set draw depth and some angles and curves are simply not possible.

Third my area in Industrial design is not really styling (I'm more production design). I tried to get a few of the car styling guys to work with me, but they believed I was bullsh*ting about the whole project (the look on their faces when I drove the car into the Uni workshop was...well priceless :lol: ) so I didn't get any help. What I'll do when this is all done, is post up a heap of style development pics and the like. See what you like.

I'd like to do a smaller car, front engined RWD that can be made cheaper again, front engined is much easier to style.

Oh and last, the design language is more to reflect where I'm from, and the local history of where I live.....damn I sound like a design wanker! :lol:

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Well its 37 Degrees in the shed, time to get back to work!
 
So it's going to resemble a Porsche 914. Not necessarily a bad thing.
 
914? Uhhhh.....least they got the idea of putting the gearbox in back better than Alfa Romeo did...torque tube FTW!

(just had to go into work....we have a damn 911 in there....I mean the boss has gone mad....I offered to burn it...)

Oh and Cobol74, another clubbie owner...respect :) (No I don't own one, but I've work'd on and put together more than I can count....)

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Trying to cool down, the A/C in the VL Calais just blew up in 42 Degree Temps......gnrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and its the old R12 Gas I can't get anymore.....damn Nissan powered sh*tebox....
 
Trying to cool down, the A/C in the VL Calais just blew up in 42 Degree Temps......gnrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and its the old R12 Gas I can't get anymore......

Isn't there a drop-in replacement for R12 gas? (ER12 I think)

As for your car, it looks nice. Really really nice. It looks quite angular and Japanese - I can see Honda S2000 and Mitsubishi Evo X in it from some angles. That said, the back looks a little like a shrunken Lamborghini Gallardo. All good things. Massive respect to anyone that can build a whole car from scratch, and to all those haters (such as the spanker that cracked the shits because the rendering wasn't curvy enough), get back to us when you've pulled your own 'man-in-a-shed' sports car out your arse ... :p
 
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Have you thought about going the route of the Ariel Atom? I'm not really sure that the squared off design is much to my tastes, but I think it looks alright. Considering you have to do this yourself, it's pretty damn impressive already.
 
It would look incredibly better with a windshield half the height it currently is...or maybe no windshield at all.
 
O.K O.K....


I had a hand up on friday night, drank waaaaay too much beer etc. I had only 1/3 of the body panels on so it didn't look too crash hot....gotta upload these pics at some time.

But tomorrow is my last Uni hand up. Ever.

(I still have my trady dislike of Uni graduates even tho I'll be one soon.....)

I'm writing on the internets coz I have writers block. I have to give a presentation on why you would buy/invest in my car....so here goes...

Why would you buy it? (car nut)

(Subaru EJ20 in a 720kg road legal frame, midship mounted RWD.....sadly that doesn't really cut it for the uni idiots. Whats a better way to do that?)

Bespoke custom car

Custom instrument cluster with owner selectable hero gauge.....eg the owner can spec what aftermarket centre gauge he wants in his cluster, be it boost, clock etc

User selectable double DIN touchscreen

Subaru EJ20 has a rather large amount of aftermarket support....then again a turbo engine in something this light is more than you'll ever need.

Full HVAC system

$30,000 AUD sale cost, for a car that will hit 100km/h in around 4 seconds. For that price there is simply nothing else around....

Why would you invest in a project such as this

-My work has a proven track record

-The project has been designed around the ADR/ECE vehicle design rules for a low volume vehicle. It has been designed from the ground up to be registered.

-The fabrication time from start to finish are a logged 225 Work hours and a 25% materials cost fraction. Basically is economical and fast to build. That is 80% of my whole project....

-Its designed for Australian conditions. This cuts down on warranty returns which are a bane to many car makers (infact any manufacturing)...over sized cooling system with the pipes setup for a natural convection flow, higher profile tyre's than normal, overtly robust suspension...

-Cheap access to parts.

-Standard Subaru EFI system retained complete with working diagnostic plug system (tested) and factory EFI computer.

What would need to be done before it goes on sale?

-Several thousand k's more testing....the sucker has traveled 246k's atm.

-A complete re-do of the body moulds. Plaster, expanding foam and bog do not cut it as a mould making material for vac forming at 40inch/Vac.

-Re-design of some moulds for more efficient body mounting pickup points.

-Creation of a new PCB layout on the instrument cluster to integrate more body control logic.

-Re-jig the exhaust so it doesn't sound like a Subaru, or better yet design a new motor from scratch!

-Modification of IRS system to reduce lateral loads on the rear coil overs.

-Registration, swerve/recover test, brake test etc

-Double check the prices on parts

-Fabricate and test Jig designs. Re-design as required.

-Make up a options list and advertising media.

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Hey that worked, 15 mins and I have a idea what I need to do...Internets, what can't it do?
 
Does it really accelerate that quick? Damn! I'd add some ballast to soften that up a bit because that is immense!
 
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