Sincere apologies for the lack of updates. Both my brother and I hit on some hard times recently and our car hobby was relegated to a fairly distant back seat. Things are looking better now though, so we're excited to make up for some lost time.
Here's the car in its current state. We removed all the strut sheetmetal and exposed the frame rails.
I did this back in December. Gas pedal for the billet pedal box. It came out beautifully. The pictures really don't do it justice.
My brother Alex has been putting in serious time in CAD lately. Uprights are starting to resemble something useful after about the 20th from-scratch redraw. The old uprights had to be scrapped due to some major packaging issues. The pictured upper control arm mount on the uprights are probably pretty close to what the final version will be. Should be plenty strong with the whole thing made from welded 4130 sheet. He also completely revised the frame tubes and upper coilover mounts to what we consider a completely reasonable solution.
This is showing at ride height. Upper control arm mounts will basically be something like this with the cross tubes attached to the frame tubes with judicious amounts of .065" sheet. The camber adjustment should allow us to dial in up to -5 degrees of camber without impacting the steering axis inclination. The track rod is obviously a place holder for the real one (see below).
Full bump and full left steering input. It's looking like the wheel angle at full lock will be about 30 degrees for a curb to curb turning circle of ~10m.
Ride height with the frame rail hidden. The sheet around the lower control arm mount and the track rod mount are not the final version. Still trying to wrap our heads around that 3d puzzle.
The brake caliper mounts are pending a revision of the calipers themselves.
The steering rack is mounted forward and below the axle centerline and parallel with the front lower control arm hard points to minimize bumpsteer (it's at around 0.3 degrees at full bump and droop). The way it's all laid out means the wheel and track rod try to occupy the same space at full bump and full steering lock. Alex drew up the outer track rod so it dodges the wheel. Making it machined 4130 with a captured 1/2" uniball. Some cursory FEA gives us a FOS exceeding 3 with a 10kN load applied along the steering arm axis.
Scored big time on eBay. 30k mile C5 diff for under $200 shipped.
Also found a largely complete torque tube:
The entire assembly obviously needs to be shortened quite a bit. We haven't done any measuring yet, but we're hoping the input shaft length and torque tube bolt pattern allow for a simple adapter plate arrangement with the Volvo bellhousing.
With the diff and torque tube we finally have all the major driveline components (clutch, flywheel, transmission, diff, torque tube, and driveshaft). A buddy of ours has a Faro arm that I'm hoping to use this summer to digitize the transmission and diff casings. Should make the CAD for the rear suspension nice and simple.
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
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