Saturday, December 22, 2012

First semester done, looking ahead

Like always, this semester went by quite quickly.

We've made a lot of progress on the car, although
it still has a ways to go before competition.


Things are definitely coming together.  The car rolls, and
will be able to steer once the front gearbox is mounted.


















This is one of our front hubs, and as you can see, they
are huge! The axle diameter is 1.25 inches.  On a standard
bike wheel, this same dimension is only about 0.375 inches.

The axles are like this to allow the car to take a beating
without any components breaking.

However, we were still able to keep the weight of
our whole steering setup (including the hubs) quite
reasonable. The hubs were designed and made by us.


















Here's the back of the car.  The engine is mounted along
with the EFI kit, and drives a standard centrifugal clutch.

The left-hand drive of the Odyssey hub allowed the
engine to be fairly centered, but still line up with the
rear sprocket.

The car doesn't quite drive yet, but it's really close.

We've also been working on designing the shell, and
we'll start building that next semester as well.

2 comments:

  1. I like what I see! That is a very fancy rear sprocket and nice looking tube frame.

    I would suggest that you guys check your steering geometry since it looks to be backwards. Right now, as you turn, there will be too much toe-in action. Check out the Ackermann steering geometry page on Wikipedia for a simple diagram. You can probably just make your tie rod longer.

    Good luck with rest of the car!



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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the compliments! As for the steering, we believe it is still Ackermann, even though it is different from the standard setup seen on Wikipedia. If it turns out
      it doesn't work as planned, it shouldn't be too difficult to correct (as you said).

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