Hi guys
Time for the news. I did a lot of thinking, planning, researching and talking to some people and made some big decisions.
I'll start with what I did. The rear suspension is complete except for two things. I need to relocate the upper shock pickup points further down and I have to redo the clevis pins (cheers Terry). I finished with all the stainless spacers and got everything nice and level and straight and parallel.
Today I moved to the front end. After fiddling for a while with the front shock pickup points I decided to scrap that idea completely. Instead I decided to install the shocks almost horizontally close to vehicle centerline. The force from the wishbone will be transferred to the aluminium crank bell via a titanium pushrod. The crank bell will in turn operate the shock. Sort of what can be seen in F1 cars. I made a CAD model of the crank bell and it is going on stress analysis tomorrow. Apart from the lower unsprung weight benefit, which is the main reason why I decided to go this route, the shock settings will be easier to adjust because of their position. Although much less relevant than the open suspension cars, the aerodynamics behind the rim will be smoother without that lump of a coil. As an added benefit, it will look mighty sexy
Another big decision is to drop the Gulf livery I was planning to do and not stick to the original as much as I was going to. Instead I decided to implement many aircraft parts, namely RAF aircraft. Me being an aircraft engineer, this course of action seemed natural, and frankly I have no idea why I haven't thought of that before.
Anyway, I'm installing the pitotstatic and gyro system, probably both from a Tornado, altough Harriers and Vulcans are an option as well. All the instruments will be replaced by avionics. I'm also installing instruments like altimeter, magnetic compass, artificial horizont, turn indicator and maybe a few more. Engine instruments will come from WW2 piston warbirds (hopefully Spitfire) and will include EGT, CHT, oil pressure and temperature, manifold pressure, RPM, dual fuel level gauge and so on. I'll install the retractable pitot tube and one static port on each side plus a gyro. Apart from these it'll have a cockpit voice recorder as well.
I'm planning on using all access panels from RAF aircraft, port and starboard and tail lights, a Tornado control stick as a shifter, hopefully some adapted linkage and a Westland Wessex weapons arming unit instead of a steering wheel lock and key. The 9 (I think) pin connector will be the key, "safe" switch position will be safe (go figure), switching to "fire" will turn the ignition on and the huge red button that says CANNON will start the car. Mmmmh I'm feeling moist already.
In the back I was thinking about making an active rear wing, as found on Porsches, Audi A5s and other cars. The spoiler would sit flush with the rear clip until a certain speed. At that point it would raise into the oncoming air flow to produce downforce. Apart from that, when hitting the brakes, I wanna make it rotate so that it basically acts as an air brake. If I find a way to pull it off, I was also thinking about splitting the wing into two sections, or two mirror air brakes. If they are then somehow connected to the steering (blinker switches maybe) they could be set up in a way that when turning right, the right side of the air brake deploys and assists in turning, and vice versa. An aileron, basically.
I'm really hyped up about this RAF thing. I'll call it the RAF GT40 from now on. Oh yeah, I really fancy the arctic camo paint job. With RAF red, blue, white circles of course.
Cheers,
Marko