hello everyone please allow me to introduce myself - I am a design engineer from the uk and I am working on a project to design and build a Ferrari 512M replica.
I am a huge fan for the big engined sportscar GT40 era machinery and can tell I am in good company here! the wealth of information and skill on show in this forum is astounding…. every inspiring!
so my project began when I had some time out from work with which i decided to design and make 1/10 scale RC car bodies of the ferrari 512S coda lunga and porsche 917…
I got a lot of satisfaction from designing and manufacturing the model car bodies and I started dreaming of moving to 1:1 scale…
around this time I found a great guy up in scotland who was selling an Ultima based project with a set of 512M bodywork made from moulds taken from and original car and using 5.7l ferrari V12 engine…
whilst this was indeed a unique chance to buy a great start point I was convinced that I wanted to build my own chassis so we couldn’t come to a deal and I started making enquiries elsewhere.
then I got lucky…. I asked a well established Ferrari specialist in the uk who had a lot of experience on 512 restoration and operation if he had any old parts left over or knew who might have pattern parts or pieces available.
the reply led to my acquisition of the following parts…
front and rear clip
one door skin
set of magnesium wheels
windscreen
car set of aluminium un-machined uprights.
so now I have the basis of a 1:1 scale ferrari 512M!
the intention is to build a car thats generally true to the original design however with some simplification / redesign to take an un-stressed Ferrari 360 V8 and a centrally mounted fuel tank rather than pontoon tanks.
I have schemed out a basic chassis using 35mm diameter steel tubes and intend to do a basic stress analysis to see if I can reduce some tube diameters of where I should be reinforcing. It will be a semi-monocoque with Aluminium skin as per the original car.
I will be looking for a chassis fabricator once I have a complete set of drawings so I would be very interested in any recommendations from people here who have done this kind of thing…
I would be interested to see if there are some general rules of thumb builders are using for tube diameters on parts like wishbones / radius arms & drag links… its very similar to a GT40 / T70 in geometry.
Im designing hubs to fit the original wheels that work in the cast uprights I have that will be machined to suit..
I am planning to use a Titan steering rack as they seem to be the people to go to.
currently i plan to mock the car up in my kitchen and confirm overall dimensions and driving position.
I would be very interested to hear if anyone has installation drawings for the Ferrari 360 engine - I currently intend to use the 360 drive train too - however it results in a quite high driveshaft angle (around 6 degrees) but i think the original car also had that issue so might be ok..
I used an app on my iPhone to do some rough scans of the body panels the results of which are shown in the pics!
this is my first ground up car project so any advice and recommendations would be very welcome.
thanks & best regards,
james.
I am a huge fan for the big engined sportscar GT40 era machinery and can tell I am in good company here! the wealth of information and skill on show in this forum is astounding…. every inspiring!
so my project began when I had some time out from work with which i decided to design and make 1/10 scale RC car bodies of the ferrari 512S coda lunga and porsche 917…
I got a lot of satisfaction from designing and manufacturing the model car bodies and I started dreaming of moving to 1:1 scale…
around this time I found a great guy up in scotland who was selling an Ultima based project with a set of 512M bodywork made from moulds taken from and original car and using 5.7l ferrari V12 engine…
whilst this was indeed a unique chance to buy a great start point I was convinced that I wanted to build my own chassis so we couldn’t come to a deal and I started making enquiries elsewhere.
then I got lucky…. I asked a well established Ferrari specialist in the uk who had a lot of experience on 512 restoration and operation if he had any old parts left over or knew who might have pattern parts or pieces available.
the reply led to my acquisition of the following parts…
front and rear clip
one door skin
set of magnesium wheels
windscreen
car set of aluminium un-machined uprights.
so now I have the basis of a 1:1 scale ferrari 512M!
the intention is to build a car thats generally true to the original design however with some simplification / redesign to take an un-stressed Ferrari 360 V8 and a centrally mounted fuel tank rather than pontoon tanks.
I have schemed out a basic chassis using 35mm diameter steel tubes and intend to do a basic stress analysis to see if I can reduce some tube diameters of where I should be reinforcing. It will be a semi-monocoque with Aluminium skin as per the original car.
I will be looking for a chassis fabricator once I have a complete set of drawings so I would be very interested in any recommendations from people here who have done this kind of thing…
I would be interested to see if there are some general rules of thumb builders are using for tube diameters on parts like wishbones / radius arms & drag links… its very similar to a GT40 / T70 in geometry.
Im designing hubs to fit the original wheels that work in the cast uprights I have that will be machined to suit..
I am planning to use a Titan steering rack as they seem to be the people to go to.
currently i plan to mock the car up in my kitchen and confirm overall dimensions and driving position.
I would be very interested to hear if anyone has installation drawings for the Ferrari 360 engine - I currently intend to use the 360 drive train too - however it results in a quite high driveshaft angle (around 6 degrees) but i think the original car also had that issue so might be ok..
I used an app on my iPhone to do some rough scans of the body panels the results of which are shown in the pics!
this is my first ground up car project so any advice and recommendations would be very welcome.
thanks & best regards,
james.