New Chassis

[Chris Duncan]

Drawing a new chassis in Solidworks, pretty much a lot of changes from what I actually built. Learned lots of things building. This is about 4 days work. Still a ways to go. Wish I had Solidworks before, it's way faster than Acad.

Found some new tubing sizes for the diagonals, .75"x1.5"x.083", about the weight of 1" sq but it comes out flush with all the 1.5" sq for attachment of panels.

 

[Eric]

all that from 4 days work? it must've taken me 3 months to get that far with mine in nx4. then again, i did all my modeling with sheet bodies.

 

[Chris Duncan]

all that from 4 days work? it must've taken me 3 months to get that far with mine in nx4. then again, i did all my modeling with sheet bodies.

that's after 10 years of drawing in cad, starting with Acad, going to Inventor, then Solidworks.

Plus it's going from other plans, so was just refining design instead of designing from scratch.

 

[Mark Worthington]

Very nice Kalun. What does it weigh? What structural benefit would be derived from adding one or two bars connecting the front and rear hoops in the middle of the spyder?

Seems to me folks in the Pacific Northwest and Kiwis are descended from the same stock - this kind of start-from-scratch-and-do-it-right thing seems to come easily to you all.

 

[Chris Duncan]

Very nice Kalun. What does it weigh? What structural benefit would be derived from adding one or two bars connecting the front and rear hoops in the middle of the spyder?

It's around 150lbs here. It's only about 2/3 done in these pics, will be adding more tubing in the roof.

 

[Dave Bilyk]

Hi Kalun, nice work, I was impressed when you posted your wheels. Solidworks is a great design tool for anything you care to mention. I use it at work for dynamic analysis with Ansys to refine large pump baseplate designs among other things with the main aim of avoiding resonace and vibration.
Since my car is effectively obsolete (DAX) I started drawing up the chassis, so that in the event of damage, I would have dimensions to work from. I also used it to design my brake upgrades. The model is not complete yet, and I note that since we upgraded Solidworks some things seem to have changed in the model. Also there is some ladder triangulation I have yet to complete near the sills. Here are a couple of pictures anyway, you seem to have got me fired up again:thumbsup:
I will be interested to see how your chassis progresses. You should also be able to check the torsional stiffness and experiment to maximise.

Dave

 

[Phil]

Kalun:
Nice work, particularly in the triangulation. The short triangulation in the side rails is particularly effective as it makes use of the shorter tubing lengths. I will be curious to see how much you gain when the shear panels are added...looks like you are looking at a reasonably stiff chassis with light weight. I can't wait to see it with the suspension added.
Cheers
Phil

 

[Matt]

Hello everyone!

I am new to the world of car design and I have several ideas for cars. One car is similar to the GT40 and that is why I joined the site. I have trouble drawing to save my life. I have ideas for the engine, transmission, brakes, type of drive system(FWD, RWD, or AWD), and some of the interior aspects of the car. But cannot draw it out, I can visualize it no problem! The main area that I am stuck on is the chassis and body designs.

THe type of chassis I like is the space frame chassis similar to the type that is used in NASCAR. Whether it be round tubing or the square tubing I do not which is better or to use both.

I like some of the designs that you have posted here. I unfortunately do not have the funds to afford the CAD programs that could be able to help me design my car ideas. Can you guys offer any advice?

 

[John]

Matt,

Try Google sketchup - it's free!

Google SketchUp

 

[Bob Putnam]

What I don't see in Kalun's chassis are the suspension anchor points. You can design an "ideal" chassis, but if the suspension feeds into the wrong points, the design falls apart.