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My NASA TT1 Build

49K views 187 replies 47 participants last post by  LotusCC 
#1 · (Edited)


Thought I'd toss up some pics of my 2014TT build.

Little history, BOE stuff aside, the reason I do what I do is largely about loving to study and engineer the car to get around the esses faster and more reliably tomorrow than I did today. I surely enjoy the design/build process equally as much as the driving.

I won 2012 regionals in TTU (which is now TT1) in 2012. I took 2013 off to enjoy time with my new son and prepare the car for the 2014 season. My competition has become much faster this year as I knew they would.

My plan for '14 was more downforce, more tire, better data acquisition, more safety (caged), more reliability, better cooling, and replacing the remaining wear items still on the car from 2005 when I purchased it new!

It was a lot of work. Thought I might share a few pics....

In this first set, I focused on more tire. I've not had much luck with diffs. Tried a couple and not getting to where I want with my power and sequential tranny. So this year, the diff is open. I wheeled down to 15 inchers but 10 inches wide so that I could run 275 hoosiers int he rear to help get the power down. To do this, the 949 rear wheels needed some spacing. Lathed out some billet spacers that are hub centering on the car and to the wheel. Pretty slick really. The studs are ARP and pressed in. The spacers are secured to the hubs with ARP fasteners. Not worried about strength! The wheels only weigh about 13lbs each and the spacers are about 1.5lbs... not bad!

To cover the wheels, Some reverie flares are crudely added. The car is off to the body shop this winter to make it an acceptable 10 footer--- which is all that is needed for track duty, IMO...
 

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#132 ·
Sure...

To be complete:

Also made front access panels and hinge covers/filler panels (the bit between the rockers and front clam)... The OE filler panels weigh like 3.Xlbs, ours weigh 1lb :cool:

Rockers are different because of the wide body in my case...

Everything made right here in US of A...

Doing the mold for an Elise front and rear next due to @darkSol 's badgering:facepalm:D

You can literally lift either clam with a single finger and your arm extended full.

The clams are made with carbon and honeycomb to add loads of rigidity and be lightweight at the same time.

I'll have the race car at LOG with the new clams on it, etc...

-Phil
 
#133 ·
Jeez, making your own clams? You're a beast!

What's with the giant rim all around the rear clam? does that get cut off?

Are you getting rid of the hatch? Brilliant idea if you're only going to use the clam hinge
 
#137 · (Edited)
Those are the outside of the molds. So the bodywork is made inside of those...

-Phil
 
#134 · (Edited)
Ok I have to admit I was skeptical (because Phil has been known to pull my chain before for $hits and grins) but OMFG these things are LIGHT!

You CAN literally pick them up with one hand and they are RIGID as hell. Small animals better look out because they are going to bounce up in the air when hit at speed with the front clam. Seriously strong.

Considering that the (Elise) front clam is 33 lbs. and the rear is around 54 lbs. the savings will be enormous.

11 lbs. for front + 2 lbs. for paint = 13 lbs. = 20 lbs savings

14 lbs + 7 lbs for trunk = 21 lbs. + 3 lbs. for paint = 24 lbs. = 30 lbs. savings.

Let's lose 50 lbs. weight off the top of the car!

AMAZING!! :nanner:

Wait... Badgering? :cool:
 

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#135 ·
I've lurked here off and on for a long time. I track BMW's, but I love the way these cars look in track clothing. Your thread was a great read, thanks for sharing.

I found a PDF that perhaps you've read, but might be interesting to you related to low speed aerodynamics. They did a fair bit of data gathering on the S1223 airfoil you are using.

http://m-selig.ae.illinois.edu/uiuc_lsat/Low-Speed-Airfoil-Data-V5.pdf

Just a little light reading.
 
#136 ·
Thanks! Yes, I used that same paper as part of the profile selection process...

There's a lot on the car I haven't had time to document fully. The fun stuff lately is all the carbon bodywork :)

Hopefully will find some time to do so soon.

Cheers,

Phil
 
#139 ·
Getting closer...

Carbon widebody clams back from paint. Rockers, front and rear clam, side filler/hinge covers, rear hatch (notice no holes for better areo), and hardtop are all carbon..... Needless to say, they don't weigh much!

Little bit of fitment work due to many custom features of this particular car :cool:

-Phil
 

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#142 ·
I've been wanting to tie some strings to a friend's Exige to see what kind of airflow that mesh allows for. I have a feeling that the standard Exige is much less "fastback" than we'd think, so it is cool to see a real fastback design!
 
#140 ·
Wing is of course dry carbon as are the wing uprights. The whole wing and uprights weighs 10lbs... not bad considering how big and strong the wing is on my car... Those are carried over from before...

Front splitter is carbon too and is full length...

...Rear clam is almost 6" wider than stock....
 
#141 ·
PS- Doors are OE.. not doing those anytime soon! lol
 
#147 ·
String test is the most practical test method. I would suspect flow is not singularly tangential or perpendicular, but rather a vortex eddy shedding showing flow moving both in and out as it rolls to the back.
 
#149 ·
The mass of the string serves to dampen out some of that, so it can give you a picture of the time-average flow in the case of vortex shedding. Also, if it is really dancing, then it may tell you nothing about the airflow except not to place a wing anywhere near it, haha
 
#150 ·
Maybe I missed it but how much downforce does that wing actually make, or is anticipated to make? For 12k$ yowza.

I am within a week or so on completion on a dual element swan neck wing that is coming out to much less than that and I can't imagine it making less downforce
 
#151 ·
lol. $12K, if/when I said that, was a joking. My wing is realistically about a 3500-4,000 setup all in.... hard to say exactly with mounting, etc...

As for downforce, I bent the frame with it... Straightened and fish plated to prevent in future. Prior to that I bent the aluminum uprights I made for it... Switched to 14 ply CF with 1/2" honeycomb core and no problems with those after a couple seasons... weigh like nothing too:up: I've had 3 guys standing on the wing to "stress test" the mounting setup and lateral stength... It's a HUGE wing, but very efficient... Had to switch to 1100lb rear springs to keep the rear end from squatting too much at "speed".... The car regularly sees 140-150mph (actual not indicated) on the straights...


-Phil
 
#153 ·
Is the car going to be running the track day? It would be nice to see it running on the track
Maybe! I'll have to see how the schedule pans out, energy, etc. Will bring it up there (for LOG)... If I can swing the time and etc, It would be fun... An exibition run on a speedway roval at a club event like that is kind of a tricky thing to do for both me and that car...
 
#156 ·
Race this weekend...

... making progress with many, many, many 18 hour days...

Someone mentioned pulling out all the stops. I believe we can check that box...

Our widebody carbon clams are fitting well. New splitter is "hella durable".

Gone is the red. I knew red was temporary since it really has nothing to do with BOE livery. THe blue was a big gamble, as I got like no support from... well, anyone... I think it turned out OK! Matches the cage well and really has some pop...
 

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#160 ·
Gone is the red. I knew red was temporary since it really has nothing to do with BOE livery. THe blue was a big gamble, as I got like no support from... well, anyone... I think it turned out OK! Matches the cage well and really has some pop...
Blue looks good! Of course I'm slightly biased:coolnana:

Can't wait to see it and HEAR it!!
 
#163 ·
Been off the track for a couple months and I could really feel how rusty I was. It was real hard to get back in the mental game, dealing with braking zones, etc.

There were 120 cars entered across the various classes. Greg Vannucci, National Champion, in his 2GR (v6) powered exige, was there as usual. He's such a fantastic driver, it's always fun to share the track with him.

Day one had me .003 behind him at a high 1:29...

I hold the overall and class NASA record at this track at 1:28.0. Nobody was making new records this weekend, as the track just wasn't particularly fast... However, I was off due to the mental game-- not the track... Too much braking and not asking the car for much.

After spending time on the embarrassing data, it was enough to force me to let things hang out a bit more on Day 2. Day 2 was fruitful. Heat 1 didn't come together, but heat 2 things were starting to make sense again---- and it felt great!:up:

The car has so much more in it, and I never executed a flawless lap by any means, but we certainly got back in the game with a 1:28.2, which was more than 1.5 seconds ahead of Greg and the rest of the field.

Here's a short vid of a nearly 2 laps of a lot of shifting and bouncing off the rev limiter....

Also some updated pics...

 

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#165 ·
hard to make a V6 sound good... especially compared to a little 2ZZ!

:coolnana::shift:
 
#167 ·
Here's some messy phone pics of my dual element swan neck wing. Thought you might find it interesting. For track I will remove the top element or set aoa very conservative. Needless to say it makes a lot of forces in the downward direction.


It is sitting on some 26x10" drag radials for scale.




 
#168 · (Edited)
Interesting, Dallas. You did a nice job with your uprights, and etc... Who did the wing again?

Overall setup may be good for autocross, but not likely the right setup for road course, FWIW...

Cheers,

Phil
 
#169 ·
Nice Phil. You definitely need a "faster" steering rack. :) Seriously, do you have the quickest ratio available installed on the car? If not, it would be a very good upgrade.

Bob L
 
#171 ·
Thanks, Bob. Good advice. It's a stock rack!-eek- It's really tough to make the time to get to everything. My poor car is always the project that gets worked on between midnight and 3AM since the customer cars come first... A real short rack would certainly be the way to go. Only caveat is being in good shape. As you can see in the video, there's an awful lot of feedback as it is with the aero and speeds, so it can get a bit exhausting at the end of a day!

Nevertheless, a short ratio rack is on the list... Probably over the winter/off-season :eek:

-Phil
 
#173 ·
#174 ·
running the solid rear engine cover will definitely allow much cleaner air to get to that rear wing and as such allow less AOA.

On mine and Jamies Time Attack cars we both went for solid ones verses the motorsport vented versions that are avaliable for better aero and both have the same dual element wing.

Jamie has 600bhp+ and runs his main element at minus 2 degrees I believe with 1600lb springs on the rear so it makes some decent downforce, im sure you know this but because the air will be attached to the engine cover it will interact with the wing at a different angle, so you might set it at 0 degrees but infact the wing is getting air at 5-10 degrees.

Dallasreed, those wing uprights dont look strong enough for what your doing with it, that wing at 150mph will probably be making circa 400kg of downforce, thats 4 very large guys sitting on it, would you be confident to do that, ive driven without my wing at 80mph and even in a straight line it felt scary, i wouldnt want it to fail at high speed on track, ive had that and been thrown into a wall at 90mph so wouldnt want i to happen to anyone else.

Mine are made from 12mm pure carbon fibre which i will be cutting some holes out for weight reduction but even so, they are 700mm x 220mm x 12mm an weigh 1.2kg each

i would suggest you thicken up your supports or at least cross brace them, i use carbon rod for that.
This is at 80mph with my wing, on 700/900 setup for testing, my diffuser is normally 80mm from the ground when static


Also Phil shouldnt have any issues with temps, that rear wing will create a low pressure zone behind the car and help pull the air out, aswell as the natural pressure differential between in and outside of the clam, ive got a red hot turbo 4inches from the back of my head and you can see the exhaust popping out of the side of the rear clam and dont have any temperature issues in there.
 
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