Good progress, how do you even have time to go to work:)

That front ended up nicely, i like that you show how its possible to do really big stuff on a relatively small printer. It surely gives me some ideas

Cédric skrev:

Good progress, how do you even have time to go to work:) That front ended up nicely, i like that you show how its possible to do really big stuff on a relatively small printer. It surely gives me some ideas

Thanks, it's been intense hehe. From what I've seen you know what you're doing much better than me, but if there's ever anything I can help with just give me a shout.

Mounted the fender and bumper today, pretty exciting to see this slowly coming to life!

Klicka för större bilder!


Made a new render for reference, needs more work, but it's a bit closer:

A quick update, this weekend I welded the bungs in the radiator and did 99% of the coolant plumbing, but I had to move the water pump a little and ended up short by one 90º fitting. I also fit the second fender and mocked up the turbo in place, it's sitting a bit high though and it touches the hood a little, so I'll move it down a little tomorrow.

Amazing work! I am incredibly impressed

Putting us all to shame with the pace you're displaying!

tadeuzagallo skrev:

Klicka för större bilder!

Will the printed parts be used to make a mold, or will you coat it with resin/glassfibre and "use" it as distance material?

Thanks guys, everyone has been super nice about the project, even though I have no idea what I'm doing haha, it's super encouraging.

I finished 3D printing all the front wings for one side, so I should have an update soon with the front end looking at more interesting.

One little fun fact is that the "front wing" is actually twelve separate wings: three wings per side, split into two sections so that the AOA of the inner wings (which vent directly into the wheel wells) can be adjusted separate of the outer wings (which are in free stream).

On top of that the the wings have to be printed in smaller pieces, in part due to the size of my small printer, but also because of the small wings were vibrating too much, which gave a bad finish in the print, so I had to print 13 wing pieces per side. The wings also have an aluminum tube side for strength ("spars", which is probably overkill for the small wings, but better safe than sorry), so I also had to cut 12 aluminum tubes per side 😅. A few random pictures of the process:

Marcus Gustafsson skrev:

Will the printed parts be used to make a mold, or will you coat it with resin/glassfibre and "use" it as distance material?

For the body panels (bumper, front and rear fenders, top, fastback and hood) the prints will be used as a positive mold. Since all the parts are one offs I didn't want the time/cost/space of making a proper mold, but I also didn't want to carry around the prints in the final part.

For the wings the prints will be wrapped in carbon though, and the prints will remain inside.

Just curious, but will you get sufficient cooling with the radiator all flat just relying on the low-pressure side behind it? It is a very interesting concept.

stilldouble skrev:

Just curious, but will you get sufficient cooling with the radiator all flat just relying on the low-pressure side behind it? It is a very interesting concept.

Hey, it doesn't just rely on the low pressure side, it's ducted at both the inlet and the outlet, so it has high pressure on the inlet just as a vertical radiator would have. There is a little more turbulence, but I'm hoping that shouldn't be a problem, as this setup is used in some very high level race cars. Here's a pressure plot at the centerline of the car, hopefully it helps illustrate what I mean.

Some more progress, slowly trickling in:

- I lowered the turbo into its final position, so it no longer hit the hood. Then I mocked up the wastegate and built up a little jig that's now on its way to AutoGruppen so they can build the turbo manifold.



- I also mocked up the front wing and splitter. The wing for the other side has already printed, I should be able to assembly it soon.



- modeled the rear wing assembly. I was printing some test pieces, but had some printer issues... at this point I have about 2 weeks worth of printing queue up, so that was unfortunate. But I hacked the broken extruder together and it's back up and running. It'd be nice to get a second printer though, I might try to a find a sponsor in that area, considering how much of the car is printed lol.



- Today I also received and test fit the driveshaft and axles. It's wild to work with someone across the world, Bronson built everything built and shipped here, I took it out of the box and it just fit right in like a glove! As far as we know, this is the first Miata running a Super 8.8 diff in the world.

One-piece driveshaft with a slip-spline? Is that a normal solution for Miatas? Fells like you could have easily made that fit with a plunging CV in the rear.

Are you planning to move the inner part of the boots on the half-shafts from the splined section to the smooth part? That looks leaky as hell.
It also looks like the boot is pushed well into the joint itself possibly rubbing against the cage, not a good situation. I would ask the supplier why they did it like that if I was in your situation.

Awsome that it fits first try though!

MaZ skrev:

One-piece driveshaft with a slip-spline? Is that a normal solution for Miatas? Fells like you could have easily made that fit with a plunging CV in the rear. Are you planning to move the inner part of the boots on the half-shafts from the splined section to the smooth part? That looks leaky as hell. It also looks like the boot is pushed well into the joint itself possibly rubbing against the cage, not a good situation. I would ask the supplier why they did it like that if I was in your situation. Awsome that it fits first try though!

It's not very typical, Miatas have a slip yoke in the transmission. A CV in the rear was the original plan, but it came down to parts availability and budget. We couldn't find an adapter from the Super 8.8 diff to a 930CV, and I was very pressed for time and way over budget, so as soon as we found a solution that was good enough I just committed to it... he got the parts in no time and got the driveshaft built, balanced and shipped in <2 weeks 😅

Those are some very good questions about the axle boots, I'm newbie on this area and just threw the axles in the car in less than 15min to double check fitment. But Bronson is certainly not, so I'll have a chat with him to get his perspective and I'll report back.

tadeuzagallo skrev:

Good quality work! What exhaust flange is it?

MaZ skrev:

Are you planning to move the inner part of the boots on the half-shafts from the splined section to the smooth part? That looks leaky as hell. It also looks like the boot is pushed well into the joint itself possibly rubbing against the cage, not a good situation. I would ask the supplier why they did it like that if I was in your situation.

I forwarded the question to Bronson, and this was his answer:

"These aren't your normal CV boots people are used to, they are high speed boots which have more clearance. They are actually slightly out past mid travel already where they are, if you put them past the end of the splines it'll be over extended quite a bit and will fail very shortly. On the sealing, we have to vent these, even if you could seal on smooth shaft you have to put a small tube under the clamped portion to allow for thermal expansion. Popped two of them before I figured out what was going on. Centrifugal forces keep the grease in the larger OD of the CV, it's not intuitive but I guarantee you won't see any leakage"

peterb skrev:

Good quality work! What exhaust flange is it?

Thanks It's a PRL Motorsports flange.

tadeuzagallo skrev:

Thanks It's a PRL Motorsports flange.

Thanks! :-)

Have you seen this?

https://www.instagram.com/ayrs_customs?igsh=bTZtengyOTdseGo3

stilldouble skrev:

Have you seen this? https://www.instagram.com/ayrs_customs?igsh=bTZtengyOTdseGo3

Oh, I hadn't seen it, really cool, gave them a follow.

I made this render today. Obviously it's not a professional model, but I couldn't help looking back at my first render from November 22 and comparing it, and I must say I'm pretty happy with how the 3D stuff is coming along. Now I just need to make the real thing 😅

Nice to follow your work, impressive amount of work in short time

Rendering looks good, nice renderings will not make the car faster, put the time and energy where it counts

patrikh skrev:

Nice to follow your work, impressive amount of work in short time Rendering looks good, nice renderings will not make the car faster, put the time and energy where it counts

Thank you. The render was necessary for something that is coming up, and just took a couple hours

tadeuzagallo skrev:

stilldouble skrev: Just curious, but will you get sufficient cooling with the radiator all flat just relying on the low-pressure side behind it? It is a very interesting concept. Hey, it doesn't just rely on the low pressure side, it's ducted at both the inlet and the outlet, so it has high pressure on the inlet just as a vertical radiator would have. There is a little more turbulence, but I'm hoping that shouldn't be a problem, as this setup is used in some very high level race cars. Here's a pressure plot at the centerline of the car, hopefully it helps illustrate what I mean.

You can see the duck-tail interfering with the low pressure area under the wing. It would be better to have a much flatter duck-tail that extends way rearwards, like a traditional "drag race" wing, that kicks up the air as far back as the rear of the wing itself (trailing edge). You can also see the wake from the trailing edge of the wing (like the gurney) looks odd, it draws back down a bunch, this could likely also be helped with a better suited duck-tail I'd imagine? Just some thoughts

Yes, it looks pretty weird under de wing. The ducktail is working against the wing above.

Just for playing with thougts: what would happen if you added a bi-wing in the middle of the duck-tail and the current wing?



The purpose would be change the flow direction somewhat upwards under the main wing.

Another reflection: the lowpressure zone under the wing is almost offsetted by the lowpressure zone above the drivers head. The latter zone is having a much greater area? Two pressure zones are almost cancelling eachother. If we could accelerate the air more in rear of the car, what happens then above the head?

The underside of the car, after the rear axle, is obviously not finished. What happens when you add the diffuser, also kicking air upwards in the wake behind the car?