Larry Ellison's sports car and "billet" book

[HTRN]

How about an Ultima with a supercharged LS-X? A thousand HP on tap in a car that barely weighs a ton, and can eat Veyron's with 300hp less than that..


HTRN

[HTRN]

Or the fact that my aforementioned "kitcar" equipped with a chevy smallblock(!) owns the 0-100-0 record? And the 0-100 record...

The funny thing, is that what's ultimately limiting them is the Porsche Transaxle.


HTRN

[Netpackrat]

I know I've posted this link before, but I'd still like to build one of these someday when I finish the rest of my projects.

[Netpackrat]

I could deal with a Lotus 7 too, and an all aluminum body isn't hard to do (minus the radiator cowl anyway. I'd hate to have to english wheel that). Plus you can put anything from a little four to a monster V8 in the things.

Power Hammer! Used one for the first time today, I have to get me one of these things, plus a wheel, of course. And some shot bags, and a bunch more hammers and mallets and things. I think this 3 day workshop is going to turn out to be a lot more expensive than the course fee.

[Netpackrat]

I need one anyway to make armor. Preferably one that is useful for both shaping and planishing.

Just a matter of changing dies. Do a YouTube search on "Kent White power hammer" and there are a bunch of videos of it in use. I'll probably buy his kits for both the wheel and hammer eventually, and fabricate my own frames rather than ship them up, but he had one of his new frames shipped up for the class (I didn't ask, but one of the students probably bought it at a discount), and it is really, really impressive. Incredibly heavily built.

[Netpackrat]

Continuous welded triangulated and gusseted 8ga 4" square section?

I'd hate to try fabbing that up without a hefty mig/tig and an equally hefty plasma cutter. I mean you can always torch it, but god that'd take forever and soften the steel for 4" on either side.

I don't speak gauge, but there are several ways you could cut the tubing used for the hammer and wheel frames, that don't have to involve a torch or plasma cutter. And besides, the steel you would use in this application is not likely to be significantly harmed by using a torch on it. You're going to get it that hot when you weld it, anyway. My chop saw would come close to working; might have to turn it over for a second cut, but you could do it. One of the taiwanese vertical/horizontal bandsaws would do it without being TOO expensive, and if it came right down to it, you could use cut off wheels in an angle grinder. It would take a while, but it would work. As for welding it up, a basic 220v buzz box would do an acceptable job; I built my hydraulic press that way and it has served me well. A good MIG machine would be more convenient, but I would never try to use TIG for that. Even if using my TIG welder I would plug in the stick electrode holder and use it like a buzz box.

On a good, well designed, and sturdily manufactured piece, that is designed for both (clearly the piece you linked is) yes.

For shaping you need a lot more throat depth, a lot more clearance adjustment, and a lot more hammer speed adjustment; than you need with planishing. For planishing, you need high hammer speed, and high rigidity.

The machine I used today had a built in regulator for making adjustments as you use the machine, and he also had several different straight line air hammers for it. Clearance adjustment was fast and simple, and made using the same locking mechanism that held the hammer body. If you build your own, you can make the throat depth whatever you want, but plan on adding additional metal to maintain rigidity if you go bigger.

One thing I liked about the bench top wheel he brought, is the upper wheel was cantilevered on a shaft that extended to the far end of the upper arm, with bearings on each end. Really smooth, and plenty of inertia.

[ButchS1066]

I'm kinda partial to Dick Bear's McLaren replica, the construction of which he documented over at Metal Meet.

mcbearen.jpg

Not a bad way to teach yourself how to shape sheetmetal.

His current project is fairly interesting as well:

Bear's track car.jpg

[Highspeed]

Titanium tube frame

HTRN

That's almost an alternate history - what might have been if the monocoque chassis never happened.

Then again Porsche must have considered it for their space framed sports prototypes and rejected it. I wonder why ? at the time it was very difficult to weld the stuff ( if you weren't Lockheed ) so that might have been an issue.

If I'd got the money to do a cost-no-object recreation of a Cobra I'd build it exactly how Shelby did. The whole deal of a 'bunch of hot rodders' ( Shelby's own words ) taking on and beating Ferrari is just too good to mess around with. A lot of the magic of the Cobra for me is that it managed to be better than the sum of it's parts.

[ButchS1066]

Frame cracks developing at the welds because of vibration is the big reason. It's why you don't see it much in unlimited budget race vehicles even today.

Porsche had that problem with the 917's aluminum tube chassis. One difference I could see would be by going with aluminum the chassis could be rewelded as needed at the track.

[HTRN]

I could deal with a Lotus 7 too, and an all aluminum body isn't hard to do (minus the radiator cowl anyway. I'd hate to have to english wheel that).

I wouldn't even try to - building a buck and then using a "Polymer hammer in a rivet gun"(sorta handheld planishing hammer) to form it, and then iron out the last of it with a wheel would probably be the best way to go.



HTRN