Its funny you should say that! As I was getting ready to cut these pieces out I came up with a better idea for chassis layout that I think would revolutionize the industry. But because this is a school project and class ends the end of May I have to get all the pieces cut and the majority assembled to get a mark for the course. As soon as this project is operational I think I will start on the next chassis.

Not only am I going to run it I plan to race it this summer,,,,,,if it works as well as I hope.

hows the car progressing?>\

Your progress is imprressive so far.

Keep us upto date so we can see the final product.

I admit I am jealous of your achievements.

regards

Sorry its taken so long to get back to you guys with my progress but this project is for 1 of my 4 classes, and as we approach the end of the semester I am getting VERY busy. I am also making a VEX robot, Victorian style entertainment unit, and a 4 wheeled vehicle powered by a bicycle hub motor (pictured).


This picture is from a couple of weeks ago and is now almost done.

Anyway, I have made some progress on the buggy. Last weekend I was able to get the engine and throttle bellcrank mounted, and the rear diff fitted. Thursday of this week (May 5/11) I finally cut the vaccum mold for the body. It is very thin right now because I have not yet had the time to glue the base to the top. The machine I used, Precix CNC router, did not have enough vertical travel to cut deep enough and have the required clearance for the cutting tool. So maybe this week I will glue some medite to the top profile and hand cut to fit. I am still waiting for the plastic to cut the arms.





































Here are some pics of the rear diff case installed. The front will be the same, when I get around to it.








More pictures to come as soon as I get some plastic or find the time to get some more work done.

My hats off to you, you have a lot of talent. More people should take some inspiration from this. While I don't expect everyone to be able to take on a project like this more people should try doing mods and customizing, it seems most just want to buy things and bolt them on. It seems as though fabrication is becoming a lost art and people are losing the will to be innovative. I have built some of my own R/C's but nothing quite this elaborate, though I continue to modify and make a lot of my own parts and pieces. Again, good job.

Fantastic

impressive work, nice ideas, good luck and keep us posted

i'm curious to see the final weight of this. I also think it could be a good platform for an e-buggy.

Sweet job so far though.

The car was designed from minute one to also be an E buggy. Although I don't have the final CAD drawings for the motor mount and just have rough sketches, it should only take about a day to fab the mount out of hand tools and my little hobby mill.

As for the weight it is a little chunky right now because the chassis is about 2mm thicker than my blue prints. But, this was done on purpose because I want to test one of my theories. The chassis will probably be milled down latter to increase the flex, as it is now there is virtually none. There are also a few more areas that can go in a diet, that should get it down to the legal limit.

neat stuff man!

Looks like fun! I'm sorry you had to do this in Auto-CAD. I've had the displeasure of having to use it briefly. Must have taken great patience on your part. If the funds/opportunity and time become available, I highly recommend this CAD package for part/assembly design. http://www.solidworks.com/

I've been using this along with Rhino 3d for over 10 years now and they're miles ahead of Auto-CAD in usability and speed. Also there is a new plug-in for Rhino that is pretty hot called T-splines that brings all of it together smoothly.

The original idea was to dump my 2d autocad drawings into Autodesk Inventor to make a 3d assembly but this is a school project and time being a factor (most of the work,design and fabrication, was done this semester, since January) I was not able to do this. We have Solidworks and Rhino here at school but because Autocad is kind of a standard in the school system that is what we are trained in.

With my limited skills at this point Autocad serves my purpose. Perhaps the next car I design (I have already started working in sketches) I will use a product like Solidworks so I can do stress analyse and easy 3d rendering to insure parts fit.

But for now I want to get this project finished and test my theories and see what works. Then I can start on a new car.

Looks pretty good. What type of aluminum are u using?

I have a feeling you could probably find employment with one of the RC Car manufacturers in the hobby industry... Keep pluggin along man. Awesome stuff...