New Formula B update

[Tony Moore]

Here are the latest pictures of the car being built by Gary Hickman and Tony Moore. We haven't posted in a while because we have been very busy with the car and running our shop to pay for playing with cars.

The plug is shaping up well. 6 sheets of foam and 10 plus gallons of Bondo later, here is what we came up with. The rear wing was bolted on so you can see how it fits also. Sorry we didn't have the front wing bolted on.

Next steps are to make the molds, build the floorrs and diffuser.

We haven't set our race schedule yet. We definitely will be at the June Sprints, ARRC and as many Nationals as our shop schedule will allow.

Now that the body is nearly done, we will post a little more often.

Have a great weekend,

Tony Moore

[996kyle]

Nice looking car Tony,... looking forward to running with you on the west coast when it is complete.

See you on track soon, hopefully at the Rose Cup at PIR (Portland) in May?

Cheers
Kyle

[Tony Moore]

Thanks Kyle. We'll post our race schedule as soon as possible. We would love to do Portland. It might be tough doing 3 or 4 long hauls and run the shop too.

Best Regards and good night,

Tony

[ghickman]

Hi All
Just thought I'd jump in here and take the time to thank Tony for the long hours he spent working on the plug. He started on it just after the 1st of Jan...200 plus hours later here it is.

Our design criteria for the body was simple. Utilize the maximum ground effects and keep the frontal area to a minimum. We believe we have accomplished both. The bulge in the sides just aft of the radiator inlets are for my elbows. I have this thing about having elbow room. Also note how we blended the helmet into the engine cover...best aero. We went with a more conventional side pod....similar to an F3 which we thought was closer in speed and cornering G forces.

Tony has an extensive background in aerodynamics so making design changes was a no brainer.

Most of you wouldn't know this but Tony and I built most of the original body work for the DB1 (back in the day when we were a lot younger). Building molds is almost second nature to us....also built DB2 body work.

If anyone has questions please ask...we would happy to answer them.

Regards
Gary Hickman

[carnut169]

Looks great gents.

It's amazing how much work goes into building a one-off car!

Looks like a Speads-inspired rear wing? Why do the side pods do an upturn at the back? Room for tunnels?

[ghickman]

Looks great gents.

It's amazing how much work goes into building a one-off car!

Looks like a Speads-inspired rear wing? Why do the side pods do an upturn at the back? Room for tunnels?

Hi Sean
Yes...at this point including my CAD MODELING time we have well over 1400 man hours. We own our machine shop so I guess we should count the machine time also.

The upturn on the underneath side of the pods is for increased venturi effect for the heat exchanged air and.....to allow some flexibilty on our diffuser. We plan to test a few different diffuser types. We'll add some chimneys also to see how the work.

There's a purpose to the shape of the end plates, I'll let Tony go into that. We decided to go with a very low drag low downforce airfoil profile. One other thing....I wasn't keen on running the end plates down to the diffuser and using the diffuser as the supports for the wing. I felt if you were to go off course backwards you might tear the heck out of things. We may lower the bottom element and other wing changes but that's what testing is for.

Regards
Gary