RF96R Conversion

[Roux]

CAD ideas for fitting the engine. Plan as of now is to gut an LD200 (have a trashed one), make a chain driver version of it, then reuse all the spuspension pickups etc. The oil tank/bell housing will be replaced with a small steel weldment. Headers might have to go through one more revision to clear oil pan. On the back end of the LD200 the bearing carrier interface will be used for the start of a crush box which has to pick up the three bolts (floating in space here) for the rear wing and sway bar

Comments???

[RussMcB]

Comments???

Very cool!

[carnut169]

Interesting idea but its hard to visualize with your cad drawings. I wonder though, why not just copy a design you know works on an RF96...

[RobLav]

Steve,

You can come by anytime to look at my car - not sure where you live in Northeast...

I went through the same drill - twice - in converting my RF96 and debating conversion of my RF99. The lower left rear A-Arm mount will have to be moved.

There are other alternatives.

Rob

[RussMcB]

Interesting idea but its hard to visualize with your cad drawings. I wonder though, why not just copy a design you know works on an RF96...

Reminder - His RF96R is different from a RF96 FF2000.

I can understand wanting to reuse as much of the original car as possible (and not having to make new suspension pickup points). I think FormulaSuper did his conversion reusing the Hewland transaxle housing.

Take Rob up on his offer because you always get good ideas looking at the different ways people tackle challenges.

Diversity is a great thing. :-).

[glenn cooper]

erence between a RF and an RFR?

[RussMcB]

I don't know details, but RF96R = RF96 - "Renault".

http://images.google.com/images?um=1...=Search+Images

[rickb99]

If that's a solid bulkhead hard point behind the engine, wouldn't that trap a considerable amount of heat?

[Roux]

Sean,

The Renault version is not at all like the F2000 you converted. I noticed that right away when I looked at your design. I will post frame photographs once I get them

Rob,

I have called your number a few times to arrange to stop by. YOur car looks great. I am south of Limerock, so 1.5 hours from you. Will come by one evening if it works. i will phone you some time next weekend

Rick. good point on the heat entrapment. The sidepods have louvers on the top in that area and are quite wide, so I should look at a way to create airflow in there. Thanks, these are the kinds of inputs that will help getting it right out of the box

The hewland conversion is relatively simple and quick and will establish teh pickups without all of the tooling to fab. Will rethink it

Cheers

Steve

[kakarot]

The plates in the drawing are overkill. Unless they are made from magnesium or aluminum.

If you simply use the front engine mounts and the rear bottom. You can put the engine in stress by attaching the rear suspension just onto the rear mounts. Also you can add cooling onto it. So the unit would be the engine, cooling, and rear suspension and rear drive. When ever you will want to remove the engine and rear end, just unbolt 4 bolts and unplug some wires.
The motorcycle engines are designed to hold up the stress. I have a drawing of what I mean from FSAE car somewhere around here.

[rickb99]

The motorcycle engines are designed to hold up the stress. I have a drawing of what I mean from FSAE car somewhere around here.

That's an interesting comment. Is it backed up by any available stress analysis data on the various 1,000 cc bike engines?

That was a 'topic of discussion' when Lee Stohr first introduced this rear end concept in D/SR. I don't recall exactly what the Stohr looks like today but I don't think the engine is a FULLY stressed member (just partially with some loads distributed to chassis hard points).

Certainly in the real MC applications, these engines are NOT fully stressed members.

[RobLav]

These cars should turn 2.5+ G's at 150MPH. I won't do that in a fully stressed m/c engine.

[Wright D]

We fully stressed our engine in FSAE, but our car weighed 430 lbs and could only pull 1.6 g’s. No aero loads, extremely light car, low accelerations, and had soft soft suspension. The reasons listed and weight were all factors in our decision to stress the motor. We used a gsxr 600, and as many of you many know, the case on the 600 is nearly identical to that of the 1000, and they weigh nearly the same too. In fact most of the weight of our car was the motor. Designing the chassis for our FSAE car I had a target torsional stiffness of 3500 ftlb/deg. For our F1000 that number is quite a bit more; 10,000 ftlb/deg.

Stress the engine to the levels that you feel comfortable with… I would ask George Dean what he thinks about it.

[kakarot]

The plates in the drawing are overkill. Unless they are made from magnesium or aluminum.

If you simply use the front engine mounts and the rear bottom. You can put the engine in stress by attaching the rear suspension just onto the rear mounts. Also you can add cooling onto it. So the unit would be the engine, cooling, and rear suspension and rear drive. When ever you will want to remove the engine and rear end, just unbolt 4 bolts and unplug some wires.
The motorcycle engines are designed to hold up the stress. I have a drawing of what I mean from FSAE car somewhere around here.

I don't know, reading it again I cannot find were I said to fully stress.
I said to partially stress. Sharing the rear bottom mount with the engine and suspension.
GSXR1000 should not handle ~1300lb. I don't even think it can.

[rickb99]

,,,,,You can put the engine in stress by attaching the rear suspension just onto the rear mounts.

I'm sorry, I may have misunderstood what you were saying. I thought in the sentance above you were saying to transfer all of the rear suspension loads into the chassis via the rear bolts on the engine casting.

Based upon his orignal design work, I suspect Lee Stohr or George Dean may have good data on the load handling capabilities of these castings. Unless you have SOLID data and great faith that you have a flawless engine casting, I'd stick with the space frame concept.

There's nothing LESS exciting then seeing the front end of a car go one direction and the rear go in another.

[kakarot]

There's nothing LESS exciting then seeing the front end of a car go one direction and the rear go in another.

I agree. I don't have exact data on gsxr1000. However I am certain that they are designed to hold up the weight of the driver and the bike it self on that engine. Which adds up to about 700lb (450lb bike and 250lb driver). A nice design on the rear could split the force distribution so that the engine maximum would be stressed to 700lb.
I personally just dont like the jumbled up tubes in the back to support the structure. I prefer to spend extra month and get the mess under control.
And for FSAE, engines like that can easily support the car. So teams fully stress them.

Anyways, the final decision is behind the owner/builder.

[Sean Maisey]

As owner of Stohr DSR s/n 001. I can tell you that the '98/99 Yamaha R1 motors didn't last too long in a stressed application.

I haven't seen any engineering analysis of the newer GSXRs, but like Dustin seems to indicate, I just don't think it is a good practice to put them under so much additional stress in our application. We are already asking a lot with 1000# cars and really wide tires...

Sean