For this project, the “wishbone” suspension design meant that extra bending strength of the connecting tubes would be needed.īy hand, space frame design when assuming pin joints is extremely time-consuming for a project like this. Uphill climb race cars have been around for a while, so there is quite a bit of existing, general knowledge of the industry including the minimum weight, wall thickness, constructability, safety recommendations, etc. “The project logically moved from the simple to the complex over many years of iterations, while retaining the stiffness, low weight, and driver safety.” How it Was Designedįigure 2: 3D rendering of finished Sk圜iv Structural 3D product It only requires a “feather throttle” off the line, but at full speed & downforce, a huge power transfer is possible. To achieve this requires 4WD and about 400 HP which is quite possible with a supercharged 1300 cc engine. According to John, acceleration must not be power limited at full speed. These larger plan dimensions give the car more surface area underneath the car, aiding with downforce at high speeds, which is extremely important at sharp turns and corners.Īnother technical aspect of this challenge is the car’s acceleration. To maximize downforce for the car, John was able to get the overall width of the car to 2.5 meters, as wide as the trailer required. In this case, single-seat open-wheel hill climb cars participate in the “Formulae Libre” class, which means the cars in this competition are not affected by many rules, making the engineering decisions easier and more forgiving.ĭiffering types of suspension needed to be considered here, but the “wishbone” design was chosen by John and his team. Primarily, the challenge here is trying to retain the stiffness and lightness for the forces that would be seen during the race. A large amount of work went into trying to scale up the frame from a small model to life-size. The main priority of this project was driver safety, leading to the development of a 3D space frame design. At the moment this was released, John was working on actually constructing his dream, and we are very excited to see it upon completion!įigure 1: Similar hill climb race car to the one designed by John The Challenge “I cannot convey to you how easy and useful your program was to use, and it made a significant difference to the project.” About the Projectįor this project, John wanted to create a simple yet light and powerful hill climb race car, starting with a scaled-up go-kart and a 1300cc engine. 50 years later, he has rekindled his passion for the sport and is passionate about constructing a new car. From the ages of 20-22, he owned a racing car that was eventually ruined via a crash. Growing up reading everything about motorcycles and cars, fixing and modifying them, he concluded that he wanted to be the person making the decisions when it came to putting things together. For John Morey, a lifelong interest in hill climb race cars leads to an amazing project aided by Sk圜iv.
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