Senior design project Options

[i love porsche]

the competition is at central connnecticut state university. 18 competitiors i think, it should be interesting. im planning on building a set of the new arms too, it will be nice to have a set for my car and see how they do

[jd74914]

Cool. I wish I hadn't had to work, CCSU isn't too far away from where I live.


How did it go Aaron?

[i love porsche]

the presentation went well i think, i didnt win anything, but ALOT of students and people were coming up to me after, complimenting me and wanting to talk about it....i guess that porsches are more interesting than carbon nanotubes or 6 DOF Matlab M files (those guys won)

anyways, its looking good, and im hoping to build some prototypes soon
heres a pic of the basic design

[i love porsche]

so i have a little request, i would like to get donated/cheaply purchase two control arms, i really just need the torsion bar tube with bearing races..that section, i will be constructing the rest with 4130 tubing....

anyone out there have some control arms? let me know how much with shipping to 07110

thanks
Aaron

[Brando]

Control arms? You mean fron A-Arms?

The rear are coil-overs. No torsion bars. Not like a 911/944.

[i love porsche]

yes, front A arms

[i love porsche]

ok well here are some pictures of the finished product with some build pictures

a few notes

the rod end chosen i do not believe will be strong enough..not the shank, but the ball to race connection, i believe the ball might pop out, so if anyone has any good sources for racing rod ends, id appreciate some advice

the control arm was built on a jig, not the best one, but good enought to duplicate.

these reuse the stock torsion tubes fromt the stock control arms, if we were to make new ones, the cost would have gone way up

this was also my first time welding round tube...so its not the greatest welds, but they should hold up. i tried to get a better welder to do the welding for me, but we couldnt make it happen in the time constraints.

the ball joint pin was made from a grade 5 bolt. for actual use i would want to upgrade the bolt

and it does fit togethher with the stock parts, for our final presentation we had a jig which held all of the suspension pieces together

so..comments and questions?


i have MANY other pictures of the whole process, so if there is anything you would like to see specifically, just let me know

[i love porsche]

this was probably the best weld of the bunch



also, id like to thank Bob Kikascik of Stable energies for donating parts to this project

[rick 918-S]

Welding is only learned by practicing...alot! You can read all the theory books on the planet but without practice you'll never weld. Keep at it, your on the right path.

[type11969]

Did the torsion tubes warp at all when welding the new tubes on? All that welding on one side I could see creating an issue.

If you want to pick someone's brain regarding racing rod ends, call Frank Nester at High Performance Vehicle Engineering (610-515-0550, they are in Easton, PA). Tell him Chris Phelan from Ocean Power Technologies sent you (warning, he likes to talk but he knows a lot of stuff). He does a lot of race car work but also made some massive rod ends for us (made the housings and swaged the 2" ID spherical bearings in) along with making some killer clevises out of 17-4. He could definitely give you some advice. I'm sure you've found that spehreical bearings generally aren't made to take axial loads, their strength is in the radial direction. You might consider something like this:

http://www.magnaloy.com/Chris/WebStore/Pro...nt.RodEnd.M.asp

Don't ask them to give you any sort of estimate for life though, they have never done the work because they are made for slow moving hyd cylinders. They are pretty badass though.

Good luck with the project

-Chris

[Spoke]

Nice work. I agree with you about the ball joints. I believe these types of joints are meant for lateral forces in line with the bolt. The largest forces for this application would be up and down holding the car's weight while trying to pop the ball out of the socket.

[i love porsche]

thanks for that link chris, ill have to give him a call

i dont think that the torsion tubes had too much of a problem, they are VERY thick, more than .125 i think,

the biggest problem we had with warpage was on the camber adjuster, the stainless steel piece is supposed to rotate within the center tube.. those tubes warped a bit, but you can still turn it with a wrench..so it should still work

[jd74914]

Looks good Aaron.

Worst case with the warpage you can always press out the SS piece and ream the hole a bit bigger.