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Thread: Road/Race Chassis Discussion

  1. #1
    Senior Member Presto51's Avatar
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    Road/Race Chassis Discussion

    Recently had the XJ220 come across my radar, and the more I looked at it, which led to a deeper dive into it, the more intrigued I became with it.

    All I know right now from surface research, that the XJ220 chassis was stout/ridged, took hard abuse from impacts, helped the car to be one of the first production cars to reach over 200mph

    Right now I would like to know more, pros/cons of the aluminum honeycomb sandwich panel construction that was used/developed for it's chassis, and wonder if the same technique can be used today.

    Hopefully everyone will find this an interesting thought exercise.

    Thanks

    Ron
    "May you be in heaven a full half hour before the Devil knows you're dead"

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    The XJ220 IIRC is an older model? I have been watching The Grand Tour and they tested one. It was very low on the list as far as performance. Most "super cars" from these earlier years are pretty slow compared to todays "super cars".

    As far as the construction goes, it is one of my "secrets" to use metal panels to stiffen a chassis by bonding them to the frame as opposed to just putting a couple of rivets here and there to hold them in place. Does it really make a substantial difference? I have no hard data other than doing that combined with many other details seems to make a "spec racer" much faster than the average spec racer. How much is contributed by gluing panels to frame rails? Very hard to say. Bottom line is that I felt it couldn't hurt, and if you think about it in terms of how homes or buildings or bridges are built, a diaphragm or "shear wall" is required in all those constructions, so why would it NOT work in vehicle construction.

    On the car I am building right now, I have put in the FIA/SCCA/NASA mandatory bars, but my plan is to really strengthen the firewall area via the use of shear paneling. Again, it cannot hurt anything and should, in theory and engineering principal, make for a much stouter structure. Of course the carbon tub is the ultimate shear panel construction technique, but for us with real budgets, glued on panels to a metal space frame is about as good as we are going to get.

    It should be noted though, that using this technique makes it quite a bit more difficult to service some areas of the vehicle. In some cases the paneling is destroyed in order to get it off the frame for access. Something to think about when building and gluing. I usually will build and take apart a car a few times before the final assembly just so I can be sure everything is right.
    Last edited by crash; 03-19-2019 at 02:08 PM.
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    Senior Member Mike N's Avatar
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    For a good chassis the highest stiffness and lightest weight are highly desirable. When the final decisions are made another factor gets considered and that's cost. A space-frame (birdcage) chassis can be both stiff and light if well engineered the same goes for a monocoque type structure however the space frame will be cheaper to build, and ultimately if well engineered the monocoque (honeycomb) will be lighter for the same stiffness. A hybrid of space frame and monocoque (stressed skin) is not new and and can be highly effective. Just take a look at aircraft design around the period of the second world war. Wooden rib and stringer design with a canvas or stressed metal skin was ubiquitous.
    Mike............

    FFR2100 - 331 with KB supercharger - T5 - 5 link rear 3.08's and T2 Torsen.

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    Senior Member Presto51's Avatar
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    I have to dig through some pictures that I came across, it appears to me that maybe Jaguar made the complete tub out of aluminum honeycomb panels, with some folding in certain areas ? Could that be a feasible construction, or a budget buster?

    Crash, Mike N thank you for the great feed back, it's really helpful.
    Last edited by Presto51; 03-19-2019 at 03:52 PM.
    "May you be in heaven a full half hour before the Devil knows you're dead"

  5. #5
    Senior Member Mike N's Avatar
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    For the XJ220 it looks like Jaguar was working with Alcan using their Aluminum Structured Vehicle Technology (ASVT) design. Ferrari and Bugatti also worked with Alcan using the same technology on the EB110 and F40. I couldn't find any good images but I didn't have time to look too hard so you might want to try spending some time on Google.
    Mike............

    FFR2100 - 331 with KB supercharger - T5 - 5 link rear 3.08's and T2 Torsen.

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    Here's a picture of a current race vehicle that uses that tech...
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    Senior Member Mike N's Avatar
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    Those are some HUUUUUUGE mufflers
    Mike............

    FFR2100 - 331 with KB supercharger - T5 - 5 link rear 3.08's and T2 Torsen.

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