Category Archives: Drivetrain

Fabricating the Chain Guard

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Chain Guard

Finished chain guard in place

Formula 1000 rules require a chain guard equivalent to 1/4″ aluminum to contain the chain in case of a break. I had the blank laser cut, then bent it on my tubing bender. After bending, it was sliced in two parts for easier access to the chain and rear sprocket, drilled and tapped for an overlapping tab, cross-drilled for mounting holes, and installed.

Completing the Chain Tensioner, Rear Sprocket & Shift Linkage

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Rear Sprocket

Rear Sprocket in place

Completing the car is now just one long series of small projects. Three are shown here.

The original chain tensioner design was not able to take up enough slack in the chain. The chain was either too short or too long, no matter how many links I used or where I put the adjustment. I had to come up with a new design with two idler sprockets instead of one, as you can see in this post. The bearings are special ceramic hybrids to handle the extreme chain speeds seen with a GSX-R1000 engine.

I’ve had a rear sprocket on the car for some time, but that was just for fitting. The lightening holes on that sprocket conflicted with the mounting holes required by the differential, so it wouldn’t have been strong enough. Instead, I ordered a blank sprocket from England and machined the correct mounting holes and center hole, then cut it in half on the bandsaw so that it could be mounted or changed without disassembling the whole rear axle and suspension.

I also built an adapter to go from the auto shift linkage to the transmission gear change lever. I bought a Suzuki GSX-R shift link rod from Ebay, cut off the front, and welded it to a threaded rod. The rod threads into a bushing I made that fits inside the eye of the shift linkage. The sleeve of the shift cable must be held securely, so you can see here the bracket that mounts it to the frame rails.

Youtube Video Update 8

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Yet another video update. Here you’ll get a tour around the car pointing out the newest additions, followed by fabricating the fuel swirl pot and mount, the first power-up of the electrical system, mounting components on the instrument panel, drilling the firewall for fuel lines, fabricating braided stainless steel fuel lines, building and installing the throttle pedal cable pull rod and the cable itself, building the ECU mounting platform, and machining the rear sprocket to fit the differential.

Youtube Video Update 8

ECU Platform

ECU mounting platform, with room for more electronics

Swirl Pot

Fuel swirl pot fabricated and mounted

Fabricating the Shifter Assembly & Linkage

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Assembled

Assembled shifter mechanism

I looked through a bunch of street car transmission shifter cables, brought a couple of them back to the lab, and decided on one that was the correct length, light, and low friction. Everything else was fabricated…

The car will use a Suzuki GSX-R1000 engine, which has a 6-speed sequential transmission, meaning the shifter only has two movements: shift up, and shift down.

Fabricating the Fuel Tank

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Fuel Tank

Finished fuel tank. You might want to wear sunglasses.

The fuel tank consists of an FIA FT3 certified fuel cell bladder, custom-made for this project by Aero Tec Laboratories, inside a custom made steel/aluminum container. The bottom and back of the container are made from a single laser-cut and bent sheet of steel, while the sides, front, and top are laser-cut and bent aluminum pieces. It’s carefully designed so the interior is completely smooth with all rivets and fasteners away from the fuel cell. All the rivet holes were laser cut also, meaning there’s only one way to fit it together– the correct way. This did make it very hard to install, however, as tolerances are zero to negative.

Inspecting or replacing the fuel cell bladder should be possible by drilling out all the rivets on the diagonal front panel and removing it. Not something I want to do very often.

Building the Axle Halfshaft Extensions

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Rear Suspension

Rear suspension, axles and differential in place

The car will use standard Honda Civic axle halfshafts, and I had the choice of cutting, sleeving and re-welding them, or building extenders that effectively widen the differential to meet the unmodified halfshafts. The cut/sleeve/re-weld option would eliminate the axle hardening and leave unknown strength, and I’ve since seen an example where this was done and the axle broke right at the weld. The option of “widening” the differential has several advantages. First, we can easily replace the halfshafts if necessary in the future with off-the-shelf parts. Second, moving the inner constant-velocity joint closer to the plane of the control-arm pickup points minimizes the plunge, or change in length, required as the suspension moves through its travel. Third, the halfshafts become equal length, eliminating torque steer. Now you may say “but, the extensions will be of different length and will twist unevenly so the torque steer won’t be eliminated”. The extensions will be much stiffer than the axle shafts so that won’t be the case.

So the choice was clear. We started with a differential and a couple of halfshafts as raw material…

 

Mounting the Rear Sprocket

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Mounted

Rear sprocket mounted on the differential

The limited-slip differential is a torsen or quaife type made by OBX, imported from the USA for an American-style Honda Civic. The differential ring gear on American Honda Civics is mounted with left-hand threaded bolts, so I blithely go down to the auto recycler here in Thailand and buy a differential for donor parts. Hmmmm… these bolts don’t fit. So I check carefully and find these differentials are sold in Thailand with right-hand threads! I go back to the auto recycler and ask for left-hand threaded bolts. They just look at me with that “crazy foreigner” look. OK, all we have to do is order some American-style bolts from Ebay US… There is exactly one listing on all of Ebay, and they don’t ship to Thailand! Plan B: drill the suckers out and use through-bolts.

This is where I find out the differential housing is made of some ultra-hard tool steel, or maybe kryptonite or something. Wow, are these holes difficult to drill out. Solid carbide end mill, highest speed on the milling machine, lots of lubrication, and wait. And wait. And wait…

Next we had to drill a matching hole pattern in the rear sprocket, then cut it in two halves for quick changing at the track. This sprocket will be for static test only as the new hole pattern wasn’t compatible with the old one, leaving thin aluminum in some places. I’ve since ordered a blank rear sprocket from England which I will cut with only the correct holes.

Fabricating the Differential Mounts

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Finished Diff

Finished differential, differential mounts, and rear sprocket

Thirty-four years ago I designed a car for the SAE collegiate Mini-Baja competition. The differential was inadequately supported in the middle, and although it didn’t break on us, it broke the next year and sidelined the car. I’ve felt guilty ever since, so that’s one mistake I’m determined not to repeat. This one should be adequate…

Later I plan on fabricating some sort of container or plugs to keep the oil in the diff.

Fabricating GSX-R1000 Engine Mounts

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Sorry for the long delay since the last blog entry. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. But don’t worry, the project has continued, although with some big distractions. I’ll be trying to catch up on my blogging in the next few weeks.

Next up is fabricating the engine mounts for the 2007-8 Suzuki GSX-R1000 motorcycle engine. I surveyed the state of amateur formula-car engine mounts, and decided a lot of them are inadequate. This video got me to thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1j7hmJmSJA as my car should be faster than a Ferrari 458. Some might be skeptical of that speed comparison; if you are, take a look at this comparison of a Porsche 911 Turbo versus a formula 4 car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8WyvVbVu4k . A formula 1000 car should compare favorably with a formula 4 car. Either way, you lose a lot of torsional rigidity with the large open hole to mount the engine, and I hope to recover much of that with a strong triangulated set of engine mounts.