Metal Box Flare Construction Thread

Do like!

Small update. In an effort to ensure I would have enough steel in my sheet I started on the rear fenders. There will be a large steel piece required by them and I want to make sure I will still have enough.

I basically repeated the steps from the front, and used the same wood form for the front edge. Unlike the fronts however the rears basically flatten out and taper at the back rather than have a bit of a dip to them like the front so I just approximated that without the form.

I was able to cut out the top of 1 flare tonight and get it tacked on.

I told you it wasn't much of an update, but it's where I am. I made it back from my trip so hopefully I will be able to work more in the next couple of weeks and finish these off.

Soo awesome. I applaud your efforts thus far. I must be doing something wrong when I work with metal.

Another update.

I continued work on the rear flares. I duplicated my efforts to make the top of the left flare. I then added some vertical pieces like the front. I wanted to ensure that the spacing on the vertical flange was correct so I added in a cross bar that will be removed along with the inner fender after the flares are done.

The design I am doing in the back is basically a tapper back to the tail lights however I will have a notch part that will interrupt the taper so I don't have to blend it. Here you can see the cutoff attached to the stock body. This piece was formed the same was as all the other parts.

Now to finish the flare (less lots of welding and grinding) I need to fill in between the vertical part by the tire and the flat cutoff by the tail light. Again Posterboard is used. I started by cutting a piece to match the contour of the top of the flare. I then cut down the edge of the metal on both edges of this poster board. In process on the rear. Here the rear is finished. I then replicated this template in steel and bent in over my leg to shape. I'm going to end up using about 6' x 4' of my full sheet of steel. It's less than I though it would be. Here you can see the finished flare. Now I just have to fully weld all the seams and round the edges and it will be mostly done. I will add a flange to the inside to allow me to rivet on aluminum inner fender liners.

I'm very happy with how the flares turned out. The look is what I envisioned in my head and I think it wasn't to bad to do. I'll need to add width to the door sill to match the flares, but that should be easy compared to the work that went into the flares. I hope that this helps someone with their own project and feel free to post up any questions or anything you'd like more details on and I can try to explain the process better.

Thanks for Looking!

Daniel

Just adding a couple more views. Hopefully this doesn't crash my photobucket!

View from above showing the profile of the taper of the rear fender

Overall view showing the mess in the garage..

Oh wait I mean the front and rear fender. I still need to add the "gill" opening to the front, and then widen the sill to match.

Wow, great job. This thing is going to look badass when its done.

I would be really paranoid about doing this myself because I know I'd never, ever be able to get the left and right sides symmetrical...

Its coming together very well!

Looks like something you would see out on a DTM track with the massive flares.

very nice indeed....

thought(brainfart), would some sort of a vent at the top, or rear of the rear wheel flair allow for the pocket of air that will build inside the flair to evacuate???

Looks awesome!!! Keep up the good work!

awesomesauce!

Holy Cow! I've done nothing with this in 9 months!! Stupid move + family comitments (Babies take a lot of time in case you didn't know). The car currently sits with the 13B (Thanks Greg) in the hole where the 12A was with some chassis members cut off with the body on a shelf in my garage. Now it's christmas and it's likely I won't get much work done until next year!! Oh well such is life. I hope to have some real live updates in the next few months... .

I just checked your thread on locost the other day... Glad to hear it's not dead!

Since this came back up.....The flares look great. Is there enough room in front of the front tires to turn left or right? As wide as those tires are, it looks like it would rub before steering lock.

Of course, I'm sure you checked, I'm just curious.

I was looking for this thread the other day. LOL

I was just wondering about this thing a few days ago...glad to see the build still has a heartbeat. Still looks freakin cool too!

Love this build. Funny how time flies and life happens.

ultraclyde wrote: Since this came back up.....The flares look great. Is there enough room in front of the front tires to turn left or right? As wide as those tires are, it looks like it would rub before steering lock. Of course, I'm sure you checked, I'm just curious.

I'm pretty sure he's a Formula SAE guy, so he's probably got instinctive reactions to minimize KPI and mechanical scrub beaten into him.

Yes I will have to look but if I remember KPI is around 3 degrees and scrub is under .2. With the amount of caster I have the wheel stays about an inch away from the front. The back is actually the tight clearance however it is only a big deal at full lock which is near 45 degrees of steer angle.
I am an Fsae alumni and the suspension is in some ways a 4/3rds scale of the sae car I designed. Track and wheelbase are basically scalled up the same amount.

Glad to see there is still interest. The compliments help to keep me focused on pulling through to the finish.

Looks like it's coming together nicely!

If you have any wise words for someone on a fledgling FSAE suspension team, I would love to hear them.

Can't wait for the next update.

This is one of my favorite builds! great work and great thinking!!!

Great work! Keep it up.

Someone mentioned venting, that's probably a good idea. Otherwise trapped air can make really weird things happen at speed.

Taiden wrote: Looks like it's coming together nicely! If you have any wise words for someone on a fledgling FSAE suspension team, I would love to hear them. Can't wait for the next update.

What sorts of things are you guys struggling with?

I'm sure I won't be as much help as nocones, but I'm in the midst of an FSAE Suspension design right now as well. This has been the core reason for my existence over the past few weeks:

(Shameless facebook plug: http://www.facebook.com/texasamracing)

Most of my useful experience has been in managing a team, but if there's any design questions, I'd be happy to help where I can.

Oh, and if you don't have this book, go out and buy it. NOW. This man is the reason we started out so successful in FSAE in '99. Absolutely brilliant for comprehending vehicle dynamics. Milliken & Milliken's RCVD is great, but if you're still figuring E36 M3 out, it's a great way to get in over your head and frustrated.

http://www.amazon.com/Think-Fast-Racers-Why--Winning/dp/1451558759/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323271912&sr=8-1-fkmr0

Oh, and nocones, if I hadn't said it already, your current project is something I'd LOVE to do when I graduate.

We are starting completely from scratch. Brand new team. So at this point, just about everything.