Wahoo Powerdrive

April

2010-04-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

S66
April brought us our first race at Columbus, NE. Overall our car placed 3rd in the novice class with eight laps. in the inspection e failed due to are brakes, we didnt have are cables tight enough so the brakes wouldn't lock up. we later on fixed the brakes but we ran into another problem are tire mount snapped so we had to take it in quick to a shop and reweld the mount. then we finally made it to the race. we took it smooth the first lap to qualify then we put it to the floor. we probably would've been able to go further but we were having some problems with our tire again so we brought i in for are pit and called it for the day with our eight laps. Now we have the car back in the shop and we're redoing are front end to provide more stability. We have also adjusted the roll cage since we saw a car jump a curb and roll we pulled ares forward a little more to provide more coverage.

S44
our car was perfectly fine goin into the race we passed inspection and everything, the race on the other hand didn't go so well. From the start we had troubles one of are new batteries was shot so we weren't getting enough power, so we grabbed an old battery with enough juice to get us by. Once we finally got on the track we took are first lap fairly but half way through i gunned it and our car was flyin then almost through the second lap we ran into some trouble the fuse blew out so i lost my power again. We got the car to the pits and dropped in a new fuze then took off again until once again finishing the second lap something went wrong the switch had blown so power was lost again. Since we had made it two laps we just called it because we already qualified. now that are car is back in the shop we are putting a new bottom on he car.

March

2010-03-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

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The beginning of march we mounted our steering column. the column is on a hinge because of the size of the car it enables us to get in and out a lot easier. once the column was in place we took a small piece of sheet metal to make a bracket to attach our power switch to the steering column mount. we bent it at an angle for easier access then attached it with some self-tappers. for the floor board we used a thin piece of wood that will be held in by self-tappers that will go into 1 inch squaring tubing that we welded to the bottom of the frame to hold it. we should be done with our steering shortly. we just cut down some new tire rods, the mounts for the rods have been welded on, the steering column and shaft are finished, and we have welded together some 1/2 inch tubing for the handle bars which we're using because we are going to use a hand throttle and brake. the controller box is now mounted on the back of the car to the frame for our back tire. since we figured out where we needed are batteries we built a battery box that we welded onto the back of the car right behind the main frame right on the opposite side of the battery we have the fuze mounted. the safety net for the driver is also in place held on by self-tappers its connected to the roll cage.

S66

This month we worked on our brakes. we mounted the brake pedal we made out of 1x1 inch square tubing along with the brake stop and the break cables. we also had to rebuild the seat and we welded the seat supports in and attached the floor board to the supports. another thing we worked on this month was finishing our steering. we did that by cutting a steering shaft out of 1 inch round tubing. we also made a bigger piece to make the steering wheel and we made that out of 1 and 1/16 inch round tubing. then we attached it to the steering shaft and drilled holes in both tube's to be able to have a pin to attach the steering wheel. one more thing we did was built our battery box for the battery in the back of our car on the opposite side that we mounted our motor to.

FEBRUARY

2010-02-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

S66
We used a square off the ground to square up our tire to the floor. We did this to make the tire perfectly perpendicular to the ground. Then we welded the 1/8th inch steal to the frame of our car.We had to then take the motor off in order to attach the chain to the tire. We then put a scale under all 3 tires in order to figure our ballast. We want 55-60% of the weight in the front and 40-45% of the weight in the back. With our driver in the car we realized that we had to move one of our batteries to the front in order to get the correct percent of weight. We also have to throw all of our weights in the front of the car. This gave us almost a perfect 55-45% ratio. After we figured out the weight, we figured out the brake system on our car. We started this process by cutting brackets in order to hold our brake calibers. To do this we laid out the design on 1/8th inch steel plate, we then punched the holes for the bolts and cut out the bracket with the plasma cutter. We then drilled the holes, and mounted the caliper to the bracket. We then did this to both brakes, and lined the brake pads up with our brake rotor. We made sure everything had plenty of clearance, then we welded it up with the mig welder. That is how far we are on our braking system. For our steering we have done quite a bit. We started by cutting our 2 pieces of metal which are a inch and a half wide, by four inches long. We then had to find the center of the pieces, and then punched three holes. We then had to grind down the corners of the steering arms in order to give them plenty of clearance. Once the corners were ground down, we lined them up on the car, we did this by attaching them to the car and then taking a piece of sting to the back tire in order to find the ackerman angle in order to prevent tire scrub. The holes were cut for our tire rod ends, we also cut our steering shaft and support. We cut our steering shaft out of one inch round tubing. We cut our steering shaft at four feet long. We also cut out another plate, and found the center, punched and drilled two holes, and mig welded it to our steering shaft to connect our steering shaft and steering arms by using tie rods. We cut a support from one inch square tubing and one in round tubing. We cut the piece of round tubing in half and put a hing on it, and then welded it to the square tubing. This is how we made our steering support.

S44
We started out by cutting peices for our front steering arms then we used the drill press and drilled three holes in it so we are able to adjust the steering rods. Then using a string started lining up the angle on our front steering arms with the center of the rear axle to find our ackerman angle to prevent tire scrub. Then we welded them in place. We then moved onto the weight distribution of the car. we placed a scale under the tire to figure out the weight distribution we already had. We figured the front had to have about 55-60% and the back would be about 40-45%. We found it best to place one battery in the front, then we will create a mount on the back of the car to place the other battery on the opposite side of the motor, then our ballast will be placed in the front of the car as well. Then we stripped the old cars apart for some ideas as well as some additional parts such as brake lines and steering rods. We than moved onto the steering. We used 1in round tubing for our steering shaft. We are still working on the placement of the shaft because it has to go over the battery in the front. We have also welded some 1in square tubing to the frame of the car on the bottom where we will be putting our seat.

January

2010-01-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

*since January is the first "official" post we summarized what we have done in the last couple of months and included what we have been working on in January.

S44
We cut the front end out of 1x1 square tubing at a width of 40", and 45" with the tires. We cut the end of the frame rails at 12 degrees to create 12 degrees positive caster. The king pin inclination is set to 13 degrees with 1/2 inch tubing for the king pin sleeve. The bolts for the axle are 13mm. The total length of the car is 105 1/2", the width is 19 3/4". The height of the side rails is 4 1/2" at the front and 6" where the roll cage ends. The whole car is made of 1x1 square tubing. The motor mount was made with two pieces of 5 1/4", 1x1 square tubing and two other pieces cut at 3 1/2" to make a box. It is mounted on the bottom, on the rear from the frame rails. The rear axle is 5 1/2" so we made the support bars for the wheel at a 5" gap. The wheel mounting brackets are made from 1/8" thick steel and we had to use a 1/2" end mill to mill the slots in the brackets. We have to measure the front ride height before we weld on the wheel brackets so the car sits level.

S66-During the month of January our main focus was the rear tire mount and the motor mount. Josh worked on the motor mount. He used a half inch steel plate to create the mount. After figuring the angle and the center of the motor he used a template that he had made to make the holes for the mounting screws and center hole for the gear to go through. He then cut the angles and cut out the center hole with the plasma cutter. He then used the drill press to drill the 5/8 hole for the motor to bolt to the bracket. Joel and Scott designed and made the read tire mounting brackets with leftover steel plate that josh used for the motor mount. We cut the angle we needed to line up with the rear tire mounting rails. We then used the end mill to mill out a 1/2 inch slot for our rear axle. Now we are working on the alignment between the motor mount and the rear axle for the chain.

December

2010-01-28T12:07:00.000-08:00

In the month of December our main focus was are roll cage. We spent most of the time debating on the design, what to use and assembling the roll cage. we decided to use a piece of one inch round tubing and used the hossfeild tube bender to bend and shape it. then we cut the ends and set it back at a 130 degree angle. for more support we connected the rear tire mounting rails to the roll cage, which was made with the same one inch square tubing like the car.

November

2009-11-25T08:23:00.000-08:00

This month we talked about how we are going to design our frames. First we drew a rough sketch on graph paper and figured out what our measurements are and used those measurements to cut the metal for our cars. We cut our main frame rails at 6' and our front end at 46" to make it as wide as possible to allow us more stability without going over our limit witch is 48".

October

2009-10-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

This month we moved onto our front end. We went online and looked at some different designs and once we found the ones we liked we drew the design up. We then talked about how to build the front and what kind of design we wanted to use. We built the kingpin inclination at 13 degrees and we were able to do that by cutting the angle on the band saw. Our spindles were built by first drawing it in class. Then we figured the angles, built a jig out of wood that would properly set all the pieces for our spindles in place while we welded them together. We were using a 3/8" bolt as the king pin to hold the spindle on. (PICTURED ABOVE IS THE JIG WE USED TO BUILD THE SPINDLES note: king pin inclination was designed and built into spindle)

September

2009-10-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

We took notes about toe-in, toe-out and how we did not want either of them. We than learned about caster and how we wanted to have positive caster, much like a chopper. Positive camber will help the tire remain steady out in front of us and not wobbling behind us like a shopping cart. We also learned about positive and negative camber, and how we do not want either of them. We want to have zero degree camber so the wheels will be straight up and down. We then learned about Ackerman angle. This causes the inside front wheel to turn at a sharper angle than the outside front wheel when cornering. This helps prevent tire scrub. The last piece of the suspension unit that we covered was king pin inclination. We designed our car to have 13 degrees of king pin inclination. This will actually cause our tires to tilt the same direction we turn when cornering to give it more stability.

August-start of the year

2009-09-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

This month we started out discussing and going over the safety rules and regulations of the shop and car. Then we took a test over our safety and in order to work in the shop you had to get a 100% on your safety test. After thoroughly learning and reviewing the safety rules and regulations we started designing the car. We started with the frame of the car.