As my fabricator friend Phil used to say... "Anyone can build a barn that will last forever. But it takes an engineer to build a barn that will 'barely' last forever..."
its why I cannot stand the term overengineered. how could that possibly exist? overengineered you mean over built? Did the company waste profits by not engineering it to be less over built? Because that would be under engineered or poorly engineered but how could it possibly be overengineered?
Your paper clearance method was something I learned way back in school in the '70s. It gives just enough space on a riveted pivot joint or as you used it for a demountable junction. Good job!
I know it was a throw-away line, but “I took a class in X and forgot everything” is sadly too true. It’s especially painful when you’re still paying loans for things you’ve forgotten.
Classes aren't only taught for specific knowledge retention. They give you a jump off point on the topic. They give you confidence to tackle projects on the topic. You'd be surprised at the benefit of going from 0 -> 1 on the knowledge scale.
Or, as in my case, where I got those loans to cover medical expenses, but still, I went to school, and there? I learned I wasn't very good at my chosen field: poetry. Don't laugh. Or do. I switched to stand-up comedy.
I did the first year of a degree course on Ancient Chinese Philosophy the 1st year of the pandemic - so as not to go mad with boredom. I swear to god I cant remember a dam thing except for the "child in the well" by Mencius and the experiment they carried out about it. THATS IT.
I absolutely love this. I'm eager for the next episode. As someone who's built a complete tube chassis car and a LOT of roll cages by hand, I can't even begin to explain how envious I am of the laser cut chassis. I am going to have to explore this for my next tube chassis build. I may have some questions! Did you weld underneath your tube nodes where your tubes overlap? (I'm asking as I watch, apologies if you cover this later!)
In the bolted joint you need to put vertical tubes inside and flush with the rectangle tubes in order to prevent crushing when bolted together. hope that's clear:)
yeah... that looks embarrassingly weak. lol.. I'm not sure why he thought that would work. Really he should have made it a slip joint, where one pipe slips over another on the inside--- with that inside pipe being at least 8" or more; so that it's rigid. I feel like those brackets are going to bend if he just looks at them wrong.
@@777MAV Came here to comment the same thing. Just a couple small pieces of .120 wall DOM tubing to act as a boss through that rectangular tubing. I usually get short lengths of it from McMaster for whatever project I'm working on.
Using the roll cage as intake runners is a very clever touch. I've heard of using them for coolant or even oil, but not for intakes! Getting the benefit from that high pressure zone at the nose without too much extra plumbing is brilliant.
@@jpkatz1435 Meh, the engine is so small that the collective diameter of the two upper tubes is plenty big to avoid choking off airflow. And the length isn't really an issue because throttle response is meaningless to a land speed car.
I also read about Porsche drilling holes between frame members so all the insides were interconnected. Then they put a schrader valve and a pressure gauge in the cockpit and inflated the frame. If the pressure dropped, the pilot knew immediately that there was a failure somewhere!!
@@G60syncro true, but it was an aluminium spaceframe filled with nitrogen - very limited life but good enough for one race in a 917. @SuperfastMatt - 100% you need crush tubes in the rear subframe connection.
And Matra (a French company) pressurised some of the structural members in (I think) their Bagheera, and used the air pressure to power (can you guess what?) The windscreen wipers. So if they stopped working, you knew you had a leak, likely caused by chassis corrosion.
Hey Matt! Heres a quick hint from somebody who's selling welding equipment for a living across the big pond. Please don't blind yourself while welding! if you're doing a lot of back and forth between grinding and welding then a lot of automatic welding Masks (even cheap ones) have "Grinding" modes, so they dont dimm down when there a grinding sparks flying around. some more expensive ones (like the 3m Speedglas 9100FX ) even have fold up visors with a gigantic clear screans for better grinding visability. Keep up the awesome work tho! Its very entertaining to watch! ^^
Paint instead of powder coat is a good idea. The salt will find it's way under the powder coat after a couple years of racing and then it's off to the powder coater again to strip and refinish the entire frame. Paint isn't better corrosion protection but it is easy to sand and touch up the rust spots. I bring a paint pen to the salt to touch up the inevitable paint chips made during the week. Another necessity to fight corrosion on the salt - chuck every steel fastener you have and replace it with 316 stainless, Bumax88 or titanium.
My newest welding helmet has a grinding setting. Used it once and forgot to switch it back kind of like your clear mask situation. Sunburn on the eyes... Good times...
+1 for spray painting vs. powdercoating for race car frames. I had the frame of my Exocet powder coated, it aggravated me every time I had to scrape off powder coat to mod/weld something.
Instead of paper I keep a deck of playing cards in my toolbox. Since they're stiff and slick they make good shims and you can easily get good repeatable results side to side by adding and subtracting cards. Keep up the awesome work.
I remember a story told buy my previously mentioned boss from when he was younger. He was helping inspect some kind of race car and he found 3 letters imprinted onto the tubbing... EMT, that vehicle did not get to run.
@@jeremyhanna3852 Welded tubing would increase the strength more than an aluminum slug I believe and at 200mph coming apart is not an option I would want
@@bradmaas6875 ok I never built anything that goes that fast and envoles force I can't fully understand ( not a Engineer) so your likely right I was just think about stopping the tube from crushing only but it Also might tear apart as the aluminum is not fused to steel
You should look at spraying the frame with Steel-It, its a weldable coating and a lot of the baja dudes use it on their frames. It comes in an aerosol spray can and a paint can so you can also brush it on. I ended up using it on rack for my truck and has held up a lot better than regular spray paint.
Awesome video! Just some suggestions (just like everyone else and their mom is giving you). At the bolted joint, put some weld washers or something to decrease the bearing stresses on the sheet metal, it doesn't look like you have shear features so those holes may wallow out. One guy suggested welding a tube inside the square to stop it crumpling which I think is a good idea, and will increase the surface area for the bolt to dump load into. The biggest thing I have to harass you for is metal prep! I started TIG welding a year ago for my buggy chassis, and the biggest thing I've learned is prep is everything. At a minimum you "should" get the millscale off the metal and the oxidation off the laser/plasma surfaces. I like to just scotch brite and then acetone/alcohol wipe it down, but even just hitting everything with a wire wheel really fast will immensely help your weld quality. You should also leave the TIG pointed at the weld once you're done until the post flow turns off so the weld can cool a bit before introducing oxygen to it. Welding Tips and Tricks on TH-cam is an amazing source for help! Also Furick cups can help a lot for acute angles of tubes since you can get a lot more stick out. I'd also recommend beveling any future surfaces with a flappy disk so you can get full cross section penetration. Prep turns into the longest part of the welding process I've come to realize after going down the TIG rabbit hole.... Otherwise nice work! I like the alignment tabs for the tubes, I've never seen that. I want my next chassis to be all laser cut, I've very jealous!
Always a good day when you release a new vid. Never watched one without laughing at least once. Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing how this project progresses. All hail the algorithm.
That is going to be pretty heavy. I assume you have taken that into consideration, but just as available space on any project magically shrinks, mysterious weight often appears as components get added. Cool project.
Top speed cars are less worried about weight as it only affects rolling resistance and the difference is marginal when compared to aerodynamic resistance.
I'd wager he'll probably add a LOT of weight to it, on purpose, when he's done. (I haven't watched the whole episode yet.) But land speed cars often have thousands of pounds of ballast in them. Weight doesn't hold the car back nearly as much as the aero profile, and it helps keep the car planted at speed.
Salt doesn't offer much grip so you can't accelerate hard, so weight, which is the enemy of acceleration, is not a problem. And has other benefits, as the other comments mention.
Pro-tip for welding tube at 90 degrees. Cut the tube ur attaching with 2 45 degree cuts so it has a point. That creates a bevel which helps the weld. Much easier than hole saw and much less time!
Matt really great video one little tip if you put your chopsaw in a big cardboard box modify the box as needed it contains a lot of the metal chips .keeping them in the box as opposed to all over your garage… you do nice work
Matt this has been super exciting to watch. Especially your use of send cut send and the tube laser cutting. I'm going to be getting into a build here soon and those are good resources to know about.
Always great when a new SFM video drops . Thanks for the great vid as always, some really good progress on the race car! That's going to be a ton of welding right there!
Some people find machinists a bit weird. For them SFM stands for Surface Feet [per] Minute, usually a numeric range for how fast a cutter and the material being cut move relative to each other. There's a different range for each combination of cutter material and part material. This is one of the areas where modern lathes with electronic drives have an advantage over older lathes with gearboxes: you need more rpm to keep the SFM up in the ideal range when cutting near the axis than on the outer diameter of the part. Too slow and the surface finish is dull instead of shiny. Too fast and you overload the cutter and/or stall the motor.
You can already tell it's going to be amazing. At 7:12 my calibrated ocular inclinometer noticed that the leading head loop is the same angle as the A pillar of the Jagla... Tesuar... Electric pussycat... where was I going with this?
He copied it form the rule books there was no design involved in the chassis they are all almost the same it's the body and how wide you can make it that matters copy and pasting and then making yourself fit isn't designing plus he needs to learn how to clean his tubing and weld it before he can do a dam thing
I would definitely invest in gas lenses and some larger tig torch cups. A good tig weld shouldn't crackle or leave behind sooty residue. As someone who taught myself how to tig weld, I can say that for complex joints, or weird transitions/angels, that the large cups and gas lenses really help. They not only make the welds visually better, but they allow for better control of the weld puddle and a stronger weld due to less oxide impurities being mixed in
"This thing here, looks like it was specifically engineered to be some sort of lightweight load transmitting structure, it's not, I just thought it looked cool"😂😂
Another excellent video; REALLY good to hear corroboration of slow cars fast. Years ago, remember pull quote - poss Evo review of 993 911 GT3 - screaming "150mph fells like 50!!!" as if this were A Good Thing. Which it might be - in a race, or delivering organs. All I could think was it was three times the speed for the same amount of fun, with bigger risk to licence, bigger hole in scenery if it went tits up or - at the very least - driving like a bigger c**t Especially gratified to hear your corollary suspected might even be more fun than fast cars fast but never tested theory because a) cheap performance (& fuel) doesn't really exist in the same way here (UK) and, b) if I was wrong I might be corrupted. Bit miffed you don't mention 2CV which only went over 500cc in 1970. Scooby 360 is super cute, but 360cc class ended in the 70s and showing something like Honda Z might have better illustrated how (relatively) recently sub-500c cars were A Thing
Hey Matt you might want to use a Steel-it paint if its not out of your budget (I think its not bad in the USA, Canada its expensive). Its paint that you can weld directly ontop of, pretty cool stuff!
This is amazing. Have you checked out how the human powered salt racers are designed? They probably only have half a horsepower compared to your 150, so they have even more focus on aero. Learning to ride a 2wheel streamliner while lying on your back and seeing where you are going using a camera and a screen is insane. And then there's the designs that go headfirst! I assume both are illegal for your rulebook?
I have been gifted with ability referred to as Dunning-Kruger effect so I am an expert in land speed record vehicle design (and also aircraft). As you correctly assumed the key is decreasing drag as much as possible. Trying to minimize frontal cross section is important as you did. I wonder if ruled do not allow for the tubes to go above your shoulders beside your ears. This would allow to narrow the chassis for 2 cm on each side. With the width of 60-70 cm this is a saving. The other thing to consider is wetted area. The less surface area the air has to pass over the lesser the drag. There is a reason why some aircraft fuselages are thinned to a pole right behind the cockpit. A thinner car bodywork where it is not needed would be beneficial. Something like a coke bottle between front wheels and cockpit. Not to be confused with designs based on Whitcomb area rule. It would be so interesting to hear about your thought process.
@@lunkydog look at his welds and the fact he didn't clean anything before he welded it he might be or thinks he's smart but that tells me he is a rookie and will take his life in his own hands at 200 mph in that thing
Well As a German, let me say....when you're building an Uboot with wheels ...Use a Periscope😉 joke* i love your Channel and am very intressted in lots of your projects....Keep up the Hard work
Round tubing and square or rectangular tubes flex at a different harmonic. It may not want to go straight. Porsche used an inert gas to pressurize the 917 tubes and would check the pressure to make sure the welds or tubes didn't crack. You will need fenderwells that seal well to keep all the dust out of the cockpit.. Just trying to pass along some things that friends had problems with over the 60 years that they had some problems with.
Tires also give you some suspension tuning, we've used air pressures to toy with a A/BFS streamliner. Do get into a habit of ignoring the relative pressures, though, you'll need to set pressures accordingly for equal tire diameter on the drive axle.
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I was about to say something about the lack of incentive to feed the algorithm, but then i saw why at the end. So here's one to feed the almighty, and another one to the next 100K. Cheers.
That face sheild thing has gotten me some welding flash too. I feel so foolish each time, it's not even similar to the green view through a black sheild, but my stupid just powers on before the brain has a chance to save me. Those laser cut tubes are beautiful, it must be awesome to work with them.
One advantage of land speed racing with human powered vehicles(generally bicycles in the same low frontal area, longish aero faired configuration ) is that the center of mass is also the engine. Another is, that the governing body, the International Human Powered Vehicle Association (former IHPVA president here) doesn't require the fire resistant clothing or specify a a number of wheels. Moreover we do allow video means of visual guidance, fully duplicate including power, so that head bubbles are optional. Monocoque framing is allowed, but the composites used must be safe in a crash at our top speeds (now at 89.6 mph) so that generally needs carbon and Kevlar, often with honeycomb stiffening. Roll cage structure of course and helmet mandatory, but not motor sports grade, yet. We cannot race on the salt, too rough and high in rolling resistance. We do not race on rough chip sealed paving either for that reason. But all other constraints, straight line, measured flatness, longish run-up to the measured timing traps are similar to Bonneville, Black Rock and El Mirage record racing. One difference is that we do use motor vehicles running at the same speeds for safety chasing during the runs. It is necessary to keep those chase vehicles back sufficiently both not to overrun the participants and to not enter the speed timing traps along with the racers. Some past top speed records were possibly compromised by the "bow wave" from a chase vehicle fairly close behind. As with all rules based racing, bending those rules a little to win is expected. Good luck and thanks for you excellent analysis.
Just a quick observation, the Bolted connection between the two halves of the chassis. I would make those brackets sit vertically instead of horizontally. This will increase the strength of that connection
Don't overlook the many potential gains of sitting in front of the front wheels/tires. Opens possibility of front wheel drive which helps to prevent spins. Allows good weight distribution to front. The tires can now be taller, and the track width has more options. The visibility will also be better. Also think about what an inverted V tail might offer such as being lower center of gravity to prevent side gusts of pushing the rear of the car. The inverted V wings may also allow some downforce to be slightly added.
Pretty awesome so far, but I'm really looking forward to the engine portion of this project. Squeezing every single lb-in out of every CC is going to be a heck of an effort.
hi Matt, just going to let you know there have been Bonneville cars build using mirrors like a periscope to drive by. I don't know if that is still allowed.
What you said at 11:38 is exactly what killed an NHRA top fuel driver. A strut for the rear wing broke loose during a crash and stabbed through his helmet.
You should make some beer to test out the performance of your wort chiller … I mean your heat exchanger and do a lot of fancy sounding math to justify another side project… and see if you can work in a thermometer with a laser! Love your fearlessness and reminder about arc-eye
Question: instead of carrying water or 0.5°C water or -2°C salt water. Can you have co2 solid or liquid system. It Could double as fire suppression with a purge valve where ever you require. And might be easier than keeping water cold in a dessert salt plain.
Hey Matt.. About the frame coat.. Im not sure if you know, but lets say you do and made a great choice ;) I know people who have made bicycle frames, and they claim saving as much as 100 grams going with normal paint over powder coating.. So I'd guess you saved quite a few kilos (and twice as many pounds!) not going with coating on a frame this much bigger.. Keep up the great work, loving the project!
An alternative to scanning the engine and all is making a quick wood (or some other cheap/free scrap alternative) frame around the engine in about the design you want so that you can skip all the annoying stuff. That way you dont have to deal with annoying measurements and you can get a Real Engineer feel for how it would fit.
you may want to cut a few small pieces of metal tubing to put inside the square tube were the bolts go thru it will help prevent them from crushing under load and make the entire connection stronger
Did CalWest Manufacturing add the tabs at your request or did you do that before send it to them? I've been wanting to do something similar for my projects
Wonder if you used that nose section for small air induction ports and ram air. Could it be done? Probably some big HP benefits since you're running deactivated cylinders. Nevermind just finished watchign the video.
How did you go about slotting and tabbing your tube? I’m in the process of designing a tube chassis right now for a college club and that seems like a huge improvement. Any good tutorials out there?
In response to other comments Matt said that the company which cut the tubing added the slots and tabs at his request - they were not in the CAD file that he sent them.
Moving right along!! Do you have a specific goal in mind for speed when designing this? Going all out for the 200 mph record? Whats the lowest youd be happy with 😂
This messed with me and my need/want to have stuff even and or parallel. Where the motor sits the angled bits on side of the frame, on the left they meet to a point at the top but on the right they don't. I'm assuming it's done for motor reasons and not just to mess with my head. Any ideas on what replacement motor you'll get for the red beast?
1. Don't a lot of land speed cars have one front tyre in front of the other to make the front smaller? 2. Doesn't the main roll hoop tubes have to be one piece all the way down to the lower chassis tubes? (This may depend on the sanctioning body you race under? May be worth asking though?) 3. Instead of spraying the tubes would it be worth just clear coating them to make it easier to inspect and find any cracking in the future?
Hi TFM, 2 questions/concerns re your frame design: 1. Why did you choose to have some non-triangulated joints? Won't they cause unwanted weakness and vibrations? 2. Are you sure the bolted joints between the two halves will be strong and rigid enough? Are you planning on doing more with those joints, like maybe welding them just before the race?
My neighbor was the lead mechanic for Cory McClenathon's A-fuel dragster. They never painted anything, and after each weekend of racing, they would scrub the tube frame with steel wool and ATF. Detergents in the tranny fluid, with the steel wool, keeps it all rust free and clean. Paint is weight is your enemy. Just a little FYI from a fan.
Fuel Dragsters can't be coated as it will hide any potential metal fatigue its in the rule book and they are tech inspected at every event. I was part of a Top Fuel 4x Championship wining team.
@@banaana1234 I'm not sure I agree, otherwise these guys wouldn't be trying to keep the car as light as possible. Weight and drag are the enemy of thrust. Other than the minimal possible gravity of the car, the aero plays a bigger part in keeping it straight, stable and planted. With his displacement limit, I would not add even one gram of weight by painting it. Aircraft is the same in that you don't wax a planes surface, you polish it, as wax = weight.
@@matthewpeterson3329 Land speed racers literally put lead ballast in the cars. In fact, Matt stated in another comment that he will put ballast in this car as well. Weight pretty much only matters for acceleration, and land speed racing is not about that. Drag is an exponentially bigger factor, so you want as little aero control surfaces as you can get away with.
The junction with the two bolts between the front section with the "safety cage" and the aft section engine pod does not look very assuring, might crack when objected to torsional forces when tipping over in a tumble across the salt flat..the vehicle would break up into 2 pieces ...I would redesign that part in addition stagger the placement of the junction on each of the 4 tubes.
@@dazeller82 I dont think that it is a good idea to have the front section and driver tumbling and rolling without a chute head over heels all over the place. Watch on YT what happens to a top fuel dragster after its similar frame breaks up in the middle!
It could be an idea to push the water ahead of the wheels. The water tank can be sloped better to reduce drag. Plus I'd imagine its easier to run the water through the gaps between the wheels than the linkages and air through the fuel tank. Of course it might reduce stability slightly with the wheelbase and CG changes, but I can't imagine it would change that much? Of course this isn't my area so I may be wrong, but hopefully it gives something to think about at least. As an aside, you weren't joking about that laser cut tubular section. It looks real nice made up, like you bought the whole section ready made!
Hi, is there a tutorial somewhere on how to design the self-jigging tabs? I have a chassis that i don't want to build a jig for and that info would be very useful. Thanks!
Looks very thin wheel to wheel ... does it have a propensity to fall over? I understand the desire to keep the front cross section small ... Yeah I mean 15:46. I think one would need active stabilization from fins at those speeds ... or a larger wheel base.
As my fabricator friend Phil used to say... "Anyone can build a barn that will last forever. But it takes an engineer to build a barn that will 'barely' last forever..."
I heard this one: "Any idiot can build a bridge that stands but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands".
@@asdrubalegirolamo660 yup me too
its why I cannot stand the term overengineered. how could that possibly exist? overengineered you mean over built? Did the company waste profits by not engineering it to be less over built? Because that would be under engineered or poorly engineered but how could it possibly be overengineered?
@@pbgd3 Overengineered meaning overly complex to achieve a relatively simple result
@@pbgd3 could mean overly complicated or overly expensive.
Your paper clearance method was something I learned way back in school in the '70s. It gives just enough space on a riveted pivot joint or as you used it for a demountable junction. Good job!
Also, it’s something for 3d printing that’s used to level the bed.
I heard people used to write on it as well!
@@DrFiero 😅 (Us older folks still do!)🤘
I know it was a throw-away line, but “I took a class in X and forgot everything” is sadly too true. It’s especially painful when you’re still paying loans for things you’ve forgotten.
Classes aren't only taught for specific knowledge retention. They give you a jump off point on the topic. They give you confidence to tackle projects on the topic. You'd be surprised at the benefit of going from 0 -> 1 on the knowledge scale.
@@JNorth87 very true. my FEA class is what prompted me to start learning cfd
@@TheNerd484 I did a TLA class once. I am now fully qualified to do Three Letter Acronyms that nobody else understands.
Or, as in my case, where I got those loans to cover medical expenses, but still, I went to school, and there?
I learned I wasn't very good at my chosen field: poetry.
Don't laugh.
Or do.
I switched to stand-up comedy.
I did the first year of a degree course on Ancient Chinese Philosophy the 1st year of the pandemic - so as not to go mad with boredom.
I swear to god I cant remember a dam thing except for the "child in the well" by Mencius and the experiment they carried out about it. THATS IT.
This is a whole new level of project cars. I’m speechless with the laser cut tubes. I feel like a caveman now using my Harbor Freight tube notcher.
I absolutely love this. I'm eager for the next episode. As someone who's built a complete tube chassis car and a LOT of roll cages by hand, I can't even begin to explain how envious I am of the laser cut chassis. I am going to have to explore this for my next tube chassis build. I may have some questions!
Did you weld underneath your tube nodes where your tubes overlap? (I'm asking as I watch, apologies if you cover this later!)
I did, but I honestly don't think it's needed. It seems unnecessary considering the load paths and failure modes.
When can we see a 308 vs Electrojag race?
@@mcvincnt would be cool, but I have a feeling the 308 would gap it
In the bolted joint you need to put vertical tubes inside and flush with the rectangle tubes in order to prevent crushing when bolted together. hope that's clear:)
yeah... that looks embarrassingly weak. lol.. I'm not sure why he thought that would work. Really he should have made it a slip joint, where one pipe slips over another on the inside--- with that inside pipe being at least 8" or more; so that it's rigid. I feel like those brackets are going to bend if he just looks at them wrong.
Just opened the comments to write exactly that :)
@@777MAV Same here.
I too was thinking the same thing. Unless the bolts are just pins and wont be done up tight you need to core the holes with a tubes.
@@777MAV Came here to comment the same thing. Just a couple small pieces of .120 wall DOM tubing to act as a boss through that rectangular tubing. I usually get short lengths of it from McMaster for whatever project I'm working on.
Gotta respect a guy who has jackstands for furniture.
Using the roll cage as intake runners is a very clever touch. I've heard of using them for coolant or even oil, but not for intakes! Getting the benefit from that high pressure zone at the nose without too much extra plumbing is brilliant.
Air turbulence in those small tubes?
@@jpkatz1435 Meh, the engine is so small that the collective diameter of the two upper tubes is plenty big to avoid choking off airflow. And the length isn't really an issue because throttle response is meaningless to a land speed car.
I also read about Porsche drilling holes between frame members so all the insides were interconnected. Then they put a schrader valve and a pressure gauge in the cockpit and inflated the frame. If the pressure dropped, the pilot knew immediately that there was a failure somewhere!!
@@G60syncro true, but it was an aluminium spaceframe filled with nitrogen - very limited life but good enough for one race in a 917.
@SuperfastMatt - 100% you need crush tubes in the rear subframe connection.
And Matra (a French company) pressurised some of the structural members in (I think) their Bagheera, and used the air pressure to power (can you guess what?) The windscreen wipers. So if they stopped working, you knew you had a leak, likely caused by chassis corrosion.
When he's explaining how the fins on the car act like the fins on a dart, the red car in the illustration is a Dodge Dart
Lol I was wondering why he used a random car in that illustration, I thought it was a Camry lol
I assumed it must be a car with that name for the sake of the joke (even though I've never heard of a Dodge Dart - assume it's a US market car)
Hey Matt!
Heres a quick hint from somebody who's selling welding equipment for a living across the big pond.
Please don't blind yourself while welding! if you're doing a lot of back and forth between grinding and welding then a lot of automatic welding Masks (even cheap ones) have "Grinding" modes, so they dont dimm down when there a grinding sparks flying around. some more expensive ones (like the 3m Speedglas 9100FX ) even have fold up visors with a gigantic clear screans for better grinding visability.
Keep up the awesome work tho! Its very entertaining to watch! ^^
Paint instead of powder coat is a good idea. The salt will find it's way under the powder coat after a couple years of racing and then it's off to the powder coater again to strip and refinish the entire frame. Paint isn't better corrosion protection but it is easy to sand and touch up the rust spots. I bring a paint pen to the salt to touch up the inevitable paint chips made during the week. Another necessity to fight corrosion on the salt - chuck every steel fastener you have and replace it with 316 stainless, Bumax88 or titanium.
My newest welding helmet has a grinding setting. Used it once and forgot to switch it back kind of like your clear mask situation. Sunburn on the eyes... Good times...
+1 for spray painting vs. powdercoating for race car frames. I had the frame of my Exocet powder coated, it aggravated me every time I had to scrape off powder coat to mod/weld something.
Instead of paper I keep a deck of playing cards in my toolbox. Since they're stiff and slick they make good shims and you can easily get good repeatable results side to side by adding and subtracting cards. Keep up the awesome work.
That is SO smart, using the frame tubing to provide air to the engine, master stroke.
I remember a story told buy my previously mentioned boss from when he was younger. He was helping inspect some kind of race car and he found 3 letters imprinted onto the tubbing... EMT, that vehicle did not get to run.
Those bolts through the frames to attach the halves together might be a good idea to weld some tubing for anti-crush and resistance to pulling apart.
Or but a machined aluminum slug in them with matching holes
@@jeremyhanna3852 Welded tubing would increase the strength more than an aluminum slug I believe and at 200mph coming apart is not an option I would want
@@bradmaas6875 ok I never built anything that goes that fast and envoles force I can't fully understand ( not a Engineer) so your likely right I was just think about stopping the tube from crushing only but it Also might tear apart as the aluminum is not fused to steel
@@jeremyhanna3852 made me think some tabs might be a good idea also, or a chute if the two pieces separated, reduce the chance of tumbling.
You should look at spraying the frame with Steel-It, its a weldable coating and a lot of the baja dudes use it on their frames. It comes in an aerosol spray can and a paint can so you can also brush it on.
I ended up using it on rack for my truck and has held up a lot better than regular spray paint.
Awesome video! Just some suggestions (just like everyone else and their mom is giving you). At the bolted joint, put some weld washers or something to decrease the bearing stresses on the sheet metal, it doesn't look like you have shear features so those holes may wallow out. One guy suggested welding a tube inside the square to stop it crumpling which I think is a good idea, and will increase the surface area for the bolt to dump load into. The biggest thing I have to harass you for is metal prep! I started TIG welding a year ago for my buggy chassis, and the biggest thing I've learned is prep is everything. At a minimum you "should" get the millscale off the metal and the oxidation off the laser/plasma surfaces. I like to just scotch brite and then acetone/alcohol wipe it down, but even just hitting everything with a wire wheel really fast will immensely help your weld quality. You should also leave the TIG pointed at the weld once you're done until the post flow turns off so the weld can cool a bit before introducing oxygen to it. Welding Tips and Tricks on TH-cam is an amazing source for help! Also Furick cups can help a lot for acute angles of tubes since you can get a lot more stick out. I'd also recommend beveling any future surfaces with a flappy disk so you can get full cross section penetration. Prep turns into the longest part of the welding process I've come to realize after going down the TIG rabbit hole.... Otherwise nice work! I like the alignment tabs for the tubes, I've never seen that. I want my next chassis to be all laser cut, I've very jealous!
The Play Button is finally here!
Congratulations Matt!!
In almost no time, SuperfastMatt will actually be going SUPER FAST! Can't wait!
Always a good day when you release a new vid. Never watched one without laughing at least once. Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing how this project progresses. All hail the algorithm.
That is going to be pretty heavy. I assume you have taken that into consideration, but just as available space on any project magically shrinks, mysterious weight often appears as components get added. Cool project.
Top speed cars are less worried about weight as it only affects rolling resistance and the difference is marginal when compared to aerodynamic resistance.
I'd wager he'll probably add a LOT of weight to it, on purpose, when he's done. (I haven't watched the whole episode yet.) But land speed cars often have thousands of pounds of ballast in them. Weight doesn't hold the car back nearly as much as the aero profile, and it helps keep the car planted at speed.
Exactly. There will be lead ballast in the front.
Salt doesn't offer much grip so you can't accelerate hard, so weight, which is the enemy of acceleration, is not a problem. And has other benefits, as the other comments mention.
@@stanceworks nice to see you here
Pro-tip for welding tube at 90 degrees. Cut the tube ur attaching with 2 45 degree cuts so it has a point. That creates a bevel which helps the weld. Much easier than hole saw and much less time!
Matt really great video one little tip if you put your chopsaw in a big cardboard box modify the box as needed it contains a lot of the metal chips .keeping them
in the box as opposed to all over your garage… you do nice work
Matt this has been super exciting to watch. Especially your use of send cut send and the tube laser cutting. I'm going to be getting into a build here soon and those are good resources to know about.
Love it! I guess the pit of despair is the bodywork? I made a fiberglass canopy for my hilux few months ago and man do I now hate sanding fiberglass.
Always great when a new SFM video drops . Thanks for the great vid as always, some really good progress on the race car! That's going to be a ton of welding right there!
Some people find machinists a bit weird. For them SFM stands for Surface Feet [per] Minute, usually a numeric range for how fast a cutter and the material being cut move relative to each other. There's a different range for each combination of cutter material and part material.
This is one of the areas where modern lathes with electronic drives have an advantage over older lathes with gearboxes: you need more rpm to keep the SFM up in the ideal range when cutting near the axis than on the outer diameter of the part. Too slow and the surface finish is dull instead of shiny. Too fast and you overload the cutter and/or stall the motor.
@@EmyrDerfel Hummm... You can use cubic centimetres peer second.
CCS.
In my country they call an ,machinist,, (engineer) an masochist(someone who wants to harm his/herself).
@@youkofoxy that's volume over time, not distance over time. Linear speed is what they check for surface finish.
The acronym makes me think of Source Film Maker
You can already tell it's going to be amazing. At 7:12 my calibrated ocular inclinometer noticed that the leading head loop is the same angle as the A pillar of the Jagla... Tesuar... Electric pussycat... where was I going with this?
I’m so excited for this. Land speed has always fascinated me and seeing Mat build a car from scratch is epic. Great video keep up the great work 👍🏻
You're so good at designing with tubing. You should have your own business. I would call it You Tube. Congrats on the award!
He copied it form the rule books there was no design involved in the chassis they are all almost the same it's the body and how wide you can make it that matters copy and pasting and then making yourself fit isn't designing plus he needs to learn how to clean his tubing and weld it before he can do a dam thing
I would definitely invest in gas lenses and some larger tig torch cups. A good tig weld shouldn't crackle or leave behind sooty residue. As someone who taught myself how to tig weld, I can say that for complex joints, or weird transitions/angels, that the large cups and gas lenses really help. They not only make the welds visually better, but they allow for better control of the weld puddle and a stronger weld due to less oxide impurities being mixed in
Bro your videos are my favorite on all of youtube. Im so hyped to see you drive this on the salt flats!
"This thing here, looks like it was specifically engineered to be some sort of lightweight load transmitting structure, it's not, I just thought it looked cool"😂😂
Way to go, Matt! Your videos are always so fun to watch, and you have an attitude towards your projects that is infectiously good-natured.
I love how engineering-y the whole "3d scan your body, fully equipped" approach is.
As in needlessly complicated? Could just take some profile shots.
Another excellent video; REALLY good to hear corroboration of slow cars fast. Years ago, remember pull quote - poss Evo review of 993 911 GT3 - screaming "150mph fells like 50!!!" as if this were A Good Thing. Which it might be - in a race, or delivering organs. All I could think was it was three times the speed for the same amount of fun, with bigger risk to licence, bigger hole in scenery if it went tits up or - at the very least - driving like a bigger c**t
Especially gratified to hear your corollary suspected might even be more fun than fast cars fast but never tested theory because a) cheap performance (& fuel) doesn't really exist in the same way here (UK) and, b) if I was wrong I might be corrupted.
Bit miffed you don't mention 2CV which only went over 500cc in 1970. Scooby 360 is super cute, but 360cc class ended in the 70s and showing something like Honda Z might have better illustrated how (relatively) recently sub-500c cars were A Thing
Hey Matt you might want to use a Steel-it paint if its not out of your budget (I think its not bad in the USA, Canada its expensive). Its paint that you can weld directly ontop of, pretty cool stuff!
Dude I wanna hang out and scan things to make other things.
Thanks for the suggestion for Cal West manufacturing. Looks like they do incredible work!
Center of pressure vs center of mass ... something VERY important with building high power (well, any power really) rockets as well. 🙂
You're having way too much fun with this, Matt. It's excellent. Happy 100K 57K ago. 😃👍
SuperfastMatt is becoming SuperawesomeMatt with each new video.
This is amazing.
Have you checked out how the human powered salt racers are designed? They probably only have half a horsepower compared to your 150, so they have even more focus on aero. Learning to ride a 2wheel streamliner while lying on your back and seeing where you are going using a camera and a screen is insane. And then there's the designs that go headfirst! I assume both are illegal for your rulebook?
he says so at 2:10
How did you add tab & slot features to your frame design? What did your workflow for that look like? That seems like a super useful addition!
I sent the CAD to the laser cutting company and said "can you add slots and tabs?"
@@SuperfastMatt Cool. Thank you!
I have been gifted with ability referred to as Dunning-Kruger effect so I am an expert in land speed record vehicle design (and also aircraft). As you correctly assumed the key is decreasing drag as much as possible. Trying to minimize frontal cross section is important as you did. I wonder if ruled do not allow for the tubes to go above your shoulders beside your ears. This would allow to narrow the chassis for 2 cm on each side. With the width of 60-70 cm this is a saving. The other thing to consider is wetted area. The less surface area the air has to pass over the lesser the drag. There is a reason why some aircraft fuselages are thinned to a pole right behind the cockpit. A thinner car bodywork where it is not needed would be beneficial. Something like a coke bottle between front wheels and cockpit. Not to be confused with designs based on Whitcomb area rule. It would be so interesting to hear about your thought process.
I'm willing to bet you have never built a land speed car ever nor do you have any formal knowledge form any school or college.....I'm right aren't i
Awesome I’m loving this project 😀 will you put some sleeves inside the square tubing to stop the bolts crushing them?
I was also wondering this.
You can't seriously think he doesn't know that? That's actually a little insulting
@@lunkydog look at his welds and the fact he didn't clean anything before he welded it he might be or thinks he's smart but that tells me he is a rookie and will take his life in his own hands at 200 mph in that thing
Self fixturing not self jigging. A jig locates or guides a tool path. What an excellent idea!!
Well As a German, let me say....when you're building an Uboot with wheels ...Use a Periscope😉 joke* i love your Channel and am very intressted in lots of your projects....Keep up the Hard work
1:40, I love the jack stand in the living room. This channel is awesome!
you are the best teacher i am from greece and i am watching you from the begginig
Fun fact the 5th gen subaru sambar uses the left frame rail for its intake air aswell
A Japanese micro truck is hardly relevant for the design of this land speed car.
Its engine is far too big
Awesome build, Matt. An alternative to the paper method is cut apart a soda can. Picked that up from another TH-camr
Round tubing and square or rectangular tubes flex at a different harmonic. It may not want to go straight. Porsche used an inert gas to pressurize the 917 tubes and would check the pressure to make sure the welds or tubes didn't crack. You will need fenderwells that seal
well to keep all the dust out of the cockpit.. Just trying to pass along some things that friends had problems with over the 60 years that they had some problems with.
You do plan on putting little pillars inside the square frame so your bolt together joints don't crush the square tube right?
Tires also give you some suspension tuning, we've used air pressures to toy with a A/BFS streamliner. Do get into a habit of ignoring the relative pressures, though, you'll need to set pressures accordingly for equal tire diameter on the drive axle.
I was about to say something about the lack of incentive to feed the algorithm, but then i saw why at the end.
So here's one to feed the almighty, and another one to the next 100K. Cheers.
That face sheild thing has gotten me some welding flash too. I feel so foolish each time, it's not even similar to the green view through a black sheild, but my stupid just powers on before the brain has a chance to save me.
Those laser cut tubes are beautiful, it must be awesome to work with them.
Every day’s a good day with a Matt vid.
One advantage of land speed racing with human powered vehicles(generally bicycles in the same low frontal area, longish aero faired configuration ) is that the center of mass is also the engine.
Another is, that the governing body, the International Human Powered Vehicle Association (former IHPVA president here) doesn't require the fire resistant clothing or specify a a number of wheels.
Moreover we do allow video means of visual guidance, fully duplicate including power, so that head bubbles are optional. Monocoque framing is allowed, but the composites used must be safe in a crash at our top speeds (now at 89.6 mph) so that generally needs carbon and Kevlar, often with honeycomb stiffening. Roll cage structure of course and helmet mandatory, but not motor sports grade, yet.
We cannot race on the salt, too rough and high in rolling resistance. We do not race on rough chip sealed paving either for that reason. But all other constraints, straight line, measured flatness, longish run-up to the measured timing traps are similar to Bonneville, Black Rock and El Mirage record racing. One difference is that we do use motor vehicles running at the same speeds for safety chasing during the runs. It is necessary to keep those chase vehicles back sufficiently both not to overrun the participants and to not enter the speed timing traps along with the racers. Some past top speed records were possibly compromised by the "bow wave" from a chase vehicle fairly close behind. As with all rules based racing, bending those rules a little to win is expected. Good luck and thanks for you excellent analysis.
I'm gonna go bed. *Superfastmatt posted. What's another 20 minutes.
Just a quick observation, the Bolted connection between the two halves of the chassis. I would make those brackets sit vertically instead of horizontally. This will increase the strength of that connection
Don't overlook the many potential gains of sitting in front of the front wheels/tires. Opens possibility of front wheel drive which helps to prevent spins. Allows good weight distribution to front. The tires can now be taller, and the track width has more options. The visibility will also be better. Also think about what an inverted V tail might offer such as being lower center of gravity to prevent side gusts of pushing the rear of the car. The inverted V wings may also allow some downforce to be slightly added.
Pretty awesome so far, but I'm really looking forward to the engine portion of this project. Squeezing every single lb-in out of every CC is going to be a heck of an effort.
hi Matt, just going to let you know there have been Bonneville cars build using mirrors like a periscope to drive by. I don't know if that is still allowed.
What you said at 11:38 is exactly what killed an NHRA top fuel driver. A strut for the rear wing broke loose during a crash and stabbed through his helmet.
You should make some beer to test out the performance of your wort chiller … I mean your heat exchanger and do a lot of fancy sounding math to justify another side project… and see if you can work in a thermometer with a laser! Love your fearlessness and reminder about arc-eye
This build is hands down one of the most interesting I'm following on TH-cam. Pretty soon you'll be able to live up to your name Superfast. Cheers!
Question: instead of carrying water or 0.5°C water or -2°C salt water. Can you have co2 solid or liquid system. It Could double as fire suppression with a purge valve where ever you require. And might be easier than keeping water cold in a dessert salt plain.
YET ANOTHER AMAZING ONE :
Informative
funny
fast
&
EVERYTHING MATT
Very nice! Mandatory comment to appease the algorithm gods. Really though, super cool project. The way the frame self-jigged was a great touch.
Hey Matt.. About the frame coat.. Im not sure if you know, but lets say you do and made a great choice ;) I know people who have made bicycle frames, and they claim saving as much as 100 grams going with normal paint over powder coating.. So I'd guess you saved quite a few kilos (and twice as many pounds!) not going with coating on a frame this much bigger.. Keep up the great work, loving the project!
An alternative to scanning the engine and all is making a quick wood (or some other cheap/free scrap alternative) frame around the engine in about the design you want so that you can skip all the annoying stuff. That way you dont have to deal with annoying measurements and you can get a Real Engineer feel for how it would fit.
Congratulations on passing 100000 subs, nope scratch that 150000 subs! Great work Matt.
You're sure getting a lot of mileage out of that laser sound effect!
Shout out Cal West Manufacturing. My buddies from college. Use Steel-it for the painting!! Love the build.
Is a hans optional or a must? If a must, is that taken in account with your lay down head position?
I came here for an electro jag, now there is some tubes which gonna be faster than that jag itself :D
you may want to cut a few small pieces of metal tubing to put inside the square tube were the bolts go thru it will help prevent them from crushing under load and make the entire connection stronger
Did CalWest Manufacturing add the tabs at your request or did you do that before send it to them? I've been wanting to do something similar for my projects
They added them
That's awesome and makes things easier. Thanks for sharing about CalWest
Wonder if you used that nose section for small air induction ports and ram air. Could it be done? Probably some big HP benefits since you're running deactivated cylinders. Nevermind just finished watchign the video.
How did you go about slotting and tabbing your tube? I’m in the process of designing a tube chassis right now for a college club and that seems like a huge improvement. Any good tutorials out there?
In response to other comments Matt said that the company which cut the tubing added the slots and tabs at his request - they were not in the CAD file that he sent them.
A well deserved accolade . Keep up the good work!
Congrats on your sub milestone. I enjoy watching every episode, Matt
at 11:46, the support struts in the square tube are asymmetric, and it looks like it was designed that way in your CAD software... might I ask why?
Engine side cover clearance
Moving right along!!
Do you have a specific goal in mind for speed when designing this? Going all out for the 200 mph record? Whats the lowest youd be happy with 😂
Finally the real button, congrats. Looking forward to the next video.
This messed with me and my need/want to have stuff even and or parallel. Where the motor sits the angled bits on side of the frame, on the left they meet to a point at the top but on the right they don't. I'm assuming it's done for motor reasons and not just to mess with my head.
Any ideas on what replacement motor you'll get for the red beast?
1. Don't a lot of land speed cars have one front tyre in front of the other to make the front smaller?
2. Doesn't the main roll hoop tubes have to be one piece all the way down to the lower chassis tubes? (This may depend on the sanctioning body you race under? May be worth asking though?)
3. Instead of spraying the tubes would it be worth just clear coating them to make it easier to inspect and find any cracking in the future?
I have grown quite fond of your channel, so I hope you don’t die.
Hi TFM,
2 questions/concerns re your frame design:
1. Why did you choose to have some non-triangulated joints? Won't they cause unwanted weakness and vibrations?
2. Are you sure the bolted joints between the two halves will be strong and rigid enough? Are you planning on doing more with those joints, like maybe welding them just before the race?
PS, love this video, your humor, and your very informative videos overall!
Also, steel-it for paint. Great adhesion and looks good.
My neighbor was the lead mechanic for Cory McClenathon's A-fuel dragster. They never painted anything, and after each weekend of racing, they would scrub the tube frame with steel wool and ATF. Detergents in the tranny fluid, with the steel wool, keeps it all rust free and clean. Paint is weight is your enemy. Just a little FYI from a fan.
He is going to be racing on salt so i wouldn't recomend that :)
Fuel Dragsters can't be coated as it will hide any potential metal fatigue its in the rule book and they are tech inspected at every event. I was part of a Top Fuel 4x Championship wining team.
On a land speed car weight is not your enemy. Weight will keep you planted.
@@banaana1234 I'm not sure I agree, otherwise these guys wouldn't be trying to keep the car as light as possible. Weight and drag are the enemy of thrust. Other than the minimal possible gravity of the car, the aero plays a bigger part in keeping it straight, stable and planted. With his displacement limit, I would not add even one gram of weight by painting it. Aircraft is the same in that you don't wax a planes surface, you polish it, as wax = weight.
@@matthewpeterson3329 Land speed racers literally put lead ballast in the cars. In fact, Matt stated in another comment that he will put ballast in this car as well. Weight pretty much only matters for acceleration, and land speed racing is not about that. Drag is an exponentially bigger factor, so you want as little aero control surfaces as you can get away with.
Your the only person Id watch build a land speed racer. Look forward to the next episode
I want that scan image trio set on canvas in my living room. It’s awesome.
The round tube looks sexy. The square tube does not. You know what to do Matt
The junction with the two bolts between the front section with the "safety cage" and the aft section engine pod does not look very assuring, might crack when objected to torsional forces when tipping over in a tumble across the salt flat..the vehicle would break up into 2 pieces ...I would redesign that part in addition stagger the placement of the junction on each of the 4 tubes.
Who cares where the motor ends up in a roll over as long as the safety cage holds up. Built-in engine module ejector, anyone ?
@@dazeller82 I dont think that it is a good idea to have the front section and driver tumbling and rolling without a chute head over heels all over the place. Watch on YT what happens to a top fuel dragster after its similar frame breaks up in the middle!
It could be an idea to push the water ahead of the wheels. The water tank can be sloped better to reduce drag. Plus I'd imagine its easier to run the water through the gaps between the wheels than the linkages and air through the fuel tank. Of course it might reduce stability slightly with the wheelbase and CG changes, but I can't imagine it would change that much? Of course this isn't my area so I may be wrong, but hopefully it gives something to think about at least. As an aside, you weren't joking about that laser cut tubular section. It looks real nice made up, like you bought the whole section ready made!
One of my favorite projects on youtube.
Hi, is there a tutorial somewhere on how to design the self-jigging tabs? I have a chassis that i don't want to build a jig for and that info would be very useful. Thanks!
Looks very thin wheel to wheel ... does it have a propensity to fall over?
I understand the desire to keep the front cross section small ...
Yeah I mean 15:46. I think one would need active stabilization from fins at those speeds ... or a larger wheel base.