Building the FASTEST RC F1 Car
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Can I make this RC car faster with a ground-effect fan? Sponsored by World of Warships! Play World of Warships for FREE and unlock special D-Day missions here: wo.ws/4br7Vhz
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DISCLAIMER: This video is purely for entertainment value. Personal use of video content is at your own risk. Recreations of experiments, activities and projects are the sole legal responsibility of the person(s) involved in replicating them. I can not be liable for any information or misinformation, wrongful use, damage to personal property, death or any circumstances that result from replication of any projects seen. Be safe!
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Can I get it on Xbox ??
Personally I unsubscribe from TH-camrs who love to lie. F1 is a racing division.... Convoluting it into what ever you want is dumb
@@RekySai 💀
@@RekySai F1 also refers to the chassis on the F1 car
Maybe a rubber skirt and tape at the bottom just to let it glide over the bumps?
FIND - A - TUNNEL (with a flat ceiling)
Every tunel has a ceiling, doesn't have to be flat either.
Build a tunnel with flat ceiling
@@junatah5903should be flat to drive this car on the ceiling I guess
@@ivanmirandawastaken just go to the London Underground on a slow day, plenty of flat tunnels there lol
There’s a guy trying to do that full scale and they’re building their own track for it. Project Air should do a scaled down version lol
James you MUST do a part 2 and see if you can get it to drive upside down! 🏎
Driver 61 YT channel
if you want to see someone do it for real.
hasn't done it YET but preparations are running for a year now.
and he is really adamant about that, he has surrounded himself with very smart F1 ppl to transform a Formula car into a specialized "upside down car".
he got a big building company to build a dedicated tunnel just for that.
I can't wait until he announces the date.
He needs to have a skirt on hinges. Which is how every car now days does it.
Engineering After Hours attempted to do it 3 years ago
th-cam.com/video/6BUtn0xp6AE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=dqp5U67Bg5askHdB
and maybe add vanes to the fan to direct the thrust thus assisting in steering the vehicle 😉
If anyone is interested in fan cars, the McMurtry Spéirling recently broke track records, proving that ground effect is very effective under the right circumstances.
I was about to start yapping about this car when I saw your comment. Clearly a man of culture, or Carwow enjoyer
You can’t forget the Gordon Murray T.50 as well
the t.50 uses the fan in a very different way which only produces downforce at high speed and does little to increase the actual downforce of the car. it is mostly to make the car "stand out"
@@Losthewaronemus Bit of both 😉 But also had an interest in MyEnergi for a while.
Yes
There is a BBC documentary called "Gentlemen, Raise Your Skirts". About the ground effect cars Williams had back then. No fan but shaped underfloor and the skirts were spring loaded carbon strips that could retract up and down into a slot so they could touch the track surface and follow the imperfections in the track. Check it out if you can, it's awesome if you like those old BBC doc's.
I remember that! Wow - that makes me feel old 👴
One of my fave quotes is from that, when Alan Jones complains about the ride quality of the car when they tried solid suspension. Frank Williams replies, "perhaps you could sit on your wallet, Alan?"
@@TheBillzilla The most gentlemanly burn ever. They don't make them like sir Frank anymore.
BBC💀
Some suggestions:
How about a skirt made from a brush?
How about putting the ground effect tray on a separate set of suspensions from the main chassis? One irl example is the Lotus88
One I've been asking myself watching the video is what lead to the choice of a propeller instead of an impeller to evacuate the ground effect tray, as the latter is way better at producing a pressure difference?
That’s right, why a propeller instead of an impeller?
The brush idea is good but does add friction as it is in actual contact with the ground.
Windscreen wiper blades might be good source, have metal spine with rubber in them.
I think thick rubber would be the best bet! Maybe a bike inner tube, or a piece of old tire!
@@superbmediacontentcreator my reasoning would be that a brush is flexible enough to deal with rough terrain, while doing a reasonable job at blocking airflow. The brush hair would also be trimmed through usage, by contacting the ground, reducing friction and tuning the system over time.
The problem with a hard barrier as we saw in the video is that once it hits the ground the wheels suddenly lose traction, which could be reduced by using a brush skirt.
Some hovercraft designs use brush skirts, which is why I thought of it. Granted there they try to keep air in instead of out.
edit: I'm not sure where I saw it and cant find it atm.
I believe the Chaparral 2J had its skirt mounted to the suspension, not the chassis. This way the skirt stays flat with the wheels, and doesn't move with the body. Try mounting the skirt to the ends of the suspension near the ball joints, and I bet you'll have more consistent suction and longer lasting skirts.
estava procurando esta reposta!
Yeah I was thinking of that! It's truly fascinating!
the long awaited sequel is here
The issue was you locked the suspension out. You effectively cancelled out the mechanical grip of the car. In turn, you also proved the effectiveness of the design. Double edged sword so to speak. You must have heard of the McMurty special right? If not....bro.... where have you been?
Mcmurty at goodwood is unreal. I thought it was fake.
@@deaddirt3214same! The first time I saw it I thought the playback speed was increased. And the car kind of looks like a cartoon, just the way it's shaped.
@@deaddirt3214 haaahahaha!!!! Never can tell these days right??? I saw this virtually PERFECT girl the other day. My initial thought was "meh....A.I. derived imagery. Nobody's that cute." Then i slapped myself in the face and nutted myself on my truck bedside because it was borderline special needs thinking.
If he could find a smoother surface the locked out suspension would work, shifter karts don't have suspension but make plenty of grip. To get it to work on asphalt, he needs to anchor the bottom of the skirt to an un-sprung part of the car, like the control arms. Alternatively he could use servo adjusted skirts and drastically stiffen the suspension. What would work best is a small pod over each wheel with ducts leading to a central fan. If the downforce is acting directly on the knuckle you don't have to run extremely stiff suspension for it to work well.
@@NNFaNRacing Those kart chassis are designed to twist and flex to work as the suspension, they still have suspension, it's just implemented very differently.
The Chaparral did this long before the F1 car you cited. The concept is valid but was outlawed because the fan throws stuff all over the following cars.
Was about to say the same thing. Can-Am allowed innovations like this because F1 had too many restrictions. Once proven, F1 adopted it.
@@benkirkland5354 As I was growing up I cheered this and the STP turbine car both of which failed for different technical reasons. Had they foreseen the things that ultimately killed them they would have revolutionized the sector before being simply "ruled off" the tracks. I think the electric boost shows the most promise in the near term for F1 unless that like the Grid Girls it gets banned...
As a gran turismo player, I remember having a lot of fun with this car
The Jim Hall's Chaparral 2J was also closer in concept to this than the Brab, as the on the 2J had a separate snowmobile engine, so fan rotation speed wasn't a direct relation of 'main' engine speed. More consistent 'suck' across the entire speed range of the car, rather than more 'suck' at higher main enginer RPM.
I'm sure it would throw a bunch of stuff around, but because it mostly made all of its downforce from the fan system if for whatever reason the suction between the car and the track, like a big enough bump or a skirt was broken it would lose all grip and be very dangerous. Imagine it just launching mid corner straight off the track. Great system in an ideal world but potentially deadly in a real world
Fun fact. Gordon Murray (the designer of the BT46B fitted an aeroplanes altimeter in the cars so that it would show whether the underfloor was sealed. The drivers had a problem that the skirt would be damaged and they wouldn't know and suddenly find themselves going through a corner about 40mph quicker than they could without the ground effect and having a colossal crash. So if the altimeter was in the green they could push. If it wasn't they had to back off.
High pressure flexible 'tubular' perimeter skirt, low pressure chamber: Forget the walls, replace the skirting with something akin to a hovercraft skirt, but with the skirting pressurized to keep it inflated. I also suggest a tough material, as it will be in contact with the ground at high speeds.
You're right in concept but there is difficulty with this sort of thing at scale. There are just some technologies and materials that don't scale down well. This is the case with your skirting material. It is very heavy and thick and hard to reproduce at a small size and get the same robust survival enjoyed in a 1:1 environment.
Maybe the rubber squeegee from a wiper blade may work. Semi rigid but flexible/durable edge
Brush strips work too.
@@petearundel166Thats what I’m thinking! :D
I thought maybe a spring-loaded sliding door-style wall with a low friction material at the bottom might work, or just some replaceable steel bits.
From what I studied, the vaccum skirts on the bt46b were attatched to the suspension so that they'd always stay level despite the body movement.
The original Lotus car had sideboards mounted on slots so they would always adjust themselves to be touching the ground. Your front skirt-board doesn't need to create a perfect seal to the ground. If it's bouncing on the ground it will be slowing your car down. Some of the F1 cars used broom bristles to create a seal.
Love to see this run on a basketball court where the floor was perfectly smooth. That would let it really corner.
Seems like for the skirt, some thing pliable but durable like silicone sheet would be good. Great vid as usual!
If my memory is correct the seal was made in more than 1 over lapping section so the road contact area could be worn away then slide down to replace it. Eg had a total loss section that lowers as it's warn away.
iirc, it was also sprung so the skirts stayed in contact with the road surface.
The car is bouncing because you disabled the suspension
"tea, obviously"
James, engineering in the best British tradition.
Why can't you make your skirt out of rubber? You could even use an old bike tire inner tube.
i like the way you think!
Drag would be higher if it does touch the ground; could also be too heavy.
This is extremely sick, and you pulled it off so well! I have been thinking about doing something like this since seeing the Formula Student car from ETH Zürich use a similar approach for reaching 0-100km/h in under a second. IMO it's impressive how much extra downforce you ended up getting in a straight line on this.
To improve the seal on bumpy roads, maybe you could try a 3d printed flexible TPU base with a sort of skirt around it from thin PTFE that is too long and just bends out when the car is further to the ground, but then extends once it goes more above it or over a bump?
I'm so glad somebody had a go at this. Really cool project. The original skirts were spring loaded strips that pushed down into the road kinda' like DC motor brushes.
It always amazed me that it works at all. It's so counter intuitive to try and maintain the seal between car and road.
You are so inspiring for young engineers/aviators. Keep doing your thing!
11:52 are we just not gonna talk about how clean off a drift that was
I like this concept a lot. Maybe you should try door brush seals for the skirt. First they are flexible, second durable and last you brush stones away in front of the car.
The problem with your idea is that the contact adds drag. What you are envisioning is a reverse hovercraft which is valid but hard to do at scale...
I think sprung segmented skirts would be best, its what Chaparral did with the 2J, and it worked beautifully. The only difficulty is doing so effectively at RC scales.
@@redmk3t You might want to read previous comments before bestowing us with your brilliance.
@superbmediacontentcreator The problem with your idea is that it's NOT valid on any scale. You probably shouldn't come up with ideas
@@redmk3t Iditol leaving a comment that matches their personality... stupid.
15:06 love the bangs and pops😂😂😂
The part you missed, or couldn’t replicate from the original fan car, was the skirts moved up and down inside a channel in the sidepods so that they maintained the perfect hight to the road all the time, the last time I saw one it was effectively a draft excluder bolted to a piece of plastic that sat in the channel. I’m also fairly sure they didn’t completely enclose the skirts at the front (and probably the back) of the car as that was how they drew the air in to create the vacuum. There’s no way this is practical to do on that size of car but maybe a bigger one?
Actually, he could have achieved this with a spring-loaded frame under the vehicle with a segmented rolling edge. The challenge as I mentioned in a previous comment is that some materials just don't scale well and many solutions add drag from their contact with the surface. Remember the aggregate in the roadway is 1:1 not scaled to the car used for testing. This naturally hampers and intrudes on any of the solutions and improvements.
That sounds like the Lotus ground effect skirt solution. I've not seen the Brabham layout to be fair
@@TimInertiatic they all worked on the same principle, either a sheet of plastic or one with draft excluders on the bottom.
@@superbmediacontentcreator in this case, size matters then lol
@@testpilotian3188 Lol it sure does, because we know the Square-Cube law and the exponential relationship between velocity and fluid drag makes "RC Scale Speed" one of those measurements that don't mean anything. It not only affects the material properties, but the physical properties and the vehicle behavior. These RC cars also have a power to weight ratio that is immense compared to actual cars, the Traxxas Maxx V2 for example has just shy of a 1 to 1 power to weight ratio if my quick maths were right (and they may not be since I'm not full awake yet), weighing about 0.2 kilos but making 0.16 horsepower from a 6 volt, 20 amp peak draw.
Edit: Actually, its likely far above a 1 to 1 power to weight, now that I think about it. Since those things supposedly draw like up to 100 amps or more, and the motor gets to see the full 4s 16 or so volts, and that's 1.6kW, which means 2.15 horsepower. On a 200 gram vehicle. That's over a 10 to 1 power to weight ratio. Come on stupid brain, work with me today! The rocks ain't rocking right right now XD
You could try to just mount the skirt part of the car to the suspension. This was, it should keep it at roughly the same height off the ground (like a car called the Chaparell 2J)
Active suspension with this on an RC car would be awesome!!!
Excellent video, as always. No theatrics, unnecessary sounds or emojis. Just a logical, well edited video. Thanks. Waiting for the next one.
the small bits of debris, gravel and overall road roughness at the scale of your RC car, would be similar to trying to drive a formula car on a 4x4 off road trail. perhaps try testing again on a smoother airport runway?
You could also use 6 wheels like the Tyrrell P34, March 240 Or even 8 wheels for both sides
The rubber squeegee from a wiper blade may have enough durability to last. It could allow for a small travel to be added back into the suspension to help with its jumpiness
Yeah, rubber is the way to go. Much more flexible and durable than foamboard.
Very cool idea. Now we need :
1. Formula car
2. Helicopter turbine
3.Gearbox conversion
4+ A lot of engineering
Thanks for the video. Very interesting how you scaled down a previous idea and made it work !
1:47 Forza Horizon road
12:19 And that's exactly why this was banned in F1 a couple of years later. Awesome recreation, really amazing they were brave enough to try this in manned vehicles.
The rubber from a bike wheel tube might be good for the skirt since it's flexible and coulsd run along the ground without much damage.
Damn it... It's all over the screen now 😕
😆🤣
Tf is bro talking about 💀🤣
@12:22 That's exactly why fans like in the Brabham was prohibited :D if it fails mid corner you just fly away :D
So so bad clickbait title 👍
You should test this in a gym or any place with polished concrete. Additionally, the skirt could probably be made out of overlapping flexible "tongues" that angle backwards and can bend when pressed down. Combat robots often use this as a flexible wheel system that's difficult to damage.
I have been watching TH-cam since it began . This is the ABSOLUTE BEST video EVER. Thank you SIR! Society needs you to be a teacher. The education system in every country needs to hire you as an online mandatory teaching lesson.
If you scaled up the small bumps and cracks in the road it would be like taking a life size F1 down a gravel road. Surprised it worked as well as it did.
to have the best effect, you have to attache the soft part of the skirt to the suspension triangle, Like this you can keep the skirt to a constent high from the ground. The skirt can be attached on one side to the rigid part (your aluminium board). And on the other side to a bar connecting the suspension triangle ( 2 tubes can be imbricated in each other so that they can slide and allow the suspension to work)
Imagine the ideal track. When you make the care smaller, everything else gets bigger. If everything was smooth, flat, and sticky, I'd love to see an rc car race of practically mini f1.
Just some ideas that could improve speeds:
- Smoother track (Obviously)
- Replace the metal sheet with a custom lightweight fibreglass one
- Make the steering linkages to the front wheels stronger as they where wobbling a bunch causing the car to become unstable
- Make the skirt out of fibreglass or some type of material that can bend in the traveling direction to reduce the amount of damage
- Change tires now and then
- Different motor for the fan that can output a bit more power to allow for the 10 blade design without overheating
- Think of a new front end design for the skirt, different design that having them sloped at a 45 degree angle could improve handling (Basically like toe) and maybe reduce damage
- Put spacers on the rear wheels as they look to be lightly rubbing on the rear fins/wings. You can kind of see it at 16:20
- RGB strips for 0 - 60 in 2 sec
I'm about 1 minute into the video
I had always wondered why no one has tried to do this with an RC car 👏👍😁. I'm already loving the video 🤤
There's an electric car that uses ground effect and is the fastest accelerating car in the world. Tom Scott did a video on it - 0-100kmh in less than a second.
I would also like to add that on modern formula one cars, the “vacuum chamber” becomes a lot higher the closer it gets to the end of the car. I can see that your vacuum chamber is a consistent height throughout and it reduces the total amount of possible ground effect because you aren’t making the most of the available area. My suggestion is to cut a rectangle on the bottom of the chassis and raise the roof of the vacuum chamber to increase the vacuum. Another thing that I’ve read a lot on is connecting the vacuum chamber to the bottom of the suspension and replacing the foam boards with a brush material and I would like to second that idea because it is a great idea to keep the vacuum consistent. I would also like to see you use a rubber seal like the ones used for car doors and refrigerators if you have the chance. And another thing, please make the exit for the air parallel to the ground because while you are driving, the small amount of air inside the vacuum chamber is crashing against the rear wall of the chamber before getting sucked out, so might as well replace the rear wall entirely with the propeller to reduce air resistance. This will also give you more vertical space to raise the roof of the vacuum chamber even further and make the suction stronger. I hope my ideas are of use to you, and keep making awesome content!
Great project again! This is exactly my thought for pushing the next level of the RC car speed challenges. Down force with little drag penalty. Also hub motors to remove the drive train issues and be able to use gyro stabilised DTC to keep it straight. Tyres are the only unanswered question.
i'm an f1 nut and i know back in the day they had a semi rigid skirt that would bounce inside a receiver style channel, i wonder if you could construct something like that and try t again.
despite the porpoising as soon as that fan cut off it was going straight to the scene of the accident, awesome look, need a 2.0 video
Although this might be hard to accomplish, but there was a design on the chaparral 2j regarding the side skirts. The 2j was a fan car, but had issues with maintaining proper suction. The car had a mechanism where the skirts would move up and down as it was linked to the suspension, preventing it from scraping against the track surface
A softer skirt, like one printed from TPU or made of rubber, might help. Something that can take the impact and deform to the shape of the road, rather than bouncing the car off the wheels.
Also, i beg of you, if you're already going down this path, consider adding a second set of steering wheels at the front like the famous Tyrell P34 :P It might genuinely help with cornering.
After watching up to 13 minutes on this amazing video I recon the low pressure false floor should be connected to the wheel carriers instead of the chassis.
That would allow a softer and grippier tune of the suspension and still maintain the seal to the ground, maybe?
Williams used something like that in F1 in the early 80's.
The skirts on F1 cars were moveable pieces slotted into the sides which would allow for the sealing over bumps. I'd love to see you build more on this idea, maybe trying more skirt materials, or even changing the fan duct shape.
It might be complicated, but the chaparral's fan car had the skirts somehow linked to the suspension so it stays in the right attitude, might help you with the consistency around the corners. There are so many details about those fan cars and active aero in general, have fun going down that rabbit hole!
With Can AM cars the skirt height was controlled by the suspension via cables and rockers. This allowed the suspension to do its job while maintaining the necessary skirt clearance.
I've looked through the comments but I haven't seen anyone else suggest this, so...
Could it be that your skirt design is fine, but it's the road that is the problem?
You're driving a small RC car on a surface meant for full size automobiles.
This road surface has what would be considered small anomalies to a full size car, but would be huge to a small car like this.
If you were to scale the rc car up to actual size and the roadway with it, then I am betting that the road surface would look something akin to a road full of potholes and that might be why you're losing grip with the car's tires as well as your skirt.
Just food for thought. :)
Awesome video!
An old bicycle tire inner tube, trimmed to fit, would provide a flexible and durable (enough) seal. You could sandwich layers of the rubber so that the lowest point would still be light and flexible, but still offer a certain amount of rigidity. Sort of how they do on air powered hovercrafts. Except you could form the skirts to put force straight down towards the ground, (instead of the "balloon" shape used for positive pressure),since you want a negative pressure. I am sure it would take a little experimentation to get right, but this would allow you to increase the suspension travel and ride height (to prevent bumps from causing the tires losing traction in the corners).
You've created the perfect home RC Vacuum cleaner, just install a bag for the dirt at the end 😂!!! I would love to do house keeping like this👍
Imagine the rear edf installed on 1-axis servo controlled mount to provide some thrust vectoring. Ofc it would require some flexible sleeve to keep ground effect low pressure -side from leaking.
Or maybe some active aero added to this car to help with cornering stability, and top speed (with drag reduction system).
I’m just throwing some stupid ideas, but keep up your awesome work! 🙂
The F1 skirts they used were free floating or spring loaded - gravity/spring force meant that they were always sealing to the ground but without bottoming out the car or bouncing
Great job!!!
To overcome the weight issue - powering the fan by the differential/ an output shaft would be ideal. Might be complicated but it bet you can pull it off!
Great video yet again 😃
The original F1 cars used thick rubber to seal the edges, but they used springs so they could move a bit through the undulating surfaces.
Might be worth looking into 😊
From the beginning, looking at your preview videos, I could see that the cornering test was going to be flawed because of the rocks and the uneven surface. It would be cool to see you try this again on a track surface that is smoother and figuring out the perfect ride height. Good job on the video
Hi, I personally loved your F1 RC car project, so I'd like to give you some ideas: maybe you can add some sort of plank, like actual F1 Cars, to reduce the minimum distance from the ground of car's floor to avoid skirts damaging and maybe try some TPU 3D printed skirts to improve the vacuum effect. Have a good day!
9:31 that's gotta be one of the smoothest add transitions I've ever seen :lmao:
Edit: Also, I'm just thinking back to the Chaparrel 2J, a car by I think the same engineer (?) as that F1 car, and the skirt was linked to the suspension on that car, so whenever the car cornered the skirt actually moved (but that's *probably* too mechanically complex for a small RC car like this)
Actually one of the first fan ground effect race car tackled the issue of the seal breaking by mounting the bracket to the suspension with the wheels so that it would go up and down with the road so it can keep vacuum at all times
The chaparral 2j
when i first heard about this formula 1 car i had some ideas of my own but testing them on a life size car was never going to be in my price range so you have given me a good idea, thanks
the first thing that came into my mind is that you need very flat surfaces to make it work on this small scale, because the roughness of the road creates opening for the air and the vacuum is not that high to compensate.
8:58 You were right the first time around. That, my friend, is a ship, not a boat. When it turns it leans to the outside. Boats lean into the curve.
Remember that rc cars are still downscaled. Driving on a normal asphalt road would scale up to like a cobblestone like surface. Perhaps a soft, flexible rubber profile could be worth a try. Quite cheap and more durable than the foam. Also, it could dampen bouncing.
Imagine someone was just casually walking on the side of the road and then he hear a sound but he doesn't know what it exactly is and after he go around the corner, a fast tiny car suddenly goes right pass him, he stand there in awe but not even 5 seconds later he feels a sting on his right foot when he looked down, his right foot is gone.
I use horizontal uhmwpe strips fastened with 3M VHB double sided tape stuck to 90 degrees carbon strips, to seal the floor to the ground on my race car. We don't have electric fans, so have to rely on the low pressure generated by the floor/diffuser to pull the car down to seal against the track, which only works above 60mph. The uhmwpe strips are low friction, and easily replaced once they're worn down.
I would recommend attaching the skirts to the suspension so that it moves with the suspension rather than the chassis, but this is really sweet!
I geek over aerodynamics in cars. This is no exception.
Might want to try brushes next time on the skirt. Use them for weatherstripping and they are way more sealed than you'd think they could be considering they are just bristles. The way they conform to the rough surface more than makes up for the losses between bristles.
For the skirt you could try some flexible rubber like a hovercraft, or perhaps some brush material like a paint brush. Try soft or hard bristles and see if there's a difference.
I imagine you want something soft enough to adjust to the road surface without losing too much air pressure, although losing some air pressure might be preferable to losing traction on the tyres.
You should take a look a the Chaparrall 2J, which was the first fan car. Jim Hall has a sort of interview/video where he showcases all the cars he designed and has extra info on the 2J and how it works.
I always enjoy your videos and having Emily's input is wonderful. The gal seems to have a good head on her shoulders. What's next? Maybe a car that turns into a plane and flies with the assistance of rocket motors?
You need a much smoother surface for consistent ground aero on an rc car. Those bumps it’s hitting would be the equivalent of an f1 car driving down a country road.
Fantastic idea for a car, and keeping Britain tidy.....kinda cool a car that cleans the track😊
Also make the skirt from brushes.....narrow and long
Make the skirts to seal the floor with a bicycle inner tube. You can cut in the U shape and create a double wall.
This will copy the profile of the surface. Another tip is not to set the suspension so hard.
Five minutes looking at an old Lotus in a Goodwood paddock or the pits at Silverstone on a heritage day would have helped you immensely with this. Plus the fan was supposed to cool the engine, right? I think you could do with making it 'for cooling'.
Your assistant is a welcome addition to the show, not sure about the sponsor though.
you should try a lifting (venturi) underbody with the front end open. you'll probably get less downforce but it won't be so dependent on the sealing
engineering helper.. _put a ring on it james_
If You ever revisit this things conside getting a flexible material like Silicon Door dust stoppers, can keep some of the small rocks and debree out of the fan intake, being sturdy enough to get some laps in, being flexible can help to mantain the vacum on uneven terrain. Sick video i'm suscribing dor more wacky Ideas
Another thing that would be interesting to try would be to just put some drone motors with reversed props on top of the car. No need to worry about a seal and it woukd even work well off road.
the reason why the car keep bouncing was because of proposing it happen mainly on grown effect cars Porpoising is essentially the car bouncing on its suspension (the wheels stay grounded), an issue that can be a combination of suspension and aerodynamics, or simply a bumpy track. Running the car closer to the ground or setting up a stiffer ride can lead to porpoising,
my guess: since you have independent suspension, make a 4 part skirt with a flexible cross, so wheels can still independently move, and the skirt gets closer to the road.
If you can somehow able to attach the skirts to the wheelhubs. Make it part of the unsprung system. This would allow the skirt's ground clearance to be more consistent.
Very nice project! Congrats! Next step you can try to seal the bottom with 3mm thick rubber and test it on a smooth surface like a flat parking area... I'm shure you will have great results..
Try using a multiple-skirt design with the semi-rigid skirt construction. If you have 2, 3, or more layers to your skirt, you will reduce the probability venting your vacuum, as you will need all layers of the skirt to be simultaneously compromised.
I like the new dynamic with your tech person.
And I think you've come up against some of the same issues as model ground effect planes experience. It doesn't scale exactly the same - here your floor is comparatively bumpier which makes getting good low pressure zone much harder
Love doesn't make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
I think you need to do a part 2. And you try different kinds of skirts, I think a good material to make it out of would be silicone strips meant for weather stripping Doors and whatnot. You also might think about getting a more powerful fan/ motor.
Use a bicycle tube for the sealing membrane. Make the bottom slightly smaller than the top and use a Kevlar string to give the bottom a slight rigidity to it. Similar to a hovercraft design. The tube rubber can better deal with the roughness and the string on the bottom edge will coax it to maintain its shape better. Thats my suggestion for the skirt. Very decent results nonetheless.
For those interested in cars with this kind of technology, here are the ones that I remember:
1) McMurtry Speirling and Speirling Pure
2) GMA T50 and T50s
3) Brabham BT46B
4) Chaparral 2J
Love the Wii Sports/Japan in a nutshell -font used in the past few videos
flip the fan to the front and blow air up, maybe ground effect + thrust will help even it out
I would add some aluminum or fiberglass screening on top of the mesh which will prevent rocks or foam from bring sucked into the fan. Great first test. Looking forward to next test run.