MX-3.com

Mike you're absolutely right. I started reshaping the fender yesterday to make it much narrower and the slope from the top down to the headlight opening much steeper. the hood section will also be lower. I resisted that because it's going to affect the design of the substructure in the nose and force me to rethink how I will direct the internal air flows, but it has to look right.

MOre pics tonight.

See, I told ya I follow the thread, I just put in my input when I feel compelled to, is it your design, so I perfer/can't really criticize it since it's your design for what you want, not me.

Not sure how much structure you'll need up front, it's an MR layout, so you don't have the weight of the engine up front and you can make some really neat suspension configurations.

I love the flow from the roof to the tail, but I want to say it needs a Top Gear wing

The main thing in front is space for the cooling system, the fuel cell, the steering components and the ducing that will direct airflow through the radiators.

I'm making really good progress with the front now.

Yes...there will be a wing. I just can't model it with clay.

Some good info in here for ya:
http://www.streetfire.net/video/koenigs ... Build+Tour

Nd4SpdSe wrote:Some good info in here for ya:
http://www.streetfire.net/video/koenigs ... Build+Tour

That. Was. Awesome.

wytbishop wrote:

Nd4SpdSe wrote:Some good info in here for ya:
http://www.streetfire.net/video/koenigs ... Build+Tour

That. Was. Awesome.

+1

OK...so big progress with the clay model. Almost to the point where I can call it done.

Letely I felt like the general shape of the car was coming along well but I was really unhappy with a lot of the details. The headlight size and shape, the taillight size and shape were just not working for me and I was really having trouble with it. I started screwing with the headlight shape and came up with this at first...


Intereesting but it looked wierd from the front...

Good start though.

I fiddled with it, filled it back in and came up with this shape...


I spent quite a while working on a bit of symmetry just to get a better feel for the front end, worked on the size and shape of the scoops and fixed the shape of the bottom edge and it now looks like this...


It's still not perfectly symmetrical but it's close and it looks better in person than in pictures.

then I started looking at the back of the car and I wanted to bring the same sharp angles of the headlight to the taillights but it wasn't working with the shape of the fender that I had. So I really changed the whole back end quite a lot and came up with this...






Here is the overall look of the car...






I've very happy with the lines and the overall size, shape and proportion of the design. there will still be some fine tuning to do before I get it digitized and some more changes will probably take place in CAD but this is it. This is essentially my car.

Thanks to everyone for help and feedback and most of all for not making fun of me. I will post more pictures later when I've tidied up all the little imperfections.

Wow. That looks fantastic!! Awesome work! It actual looks like a properly professionally designed car, now - it works really well! The lines are really smooth & they work extremely well - you've done such a great job, you must be stoked!
This image is my fave - really shows off its shape!

Also, I'm glad the rear has been tweaked to be more dramatic too - that's the angle people will see most of

Thanks, I like that picture too.

There will be a dam in front that will lead into the underbody tray and there will be internal air flow exiting through the rear fascia. I haven't quite decided exactly what they will look like yet but it will have to wait until some internal design has been finalized. The front is easier because there's a lot less going on up there then there is in the engine compartment at the back. There will be a wing...or spoiler. I'm not totally decided on that either.

The next step is to clean up a few final details and get it digitized.

Here are the final dimensions as measured from the model...

Overall Length 162.8
Overall Height 42.2
Overall Width 75.9
Wheelbase 100.6
Length Wheelbase Ratio 1.62

I think a small, slightly curved, slightly raised up spoiler which runs from the inside edge of the top of the taillight housing (just before it starts sloping down) on one side to the other (kinda original NSX-style) would look real smooth, but I'm not too sure how functional that would be, nor your stance on form Vs function! (though I would imagine it would lean towards the latter given your extensive expertise in the engineering/practical side of things!) I would have thought a "whale wing" would look awkward on such a well proportioned car...

Yeah there will definitely be a spoiler of some kind but the design of the spoiler will wait until I have the model digitized so that I can do some wind tunnel simulations.

I'm not super over the top on the form vs. function issue, but I want everything to at least work well.

Talked to the 3D scanner guy and he'll be in town next week but based on cost I think I will have to wait till the fall. It isn't cheap.

My next bit of work will revolve around the suspension and designing the subframes.

Sweet, definitely won't be cheap all up, but at least you don't have a timeframe you have to work to, and you seem to be really pushing forward with the development stage! At least with designing subframe, suspension, etc. you don't need to have the external design digitised, do you?

Well I'm trying to decide how to go forward without the digital model. I know what runnign gear I'm going to use and I was able to find 3D models of the Corvette front and rear spindles, but I need to model the control arms and stuff...so I can keep busy with that for now.

The exterior model was intended to allow me to determine position of the internal structures. The idea was that I would remove parts of the body like the doors, the front nose, the rear deck, the fenders etc until I could identify where the main "Monocoque" of the chassis would begin. Then I would form the extents of that central component and begin the process of re-incorporating the external components.

Without a digital model I can't do it that way...but I may have a solution. Stay tuned.

Vacuum-form?

Actually no it's a new Audodesk application that's in Beta release right now called 123D. It takes digital pictures and creates a 3D mesh from them.

Not sure how effcetive it will be but looking at the website sculpters and modelers are using it. If I can create a mesh of the car and import it into Autodesk Alias I should be able to get where I would have with the $500 3D scan for $0.

We'll see how it works tonight when I get home from the gym.