I can TIG pretty good and a good friend of mine works for a welding shop here so I kind of have an in there. No real scientific metallurgical experience but I work at a General Motors research facitlity that is crawling with engineers that are like walking textbooks on that kind of thing. Lots of them are car guys too and very willing to help out. As far as facilities go I have half of my parents' freezing cold 2 car garage. Im going to community college now (go ahead and make fun of it but its basically free) and living in the inlaw apartment in my 'rents house so the 'shop' is right downstairs. It will be my first complete project from top to bottom and it probably seems a little ambitious but if Im gonna be a legit car guy I need a hot rod and it seems like a good creative outlet and way to spend time.
I say fuck all that high tech mumbo-jumbo bull shit that's going to make your hot rod look like an afterthought... and stick with a solid front and rear axle... an SBC, and an automatic. You'll have more than enough to do just screwing and welding THAT together... IF you're going to do it right. Oh yea... steer clear of the engineers... they'll have you thinking in directions that are counter-productive to getting the thing built in a timely manner. You'll have more success just logging onto the HAMB for an hour a day to get your ideas... Engineering it, planning it... and buying the pieces is the EASY part... Sam. Something like this... but in primer... would be cool.
Now THAT is a challenge that should be accepted and would REALLY get our attention! IFS has been designed and REdesigned a million times. That gets my vote! Any 19 year old engineering student can "design" an IFS , do some justice and play around with the roots.. Reading all this has brought me to some questions for you Matt. Have you taken Statics and Dynamics? Design of Machinery (or whatever your school may have titled it), Mechanics of Material, Control Systems and any of the other Mechanics classes offered in the program? I'm not saying you don't know what you're talking about, but if you haven't been introduced to all these topics there is so much more you need to know. Just taking Statics or Dynamics helps, but will NOT offer you all the answers. I'm assuming you're heavy into CAD stuff right now? Drawing up the suspensions and making it go up and down is only the first step... you have several more design steps to go. Again, not bashing, don't get the wrong idea. Just suggesting that if you want to do it right, WAIT! You will be PISSED when you get to your 400 level classes and find out that you should have done LOTS of things different! You obviously have learned enough to get you excited about chassis design (VERY COOL) and that's a good thing, but you have a looong way to go to get up to something that will do what you want... especially keeping a car with a V8 under "perfect control". So what have you taken so far? Something else to keep in mind. If you want to have something cool to drive, you can always build something with suspension that doesn't "meet your standards" and work on a plan to change it. For that matter, you will have a senior design project at the end of your education, that would be the perfect opportunity to blow the doors off of all the other nerds that just want to play around with transisters, new HVAC vent designs and how to make a better slab of concrete. Just food for thought for you. Get what you want, start building it and then see where the improvements need to be made... The conversation is getting waaaayyy to Str**t R*ddy!!
So I have been thinking about this a lot the last couple days. The mose I ponder the more I realize this is way too ambitious to accomplish effectively right now. I still think it would be a killer car and I'll do it at some point but for now I think a more "standard" rod will get me on the road sooner and cheaper. Unless a free motor falls into my lap I still think Im going to give the northstar/T5 thing a shot at least. I will try to design the frame to allow it to be converted to an independent suspension setup at a later time but for now I guess split bones on an I-beam is a good compromise and will provide a good challege to tune. I think the law of diminishing returns applys here: The IFS would perform a little better but for waay way more effort/investment. I think I can make up a u-fab 4X2 or 6x2 intake for the northstar and the valve covers already look kinda hemi-ish so will I still be allowed to hang out here? That all said; anyone have a front suspension setup they want rid of?
I have a small suggestion. Why dont you think about keeping the entire combination dirt simple? After youve been around the block like many here have, I think youll find that a simple car is not only easier to design, it might actually get built. And run. With that in mind, if you do convert your junkyard Northstar to carburetors (with a u-fab carb manifold as youve pointed out), how do you intend to trigger the spark? If I recall correctly (and recalling correctly could be an issue, cause Im an old fart), the first Northstars used a four-coil setup while the later ones used a coil-on-plug design (no plug wires). In either case, I think theyre distributorless with a completely integrated engine management system. You could have some real issues making it work without the fuel injection system (but I certainly could be wrong). Later Graybeard
You are totally right abou the ignition. 93 through 99 used "normal" GM distributorless ignition and 2000 up uses coil on plug. Through my research I have found the earlier DIS setup is almost self contained in the ignition module. It outputs a tach signal to the fuel injection computer and recieves back a signal with ignition advance factored in. Hopefully I can replicate this with some simple digital electronics. Kind of an electronic centrifugal advance. I have a real smart buddy whos all about electronics and I think we can figure something out. If not I guess Ill just keep the ugly fuel injection. It will end up working like that video of the flatty with no dizzy and the coild mounted under the dash that was on top yesterday or so....just a lot cheaper cause I wont be using a full aftermarket engine management computer. (Not really a HAMB thing so I wasnt going to bring it up here but you asked.....)
Just run a hood and lock it tight! You'll be okay if nobody knows what's going on under there! Don't give up on what you want to do. Just spend more time researching (like you're doing at this very moment) and spend some time hanging around some old farts and some HAMBers. There is a TON to learn here! More than you'll ever get in school brotha'! Get back to the drawing board and make something happen. Though there may be some aspects about the build you may want to keep to yourself around here (to keep the floggings down), you should still learn about what's going on around here and ask questions when you have them. Good luck man! Keep us posted and make sure you learn something in school so you can design some cool stuff for the hot rod industry!
Don't neglect your Physics and Calculus. Study them hard and strive to understand everything. Every single ME class after that is based in some way or another on those two foundantional courses. It makes it easier, of course, if what you are doing translates into making a car design better (or at least that way my motivation). Although in some classes it's kind of hard to find a connection ("You can't burn much rubber with a semi-infinite slab!" -- Greg Hedding). The old guys in the machine shop are your best resources when building something. They may give you a lot of crap and say you are suffering from the calculus factor, but their fabrication advice is almost always right-on, and was always better than my original thoughts. I, too went to a community college first. And worked on my hot rod in my parents' garage. When I went away to the university to finish things up, Professor Murphy -- a real car guy's car guy recommended putting the car on blocks and focusing on coursework. He was right. I had no time for the car, and was 100 miles from the garage, so the car set on the back burner, took up my parents' garage space, and eventually made a mess in the yard -- I wound up donating it to some charity. Now that the formal school part is done, I plan to build another. I would recommend, however, doing your hotrod project just after your first job starts, but before marriage, kids, and monster mortgage. Or wait until the kids are old enough to help. My best advice for you regarding school is focus, learn everything you possibly can, and finish as fast as you can. The car can come later. .
WHATS WRONG WITH SHINEY PAINT?at least its not red rims and fake whites i suppose ,i love this site but all the hairpin and dropped axle crap is just as unimaginative as a belly button glass32 4bar f&r let him build what he wants hell learn more that way than by being told that he should conform to HAMBsview on what a rod is its his first build let him make any mistakes on this one and hell evolve in his styles and work practices ,i say go for it bro the world is full of knockers and nay sayers buil what you want not what we want
[quote='29MurrayTub]Don't neglect your Physics and Calculus. Study them hard and strive to understand everything. Every single ME class after that is based in some way or another on those two foundantional courses. It makes it easier, of course, if what you are doing translates into making a car design better (or at least that way my motivation). Although in some classes it's kind of hard to find a connection ("You can't burn much rubber with a semi-infinite slab!" -- Greg Hedding). The old guys in the machine shop are your best resources when building something. They may give you a lot of crap and say you are suffering from the calculus factor, but their fabrication advice is almost always right-on, and was always better than my original thoughts. I, too went to a community college first. And worked on my hot rod in my parents' garage. When I went away to the university to finish things up, Professor Murphy -- a real car guy's car guy recommended putting the car on blocks and focusing on coursework. He was right. I had no time for the car, and was 100 miles from the garage, so the car set on the back burner, took up my parents' garage space, and eventually made a mess in the yard -- I wound up donating it to some charity. Now that the formal school part is done, I plan to build another. I would recommend, however, doing your hotrod project just after your first job starts, but before marriage, kids, and monster mortgage. Or wait until the kids are old enough to help. My best advice for you regarding school is focus, learn everything you possibly can, and finish as fast as you can. The car can come later. .[/quote]look out boys nerd alert! fuck school flunk out get tattoo s a skanky girlfriend ,1/2 finish a rat rod take it to Vegas look cool ,get drunk ,drive drunk,die young!thats whats really important or so all the ck mags seem to push
Haha this is good reading. Dont worry, guys, Im not going to quit studying but Im getting antsy not having built anything lately. School takes a lot of time but its not 24/7. If I were responsible I wouldnt be blowing five grand of my college savings on a super-fast deathtrap of a hotrod. If my girlfriend's mom wont let her ride in it I know i have succeeded. Anyone wanna buy me plowboy's plymouth as an early Christmas present? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=142950
last time i went you could!but none of the skanky chicks would let me touch em!so i think they were repro skanks not the real thing!
Dude you can research and read books all you want...You will learn a little. You can listen to a teacher (used lightly) go over the same "routine" as for the last class...You will learn a little. This is really, really good and you'll get your piece of paper for knowing a little. BUT you don't know shit unless you learn it from the guy doing it everyday (for 30 years!). IFS is great and does handle better than a straight axle...But it has NO place on a fenderless rod, let alone a traditional one. The book tells you go for it but the real world says no way! Are you going to play with it (adjusting all day to "perfect" it) or drive it? Are you going to circle race, etc with it? Look what others here have done, it's practical...and sometimes not all that "easy". There is always a way to complicate anything if you really want to...you don't have to go with IFS and attempt to modify it on top of it. If you spend way too much time on the front suspention, whats next a new fangled rear susp., out of this world steering? You will give up from the stress and lack of progress. Some things are tried and true, ask the "old" guys (not one either), fuck the book, but remember it. Those are the basics...the "numbers" it don't necessarily tell you what the fuck to do with them! There are unforseen problems that you WILL have to deal with...thats enough to fuck up your day (or more) quite a few times. Build it, learn while building it, better a thing or two as you think of it (don't dwell)..."finish" and drive it. Fuck with it a little again, drive and repeat. It will never be perfect out of the box, no matter what you use, especially on that budget. Wheres the fun and recurring pride of betterment and time/experience to think some more? Too long...stay in school though. Unfortunately you can't just get a good job with the learning desire and motivation you obviously have. Stick with it! There's an easier way to becoming a perfectionist!!! Mike
scooter's got it right. wait til you get to fluids, thermo, controls, design of mechanical components, vibrations, etc;. You learn to either go on 5-6 hrs sleep a night for months on end, sometimes more, most times less, or you lose it and drop out. I heard it before I started engineering, but didn't believe it. it's a test to see how strong you are and it's 100% true the class size drops in half after 1 year. "Getting a mechanical engineering degree deals with stress, strain, forces, material abuse, design, and the equivalent of shitting a pinecone sideways everyday for 4 (or 5 in most cases hahah) years" You gotta be a little twisted in the head to make it through it, it's just a good thing for guys like me who don't mind being delirious, acting stupid, and have a group of friends who do too. You've been warned!! HAHA PS you know your neck deep in it when your in lab and it seems completely normal to see kids asleep on the floors, talking to themselves, laughing uncontrolably for no reason, or even better the occasional "flip out" when something goes wrong and u lose it, exploding in a rage of hair pulling, every expletive known to man, books lauched into nearby walls, and storming out of the room. Sadder is most people won't even flinch, cause we've all seen it and all been there
Look 4:11 and 4:56 for the street is nuts...find an 8.8 and a 3.73 tops... and your going to fly. T-5 is great ....handles 400 hp easy if you lay off the wacko 2/3 shifts. Unless you intend to do some heavy duty drag racing those gear ratios dont make sense. If you do go with those ratios good luck hooking it up on the street. Especially with 4:56's your shift point will be coming up so fast there will be no enjoyment. But most of all if you run gears like those on the street your buddies who know anything will will be laffin. Not to mention kicking your butt at the stoplight. SO a t-5 with a tall first gear and 3.73's with that weight you will kick some ass. been serious drag racer for 40 years trust me on this. good luck
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