scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 I've been thinking of more ways to save weight that don't seem to be offered by caterham at the moment. *arrowright*uprights I've heard the the JW fireblade uses alloy uprights. no info on the website - any ideas anybody 🤔 I've heard suggestions of 200 quid a pair for alloy ones from somewhere, the std ones are listed at 250 EACH in my pricelist... *arrowright*hubs maybe not the rears (they need drive splines in them) but what about the fronts 🤔 *arrowright*calipers the rear sierra things are heavy, spongy, have a sticky handbrake mech, wear pads unevenly. Hi-spec reckon they are a few months off doing a 2 pot rear caliper, in alloy, with an integral handbrake mechanism. thats a few kg off each side - 4kg in total 🤔 Looked very good at the autosport show. *arrowright*disks do the disks need to be vented 🤔 why not use solid disks (lighter) and more aggresive pads like the pagids. better than that - fit lightened disks like these here from fluke. any comments 🤔 looks like 2kg saving at the front corners and 1 at the rear - 6kg. of course i've got the camcover (1kg), battery (3kg) and wiring (1kg) still do as well but that all adds up to a 15kg saving plus what ever is possible with the uprights... HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe 90 Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Brake calipers have got to be the most cost effective way forward, and Wilwood do some really light calipers. Solid disks should be adequate for 99% of drivers. What you could do is fit some temperature strips to your brakes and then give them a real thrashing. Once you know the maximum temperature that they reach, you could talk to some of the brake specialists about optimum disk size. A brake cooling duct would be a lot lighter than vented disks 99,000 miles so far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 Thats why the pagids seem a good idea for pads. They are happy at much higher temps (i badly glazed some 1144s a couple of years back at the front on the vented/AP setup and the std rears). So solid disks seem like they should be adequate. Fluke say they'll ask for car details and usage and they're experienced with Westie's so should be able to help. Presumably the Wilwoods won't be THAT much different from the AP 4 pots 🤔 HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SvenDriver Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Diet. Most drivers can afford to lose a few Kg. It is cheap and gives a nice performance boost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 lost 4 kg in the last two weeks - down to 85 kg now and running 10 miles at a time. Next question ❗ 😬 😬 😬 HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve-B Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 sven, abdominal surgery as i found out in december is good for a stone. don't recommend having an 18" incision across you stomach, but hey i needed to lose 2 stone. now i'm 1.1 ahead... Steve Metalic Black SV-VHPD click here to see our pictures.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary G Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Take your seats out and hoover up all the stones and rocks that are in the cockpit. I've removed loads in the last 6 months. If you've never done it, you might find a small weight saving there. 😬 C7 GAR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 hoover 🤔 those of us without a carpet use a brush ❗ *smile* HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SvenDriver Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Well, if the driver is smaller then old rules apply. Losing spinning weight is worth more than static weight. The faster it spins and the higher the total rotating mass then the better it is to lose it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 so unsprung spinning weight like disks is the best place to lose it (already got mag wheels). Spoke to fluke this evening - they do good prices on pagids as well.... HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 fluke are also looking at getting lighter weight bell things (that the disk bolts to) as well. These will allow larger disks to be fitted as well. (280 mm) HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Beaumont Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Get an alu front pulley for your engine 😬 Cos the way I see it, the weight priority goes thus: 1) Reciprocating 2 Engine rotational 3) Rotational 4) Unsprung 5) Static Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony C Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Can someone please explain the significance of whether a mass is spinning or not to it's effect on acceleration and braking - Puzzled! Are we talking gyroscopic effect? Cheers Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave M Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Get a Birkin 😬 They have alloy uprights, alloy 4 pot calipers. It's OK, I'll see myself out now ☹️ Dave Birkin S3 2043 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 i can't use a funky pulley as i need the pace dry sump pulley stuck on the end. this involves hacksawing half the pulley off anyway... HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mav Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Titanium *tongue* Martin 😬 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mav Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 P.S I'm personally worth in excess of 2 R500's as scrap - due to the ammount of titanium holding me together 😬 😬 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 i'll need to borrow your credit card for a few minutes.... HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 it takes energy to change the rate something is spinning in the same way it takes energy to change the speed its moving at. so to go faster you make the car lighter. if you strip 10kg of a 7 it gets 2% lighter, so 2% quicker to accelerate (VERY crudley) so 0-60 goes from 5.0 sec to 4.9. Thats widelt optimistic for several reasons but will illustrate the point. Now imagine the flywheel, its weight. we could remove our 10 kg from here as well. same effect (except that its less than 10kg to start with etc). But ❗ the flywheel gets spun from 1000rpm to 7000 rpm, back down to 5000 and up to 7000 rpm again. now imagine a playground with one of those spinny round rides on it where you push on it to get it going and the kids love it (quite old fashioned - not seen one for a few years). it takes about a minute of hafrd pushing to get it up to speed, and yet its not actually going anywhere - its ROTATIONAL velocity. Alighter equivalent, eg a spinning top is easy to spin up as its lighter. so back to our flywheel. I worked out once (long day at work) that from normal to lightened flywheel, saving about 3kg, would also give us a 0.1 sec advantage 0-60. so I've lost a third of the amount as above, but got the same effect. magic ❗ other benefits are that i can change gear more quickly as the engine can frop from 7000 to 5000 quicker to let me get into 2nd. so i gain a bit more there. here's the science bit... when its spinning its not simple weight giving rise to simple inertia when its moving - we use the "2nd moment of inertia" instead. basically this takes into account that the weight on the edge has more effect than that near the middle. To demonstrate this sit on your office chair, spin it round and stick your arms and legs straight out. now pull them all in - you speed up. you "moment of inertia" went down as you had less mass away from the centre so you HAVE to spin up to keep your (angular) momentum up. hope that akes sense. shout if it doesn't and i'll rework it a bit. Then if its proven helpful I'll send it into blatchat HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Edited by - hoopy on 18 Jan 2003 23:53:35 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 in that case... can I have your leg instead of the credit card 🤔 😬 you can have all the mav bits back afterwards ❗ HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mav Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 If you take 5 or 4.9 seconds to get from so 0-6 goes from 5.0 sec to 4.9 you need to peddle harder. My 'heavy' SV gets to 6 a damn site quicker than that ❗ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony C Posted January 19, 2003 Share Posted January 19, 2003 Well explained Hoopy, makes a lot of sense, thanks 😬 - just the thing for "Good Engineering Practices". I'm sure Barry will find a place for it. I don't think you need to alter it too much, the KISS Principal is best Cheers, Tony Waiting for my BRG SV kit. 😬 Is there any other colour? (Superior Version) - Still 10 weeks to go! Miscalculated - Bu**er Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby dooby doo Posted January 19, 2003 Author Share Posted January 19, 2003 Tony - I'd forgotten you were doing the Good E P thing. Probably needs the English tidying up and it wouldn't hurt to let another person check the technical content out. But yeah - please use it wherever it will help. HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelspeed Posted January 19, 2003 Share Posted January 19, 2003 The front hubs are alloy already. Well they have been since very early 90's at least. The race cars started cracking alloy hubs so they changed back to steel hubs in about 2000 but I'm pretty sure the road cars carried on with alloy hubs. The race cars have got a new design of alloy hubs this year but I haven't seen them yet, they come with a new stub axle and wheel bearing design. The uprights are cast steel I think but they're fairly spindly and thin. I would think an alloy upright would need to be a lot more beefy so the weight saving would be marginal if anything. Apart from this I agree. I've got the race rear brakes with alloy calipers (but no handbrake) and solid front disks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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