New Aftermarket Chasis for Cerbera's
Discussion
I have heard about TVR power plans, but as yet I believe they are still quite away from being in production.
Where I'm going with this basically is I'm considering having designed and built a brand chassis based upon latest technology for my cerbera, combining improved active handling, strength and importantly removing several kilos from overall weight.
As you can imagine this investment is not a cheap or speedy process, but if sucessful I maybe in a position to offer this afermarket design at an affordable and realistic price to having a refurb or an old chassis.
Just for you info you can buy a brand new chassis from Multipart, they have them in stock. But i ask myself why go for a flawed design when we can do so so much better.
Rich
Where I'm going with this basically is I'm considering having designed and built a brand chassis based upon latest technology for my cerbera, combining improved active handling, strength and importantly removing several kilos from overall weight.
As you can imagine this investment is not a cheap or speedy process, but if sucessful I maybe in a position to offer this afermarket design at an affordable and realistic price to having a refurb or an old chassis.
Just for you info you can buy a brand new chassis from Multipart, they have them in stock. But i ask myself why go for a flawed design when we can do so so much better.
Rich
I think if its going to be done, there would be a market for a more advanced chassis, it would not be hard to model in FE so it could be tweaked to improve stiffness as this is its weakest area as can be seen from the common milky windscreens and fracturing radiators. They maybe able to use a higher tensile steel to increase performance and potentially reduce weight. I guess the big one as well is properly protecting it from corrosion, inside and out.
I cannot see it going much further than that though, unless people would be interested in altering the geometry but I think this would require some major investment and testing to get right. I imagine this would push costs up to much for it to be acceptable to most people.
I cannot see it going much further than that though, unless people would be interested in altering the geometry but I think this would require some major investment and testing to get right. I imagine this would push costs up to much for it to be acceptable to most people.
If you weren't putting an existing body on top of it, I reckon a pair of carbon composite honeycomb or Rohacell-filled sills instead of the current outrigger sections would have some potential...
Second thought: Power has brand new RV8 blocks and is looking into chassis... which means you could basically order a brand new TVR in parts then...
Second thought: Power has brand new RV8 blocks and is looking into chassis... which means you could basically order a brand new TVR in parts then...
Edited by 900T-R on Thursday 17th January 13:34
Gattor,
I'd be interested although what do you mean by active handling? Do you mean active shock absorbers? I think anything else would be going to far to be honest. Improving the strength and shedding some weight would be good enough for me.
Out of interest how much is a chassis from multipart? I wonder if the powder coating is any better on these later ones and are all the chassis's interchangeable as I believe there are some small differences between the earlier and later types.
I'd be interested although what do you mean by active handling? Do you mean active shock absorbers? I think anything else would be going to far to be honest. Improving the strength and shedding some weight would be good enough for me.
Out of interest how much is a chassis from multipart? I wonder if the powder coating is any better on these later ones and are all the chassis's interchangeable as I believe there are some small differences between the earlier and later types.
I imagine I'll be doing something to my chassis at some stage, and so I'm naturally interested in what's out there.
I'm not a big fan of waxoyling something and hoping, nd neither am I a fan of "in place" repairs. Water doesn't need much space to get in.
Because of this when I do it, it will almost certainly be a full body off job. Maybe then a new chassis may be cheaper than prepping and treating the old one... but I doubt it.
Maybe if it wasn't too much more and had added benefits, such a new material, added stiffness, etc. then I may be interested, I'd rather spend the money to get it right, than most of the money to get it done, if you know what I mean.
I'm not a big fan of waxoyling something and hoping, nd neither am I a fan of "in place" repairs. Water doesn't need much space to get in.
Because of this when I do it, it will almost certainly be a full body off job. Maybe then a new chassis may be cheaper than prepping and treating the old one... but I doubt it.
Maybe if it wasn't too much more and had added benefits, such a new material, added stiffness, etc. then I may be interested, I'd rather spend the money to get it right, than most of the money to get it done, if you know what I mean.
Of course if you wanted to go for the ultimate you could make the whole chassis from the Carbon Fibre ISO Truss system as the bike frame is made of below, completely amazing.
http://delta7sports.com/products.html
http://delta7sports.com/products.html
It appears that to really get great benefits from a new chassis design a revised geometry is going to be a must in addition to use of composite materials.
By Active handling I'm talking about the mechanism involved in stiffening and softening handling whilst vehicle is under force. So yes active suspension would be part of this mechanism.
Carbon Fibre ISO Truss system! now thats extemely interesting would imagine development costs some where in the region of a few hundred k tho, unless of course I can talk them into a proto type excerise...thanks for that
By Active handling I'm talking about the mechanism involved in stiffening and softening handling whilst vehicle is under force. So yes active suspension would be part of this mechanism.
Carbon Fibre ISO Truss system! now thats extemely interesting would imagine development costs some where in the region of a few hundred k tho, unless of course I can talk them into a proto type excerise...thanks for that
Just had a chat to Multipart, they are basically making them on site, it is not just a stock of old chassis. The corrosion protection is basically grit blasted, etch primer and then powder coated the same as the last of the line TVR's from the factory, which apparently is a lot better than the late 90's spec. I asked about internal corrosion protection and thee is non applied however he said the chassis is sealed so no water can enter. I would have liked to have seen some though.
The chassis is supplied bare i.e no wishbones for a smidge over £3k inc VAT.
There are differences in them and you need to specify the year of car and V8 or Speed6. The later cars apparently have a different wishbone design, he thought you could probably swap to a later style but you would need to get new wishbones as well.
To buy a chassis you would need to go through a dealer as they will not sell direct.
Hope this is a help to someone and stops multipart getting an influx of phone calls.
The chassis is supplied bare i.e no wishbones for a smidge over £3k inc VAT.
There are differences in them and you need to specify the year of car and V8 or Speed6. The later cars apparently have a different wishbone design, he thought you could probably swap to a later style but you would need to get new wishbones as well.
To buy a chassis you would need to go through a dealer as they will not sell direct.
Hope this is a help to someone and stops multipart getting an influx of phone calls.
You want to improve the TVR chassis? For starters - forget any composites - steel is fine for this application, if you want to shed weight - use lighter steel; I understand TVR used some cheap stuff thats quite heavy. It'll still work out cheaper using decent steel than composites - and could be specified to be stronger in certain areas using T45 or similar - certainly something I'd look at for impact points like the outriggers for example.
For strengthening, I suggest finding a better way to mount the rear of the cage securely to the chassis - at present they're either not attatched or attatched by flimsy little points off the back of the outriggers IIRC.
If you want to improve the handling, I'd suggest changing the damper points to allow them to be mounted closer to verticle (see a T440R photo for those changes) and possibly allow different points for the wishbones to be mounted (or atleast revise to a more optimal location.) The strengthening of the chassis should allow the suspension to work better anyway in extreme driving so it'll be improvements all round.
I reckon the above would be a decent improvement without the need to spend ridiculous amounts on composites.
For strengthening, I suggest finding a better way to mount the rear of the cage securely to the chassis - at present they're either not attatched or attatched by flimsy little points off the back of the outriggers IIRC.
If you want to improve the handling, I'd suggest changing the damper points to allow them to be mounted closer to verticle (see a T440R photo for those changes) and possibly allow different points for the wishbones to be mounted (or atleast revise to a more optimal location.) The strengthening of the chassis should allow the suspension to work better anyway in extreme driving so it'll be improvements all round.
I reckon the above would be a decent improvement without the need to spend ridiculous amounts on composites.
I take what you say on board BCA, I'll share my findings with you guys when its complete.
Until then does no harm to review alternatives to a 14 year old design which was flawed from the very beginning. And you never know, might just come up with something that really does make a difference.
Rich
Until then does no harm to review alternatives to a 14 year old design which was flawed from the very beginning. And you never know, might just come up with something that really does make a difference.
Rich
cerbfan said:
. They maybe able to use a higher tensile steel to increase performance and potentially reduce weight.
On a visit to the TVr factory a few years ago, whilst specing our car, I asked the question "What was the chassis made of"?I was told that it was mild steel because high tensile steels, if bent more than once, would most likely fracture, (as in a car boucing along the armco, spinning as it went).
So I would do a bit of research before assuming that high tensile steel is the way to go.
Ray
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