Carbon Fibre Wishbone / Suspension Kit

[DDDLH]

I am currently doing a design project, and would like to know if any ultima owners think a carbon fibre wishbone / suspension upgrade kit would be a good idea. The main focus of this would be to reduce weight by a reasonable amount to further improve the cars acceleration, whilst giving good handling and trying to keep the price down.
Feedback would be greatly appreciated. thankyou

[LuckyP]

Now if you were to do a Track Day two piece front splitter - I'll be interested!

There isn't much weight in the wishbones.....they aren't very long you see.

[bluesatin]

Let us know your aims in this related to the design and a bit on your background and I think you may get a better response

[Scuffers]

DDDLH said:

I am currently doing a design project, and would like to know if any ultima owners think a carbon fibre wishbone / suspension upgrade kit would be a good idea. The main focus of this would be to reduce weight by a reasonable amount to further improve the cars acceleration, whilst giving good handling and trying to keep the price down.
Feedback would be greatly appreciated. thankyou

Much as I like the idea, I do not belive that you could make a CF wishbone that would be lighter than a CrMo one and yet be as strong (outside of F1 budgets), you would also have to consider the service life of said wishbone along with the design issue that with the current lower wishbones having to support the damper loads, this would be somewhat hard to engineer in CF.

That's not to say I don't think CF is a good idea, just that there are other applications that would be easier/better to start with.

[GTR-TT]

If someting goes wrong I rather have bent wishbones than "exploded" wishbones.

I just love CF but there are many other parts that are easier to build and saves more weight. Our new front end ie saves much more than the wishbones weight in total. I will try a carbon fiber anti sway bar on my car Since I added weight I have to try to reduce it again.

[DDDLH]

I am doing a HND in motorsport engineering and as a design subject, i need to design a chassis or suspension system that will give an advantage over existing products. for this it must have a clear advantage over competitors, and so if carbon fibre was applied to these areas of the ultima and designed correctly taking into account mountings, forces ect using FEA, improvements could be made. ALL i need is some posistve feedback to justify the design and project.

[Stig]

DDDLH said:

I am doing a HND in motorsport engineering and as a design subject, i need to design a chassis or suspension system that will give an advantage over existing products. for this it must have a clear advantage over competitors, and so if carbon fibre was applied to these areas of the ultima and designed correctly taking into account mountings, forces ect using FEA, improvements could be made. ALL i need is some posistve feedback to justify the design and project.

As much as I admire your objectives, I think most will be unwilling for you to 'learn on their dollar' so to speak - especially on something as safety critical as a suspension component!

Good luck though...

[Scotty-Boy]

Make them out of marine ply... my new favourite material

[d3vine]

I for one would like to see carbon fiber calipers. I'm sure it can greatly reduce the rotating mass. So carbon fiber/magnesium wheels, carbon ceramic rotors, carbon fibre calipers, you get the drift...

[Scuffers]

d3vine said:

I for one would like to see carbon fiber calipers. I'm sure it can greatly reduce the rotating mass. So carbon fiber/magnesium wheels, carbon ceramic rotors, carbon fibre calipers, you get the drift...

LOL!

why would you want to use CF for the brake calipers? (hint, F1 boys don't).

good as CF is, it's not the universal best solution for everything...

[LuckyP]

As well as my splitter, I'll have a front and rear carbon clip please. 40Kg saving?

Thanks

[Captain Slog]

LuckyP said:

As well as my splitter, I'll have a front and rear carbon clip please. 40Kg saving?

Thanks

Didn't someone buy the first carbon fibre bodied Ultima that the factory produced (I believe it had a nickname) but was found to weigh more than the G/F version?

[LuckyP]

Captain Slog said:

LuckyP said:

As well as my splitter, I'll have a front and rear carbon clip please. 40Kg saving?

Thanks

Didn't someone buy the first carbon fibre bodied Ultima that the factory produced (I believe it had a nickname) but was found to weigh more than the G/F version?

Not done very well then!

[GTRCLIVE]

It was thicker alot thicker.... but would probably have survived a 30mph Crash test quite well.... maybe even the impact that LuckyP had recently....

[GTRCLIVE]

The only real way of loosing the weight on a Ultima is either fitting a Lighter engine/gearbox, or doing a complete redesign of the chassis....

Apart from the 20Kgs you could save by spending 8K on a set of Carbon Discs that is...

[deadscoob]

I thought the carbon body wasn't light because it was wet lay?

[BogBeast]

deadscoob said:

I thought the carbon body wasn't light because it was wet lay?

[Scuffers]

GTRCLIVE said:

The only real way of loosing the weight on a Ultima is either fitting a Lighter engine/gearbox, or doing a complete redesign of the chassis....

Apart from the 20Kgs you could save by spending 8K on a set of Carbon Discs that is...

from one of Peter's posts saying his was some 1075Kg's, I would tend to agree with you, that's not really very much when you consider the weight of the engine and box.

Be interested to know what one comes in at with a LS7 motor...

Problem with CF is that unless it's properly designed, and made int he right pre-peg, etc etc. it;s offten no better than GRP and sometimes substantially worse, doing CF properly costs a st load, more so now that Airbus and Boeing are both sucking the world dry of CF materials.