Carl Fausett

Last October, I nudged a tire wall outside of turn 8 at Mid-Ohio in the last race of the season. Destroyed the front clip (fiberglass) of course, but also took out the radiator, oil cooler, power steering cooler, and bent up a bunch of forward sheet metal. Bent the Ackerman arm too, but not the frame.

Here are the steps to the repair so far for those that are interested. We plan on doing a semi-lay-down radiator install with the intercooler right beside it.

I'll add pics as we go along in the coming weeks.

Carl Fausett

Damage we found once the front clip was removed. Oil cooler, power steering cooler, radiator, upper sheet metal and a bit more. Fortunately, the frame was not bent.

Carl Fausett

Here the damaged frame extensions have been chopped off and most of the bent sheet metal too. A little bit of the sheet metal was still needed, but that was easily straightened.

Carl Fausett

Weld plates with internal threads have been made and here Myles is TIG-welding them to the structure.

Carl Fausett

the finished plate is ground down to the shape of the welds, so all the extra weight/material is removed.

The frame section and cross-brace below the OEM radiator that we chopped off and threw away weighed about 15 lbs. It ran forward as you know to hold the impact absorbers for the 5-MPH front bumper which are long gone.

Our new front section will bolt to these plates and be lighter. It only has to hold the radiators and the hood pins.

Carl Fausett

We need to know how much room we have to work with to place the radiators. What the engineers call a "space envelope".

I made these bucks using the undamaged right side as a pattern. Now we know the shape of the front clip without having the front clip on the car. This is our space envelope - we will put the radiator, intercooler, oil cooler and air filters in their best locations.

Where the intercooler had partially shrouded the radiator by being in front of it, we are going to design them now to be side-by-side, so each gets fresh cold air.

FredR

Carl,

Good recovery. When it call goes back together again will be there be a bolt on structural member to tie both sides together or is the system stable without such?

Rgds

Fred

Mongo

Very interesting thread on repairs! Keep us posted. I hope you get the car back on the track soon.

dr bob

Nice recovery so far. Nerfs with tire walls and other perhaps moving impediments may inspire you to put an aluminum channel across the front similar to what the factory used as a bumper. Only a little more frame-structural. With tubing support for the corners, of course. Was the previous nose a hand-layup FRP? Seems like a chance to do a CF shell if you have the time and budget. In the wayback early years of CF, my little sports-racer ended up with a laminated aluminum over CF honeycomb for a monocoque tub. The original LeGrand FRP body weight about 70 lbs. The replacement in CF weighs eleven pounds. The whole car weighed 370 pounds RTR, most weight in the steel roll cage. We got a ruling allowing for a Ti roll cage, but lost our contact at the airplane factory that was doing the Ti work for us. Regardless, saving 50 pounds on the body was huge. I described it as "strong enough to hold up the paint and not flap in the wind." I tested the elasticity of the rule book a lot.

Mark R.

Do any of the 928 racers ever convert to a manual steering system?

Just curious. Seems like you could free up space, and eliminate lots of weight.

mark kibort

wow! amazing work Carl.... REALLY!!!

Carl Fausett

Yes, there will be a structural aluminum cross-brace that connects the two frame rails at the front.
But remember - there already is a structural chrome-moly cross-brace mounted right at the point of the loading (best).

We think it was that frame brace that saved the frame tubing from bending in this accident.

That front lower frame brace is discussed here: http://www.928motorsports.com/parts/...rame_brace.php

Carl Fausett

Yes. You are correct. Here is the webpage, the description, and the weights of our composite front clip. Our clip replace both front fenders, the nose, and the hood all-in-one.

http://www.928motorsports.com/parts/front_clip.php

Carl Fausett

ha-ha I just noticed the insert of the two feet on the scale shows the wrong weight. It shows like 5 lbs. No way!

I'll fix...

mark kibort

maybe the guy weighs 270 and its going around the second time.