Alfa Romeo ONLY please!
kevin
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by kevin »

Md , great idea on clutch housing . How did you tie in th e collar around the bearing shaft to the two " straps" that are going to the mount points .
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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Hi Kevin,

The Housing Spider

PART 1

The clutch housing brace, spider, stiffening or whatever you want to call it is made like this:

The alloy housing around the input shaft bearing is first first machined down a little to make sure the casting is perfectly round.

This is followed by "shrink" fitting a steel ring around this machined part. The shrink fit is important so that it is a very tight fit.

Next the bracing parts are welded onto the steel ring.

HOWEVER>

Before the welds are made, the brace "stand offs" are positioned into place and the usual bolts that clamp the housing to the gearbox are installed and fully tightened up to keep the stand offs in the correct position once they are welded as the welds will naturally "pull" components around otherwise.

Housing Vent Gap

The second part of this housing stiffening involves the installation of a piece of aluminium into the housing vent cut out. This will restore the full circle perimeter stiffness of the housing. Be sure that during the welding, the housing is fully clamped all round to a solid and straight base to prevent warping during the weld.

You can drill a few 8mm holes in this plate to restore some breathing but the residial cut out in the gearbox side will suffice anyway.


So to summarise.

Install ring.
Bolt up stand offs.
Place bracings in place and weld up.
Weld in housing vent plate.

NOTE : Due to the extra combined thickness of the stand offs,clutch housing and gearbox members, you will need longer bolts to clamp it all together

The minimum braces would be two but you can fit up to four (see below).The two brace version lives on in the Flying Brick. Never broke a housing since.

PART 2 , Revised Version

The first two photos show a curved 4 brace version that gets around the crossmember issues and is inherently stronger. This is now the version on the Cab.

The key to numbers in the photo.

1> Stiffening plate
2> Securing ring
3> Curved bracing web
4> Fixing extensions
5> Lower web
6> 4mm packer
7> Longer bolts
Attachments
Clutch Housing Bracings 1.jpg
Clutch Housing Bracings 1.jpg (125.48 KiB) Viewed 8641 times
Clutch Housing Bracings 2.jpg
Clutch Housing Bracings 2.jpg (138.22 KiB) Viewed 8641 times
09Clutch housing bracing.JPG
09Clutch housing bracing.JPG (96.06 KiB) Viewed 8942 times
10Clucth housing Installed.JPG
10Clucth housing Installed.JPG (79.85 KiB) Viewed 8942 times
Last edited by MD on Sun May 06, 2012 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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scott.venables
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by scott.venables »

Well you certainly seem capable enough!

Thanks again,
Scott
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by kterkkila »

Impressive Mike, impressive! Thumps up!
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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

One piece driveshaft update.

It doesn't work.

My shaft experiment with a one piece shaft using a rubber coupling up front and a slip joint with UV at the rear is a harmonic resonance failure. It produces a major vibration around 5-5.7K rpm. Outside of this band it is great.

To my annoyance I discovered that there is a (factory)misalignment between the crankshaft centre and the clutch input shaft centre of a sufficent amount to upset the UV rotation and the slip joint whilst extremely convenient for shaft removal is contributing to the out of balance problem at high revs.

Having said that. I still think that a version on this theme using two CVs facing each other in a one piece carbon fibre shaft would be fine. A slip joint is not required if one the CV is of plunge type.

However, seeing I don't have carbon fibre at my disposal, I have made a new shaft that has gone back to a two piece with a rubber coupling up, centre bearing and two CVs facing each other at the rear. This has fixed the problem and it is now running sweet.
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Giuliettaevo2
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by Giuliettaevo2 »

For my Giulietta i'm going with the modified propshaft of a bmw 540i.

I've cut off the front bmw coupler and will use the front Alfa coupler there. I've made new engine mounts to place the engine straight in the car ( like bmw/mercedes and all the others do..). the rear half of the bmw prop remains original.

The bmw axle comes with a rubber coupling up front, then a u-joint before the centre bearing and a rear CV joint.

On the rear i'll use an adapter to fit the CV joint to the gearboxfork.

Only thing that,s not so convenient is the shifting mechanism... That doesn't really fit anymore since the Alfa prop has a thinner piece where it passes the mechanism and the beemer prop has the U-joint in that place.

I'm hoping the original Alfa Guibo will take out the resonance and that th rest will just be bulletproof like it is on the beemer. :)
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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Just so you don't think the Cab has faded into transaxle history, here it is doing some track duty at an all Italian event .

Actually it is going very well and I am gradually cleaning up all my little production worts and bugs. The handling is superb and the brakes are nothing short of sensational. The transmission is all new and the revised prop shaft is good too. On the later, Daniel and I have designed a metal shroud for the original Alfa donut and currently giving that set up a flogging to see how it stands up to racing. So far so good although engine alignment is critical.

If the shroud passes my stringent testing, I will do a small production run of them and make them available for sale at a fair price. These will be for the 2 litre couplings initially. Watch this space..

In the interim I would be interested to know how much interest there is out there from you guys for fitting a metal shroud to your front rubber coupling.
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Cab doing Regularity 1.jpg
Cab doing Regularity 1.jpg (110.33 KiB) Viewed 8582 times
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by Eldorado »

Quote from MD,
"In the interim I would be interested to know how much interest there is out there from you guys for fitting a metal shroud to your front rubber coupling."

G'day MD,

l don't fully understand how it works at this stage, but l'm keen to see how it functions on the Cab though. Can you explain it.

Cheers, see you in my mirrors buddy.

PS,
Good to see the Cab out of your bedroom and on the track, looking good. :)
Any more photos?
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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

It's not true that I have the ENTIRE car in the bedroom...I have only ever been caught sleeping with the gearbox .. :mrgreen:

A simple explanation of a metal shroud around the Alfa rubber coupling would be to say that it encases the coupling in a way that limits the flexing of the rubber components so as to prevent excessive flexing that ultimately causes the individual segments to break away from the steel former.

There are various designs around. Some completely encapsulate whilst others only partially so. This is all to do with how much restriction the designer wants to limit the flexing because flexing in both the horizontal and rotational directions is still required. Too much and you wind up with an almost solid joint. Too little and the value of the shroud is limited so that it may as well not be there.

This is why I am doing some of my own testing to come up with a satisfactory trade off predominanlty for racing.


Photos..yeah got a wheel barrow full of them. What I would really like to do is to compile a YouTube video of some of the events. However, I have had more fun and games coming up with a good camera set up than I have had problems with the whole car !! :D Fortunately, I finaly got some gear and it is now sorted so that the coming events should be well photographed and I will post some video soon.
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kevin
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by kevin »

Well md as you know I swear by the coupling cage ( two half segment) that encloses the rubber coupling. Wiith 192kw on the wheels I still have no issues and couplings still look brand new . the cage have taken a small beating though . I believe that if the engine and gearbox are perfectly in line with and engine stay ( bracket) combined with lightweight clutch then the prop set up is more than adequate using standard couplings ( cage on front only)with out having to go cv route .
Our fastest car here currently revs to 9000rpm with this set up and zero problems .
The lightweight clutch unit that the guys are using has also stopped all the broken clutch housings .
Oh are you about to lap that Ferrari again :oops:
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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Hi Kevin,
Oh are you about to lap that Ferrari again
Always a good duel with these guys. We get 'em under brakes and the corners and they get us on the straights. This photo is on the main straight.

As always, increasing the power to weight is where my wallet starts to develop a hernia.. :D
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MALDI »

It would be a great picture if that red car weren't blocking the view of the Alfa! 8)
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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Hahaa Maldi. 2013 might be the year. I hope so. Got some plans in the pipeline but under wraps for now. :mrgreen:
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Finally here's some footage of the Cab looking for fares at Lakeside Park Raceway in Queensland, Australia if you want to Google the track.

Apologies for the sound quality. It's due to microphone overload. I am working on sorting that out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9AKvNVM94A&feature=plcp

and here's some of junior mixing it with a different mob at the same track.(on the day)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9maeCud7Ckc&feature=plcp
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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Some further evolutions of the cab:-

Initially running with 48mm throttle bodies tuned for bottem end torque.The TB's came from a Hayabusa motor cycle. Headers worked well and easy to install.
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20 Engine exhaust side.jpg
20 Engine exhaust side.jpg (67.3 KiB) Viewed 7662 times
17 Engine intake side.jpg
17 Engine intake side.jpg (78.5 KiB) Viewed 7662 times
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