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Post by stuboyle on Jul 14, 2010 13:16:57 GMT -5
The thing about competing aero packages is that there is no disincentive restrict the amount of turbulent air of the back of the car unless the rules can be written to prevent this. Well, I guess F1 did it.
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Post by indycals on Jul 14, 2010 13:22:48 GMT -5
Technically it's not a Dallara - it's an Indy Car built to Indy Car specs by Dallara and bodied by anyone who want's to do an aero package. If Lola does an aero package, that car will be called a Lola, etc. So are you saying its basically a Dallara tub? What about the undertray? All I know is Dallara is building a rolling chassis to Indy Car specs and anyone and everyone is invited to supply the aero package. I assume the undertray will be part of the specs. They were specifically asked "could we see a Dallara-Lola" and the reply was that it's an Indy car built by Dallara and badged by whomever owns the intellectual property for the aero package. Dallara is also building a manufacturing facility in Speedway IN, and they are offering a $150,000 discount for the first 28 cars purchased by teams based in Indy. |
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Post by indydog on Jul 14, 2010 13:34:14 GMT -5
So more or less, we ended up with a Indy kit car?
Why do I have this sneaky suspicion there were politics involved in this? I'll reserve my opinion until we see what shows up in May of 2012...
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Post by stuboyle on Jul 14, 2010 14:00:28 GMT -5
I didn't have a chance to watch the online live stuff. I will do that tonight but what I read on SpeedTV.com (which seemed to be pretty detailed) sounded good to me. Better than just picking a single manufacturer. Still, you wonder if it will be cost effective for multiple manufactures to build aero kits.
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Post by Chris on Jul 14, 2010 14:19:39 GMT -5
Sorry a bit dyslexic this morning CFD is Computational Fluid Dynamics and is used with CAD Files. There are two racing cars currently running that are total CFD cars, the Acura P2 car and the Virgin F1 car. Basically the car is designed, tested , tuned and then built based of this program, Nick Wirth in the UK is the Master and designed both cars, They design the car on the CAD type program, then using CFD the car is Aero ( simulated fluid not air same thing basically, tested and tuned , this includes all aspects, drafting, wind from all sides, car behind another, weather and millions of more simulations. Eliminating wind tunnel testing-tunning and actual on track testing. Then using CAD/Cam it is built. The Acura P2 sports racer was based on using the same size tires front and rear, and with some minor tweaks was an instant winner right out of the box, the Virgin car was/is still a works in progress currently running in F1 but has had a few problems, like the size of the fuel tank was miscalculated thus the car couldnt run a full race distance (re-fuelling is banned in F1) so that meant a complete redeisgn because the larger fuel tank changed the wheelbase and all the Aerodynamics... They have faced a few other challenges but you can see the way CFD works... So on this car millions of Aero/Body packages can be designed, tuned and tested before a wheel ever turns....I have some pics of this program in use I will post..
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Post by stuboyle on Jul 14, 2010 15:26:26 GMT -5
@chris,
I did see a show about how the designed the Acura car. Very interesting. It would seem designing a car using CFD instead of a wind tunnel would save a lot of money. Though, the cost of the hardware, software and getting qualified engineers to run it would still not make is cheap.
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Post by Chris on Jul 14, 2010 15:58:44 GMT -5
So they claim they knocked the price of the Chassis down to over a Miilion, which appearently is cheap, excuse me I was Choking..............., so would it be more expensive to go with CFD? Also with the economy I think you could find a bunch of laid-off aerospace engineers that know a ton about the CFD software!!!! Or I understand you can hire Nick Wirth Engineering for a cost effective rate... This is how all race cars will be designed from now on so investment now will return in the future 10 fold..Chris
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Post by mrindy77 on Jul 14, 2010 16:19:53 GMT -5
Sounds kind of cool to me...the IndyCar transformer and by the way it reads the aero package suppliers must have parts available to all.
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Post by indycals on Jul 14, 2010 17:00:35 GMT -5
So they claim they knocked the price of the Chassis down to over a Miilion, Where did you hear that? They gave a figure of just over $300,000 for the chassis + $70K for the aero package. |
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Post by indy on Jul 14, 2010 17:28:52 GMT -5
Here's the genius of this plan. Hypothetical situation:
Memo Gidley pulls together some cash for a new chassis to attempt to qualify for the 2012 Indy 500. He gets to the track and find out his aero package from Swift is 7 mph off the pace. Well he can't afford another $400k chassis but in this case he only needs another $70k aero package to get back in the game.
I'm remaining optimistic on this right now.
Jordan
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Post by Chris on Jul 14, 2010 17:35:03 GMT -5
Randy Bernard said " We are proud to announce We have been able to reduce costs to just over 1 million dollars "  ?? it was on the Video. |
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Post by trevor83 on Jul 15, 2010 0:09:25 GMT -5
So they claim they knocked the price of the Chassis down to over a Miilion, which appearently is cheap, excuse me I was Choking..............., so would it be more expensive to go with CFD? Also with the economy I think you could find a bunch of laid-off aerospace engineers that know a ton about the CFD software!!!! Or I understand you can hire Nick Wirth Engineering for a cost effective rate... This is how all race cars will be designed from now on so investment now will return in the future 10 fold..Chris The million figure would be for the engine lease and chassis, not the chassis alone. |
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Post by indy on Jul 15, 2010 0:57:20 GMT -5
Maybe they were referring to total cost of the car? Being chassis and engine costs? Maybe?
Jordan
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Post by Chris on Jul 15, 2010 3:51:58 GMT -5
Either way they seem quite Proud of a car that should have been offered at 300k complete, it still limits the little guys, for a moment I thought Tony G. was back!!
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Post by trevor83 on Jul 15, 2010 7:15:47 GMT -5
Either way they seem quite Proud of a car that should have been offered at 300k complete, it still limits the little guys, for a moment I thought Tony G. was back!! The more you say the car should cost less, the more you hurt the little guy. The little guy doesn't have the resources of the larger companies to defray the high cost to supply high tech stuff as such a low cost and quantity. There were more of the little guys supplying parts in the early days of TG's model. |
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Post by Chris on Jul 15, 2010 10:59:05 GMT -5
If the car is more affordable to the little guy, then he has more money to invest in developement of parts that the Big teams can buy from them, actually saving them money in R&D. Everybody scores. Tony G. did make it so the little guys could race, by subsidising them, but that has its draw backs because too much of the Sanctioning bodies capital is tied up in that program.. On the good side though, we wouldnt have some of the teams now if they hadnt had Tony G. around to help out... Indy has always been about the little guy being able to win the big prize just like the mega teams, but when the initial outlay straps them so bad what kind of a chance do they have.....
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Post by Calvin on Jul 15, 2010 12:36:36 GMT -5
Like always, I dont know what to think of this early on?
My first impressions is its like an art project more than an engineered master piece. But what do I know.....I'll just check back here in 1.5 years and see what its like then.....
Basically Im not to worried about it.
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Post by Chris on Jul 16, 2010 15:28:24 GMT -5
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Post by stuboyle on Jul 28, 2010 13:28:32 GMT -5
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Post by Chris on Jul 28, 2010 14:27:13 GMT -5
www.indycar.com has started a Design contest that they actually are going to show to the body work manufacturers, that clearly shows what will be and what wont when it comes to the Dallara package... check it out,, Chris
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Post by stuboyle on Jul 28, 2010 16:50:38 GMT -5
www.indycar.com has started a Design contest that they actually are going to show to the body work manufacturers, that clearly shows what will be and what wont when it comes to the Dallara package... check it out,, Chris Tony Cotman expects the aero kits to look very similar, implying there is one optimal solution to the problem and all the kits will converge to essentially the same solution. |
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Post by Chris on Jul 28, 2010 22:05:45 GMT -5
I have started thinking about the aero-design alot, and will end up drawing something, I worked at GM design as a Pre-production and aerodynamics design engineer, and I got some ideas, I dont like the fact that the floor, shape of the nose the air inlets on the side pods are part of the fixed package because it does limit some things, but following the thinking of a safer car I think the area between the wheels can be changed significantly and effectively, if fact I really dont see the need for a front wing per se' well we shall see I hate to think there is not enough new ideas out there not to offer some variety..
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?? it was on the Video. 
OK these are a couple of the the Other entrants BAT with Alan Mertins, who If I remember was on the Galmer design team and Swift who has been making open wheel cars for years... I understude the original concept called for some sort of design that eliminated any wheel to wheel contact (the Airborne Factor) as well as increased side protection... The Dallara doesnt follow that... That is why I posted the comment of "Better Safe than Sorry" Both of these designs look much more advanced than Dallara and look to be more Safety minded .... Maybe they didnt offer o build a Factory at the track???