Casey’s Blog

I have been playing around with the rear suspension and I believe that I finally have a design that I like.

Did some more work on building some technical drawings for the assembly. Should have the print ready for a design review to clear the assembly for manufacturing very soon. Here is a little teaser.

I have decided to change the spherical bearing to an Aurora Bearing model HAB-5T. This will allow more movement and eliminate the use of cumbersome rod end spacers.

I wanted to experiment with a self-jigging upright design for the RH250. The upright would be based around driveline components purchased from Taylor Race Engineering. The cv joints will be of the tulip style and the wheel bolt pattern will be 4×100.

In the cross section you can see the audi wheel bearing enclosed in a m

achined sleeve. The sleeve has a lip on one end and an internal retaining clip on the opposite end to prohibit the hub from moving in the upright. This is a loose press fit.

The wheel bearing sleeve will be directly welded to the self-jigging steel plates that will be welded together to form the upright.

I will have to get a better render of the entire rear suspension assembly but for getting the point across this will suffice. A few changes were made to the preliminary design model. The first being that the angle of the control arms will be parrallel to the ground plane at ride height. This was changed such that the spherical bearings located in the upper and lower control arms will need to pivot through full bump and jounce. If normal ride height is located at anything but 0° spheical bearing travel the chance of binding up the bearing gets high.

This was experienced as one of the major down fall’s of the 2010 car – yielded rod ends due to binding under extreme travel conditions.

I have found my very favorite pictures from the event. This was the second competition for the University of Massachusetts – Lowell in three years. We did not place very high, but we all worked our hardest and the event was the most memorable event I have experienced in college.