I'm still hella obsessed with small form-factor racing machines

"Wheelerguy" (wheelerguy) 02/09/2020 at 02:00 • Filed to: SHELL ECO-MARATHON, fan car, Musings

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I can’t stop looking at them and thinking of ways to turn them into monsters.

My new insane-asylum idea is a fan car based on designs similar to those (not the exact ones, of course) but powered by two Ducati L-twin engines in a flat X configuration coupled to a flywheel KERS system.

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > Wheelerguy 02/09/2020 at 02:30

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These tend to be very unstable(when I participated in the Shell Eco-marathon, rollovers were very common in the prototype class) , so the fan might actually work. Scaling up a bit might be useful though, as these are properly tiny, as they often designed around the smallest/lightest (girl) driver they can find

Wheelerguy > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer 02/09/2020 at 03:14

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Scaling up will be inevitable—my proposed hybrid X4 or NA 4-rotor hybrid powertrain (to keep it in the spirit of the fan) wouldn’t fit. That said, I reckon even a piddly 2-stroke can do nicely for something just slightly bigger.

MultiplaOrgasms > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer 02/09/2020 at 03:32

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Sounds a highly suspenseful but also boring sport

Nom De Plume > Wheelerguy 02/09/2020 at 10:19

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Now that is something to contemplate over your Sunday morning coffee.

Might I suggest using a recumbent with fairings as your starting point. Those solar -racers are really really flimsy and uncomfortable with atrocious sight lines that don’t include side or rear so much as degrees of slightly ahead.  

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > MultiplaOrgasms 02/09/2020 at 13:24

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It’s more an engineering challenge than a sport. 

MiniGTI - now with XJ6 > Wheelerguy 02/09/2020 at 20:07

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For some reason the top pic made me think of squished XJ220.