The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Billet alloy would be the strongest Alloy.
But the cost would be ridiculous once machined.
Unless your aiming to Race your Sprint personally I wouldn’t bother.
Stick to the standard uprights.

Was there a Special tuning part available.
What does Ken Clarke use.

TrustNo1 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 4:07 am

Boost All The Dollys wrote: ↑Sat Jan 29, 2022 7:55 pm

Well, aluminium is 1/2 the weight, 2/3 the strength, so you need 4/3rds the thickness for equivalent strength, which works out about a 1/3 weight loss everything being equal.

Making it thicker doesn't always mean you are making it stronger.

Yeah, I know, which is why I’m mulling this all over and spending ages making sure that they would be just as strong, if not stronger. The main point where it would definitely need some improvement would be the upper ball joint mount as it’s long and has that bend in it.

For example, if you were to just make a like for like casting I’d imagine around this bend is where it would fail, either bending further or snapping (even the stock cast ones would fail here). The way to mitigate that would be to replace that with two plates running down either side, similar to the screenshot before. This would eliminate most of the flex in this area, and would be significantly lighter.

I do plan on doing a proper job of analysing this, maybe a scan to get the shape right and some FEA maybe some real world testing, before I even consider making them.

And yes, billet would be way stronger and way easier to produce, but the cost alone would be extortionate!! The side of billet you’d need, 80% wouldn’t be used anyway, which is why I was going on the part-fab route, which is fairly popular in drift circles to make new uprights to get better steering angle. They use some “aviation” grade aluminium, mainly 6061 or 7075 which is damn strong, almost as strong as most types of cast iron.

So in all, I’m not looking at just recasting and hoping for the best, I’m looking at re-engineering using modern materials which would greatly reduce the unsprung weight in the front

I'm sorry but i am really struggling why anyone would want to go through spending all this time and ultimately money to save 1KG remaking a part unless it is a serious race car where every 1000th/s matters.

TrustNo1 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 8:32 pm I'm sorry but i am really struggling why anyone would want to go through spending all this time and ultimately money to save 1KG remaking a part unless it is a serious race car where every 1000th/s matters.

To be honest, not all that much has been invested so far. I’m a Mech Engineer/Designer by trade, I do all this in my free time, and spent no money on materials yet. I do all this because it excites me and gives me something to do when I’m bored at home. And it’ll be more like 1.5kg per corner, or unsprung mass so it’s more like 3kg total, and effectively like 8kg or something. I think most people who are wanting to make their cars lighter for sportyness would kill to take 3kg lighter, I think even GRP bonnets might not save that much weight.

And yeah, it might be expensive in the end, and not be useful to 99% of people, but if it’s not for you, I’m not forcing it on anyone, I’m not saying you’ve got to get these parts. It’s just something I thought, hey that would be nice to have, which is pretty much every modification these days. And if someone else has the same thought as me, it means I’m not the only person that this sort of information would be useful for.

I don’t want any info I make, digital or otherwise, to be stuck behind a paywall. If someone wants the finished plans, I’d give it to them, but I‘ll be making sure that what I make is more than good enough. And doing everything digitally means I can experiment and test without putting any money down.