[WIP] Miura concept [FKA Codename Silvestros]

[Jeroen Ottens]

After a month of silence I thought it is time to make an update. Here is a photo of the chassis as it is now:

Not much has changed with respect to the digital model so the good news is that it is buildable.The bad news is that I discovered that I missed some essential gears in the gearbox so I'll have to redesign that. Even worse is that I somehow lost the digital files. So I'll have to design it all over again in LDCAD .

But the biggest update is actually not visible (yet), which is that I can now proudly announce that I will start a cooperation with Marco van Overbeeke for the design of the exterior. Marco has designed already the exterior of some real life cars (like the Dendrobium). You can find more of Marco's work on his website and instagram. I am superexcited to see what we can come up with in terms of design for this model.

If you are interested (and if it is allowed by the mods) I can share the sketches he will make here as well.

[Aventador2004]

Congrats on that great looking chassis, and best of luck on the exterior! 

[sm1995]

Beautiful chassis, love the use of red throughout for contrast. Hopefully you get permission to post some sketches, very exciting stuff.

[Leonardo da Bricki]

Chassis looks great! I sure hope you can post some sketches, that guy has some beautiful work!

 

[Maaboo the Witch]

V10 engine - that's awesome. 

[Lipko]

Looks good so far but don't you think the front part of the chassis is a bit too bulky? It will be quite hard to fit the hood to give proper proportions.

[Didumos69]

Great work sofar! Can you show a picture of the model without the wheels? Would love to see the details of the breaks. As for the sketches, I say post them. It is relevant, so what would be the problem?

Good luck with the collaboration!

[Jeroen Ottens]

On 17/02/2018 at 7:17 AM, Lipko said:

Looks good so far but don't you think the front part of the chassis is a bit too bulky? It will be quite hard to fit the hood to give proper proportions.

Yeah, that was bothering me as well. I had an idea of how to shorten it by two studs, but that didn't work so I went back to this solution. After your comment I started thinking again and now I may have a solution anyway, so I'll give that a try. So thanks for pushing me

On 17/02/2018 at 8:11 AM, Didumos69 said:

Great work sofar! Can you show a picture of the model without the wheels? Would love to see the details of the breaks. As for the sketches, I say post them. It is relevant, so what would be the problem?

Good luck with the collaboration!

The brakes can be seen in the first post, I'm sure you of all people can deduce the working from that .

I'll post another update with the first sketches when I have them.

[offroadcreations]

Very nice, lots of cool functions. Looks solid, just the way a chassis should be!

I'm excited for those sketches!

Edited February 18, 2018 by Offroadcreat1ons

[Jeroen Ottens]

Time for another update:

As you can see the engine is moved to the front which was a major headache operation I had to completely redesign 50% of the chassis. Especially the gear-dependent-4-wheel-steering-mechanism in the front proved to be a major obstacle to work around. Also the pushrod suspension blocked the engine from moving more forward. As a result the engine is nearly inside the passenger cabin area ...

On a more positive note, the paddleshifters are in and work flawlessly and also the gearbox now has all the gears it should have.

Question for me is now, should I keep the chassis as is and move on with the bodywork, or should I ditch the pushrod suspension in the front, rearrange the GD4WSM and move the engine more forward in a better position?
And what do you think of the dark azure with white and black for the interior?

[letsbuild]

I think it's going to have a hood longer than a Viper's by the time you're done! 

Either way, looks good so far!

[Isamudyson]

Wow such a big change in design.

out of curiosity why did you move the engine to the front?

[emielroumen]

The engine looks out of place all the way against the cabin. A bit further to the front without enlarging the front further would look better, at least that is my opinion. So: sacrifice  the pushrod suspension.

[Aventador2004]

Sacrifice the push rod I suggest, move the engine forward.

I love it otherwise.

[Jonfensu]

What if you remove two cylinders - the ones near on the cabin- , making a V8 instead? Also you could find a way to remove the block engine on one or both sides and conect the engine cylinders directly to the chassis. . I would not sacrifice the pushrod suspension, because the complexity and features of the model

[sm1995]

I say get rid of the pushrod suspension and move the engine back. Pushrod suspension is undeniably cool, but those proportions are going to be hard to work with. Also I've never seen a front engined car with pushrod suspension..so I think it would be a worthwhile sacrifice in the grand scheme of things 

[Leonardo da Bricki]

1. Remove 2 (or 4) cylinders from the rear of the engine.

2. Remove the pushrod suspension and move the engine forwards.

I think the dark azure/white/black interior sounds good. Go ahead and start the bodywork. Any color choice for the exterior? More of the same?

[brickless_kiwi]

Hi @Jeroen Ottens Im more of a lurker than a commentor, but since you made the decision to go with a more compact gearbox, Id match it with a compact V6 motor. I know Im the minority with keeping the pushrod suspension @sm1995 your fellow American Ken Blocks mustang and Escort both sport pushrod front ends, common to race cars admittedly not production cars.

 

[Didumos69]

I would also try to hold on to the pushrod suspension and would drop 2 cylinders and drop the engine blocks like @Jonfensu suggested. Either way, I like the idea of a long hood, I think it will allow your bodywork designer to come up with something very original.

[Kumbbl]

On 14.1.2018 at 8:59 AM, steph77 said:

Hi Jeroen,

Good jo until now. For the gearbox I would personally keep it simple and get place for other functions. I am sure your creativity will find a way to use this extra space

 

 

Same opinion here- a flawless working seq 4-speed box is enough... 

overall looks very promising / if there will be BI i will buy it dir sure...

[Jeroen Ottens]

Thx for your view on things everybody Even though the opinions are quite evenly split...
There is some sense in matching the complexity of the engine to the complexity of the gearbox (why would you need a V10 with a 4 speed gearbox?). I have modified the front suspension to see how much it would help and I can move the block 3 studs forward with a more standard double wishbone suspension. A stud more would have been nice, but it is not too bad. Of course making it a V8 would definitely give enough room...

And than there is still that relatively simply 4-speed gearbox... Just when two other great WIP topics are showing a 7-speed and an 8 speed gearbox . Maybe I should match the gearbox to the engine instead of the other way around

So I now have 3 option I guess:
1) Keep the suspension, shorten the engine to a V6
2) Redesign the suspension, shorten the engine to a V8
3) Redesign the suspension, keep the engine V10 and add 3-4 more gears to the gearbox

@Isamudyson: Reason for moving the engine to the front is my cooperation with Marco van Overbeeke. We agreed to work on a front-engine car and at the time I thought it would be an easy adjustment

 

[Rudivdk]

2 hours ago, Jeroen Ottens said:

So I now have 3 option I guess:
1) Keep the suspension, shorten the engine to a V6
2) Redesign the suspension, shorten the engine to a V8
3) Redesign the suspension, keep the engine V10 and add 3-4 more gears to the gearbox

Ouch, tough call this one...

Overall I think 7 or 8 speeds should be possible in this scale, but your combination with steering modes makes the 4 speeds a unique feature on its own. So I guess I would go with the first option, maybe adding some cosmetic goodies like turbocharger or something. Feels to me like 'normal' double wishbone is a bit meager compared to the rest of this awesome build.

[Aventador2004]

3 a v10 is a rare sight.

[Didumos69]

You already have some very special features, 4wd, brakes, 4D+N+R gearbox, gear-dependent steering... I would size the engine to the gearbox and hold on to the front suspension. The LEGO cylinders are too big for this scale anyway, so a V6 would still be big enough to be impressive. So I woul go for option 1. And btw, don't feel intimidated by other WIPs with 7 and 8 speed gearboxes, you've already been there .

[Kumbbl]

Same here... and for me a nifty and well designed and well working(!!) front suspension adds way more value to a car than some boring additional vylinders..  so keep the v6 and the outstanding combo 4-speed + gear dependend steering mode