Pictures of the X2 progress in chronological order

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Construction Update: Making the body

I started by glueing together foam blocks. Then I printed out the profile of the body and cut it out. I glued that on to the side of the foam to use as my template.
I sanded the foam down to the desired template profile.
I laid the fiberglass resin material on top of the foam. I let that stand for about 24 hours until dry.
This is how it looks after I remove the foam from the inside of the body. I don't like it. It contains a lot of air pockets, bulges and rough spots. For my first time working with fiberglass, it isn't too bad, but not as good as I would like it.
Here you can see my first attempt at making the body. In the background is my 2nd attempt. The 2nd attempt already looks more promising than the first.

Friday, April 6, 2007

Locating the CG

Location of the CG relative to the axles and the ground plane.

Locating the Center of Gravity is important to help figure out the handling characteristics of the car. CATIA has a very simple way of calculating the CG of an assembly. After all the individual component densities are applied, an overall mass and location of CG can be found. Currently the mass of the car is 2.36 Kg (5.2 lbs).