CAD Drawings

The CAD process of the car and many parts in Solidworks was a very important and challenging process in the designing and building of the car. Solidworks is a powerful CAD program, allowing the design of separate parts and then fitting these parts together to show the proper mating. The biggest challenge was learning how to use program. The team had very limited experience with Solidworks, most of this experience coming from engineering classes building simple parts, but nothing like a car. Kevin Gee spent many hours designing many of the parts to make sure they fit together and have meaningful dimensions. As Kevin Gee notes

“Since the car was custom made, many of the parts had to be fabricated and the team did not have solid dimensions on which to base the drawings. As the CAD process went on, I became faster and learned more reliable ways to building parts. In the early stages of design of the roll cage I would have to start an entire drawing over if it needed to be redesigned. Now its just a matter of making changes on the current drawings”.

The motor plates, frame rails, and roll cages were completely designed in Solidworks before fabrication of the parts was even started. The fiberglass outer body also had to be drawn up in order to determine the parameters of the frame rails and roll cage. A lot of time went into getting the correct measurements of the body due to the unusual streamline shape of this part. Once, the body drawing was complete, the frame rails were designed to fit within the body. The frame rail angles were specified to be a half inch away from the body inside surface so that the body could be attached with brackets that would fit this gap and correct for any tolerance errors. The roll cage was then designed to exceed the standards of the Souther California Timing Association standards (SCTA).

Motor Plates

Body Design

Frame and Roll Cage Design

Rear Axle

Front Axle

Full Assembly