Derek
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Posts posted by Derek
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My guess is they got tacked really well during assembly and never got the final pass. They just broke too perfectly to have been full welded.
Derek
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Here's a link to The lnfo I received from them http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=125998
It's at the end
De
thats a good point. I am driving from Jax. Is there another website or does anyone know what time these events start? Thanks. -
Sounds great. I'm coming over on Tuesday for the car show. I need some inspiration and drooling over those cars should help. I'm bringing the patterns with me so If you want to check them out let me know. PM me and I'll give you my cell #.
Derek
lol no. they are more of the prissy and likes to look good in the passenger seat type friends.... but hey they are pretty damn good at that... lol but im actually in the stages of figuring out what i want to order for megasquirting my car.. maybe we can help eachother out and learn as we go... -
Will deliver to convention or will ship
I'm listing this for a friend of mine.
Triple Mikuni 44 carbs
Intake manifold
Velocity stacks
K&N air filters
Chrome fuel fittings for daisy chain arrangement as well as single inlet fittings
Owners manual
Carbs have been in storage for 10 years but are currently on a running car. ( he's removing them this weekend)
$1300.00 firm
Derek
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No problem.
Any of those friends in Ocala know anything about Meggasquirt
Derek
when you get this done id love to see it im in daytona and have a few friends in ocala..... -
Update?
Nothing good to update. My business picked up considerably which is a good thing for my finances but a bad thing for my extra curricular activities! I'm in the middle of a very large project that should leave me with enough time and money to finish the patterns and castings. Then comes the scary part. The EFI stuff.
This is definitely not a dead project but it's going to take a lot longer (they always do) than I thought. See the trick to pulling off big projects is to under estimate your time by about 90 percent, otherwise these things would seem impossible.
Thanks for the interest
Derek
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Anyone have any idea what the start times are for the events? I'm mostly interested in the car show. I looked here http://flza.com/agenda.htm but there are no times listed.
Thanks
Derek
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Well at the rate I'm going on my patterns I'm sure you'll have me beat as well.
Great work!!!
Derek
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Thanks Paul your timing is perfect. I was hosting my pictures on my earthlink account and I'm changing providers. I followed your instructions and it worked like a charm.
Great work
Derek
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Well I managed to get a little more work done on the patterns. Unfortunately work keeps getting in the way. I hate when that happens. This is the top side of the front manifold. I switched from corian as the pattern material to urethane tooling board. It carves a lot faster than the corian and it's a lot easier to work with. This is a shot of the roughing cut with a 1/2†cutter.
Here's a shot of the finished piece after about 12 hours of machining.
The square blocks on top of the throttle shaft bosses are so I can locate the center of the boss for machining.
After I have the manifold casting clamped in the mill I'll map out the location of each block with an edge finder and then use that data to program in the machine ops. At this point I'm going to finish up the core box for the front manifold and go ahead and cast and machine it. This way If I have to make some changes I'll only have to modify one pattern.
Derek
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i've always used WD40 when porting heads. do you think soap/wax would work better?
I use bees wax for saw blades, spray cooking oil (Pam) for sanding disks and Tap magic for aluminum on burrs. The wax on burrs has a tendency to load up the tool.
Derek
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3-6% depending on the alloy and thickness is the normal amount of shrink.
If it comes out a little small, an easy fix is to make a squeeze mold and glue little squares of wood that are the desired thickness on the original pattern and coat it in pattern-material (bondo) and squeeze it again. Then make another test run. If u need actual instuctons let me know.
If you end up having to do all that you may consider changing the set up over to an investment casting, the casting cost will go down alot not to mention a glass like finish. In DFW you can get stuff cast for $12-$15 a LB in shell.
I'm not familiar with that method to enlarge the pattern. But there's a lot about pattern making I'm not familiar with!!!
All of my plates and core boxes are indexed so I can get them back in the machine quickly. I then re carve only the area's that need work. If its a large fix like when I totally screw up (yea it happens) It's usually quicker to start over with fresh material. I have 2 CNC machines and I don't mind running them 24 hours straight so I tend to let the machines do the work if I can. Plus they do a much better job than I could. I'd starve as a pattern maker If I had to do it by hand.
Derek
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I think I'll stop working on my manifold and start making a pattern for a valve cover!!!
Derek
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Hey Derek,
Nice pattern. Do you have to account for shrink by making the pattern oversized? If so by what percent? It always looks like the Cannon manifolds have shrunk and are too short when you try to line them up with the ports. Could this be why?
Thanks Jeff
Thanks
Yea shrink can be a real problem. Sand casting metal is still a black art. There are many areas that can affect the size of the part. I usually use 3/16†per foot for shrinkage. Old school “saw and sand†pattern makers use shrink rules that are oversize rulers. I simply scale my model in 3D space and I'm good to go. Hitting all six ports on the first try with a single manifold would be tough. On something like that I would put in extra money to adjust the core box after we poured a few. This is why I'm casting mine in two separate pieces. I also made the final diameter where the port meets the head a little smaller. I'm going to machine a jig plate out of steel that will match the ports and bolt pattern of the head. I'll clamp that to the manifold and use it to drill the mounting holes and match the ports. If I cast anymore manifolds to sell I'll adjust the core boxes accordingly.
Most patterns need a little adjustment after the first pour. I do a lot of replacement parts for old cigar making machinery. The plans I get are from the 40's. I'll make the pattern exactly like the print and the final part will always be off a little. I think there were a lot of changes made on machines back then that were never reflected on the plans. Probably a case of the machinist walking over to the pattern maker and saying “ move this boss over .050†and never telling engineering!
Derek
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I've been abusing a Syncrowave 250 that I bought used about 15 years ago and it's never missed a beat.
Derek
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Derek, that is awesome. I'm very interested in how much this will cost you. Is it going to be remotely affordable for you? I've had some indeas for things I'd want cast, but always assumed it was out of reach for the ordinary joe.
Very impressive.
Hi Sven
I would normally charge around $5000.00 minimum for a set of tooling of this complexity. Probably more considering I'm doing all of the concept and design work as well. But everything is relative in that I'll have a ton of time in this before I'm finished. I'm lucky in that I have enough free time on the machines that I can sneak it in a little at a time.
Fortunately the first set of castings are free because I'm friends with the foundry. After that I'm not sure what they're going to charge.
Before I started doing patterns I assumed I needed to pour my own metal because none of the foundries would want to mess with me. Then I came to find that there are quite a few small foundries that are more than happy to pour small runs. Especially if you pay cash! The only thing is they can be leery of working with novice pattern makers. If he gives you a price on a piece and they have to ram it up 3 or 4 times just to get a good mold they're not going to be very happy. Most small foundries are hurting right now so you won't have much trouble finding one that will work with you.
Derek
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Wow! That looks really cool! What size endmill did you have to use for finishing? What did you do the programming with?
Thanks
I used a 1/4†ball mill for the finish pass. I used Rhino to design the part and Visual Mill for the cam programing.
Derek
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You were right, Derek! I stumbled across a small foundry in Costa Mesa that was agreeable to do the pours if I can supply decent forms or cores. So my job just got a bit easier as well! Thanks for that suggestion on finding one---strange thing was I found it looking at a Citroen DS, that revealed three Renault R5 Turbos, a Twin Turbo Motec'd Diablo, and an LT-1 conversion in progress on a Ferrari 412...as well as a complete 510 Racer that was up for sale. While looking at the 510, they started knocking out sand, and it was like "Oh, hey, that's a short-run foundry!" Right there, passed it countless times but never ventured to the back of the complex to check anything out. But that DS was calling me....LOL
That's great Tony
The most important thing to look at is “are they pouring scrap or ingotâ€.
If there's piles of old wheels and pots and pans around then use caution. The two main foundries I work with use nothing but virgin ingot. This plays a big part in end quality and machineability. Nothing worse than putting a few hours into finishing a casting only to hit a piece of crap.
Derek
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Here is the pattern after the finish passes.
Your looking at about 7 hours of machining time just for the finish machining. You CNC types out there might be interested to know there's over 300,000 lines of code!
I still need to fill and sand a couple spots but I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I'll rework my cutting strategies for the top sides so I have a better finish. Here's a shot of the bosses.
The large one is for the throttle shaft bearing. The smaller ones on either side of it are for the idle air bleed fittings and the outer ones are for a heat shield. I put drill points on the smaller ones because I don't plan on doing a bottom setup on the machining so I'll use a hand drill on those.
Derek
PS You may notice the Corian colors don't match the first picture. Well I had a bit of a problem with a cutter and it was just easier to start all over.
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Your looking at the bottom of the front manifold. This is the final roughing cut ready for the finish passes. The pattern is mounted to a sacrificial bottom plate. I'm using corian scraps (free) for the pattern material.
Derek
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I would second what het976 says. Although I haven't installed my stuff yet I did a ton of research and came up with the same conclusions. Rick was a great guy to deal with ant the price was great.
Derek
I am using a product called RAMmat from Rick in Utah (great guy). It is a Dynamat like product (only less expensive) COMBINED with 2 layers 1/4" dense foam that is glued over the Dynamat. The idea is the Dynamat like product takes away the buzz of the bare metal and the foam kills the low fequency tire and exhaust noise. The folks who are worried about weight won't like it (probably 40-60 pounds), but for me and what I plan to use my car for, he told me it will feel like a bank vault and that is what I want. I got enough to do my car 2x over for about $250 and I am working from a bare shell, so that is from the firewall to the rear lights, inside the doors and behind all the panels. His product was listed as "best buy" in very exhaustive test that looked at adheasion, smell, sound canceling, ect. I have not gotten to the point of driving it yet, but so far I am impressed. -
Cool , I was going to suggest pep-set with a acetylene smut on the surface, but a good molder can make a pretty fine finish. What do you want for your as-cast parts? Sounds like fun.
The guy doing the molding has over 30 years molding experience. He doses awesome work. This is such a declining industry so good hand molders are just not that common anymore. I won't have any prices until I get the first one cast.
Derek
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Are you going to make this a production pattern or just a test plate?
What media are you using for a mold and core?
The pattern is plastic on wood which would put it in the low production category. The foundry I'm using on this job molds with Olivine sand which will give me a really fine finish. The cores will be done cold box with a Furan bound sand. He's going to hand work the core seams before he pours so the part line on the inside of the throttle body will be minimal. If there's interest I'll make the raw castings available. I'm not set up to do production machining so I'll only be offering unfinished castings.
Derek
More convention car show pics
in Non Tech Board
Posted
Well I made the trek over to Daytona and I must say it was well worth the trip. There was some great looking cars there. The weather was a little moist to say the least. And I got to meet a few hybrid members as well.
So all and all it was a great day.
Here's 2 links to the pics I shot. I'm no photographer but the shots turned out ok.
Derek
http://www.flickr.com/gp/14460162@N07/or1o2e
http://www.flickr.com/gp/14461168@N07/64598w