Well guys, I know that it has been a while since I have posted here but I know some of you may know that my friends and I have started a team and we are building a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder in order to compete in the Red Bull Soap Box Race on October 25th. I thought I would document the build a bit for anyone who is interested. We are going WAY above and beyond mainly because, that is what we do. This car has definitely consumed pretty much ever waking hour that I am not at work or school.
Our team consists of
Josh McGuckin (me)
Jeremiah Hueske
Matt Fisher
James Olson
Sandra Hueske
Part 1
We sat down and brainstormed, the ideas for vehicles really were pretty diverse, but we eventually decided on the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder from Ferris Buellers day off. This lead to the name "Team Save Ferris"
Some sketching and some thinking led to our Entry form, as well as some photos to make sure that our measurements were going to be recorded
Part 2
Though there were a couple weeks in the middle, we did get selected to participate and we started the build on what we will call week 2. A bit of AutoCad and access to some fun toys led to a nice new steering brace for the front of our vehicle. The Waterjet was used to cut out not only the Steering brace, but also every piece for our chassis.
Part 3
Chassis construction begins. This could be an easy process, but we are building everything from sheet stock, to be difficult. Anyhow, the pieces are all cut on the waterjet and tacking, shaping and creating begins. Everything is welded together. We do not have a frame jig made for this so it is simply a process of lining everything up. Measureing twice welding once and going through the steps about 1000 times. In the end the all drive wheels are in square by 1/16th inch. so we are pretty happy about that.
Part 4
We began the week with chassis completion. This basically consisted of finishing the frame rails and then welding in the cross members. This process was a bit tough to be precise with but once we got the structure done it was all clean up duty on the welds. Smooth and purdy now
Part 5
At this point we have the majority of the chassis done, it is technically not rolling cause, we don’t have wheels. DETAILS! Anyhow, the next step is the Body. We originally intended to make a mold an pull a vac formed plastic body down, but nobody is willing to do it for us since it is a “small job.” So we are moving on to Fiberglass. We have been making a mold by modeling the body in Rhino (3d program) then sectioning it into 12 ribs. Each rib we projected on a piece of OSB and traced then cut out.
Part 6
Well, the body form is done at this point and the skinning has begun. We have skinned the body with cardboard foam, bondo and spackle. Yeah spackle was cheap and easy to work for this process so it got used. This is definitely among the most time consuming parts of the process, we have essentially carved the nose and tail, and shaped the entire rest of the vehicle by hand. The process has been really interesting but I am tired of being covered in bondo, pink foam, sawdust and plaster.
Media Day
Well, Red Bull contacted us a little while ago about doing a feature on our team. They wanted to put us head to head with another team and we just happen to be friends with a team called the "Bonnieville Record Holders." Team Bonnieville showed up with their 34 ford roadster. We expected them to be faster than us. They had to be, they have legit soap box wheels AND there were no turns on the hill we were going to race them on. Not only that, but we sorta told them about Whistler Bearing Co and they just got some fresh new bearings for their wheels.
They showed up and we showed them our craft the body mold and all the blood sweat and tears on the ground surrounding both. We then got to check out their car. A ribtech seat sat proudly in the middle of a nicely crafted aluminum body. Those wheels were there, they looked a little funny but the embossed "Official Soap Box Wheel" on the side made them menacing. I offered up my Rib Vest for the real event, because I know that seat is gonna suck...
Since we posted last we added a 5 point harness to our car. Not exactly for safety, though I guess you could consider that the reason. We want to be able to pull g's and NOT fall out. This thing nearly tossed every member of the team when we were pushing it hard, so we decided a bit of security is going to go a long way.
The harness requires someone to buckle you in, but with a quick twist of the knob, you can get out pretty easily.
Neither team could wait to race so we ended up getting a few runs in before the film crew showed. We were pretty much committed mentally to second place here, but expected our superior handling to give us the edge in the real race.
We took several runs, the crew showed up and shot a few of them. It was a blast and we won all the races. Every single one. each by at least a nose but up to a car length. The boost to our moral was awesome! On the Bonnieville record holders final run they blew up a wheel. Our driver said they just finished up the run and he was trying to stop, our guy was literally driving a circle around him as his wheel blew up with plastic shrapnel flying about.
The runs didn't stop...for us. We couldn't get enough, hell we let one of the camera guys run our car. From there we moved on to video footage for the event. They lined us up, gave us things to talk about, shot our car, shot it behind a truck, Everything you could think of was done. We were there for 4 hours with the crew and they were psyched to see our progress.
The whole thing attracted a bit of a crowd actually, Not to many people but we had a few spectators. You have to consider that we were in the industrial district on the west side of 25. the place has NO traffic normally, but eventually 2 other photographers showed up, a few spectators showed up and we have no idea where they came from.
I only had my little camera with my, so this is a super high ISO shot, but we did some of our video in front of the denver skyline.
The night was a good night, the body mold is ready (well except a small divot that some jackass at the shop put in it) so we will be laying fiberglass on Friday and Saturday. If needed we will lay the final layer on Sunday. From there we will be sanding...and sanding....more? yup, more sanding.
The response to our vehicle was great, both the other team and the Red Bull people were very psyched and impressed about it. We couldn't be happier, they were the first to see it in real life besides our own team members.
Friday I will start posting some fiberglass layup pix. Hopefully I don't end up getting resin in my camera like when I worked with Carbon last time.
Look for us on Facebook as Team Save Ferris
Keep an eye on our Youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B46A534C7FC38752
For more pictures keep an eye on our Flickr site at http://flickr.com/photos/joshmcguckin/sets/72157605975075439/
Our team consists of
Josh McGuckin (me)
Jeremiah Hueske
Matt Fisher
James Olson
Sandra Hueske
Part 1
We sat down and brainstormed, the ideas for vehicles really were pretty diverse, but we eventually decided on the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder from Ferris Buellers day off. This lead to the name "Team Save Ferris"
Some sketching and some thinking led to our Entry form, as well as some photos to make sure that our measurements were going to be recorded
Part 2
Though there were a couple weeks in the middle, we did get selected to participate and we started the build on what we will call week 2. A bit of AutoCad and access to some fun toys led to a nice new steering brace for the front of our vehicle. The Waterjet was used to cut out not only the Steering brace, but also every piece for our chassis.
Part 3
Chassis construction begins. This could be an easy process, but we are building everything from sheet stock, to be difficult. Anyhow, the pieces are all cut on the waterjet and tacking, shaping and creating begins. Everything is welded together. We do not have a frame jig made for this so it is simply a process of lining everything up. Measureing twice welding once and going through the steps about 1000 times. In the end the all drive wheels are in square by 1/16th inch. so we are pretty happy about that.
Part 4
We began the week with chassis completion. This basically consisted of finishing the frame rails and then welding in the cross members. This process was a bit tough to be precise with but once we got the structure done it was all clean up duty on the welds. Smooth and purdy now
Part 5
At this point we have the majority of the chassis done, it is technically not rolling cause, we don’t have wheels. DETAILS! Anyhow, the next step is the Body. We originally intended to make a mold an pull a vac formed plastic body down, but nobody is willing to do it for us since it is a “small job.” So we are moving on to Fiberglass. We have been making a mold by modeling the body in Rhino (3d program) then sectioning it into 12 ribs. Each rib we projected on a piece of OSB and traced then cut out.
Part 6
Well, the body form is done at this point and the skinning has begun. We have skinned the body with cardboard foam, bondo and spackle. Yeah spackle was cheap and easy to work for this process so it got used. This is definitely among the most time consuming parts of the process, we have essentially carved the nose and tail, and shaped the entire rest of the vehicle by hand. The process has been really interesting but I am tired of being covered in bondo, pink foam, sawdust and plaster.
Media Day
Well, Red Bull contacted us a little while ago about doing a feature on our team. They wanted to put us head to head with another team and we just happen to be friends with a team called the "Bonnieville Record Holders." Team Bonnieville showed up with their 34 ford roadster. We expected them to be faster than us. They had to be, they have legit soap box wheels AND there were no turns on the hill we were going to race them on. Not only that, but we sorta told them about Whistler Bearing Co and they just got some fresh new bearings for their wheels.
They showed up and we showed them our craft the body mold and all the blood sweat and tears on the ground surrounding both. We then got to check out their car. A ribtech seat sat proudly in the middle of a nicely crafted aluminum body. Those wheels were there, they looked a little funny but the embossed "Official Soap Box Wheel" on the side made them menacing. I offered up my Rib Vest for the real event, because I know that seat is gonna suck...
Since we posted last we added a 5 point harness to our car. Not exactly for safety, though I guess you could consider that the reason. We want to be able to pull g's and NOT fall out. This thing nearly tossed every member of the team when we were pushing it hard, so we decided a bit of security is going to go a long way.
The harness requires someone to buckle you in, but with a quick twist of the knob, you can get out pretty easily.
Neither team could wait to race so we ended up getting a few runs in before the film crew showed. We were pretty much committed mentally to second place here, but expected our superior handling to give us the edge in the real race.
We took several runs, the crew showed up and shot a few of them. It was a blast and we won all the races. Every single one. each by at least a nose but up to a car length. The boost to our moral was awesome! On the Bonnieville record holders final run they blew up a wheel. Our driver said they just finished up the run and he was trying to stop, our guy was literally driving a circle around him as his wheel blew up with plastic shrapnel flying about.
The runs didn't stop...for us. We couldn't get enough, hell we let one of the camera guys run our car. From there we moved on to video footage for the event. They lined us up, gave us things to talk about, shot our car, shot it behind a truck, Everything you could think of was done. We were there for 4 hours with the crew and they were psyched to see our progress.
The whole thing attracted a bit of a crowd actually, Not to many people but we had a few spectators. You have to consider that we were in the industrial district on the west side of 25. the place has NO traffic normally, but eventually 2 other photographers showed up, a few spectators showed up and we have no idea where they came from.
I only had my little camera with my, so this is a super high ISO shot, but we did some of our video in front of the denver skyline.
The night was a good night, the body mold is ready (well except a small divot that some jackass at the shop put in it) so we will be laying fiberglass on Friday and Saturday. If needed we will lay the final layer on Sunday. From there we will be sanding...and sanding....more? yup, more sanding.
The response to our vehicle was great, both the other team and the Red Bull people were very psyched and impressed about it. We couldn't be happier, they were the first to see it in real life besides our own team members.
Friday I will start posting some fiberglass layup pix. Hopefully I don't end up getting resin in my camera like when I worked with Carbon last time.
Look for us on Facebook as Team Save Ferris
Keep an eye on our Youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B46A534C7FC38752
For more pictures keep an eye on our Flickr site at http://flickr.com/photos/joshmcguckin/sets/72157605975075439/
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