Designing a Street Legal Car: Building My Dream

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the design and construction of a street legal car, focusing on chassis design and materials for the outer body. Participants share resources and suggestions for building a vehicle that meets legal requirements for street use.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Technical explanation, Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses a desire to design and build a street legal car, seeking advice on chassis design and suitable materials for the outer body.
  • Another participant suggests consulting magazines like Rod & Custom or Street Rodder for ideas and recommends Boyd Coddington's book on chassis design, emphasizing the importance of using manufactured parts for key components.
  • A third participant mentions the availability of numerous books on chassis engineering, encouraging a search on Amazon for resources.
  • One participant recommends "Chassis Design" by Herb Adams as a comprehensive resource, noting it lacks specific equations for suspension geometry dimensioning.
  • A suggestion is made to consider a honeycomb carbon fiber body for the vehicle's outer structure.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the importance of utilizing existing resources and literature for chassis design, but there is no consensus on the best materials for the outer body or specific design approaches.

Contextual Notes

Some limitations include the lack of specific equations for suspension geometry and the dependence on various manufactured parts that influence chassis design.

Who May Find This Useful

Individuals interested in automotive design, engineering students, hobbyists looking to build custom vehicles, and those exploring materials for car construction.

Superman89
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I'm wanting to design and build my own street legal car. I've pretty much got the design that I want I just need to know how to design and build a simple (if possible) chassis and what kind of medal to use for the outer body.
 
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Leaf through a Rod & Custom or Street Rodder magazine at your local bookstore, lots of ideas. Maybe find Boyd Coddington's book on chassis design. Or watch American Hot Rod on Discovery channel. Obviously you're going to use manufactured parts like steering box/racks, final drive, spindles, and whatever else, those would be the largest influences on design for a homemade chassis. Vehicle dynamics would be nice as well, plenty of in-depth books exist for that field.

Why not a honeycomb carbon fiber body?

Cliff
 
There are a ton of books that cover chassis engineering. Go to Amazon.com and search "chassis" and/or "chassis engineering".
 
The best book on the subject is Chassis Design by Herb Adams. It is published by HP Books and has everything you could ask for except specific equations for dimensioning the suspension geometry.
Good luck!
 

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