63_Fairlane
Founding Member
1320stang said:Jimminy Crickets you guys, he just got the first prototype cast and machined. Do you honestly think he's going straight to selling them without putting them on a car? What criteria do you need for road testing? A 30 minute drive thru town and on an interstate at normal highway speeds? Destructive testing, putting it into a hydraulic press with a gage on it to see how much strain is needed before it deforms or breaks? Or is that destructive road testing where he drives a car so hard until it breaks. Geez, give the man some time and opportunity to get to the point it's market ready first, then ask him what he's done and been thru. I for one, know how "rewarding" it is to have someone criticize what your doing before your even done. Now some on here are asking valid questions, but he did say this wasn't a racing piece, to use it as such you'd be doing so at your own risk. That said, I believe this piece will perform up to par or exceed the design(s) it's based off of, I mean we are talking about at least 20 years of metalurgy, process equipment, and testing advances.
It sounds like he is on the right track with the lab testing, but I would suggest finding the criteria currently used by Ford, GM, etc... Magnaflux, impact, bending load, Izod, Xray etc.... are just initial starting points. The part must be conditioned, subjected to high and low temperatures, salt spray, dust contamination, wheel loads, etc... and then re-tested in the lab to make sure that its properties have not been degraded.
As for racing versus the street, a pot hole or curve can produce a hell of an impact load compared to most billiard smooth raceways. The steady state forces in a race car will of course be higher, but the street is very tough on suspension parts. In addition, most street cars do not typically receive the level of maintenance that a race car will have between sessions.
Just an engineer's perspective.
By the way, good luck with the project.