The process itself is really not that complicated, but it does require some patience if you are scratch-building. Further, what happens if the new wheel hub doesn’t fit the spindle I have? I’ll need to change it too and so on…Īs you can see, changing one part can affect many parts “upstream” and “downstream” from that one part which is why we need to “Iteratively” design by going back and re-designing around a changed part. Now let’s say that wheel is no longer available in the size we need to fit the tire. If I decide to change the wheel from a 4 bolt by 4″ bolt circle to a 5 bolt by 5″ bolt circle, I’ll need to change the wheel hub as well. The wheel attaches to a tire and it also attaches to a wheel hub. To illustrate, let’s picture a wheel on a race car. IterationsĬar design is iterative (that is, requiring repeated re-designs) because with the exception of a few parts on a car, all parts attach to another in some way. If you are designing from scratch, your process will involve the design and selection of components from the rubber on the road on up. If you are designing a car from a donor car chassis, your process will involve determining how the vehicle components can be changed to meet your vision/objectives. In practice, you usually won’t meet all of them, but hopefully most. The Design of a vehicle is an iterative process where you attempt to meet all objectives you have defined. The conceptual drawing can help you define the look/layout of your vehicle, while the Component Worksheet can help record the objectives/vision/regulations for each component in your car design.
To assist you in documenting your vision and objectives we have prepared a Conceptual Drawing Template and a Component Worksheet document which are available as free downloads. Once you have defined and documented the vision for the car then you will have a baseline of concepts and specifications to design from.