300 Mile Per Hour Hypercar

The MIA Member Delta Cosworth has shared following press release.

300 Mile Per Hour Hypercar

SPECIFICATION

Body: two-door coupé/roadster

Layout: rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive

Engine: 6.6 L twin-turbocharged

Power: 1500+ hp, 1500+ Nm

Vehicle weight: 1400 kg

The company's relationship with the OEM dates back to 2010. Delta Cosworth was involved in the design of their first high-performance car, which featured a new subframe for the rear suspension, brand-new bodywork and new engine installation, all retrofitted into an already existing sports car. Shortly after that, the company approached with a design for a brand-new car. After almost a decade in the making, they came back to Delta Cosworth in 2018 with the intention to begin production on what would become one of the fastest cars in the world.

With a target of 300 mph, it was vital to get the aerodynamics of the car right; any unnecessary drag would make that goal impossible to achieve. After some initial aerodynamic work by the OEM’s design house, Delta Cosworth took the project in-house to further develop the bodywork and other components for maximum aerodynamic efficiency.

There were many elements to consider in the development of the project: the car had to function correctly to achieve the desired top speed; the car had to be ergonomically optimised with the packaging constraints of the powertrain, cabin and vehicle suspension platform; and it had to be manufactured with minimal complexities to make the project financially viable.

There were some challenges with the initial design. Certain elements were holding back the car’s speed capabilities, so the company's engineers went straight to computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations to determine exactly what needed to be adapted in order to get the best out of the car.

The car is comprised of a carbon composite monocoque chassis with full carbon composite bodywork. The front and rear structures are steel and aluminium fabrications that cradle the engine and support all of the suspension components - a choice that we made due to their ease of build and modification. This decision also balanced out the cost versus weight ratio; building these structures out of carbon fibre and making them part of the monocoque would have increased the cost dramatically diminishing returns for the application of this car.

Working in coordination with a separate design house in charge of styling, Delta Cosworth embarked on work to reduce drag and get to a level of downforce to keep the car stable at 300mph. Ensuring this process was carried out correctly was one of the most important pillars of this project and an aspect that is always challenging. We ran various tests through CFD programs to determine which key elements had to be changed to increase downforce without being detrimental to the amount of drag. Delta Cosworth's expertise in motorsport applications helped to understand the fundamentals of how this could be implemented. The priority became drag reduction, with downforce being a secondary requirement – unlike a race car where drag reduction and maximising downforce go hand in hand – however it still required the same iterative design process that Delta Cosworth thrive on.

With the high downforce levels produced at top speed, the tyres naturally gain negative camber as the suspension compresses. Camber angle is a vital setting to get right for high-speed runs. When it is wrong, it can prove catastrophic – if there is any camber, the shoulders of the tyres will overheat, leading to tyre failure. For this reason, we needed to keep the tyre as square to the ground as possible. This poses a secondary challenge, as the car needs to be functional on both track and normal road driving, meaning different set-ups are needed for high-speed runs and standard driving. Incorporating both into the design of the vehicle posed a risk to some elements, such as the drive shafts and their components. Guaranteeing the rubber boots stayed together at such high centripetal forces was integral with wheel rotation at speeds of 2000 to 3000 RPM.

Because of the velocity this car needed to achieve, the car had to be stable – meaning suspension came into play. If you had too much downforce, the car would have to be incredibly stiffly sprung. The manufacturer’s experience with sports cars, meant that they knew exactly what they wanted with static wheel positions, cambers, vertical bump and droop. The initial process was to take the geometry from these predetermined elements as a baseline to improve upon, before incorporating the suspension components into the chassis. Using the coordinates of the suspension mounting and pivot points as a base, we were able to determine what all the other elements would be rotating around.

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