The first I chassis was the Honda version, this was the Gary Midwinter rally car that later moved on to Bernie Roonie. This was a Litton product, The first Ferrari based I chassis was also manufactured by Litton for Hugh Carson which is the yellow chassis seen in the Italian Super Cars guide. Darkspeed's Honda I was also a Litton era chassis.
The Alfa based rear cradle was developed by Hugh Carson & his brother David in circa 1992/3 around the same time that Neil fitted the 3.0 12v into his S chassis. Steve by this time was long gone so in reality probably never saw any of the Litton I chassis cars make it onto the road let alone have time to witness any failures.
CAE ceased trading in 1999 so again very few of the cars they produced would have done enough miles to show the limitations of the design.
The Ferrari & Honda cradles were lower which in turn made the offending hanging bracket less remote and less susceptible to leverage issues. The Alfa cradle was a lot higher which made the wishbone bracket very long & susceptible to fatigue.
Steve (Hollytree's) chassis has had an additional tube fitted but it is still too remote relative to the bracket & the second error in this case is that the bracket is not carried through to the upper tube for additional strength, the quality of the welding must be brought into question in this case aswell as the limitations in the design.
David May ran a couple of simple bolt in braces which prevented the fatigue issue from raising its head. Bob has a similar brace across the rear of the top wishbone mounts which can only help, a simple triangulated bolt in brace to the forward mount would also be a huge benefit.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks