Email: ronboud@comcast.net
Town & State: Boxboro, MA

Type of car:
Body: D&R
Chassis: 88
Engine: BMW V12
Transmission:
Starting Date:
Projected Finished Date:
Influences:
Occupation: Engineering Manager

My name is Ron Boudreau and I have a wife Cindy, my CAD package is SolidWorkds.

I went to Wentworth Institute studying Aeronautical Technology but after graduation ended up working for Digital Equipment for 23 years. Along the way I became an engineering manager and picked up 4 US patents. I'm now the engineering manager for a Taiwan company making search and rescue video equipment. You can see my work at www.snakeeye.com.

In the early 70's I owned and operated a company building and designing Formula V and Super V racing cars. We built our own fiberglass molds and farmed out the dirty work of making the bodies once the molds were done. We built both space frames for the Formula V and monocoques for the Super V. I have been working on cars for 40 years (yes I'm older than that). I have built and rebuilt everything from formula cars to kit cars. I even had two Miura's and a Lamborghini 400 GT in my shop at one time. I still have all the shop equipment except for the 700Hp dynamometer we had. I don't want to imply I am an authority in the field, we all have something to learn every day and I am no exception.

Two years ago I decided to build my dream car a Diablo. I started research on the web and started reading the latest books on materials, welding and fabrication to come up to date on all these subjects. Although I have been welding for 35 years (not every day) and have a MIG , oxyacetylene and a TIG welder I needed to update my knowledge of the latest equipment and materials. I just bought a new Miller Syncrowave 180SD TIG welder to update to the latest technology.

In looking at what was offered from the kit manufactures and what a Lamborghini is supposed to be, I decided to build my own frame and be as true to the concept of the car as possible. After looking at all the engine combinations and seeing and hearing a real Diablo I knew it had to be a V12. There are limited options here and since my Diablo project is competing with saving for my daughter's college fund it had to be reasonable. This only left the Jag V12. I also want to use it in the same basic layout as in the real Diablo, trans forward. I will either use a gear case from a SUV to bring the drive shaft back to the differential or design and build my own side shaft box for the purpose.

I bought copies of the factory workshop manuals for the Diablo. They have scale drawing of the suspension and the frame with some frame dimensions. Not wanting to have to cast or fabricate hubs and uprights I started a search for production suspensions systems that might lend themselves to the task. After looking at thousands of cars in the salvage yards I found the only two systems that looked like they belonged on a Lambo. The rear is from a 95 Ford Thunderbird and the fronts from a 93 Corvette. The Corvette choice should need no explanation it is a beautiful design and made for a performance car. There is also every aftermarket part you could want for it. The T-bird deserves some explanation. It is the only independent suspension system readily available that resembles a race car or for that matter a Lambo's rear suspension. Weeks after choosing this system I was gratified to find out Factory Five uses the T-Bird suspension in there Cobra replicas. As you can see in the pictures it looks the part. The upper and lower "A" frames are my fabrications and render the same suspension travel and camber transitions as the Diablo. The suspension is mocked up on a frame machine that I use to check travel on and am able to adjust the track by turning a lead screw internal to the lateral frame clamps. Front and rear will be sprung on air bags for lifting action over speed bumps.

My plan is to build the frame first to the dimensions of the real frame. I will however strengthen a few areas I believe needing to have more torsional and longitudinal rigidity. This need was verified by Paul at Exclusive who said after a real Diablo roadster gets into a minor collision you can't open the doors. I will then purchase the body kit. This will be the hardest decision based on what I have seen so far. One of my criteria is the windows must look right. After reading all the horror stories about the fits, or lack there of, I thought I might have to fabricate doors from steel, to get the side windows to work correctly, until I saw the doors on Paul's car at Exclusive Motor Sports. After talking to Paul I was impressed with the fact he was the first manufacture that seems to know what the hell he was talking about. He will have a roadster body in a month or so, so I might have to take a trip to BC soon. I hope this turns out to be the one I have been waiting for. I thought that CRP was the one but after seeing what people get and there experiences it won't be a CRP for me.

You said on your sight you were going to start looking for a frame. I don't want to set myself up as a critic because a hate critics but from what I have seen I feel I need to at least point out some concerns I have. As you said about Steve, deciding to weld a frame for you and you not trusting his welding. I have been welding for 37 years and am still learning something new every day. It frightens me to see people buying a low price MIG welder and welding critical parts with an hour experience. I have read over and over how when frames that IFG uses come, the pieces have to be taken to the local welding shop and the welds ground out and re-welded. If a novice can see the welds are not good then I worry about the things you can't see. In the aircraft industry all oxides and oils are removed before welding. Tubing is cleaned outside and inside. If there is oxide or oil on the part before welding then that is what you will have inside the weld. Parts should never be sandblasted before welding. Sandblasting leaves fragments of silica imbedded in the surface after blasting, this silica, or glass will form little pockets in the weld. Grinding a weld to make it look good will reduce the weld strength buy 50% at best. Spools of MIG wire are often made from scrap iron and is suitable only for garden rakes. I won't go on there are books on each of these subjects.

One other thing that has me baffled and concerned me is depicted in this picture.

As you can see the rear upright is attached buy a spherical rod end mounted to a horizontal threaded rod. I have never seen anyone load a suspension piece in a bending. Being in the business at one time I used to take pictures of racing car suspensions from Formula 1's to Formula V's and I have never seen anyone risk loading a suspension piece as weak as a threaded rod in bending. Now there is always an exception to the rule and maybe they did finite element analysis on this part and made it out of one of the new space age high strength steels but I doubt it. Since you have accesses to Pro-E you may also have accesses to an analysis package you could use on this. We used to figure for a four G bump load for racing. Of course in racing the suspension is sacrificial and as light as it can be. Racing cars also are not built to withstand pot holes and common road hazards. Racing tracks usually have surfaces much better maintained that public roads. In a road car you would have to figure for a pot hole at 60MPH or worse. That threaded rod is going to see the full weight of the car divided by four and multiplied by whatever G factor one would want to apply to a road car. My fear is that someone along the way is going to get hurt when one of these fails. Rocker arm suspension, typically used in racing is loaded in bending, but is usually built and designed of a cross section large enough to handle the load.

On the Forum someone asked about stress cracks in the body and if there was anything one could do to prevent it while building.
The frame should be a ridged structure. All the car companies tought in their ads how ridge their new body designs are. In a fiberglass car it is doubly important. If the frame flexes excessively the body will crack at surface attachment points or at surface transitions. The fiberglass kit body adds nothing the cars rigidity the frame must do it all. If the frame is too flexible the body will be constantly flexing and cracking. In a recent Ebay ad the seller actually showed all the cracks on a kit car, a few years old, it was a mess.

Some of the builds I see look awfully flexible. The CRP rear add on frame looks like the worst offender. I have not seen a great frame design on any site yet. Paul at Exclusive agreed with this assessment. He is working on a frame but has a way to go. He sounds like he knows what he is talking about but he doesn't have a web sight and its hard to see things through the phone. Given the frames
Seen so far and if I weren't building my own I would use a Fiero.

There is no excuse for the need fix all the things you are doing on your body. I thought CRP was turning out good stuff but it looks like that just isn't so. From my experience the only reasons a part warps or bows are: 1. The molds is warped (unlikely). 2. They took it out of the mold too soon (more likely) or 3. They had a hot mix of resin which is caused be too much catalyst (usually not the case). As far as the mismatch on the sides there is no excuse. The molds should have been lined up better than that. Maybe they had too much to drink. As far as patching fiberglass which you are obviously in the middle of now. Its important to rough the back surface of the area you are mending. Chemicals migrate to the surface during the curing cycle and should be ground off to get the best bond. Also since the glass matrix has been fractured a crack or hole can't be just filled. Glass mat must be extended for a distance on the back side to reestablish the structure. The patch on the back side should equal the thickness to the part you are patching. Since the matrix was fractured the strength must be reestablished and equal the original or it will crack again. The more over lap the better. Its on the back anyway and won't be seen.

Catch you later.
Ron