[DeTomaso] Re: Mangusta Bumpers / Wheels, an unscientific vision -Dick Ruzzin

[deTomaso Cars]

Great story, Dick- thanks for sharing!

Dana Hansen
www.mangustainternational.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dickruzzindesign at aol.com 
  To: steven.liebenow at att.net ; Detomaso at realbig.com ; DeTomasoCars at comcast.net 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 9:55 PM
  Subject: Re: Mangusta Bumpers / Wheels, an unscientific vision -Dick Ruzzin


  Steve, 
  Bumpers, 
  Years ago a friend of my fathers made hollow cast aluminum bumpers for me. We cast the originals, which I then threw away. When he asked if I wanted the tooling models I said no, what for? 
  Dumb.

  Wheels, 
  I have been doing a study to see what it takes to enlarge the wheels to 17 or 18 inches. Designing a wheel to look like the original, just proportionally enlarged in the right places, is not the problem. 
  The problem that I see is not the wheel but the bearings in the hub carrier that was designed for 70 series tires with a very small low efficiency contact patch, compared to today's low profile high friction tires, probably four times as big.

  Wide tires are very hard on ball bearings, suggesting a new fabrication for a hub carrier that could include a roller bearing pack from a C-6 Corvette.  I understand this bearing setup is considered state of the art and at a very good price.

  Can the existing hub carriers be modified to include the Corvette bearings and keep the original stub axle facing in relation to the drive axles? That is another study.

  There are no tires in 17" or 18" that I have seen yet larger in diameter than the big 15 inch tires available. 
  Obviously there are other advantages.

  The rear rim has to clear the bottom of the hub carrier and the heims joint carrying the lower trailing link to make a rim go in as well as out.  My rears are 8 inches so I think a 10 or 11 inch rim would be required. That probably means 18" rims in the rear to get around everything and not stick out too far. The Mangusta rear wheel house has room for a tire, holding the tread, that is about three inches wider than a 60 series 275X15.

  In the next couple of weeks, as soon as the temperature goes above 32 degrees outside and my garage goes to 50 I am going to evaluate that.

  Before the wheels can be designed a tire study has to be done to identify the right tires, some that will hopefully still be around in twenty years.  Also there are other dimensional and speed rating considerations.

  There are some eight spoke wheels in 17, 18, and 19" diameters available in the aftermarket that could be used as a base. That would allow the design of a new face (Outer surface), for the wheel that would look like the Mangusta wheel, which has eight spokes. If you could persuade the right manufacturer to do that then you might get away with about a $20,000. investment. 

  In the end big wide tires with super bearings in the hubs might make the rear suspension and subframe of the Mangusta act like taffy. The front upper and lower a-arms could always be reinforced some, or new ones made. 

  I sure would like the look of big wide wheels and tires on the car. That would make it look more timeless, as the appearance now is becoming somewhat dated, this tied to the 15" wheels and fat tires. 
  50 series tires help.  No complaints about the superb execution of the body. What to do is the problem but as we all know one change leads to another.

  All this reminds me of an Airman at Selfridge Air Base in the late 50s who put a 283 Chevy SB that was extensively modified in the base machine shop into a 54 Aero-Willys. It was a small coupe that probably weighed 500 pounds less than a standard 57 Chevrolet and even with a straight 6 was pretty fast. To help it stop faster he put big Buick aluminum finned drum brakes on the car, the same ones that were used on the 57 Corvette SS. 

  The Aero-Willys drum brakes looked like Tuna fish cans in comparison to the Buick brakes that were 12 inches in diameter, very wide and very impressive looking with all the fins.

  The base Commander used to let him test the car on the main runway when the planes were not flying, he had a ride and was so impressed that he asked him to give a visiting General a ride one day. He ran it up to about 120 down the runway and then stood on the brakes, it stopped as expected, in a hurry. 

  "Do that again," the General said, so away they went. All the base command was watching from the control tower. 

  Back to 120, but this time when he mashed the brake pedal all the bolts holding the front suspension snapped and the entire front suspension folded under the engine. The car went streaking down the runway with sparks flying until it finally came to a stop. There were two big black trails of rubber and metal set into grooves on the runway. Of course this caused the fire crews to come out to douse the sparks, shutting the base down for about two hours.

  That became the end of car testing at Selfridge so it was back to the country roads after midnight.

  Sorry this got so long.

  All the best, Dick Ruzzin.
  ______________________________________________________________________
  Dickruzzindesign at aol.com

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