UID F1 Rear Practice Bumper...

[imxlr8ed]

This item was requested by a few racers, I finally had time to finish it up.

Now the idea here is, as you run your F1 in practice with all of the other loonies (myself included), you can bolt this on to your wing mount, using the longer screws, up through the bumper, through the mount, and then into the wing. When actual heats or mains come along, pop it off and run the regular screws back into the wing.

I tried to keep it as lightweight and protective as possible, but still keeping it fairly sturdy (now there's three things that usually don't go together ;)). Hoping this just cushions the collisions a bit more than having nothing back there at all. Maybe save a side plate, a tire or a wing?... I hope so!

I have it shown here with a stock mount but it should work with a wide majority of aftermarket ones as well.

http://mini-zracer.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=127&pictureid=1628

http://mini-zracer.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=127&pictureid=1629

http://mini-zracer.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=127&pictureid=1630

As you can see, I designed it to work in concert with the UID Rear Wing. If height is ever an issue, the area where it mounts to the motor mount could be sanded/grinded down quite easily to one's preference if so needed.

In the shop now, and it's untested so buy with courage or wait until I get mine to mess with.

No fine print here, just the facts!
I am in no way, shape or form responsible for production or shipping or manufacturing quality of these products. All I can say is that it took 15 days to show up at my house after I ordered it and the quality is top-notch! Shapeways has an excellent record of part quality which is one of the major reasons I went with them for this stuff.

[imxlr8ed]

Got my first rear bumper. It fits just fine, but I'm not too happy with the overall rigidity. I am putting this in re-design and will have the stiffer version up in the shop sometime this week. Seems like this batch of material is a bit more flexible for some reason but I think where it's lacking is more of a design issue... I was trying to rely on the curvature to help with the rigidity but it didn't perform quite as well as I figured.

Currently I beefed up the overall thickness and ran a smaller fillet on the lower edge, in exchange for that I refined the mounting area so as to keep closer to the original weight. Nobody ordered one yet but that's a good thing in this case. Thanks for your patience!

[hrdrvr]

Have you thought about extending it forward and making into a diffuser? With the shape of it, it is screaming to be used for actual performance! I had awesome luck with my F1 and lexan diffusers. This could prove to be much more effective than what I was doing.

[imxlr8ed]

I guess I could... the V1 Rear Wing does act a bit like a rear diffuser too with the extra wings at the lower elevations but I guess I could "intensify" the effect.

In my mind, the bumper is for practice only so I wasn't looking at it as a permanent deal at racetime. Maybe I'm trying to be too much of an Open Wheel racing purist here, but to me it just makes sense to keep it a bit more dangerous... it is F1 after all. ;)

I'm planning to work some stuff either over the holiday or somewhere in January, EMU is requesting some aero-gear too so there should be some more options in the near future.

Got some other things about to be newborn too (one long overdue, one semi-revolutionary)... I'm gonna have some serious track testing in my near future!

[imxlr8ed]

The new, thicker rear bumper is in the shop now... I've deleted the first one altogether.

The new one will still flex a bit but I feel that there should be some movement in a collision to absorb the impacts rather than translate them directly to the mounts.