[Land-speed] cockpit design and layout OT

ed at vetteracing.com ed at vetteracing.com
Tue Aug 28 20:45:29 MDT 2007


I would make sure I was wearing my firesuit - or at least a simulation- when
laying out the cockpit. I had my seating and controlsperfect.... until I put
on the suit, belted in and then discovered Icould not reach one of the fire
bottle controls..... Opps! Had to move it.....
Ed V

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ed Weldon [mailto:23.weldon at comcast.net]
>Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 06:03 PM
>To: land-speed at autox.team.net
>Subject: Re: [Land-speed] cockpit design and layout OT
>
>Forwarded to list in pieces to pass filters -- #2
>EW
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Ed Weldon" <23.weldon at comcast.net>
>To: "Greg Meyers" <advo at comcast.net>; <land-speed at autox.team.net>
>Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 4:54 PM
>Subject: Re: [Land-speed] cockpit design and layout OT
>
>
>> Greg-- Piece#2
>> Now, you say you can't draw worth a darn. Do it full size on the garage
>> floor or out on the patio. This is how wooden boats get built using a
>small
>> scale drawing or sometimes just a table of offsets. They call it
>"lofting"
>> in that world.
>> Use whatever cheap materials are available like large corrugated appliance
>> box panels, old plywood to rough out a seat, etc. I even used 6" radius
>> 1-3/4 exhaust u-bends and 1-1/2" electrical conduit to mock up a roll
>cage.
>> You can rough out a pretty sturdy cockpit and firewall shape from 3/4"
>> electrical conduit. Get all possible drivers to test fit this layout.
>>
>> Here's a tip: Look for an old out of date belt and shoulder harness setup
>> to use when your construction gets far enough along to test the fit of the
>> driver. That way you can wait until the last month or so before the first
>> tech inspection to buy a fresh belt set.
>>
>> What I would not do is try to design it entirely on paper or a computer
>CAD
>> system and then just go start cutting metal or building molds. It takes
>> years of experience for a designer to be able to layout a driving position
>> in a vehicle properly in addition to the CAD/drawing skills and
>exceptional
>> spatial visualization talents needed to solve the myriad of 3 dimensional
>> fit problems. In all probability you don't have it.
>> Ed Weldon, Los Gatos, CA


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