Building the FASTEST RC F1 Car 

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FIND - A - TUNNEL (with a flat ceiling)

If anyone is interested in fan cars, the McMurtry Spéirling recently broke track records, proving that ground effect is very effective under the right circumstances.

James you MUST do a part 2 and see if you can get it to drive upside down! 🏎

the long awaited sequel is here

There is a BBC documentary called "Gentlemen, Raise Your Skirts". About the ground effect cars Williams had back then. No fan but shaped underfloor and the skirts were spring loaded carbon strips that could retract up and down into a slot so they could touch the track surface and follow the imperfections in the track. Check it out if you can, it's awesome if you like those old BBC doc's.

Some suggestions: How about a skirt made from a brush? How about putting the ground effect tray on a separate set of suspensions from the main chassis? One irl example is the Lotus88 One I've been asking myself watching the video is what lead to the choice of a propeller instead of an impeller to evacuate the ground effect tray, as the latter is way better at producing a pressure difference?

The issue was you locked the suspension out. You effectively cancelled out the mechanical grip of the car. In turn, you also proved the effectiveness of the design. Double edged sword so to speak. You must have heard of the McMurty special right? If not....bro.... where have you been?

The Chaparral did this long before the F1 car you cited. The concept is valid but was outlawed because the fan throws stuff all over the following cars.

High pressure flexible 'tubular' perimeter skirt, low pressure chamber: Forget the walls, replace the skirting with something akin to a hovercraft skirt, but with the skirting pressurized to keep it inflated. I also suggest a tough material, as it will be in contact with the ground at high speeds.

I believe the Chaparral 2J had its skirt mounted to the suspension, not the chassis. This way the skirt stays flat with the wheels, and doesn't move with the body. Try mounting the skirt to the ends of the suspension near the ball joints, and I bet you'll have more consistent suction and longer lasting skirts.

You found what brabham found - it is really hard to get a good seal on a road surface. Passive underfloor ground effect ended up quite quickly outpacing the active design. Fun tho! And you didn't have an actual human driver experiencing the rapid fluctuations in the effect; the drivers were terrified by it.

Fun fact. Gordon Murray (the designer of the BT46B fitted an aeroplanes altimeter in the cars so that it would show whether the underfloor was sealed. The drivers had a problem that the skirt would be damaged and they wouldn't know and suddenly find themselves going through a corner about 40mph quicker than they could without the ground effect and having a colossal crash. So if the altimeter was in the green they could push. If it wasn't they had to back off.

The original Lotus car had sideboards mounted on slots so they would always adjust themselves to be touching the ground. Your front skirt-board doesn't need to create a perfect seal to the ground. If it's bouncing on the ground it will be slowing your car down. Some of the F1 cars used broom bristles to create a seal.

If my memory is correct the seal was made in more than 1 over lapping section so the road contact area could be worn away then slide down to replace it. Eg had a total loss section that lowers as it's warn away.

Why can't you make your skirt out of rubber? You could even use an old bike tire inner tube.

Love to see this run on a basketball court where the floor was perfectly smooth. That would let it really corner. Seems like for the skirt, some thing pliable but durable like silicone sheet would be good. Great vid as usual!

This is extremely sick, and you pulled it off so well! I have been thinking about doing something like this since seeing the Formula Student car from ETH Zürich use a similar approach for reaching 0-100km/h in under a second. IMO it's impressive how much extra downforce you ended up getting in a straight line on this. To improve the seal on bumpy roads, maybe you could try a 3d printed flexible TPU base with a sort of skirt around it from thin PTFE that is too long and just bends out when the car is further to the ground, but then extends once it goes more above it or over a bump?

"tea, obviously" James, engineering in the best British tradition.

The part you missed, or couldn’t replicate from the original fan car, was the skirts moved up and down inside a channel in the sidepods so that they maintained the perfect hight to the road all the time, the last time I saw one it was effectively a draft excluder bolted to a piece of plastic that sat in the channel. I’m also fairly sure they didn’t completely enclose the skirts at the front (and probably the back) of the car as that was how they drew the air in to create the vacuum. There’s no way this is practical to do on that size of car but maybe a bigger one?

15:06 love the bangs and pops😂😂😂

Fold of thin kevlar for the skirt? Maybe fibreglass but would be less durable. Also might get better results from an odd numbered blade fan?

I like this concept a lot. Maybe you should try door brush seals for the skirt. First they are flexible, second durable and last you brush stones away in front of the car.

Active suspension with this on an RC car would be awesome!!!

This is epic, ur an awesome creator, don’t stop being awesome!

its always good to see him upload and it makes my day

the small bits of debris, gravel and overall road roughness at the scale of your RC car, would be similar to trying to drive a formula car on a 4x4 off road trail. perhaps try testing again on a smoother airport runway?

Most under appreciated creator on the platform. Great project!!

to have the best effect, you have to attache the soft part of the skirt to the suspension triangle, Like this you can keep the skirt to a constent high from the ground. The skirt can be attached on one side to the rigid part (your aluminium board). And on the other side to a bar connecting the suspension triangle ( 2 tubes can be imbricated in each other so that they can slide and allow the suspension to work)

Cut rubber strip from bicycle tube, and use it as floor vaccum seal for tray.

The rubber squeegee from a wiper blade may have enough durability to last. It could allow for a small travel to be added back into the suspension to help with its jumpiness

Very cool idea. Now we need : 1. Formula car 2. Helicopter turbine 3.Gearbox conversion 4+ A lot of engineering Thanks for the video. Very interesting how you scaled down a previous idea and made it work !

Great video yet again 😃 The original F1 cars used thick rubber to seal the edges, but they used springs so they could move a bit through the undulating surfaces. Might be worth looking into 😊

You are so inspiring for young engineers/aviators. Keep doing your thing!

The car is bouncing because you disabled the suspension

Great project again! This is exactly my thought for pushing the next level of the RC car speed challenges. Down force with little drag penalty. Also hub motors to remove the drive train issues and be able to use gyro stabilised DTC to keep it straight. Tyres are the only unanswered question.

As always, great video! Keep inspiring builders, young and old (you got me back into the hobby and building fun creations after a 30 year break)! Thanks again!

Damn it... It's all over the screen now 😕

Excellent video, as always. No theatrics, unnecessary sounds or emojis. Just a logical, well edited video. Thanks. Waiting for the next one.

From what I studied, the vaccum skirts on the bt46b were attatched to the suspension so that they'd always stay level despite the body movement.

Under a minute gang

So so bad clickbait title 👍

i'm an f1 nut and i know back in the day they had a semi rigid skirt that would bounce inside a receiver style channel, i wonder if you could construct something like that and try t again. despite the porpoising as soon as that fan cut off it was going straight to the scene of the accident, awesome look, need a 2.0 video

12:19 And that's exactly why this was banned in F1 a couple of years later. Awesome recreation, really amazing they were brave enough to try this in manned vehicles.

Just a suggestion but maybe you could get a leaf blower and blow off the road as much as possible to have a nice smooth and consistent surface to test on .. maybe remove some variables?... Love the videos keep it up 👍

I would also like to add that on modern formula one cars, the “vacuum chamber” becomes a lot higher the closer it gets to the end of the car. I can see that your vacuum chamber is a consistent height throughout and it reduces the total amount of possible ground effect because you aren’t making the most of the available area. My suggestion is to cut a rectangle on the bottom of the chassis and raise the roof of the vacuum chamber to increase the vacuum. Another thing that I’ve read a lot on is connecting the vacuum chamber to the bottom of the suspension and replacing the foam boards with a brush material and I would like to second that idea because it is a great idea to keep the vacuum consistent. I would also like to see you use a rubber seal like the ones used for car doors and refrigerators if you have the chance. And another thing, please make the exit for the air parallel to the ground because while you are driving, the small amount of air inside the vacuum chamber is crashing against the rear wall of the chamber before getting sucked out, so might as well replace the rear wall entirely with the propeller to reduce air resistance. This will also give you more vertical space to raise the roof of the vacuum chamber even further and make the suction stronger. I hope my ideas are of use to you, and keep making awesome content!

Although this might be hard to accomplish, but there was a design on the chaparral 2j regarding the side skirts. The 2j was a fan car, but had issues with maintaining proper suction. The car had a mechanism where the skirts would move up and down as it was linked to the suspension, preventing it from scraping against the track surface

Imagine the rear edf installed on 1-axis servo controlled mount to provide some thrust vectoring. Ofc it would require some flexible sleeve to keep ground effect low pressure -side from leaking. Or maybe some active aero added to this car to help with cornering stability, and top speed (with drag reduction system). I’m just throwing some stupid ideas, but keep up your awesome work! 🙂

@12:22 That's exactly why fans like in the Brabham was prohibited :D if it fails mid corner you just fly away :D

It might be complicated, but the chaparral's fan car had the skirts somehow linked to the suspension so it stays in the right attitude, might help you with the consistency around the corners. There are so many details about those fan cars and active aero in general, have fun going down that rabbit hole!

amazing videos as always!i hope to get at least somewhat near your skill one day!

Love your experiments on here..top content ❤

Really should have started from propeller design if you're going to build fan assemblies from a selection of options. Having a lower RPM higher torque motor (different KV rating to prevent heat loading via efficiency loss, which is why the 10 blade fan made the motor draw power beyond what it can handle heat wise, but made more vacuum) helps you run propeller designs more optimized for efficiently creating static pressure, so you'll get more pressure difference for a given electrical output. PC fans and boat propellers both take static pressure vs. air volume into consideration. Material for the skirts must have a low elastic deformation force, with a high elasticity limit to account for all the rocks and road debris. Making it as thin as possible without distortion also helps. Or, keep the foam and run it indoors on a clean surface.

Try using flat framing from nylon or teflon to keep the contact with ground. Keep that framing suspended from wheels using some impregnated fabric. Maybe even try using some sort of secondary thin short strips of fabric on the framing to compensate for smaller imperfections on the road.

I'm about 1 minute into the video I had always wondered why no one has tried to do this with an RC car 👏👍😁. I'm already loving the video 🤤

Great video, I'm sure Adrian Newey would be proud

Great job!!! To overcome the weight issue - powering the fan by the differential/ an output shaft would be ideal. Might be complicated but it bet you can pull it off!

I geek over aerodynamics in cars. This is no exception.

Imagine someone was just casually walking on the side of the road and then he hear a sound but he doesn't know what it exactly is and after he go around the corner, a fast tiny car suddenly goes right pass him, he stand there in awe but not even 5 seconds later he feels a sting on his right foot when he looked down, his right foot is gone.

I enjoy doing RC experiments from time to time too. Subscribed

8:58 You were right the first time around. That, my friend, is a ship, not a boat. When it turns it leans to the outside. Boats lean into the curve.

Man this channel keeps racking up one crazy project after another

If you scaled up the small bumps and cracks in the road it would be like taking a life size F1 down a gravel road. Surprised it worked as well as it did.

Very nice project! Congrats! Next step you can try to seal the bottom with 3mm thick rubber and test it on a smooth surface like a flat parking area... I'm shure you will have great results..

I have been waiting for this video for so long

Very cool! I’m surprised you didn’t mention the McMurtry Speirling fan car. It’s insanely fast and corners like it’s glued to the track, which it is, kind of.

engineering helper.. _put a ring on it james_

For the skirt you could try some flexible rubber like a hovercraft, or perhaps some brush material like a paint brush. Try soft or hard bristles and see if there's a difference. I imagine you want something soft enough to adjust to the road surface without losing too much air pressure, although losing some air pressure might be preferable to losing traction on the tyres.

You should test this in a gym or any place with polished concrete. Additionally, the skirt could probably be made out of overlapping flexible "tongues" that angle backwards and can bend when pressed down. Combat robots often use this as a flexible wheel system that's difficult to damage.

Glad to see you revisiting this project👍

Just a thought, have you considered multiple concentric seals. The pressure differential will reduce between each seal and result in an overall better and more robust seal.

The skirts on F1 cars were moveable pieces slotted into the sides which would allow for the sealing over bumps. I'd love to see you build more on this idea, maybe trying more skirt materials, or even changing the fan duct shape.

You must Mount the sideskirts on the wheels so the height stays the same

4:19 3D printed fractal support trees 🌲🌲

9:31 that's gotta be one of the smoothest add transitions I've ever seen :lmao: Edit: Also, I'm just thinking back to the Chaparrel 2J, a car by I think the same engineer (?) as that F1 car, and the skirt was linked to the suspension on that car, so whenever the car cornered the skirt actually moved (but that's *probably* too mechanically complex for a small RC car like this)

Remember that rc cars are still downscaled. Driving on a normal asphalt road would scale up to like a cobblestone like surface. Perhaps a soft, flexible rubber profile could be worth a try. Quite cheap and more durable than the foam. Also, it could dampen bouncing.

Ay the car has returned!

They used (not sure whether they still do) to "measure" ground effect under F1 cars with a length of wood mounted under the car. If to much of the wood was gone, they had had to much ground effect or too low ground clearance. I think the limit on the piece of wood gone was one mm.

JIMNY! very good watch and well done on your further progress.

A softer skirt, like one printed from TPU or made of rubber, might help. Something that can take the impact and deform to the shape of the road, rather than bouncing the car off the wheels. Also, i beg of you, if you're already going down this path, consider adding a second set of steering wheels at the front like the famous Tyrell P34 :P It might genuinely help with cornering.

I would add some aluminum or fiberglass screening on top of the mesh which will prevent rocks or foam from bring sucked into the fan. Great first test. Looking forward to next test run.

Love the Wii Sports/Japan in a nutshell -font used in the past few videos

YESSSSSSSSS HE UPLOADED THE SEQUEL OF MY FAVORITE VIDEO YESSSSSSS

@Project-Air Have a look into Chaparral's solution for rough surfaces with the 2J, basically they mounted the skirts to the suspension components so the skirts rise and fall with the wheels rather than directly to the body

Use a line multiplier on your infill rather that just increasing density. It's a game changer for 3d printed part strength.

I've always dreamed in the future there would be a race where cars went so fast and stuck onto the road so well we could have loops and inverted roads... I only hope we can achieve this with RC cars first!

Hi, I personally loved your F1 RC car project, so I'd like to give you some ideas: maybe you can add some sort of plank, like actual F1 Cars, to reduce the minimum distance from the ground of car's floor to avoid skirts damaging and maybe try some TPU 3D printed skirts to improve the vacuum effect. Have a good day!

Been waiting for ages, Brilliant vid

11:52 are we just not gonna talk about how clean off a drift that was

Try using a multiple-skirt design with the semi-rigid skirt construction. If you have 2, 3, or more layers to your skirt, you will reduce the probability venting your vacuum, as you will need all layers of the skirt to be simultaneously compromised.

Imagine the ideal track. When you make the care smaller, everything else gets bigger. If everything was smooth, flat, and sticky, I'd love to see an rc car race of practically mini f1.

You can probably get even more downforce by pointing the fan skyward if you need to. that might even help with any sudden loss of suction, as the fan would immediately grab a shot of fresh air and throw it vertical, forcing the car back down. Thanks for the vid!

From the beginning, looking at your preview videos, I could see that the cornering test was going to be flawed because of the rocks and the uneven surface. It would be cool to see you try this again on a track surface that is smoother and figuring out the perfect ride height. Good job on the video

That looks like one hell of a pitch on that fan! Did you try a range of pitches?

when the F1 engineers were trying to make the fan cars work the best material they found for the skirt s was aluminum or Lexan . they even tried using brushes but they where a lot heavier then the other option . the chaparral 2J was the fastest with it's floating skirt that worked with arms connected to the suspension to keep the skirt tight to the road. but trying to make this work on a model car would be a nightmare .

Love this project

You should try brush for your ground affect set up. The use a bristle bush for sealing the bottom of garage doors etc. make the brush 1” thick the entire way around and that should work.

I would recommend using some channel mixing algorithms to increase the fan speed as a function of driver requested acceleration. That should allow you to use a much more powerful fan and motor combo without burning up the ESC since the fan will not always be at a high load.

After watching up to 13 minutes on this amazing video I recon the low pressure false floor should be connected to the wheel carriers instead of the chassis. That would allow a softer and grippier tune of the suspension and still maintain the seal to the ground, maybe? Williams used something like that in F1 in the early 80's.

I think you could get more consistent measurements for cornering with less chances for crashes if you head to a car park or something and drive it in big circle at a fixed steering angle, gradually ramping up the speed until it slips then recording the max speed.