Digital dash:
The Megasquirt MS Pro-3 ECU offers a lot of exciting
possibilities. One of them is to provide the output to a display with a custom
interface; a completely configurable digital dash in other words. This would do away with all mechanical inputs and the various inputs from sensors all over the car into the dash, and instead allow a vast array of different displays, alarms, set-ups etc. There is already a compatible design in development within the Delorean
community that accepts the CAN bus protocol. Here is an example:
Front suspension:
Given that I am now dealing with forces of nature that are a
lot greater than they used to be, the first thing to address is the front suspension
attachment points: A weakness in the Delorean’s front suspension is that the
lower control arms are not triangulated. In other words, the LCAs are a simple
cantilever design to take vertical and lateral loads; however, they are not
designed to absorb longitudinal loads. Those loads are, oddly enough, being
taken by the anti-roll bar. I believe this is one of Colin Chapman’s concepts
that Lotus adopted on the early Espirits. The solution is rather simple from a component
standpoint but complex from a geometry and mechanical grip stand point. In
addition, the strength aspect is not ideal either; there are examples of front
wheels having collapsed into the rear of the wheel well under heavy braking.
There are several solutions out there; one particularly interesting solution is
undergoing field testing as we speak and I am following the results of it with
great interest.
Brakes (shouldn’t this be at the top of the
list?):
The stock disc rotors are prone to overheating and warping
from repeated use. There are some upgrade options to ventilated, cross-drilled options
available that I need to look into. Nuff said. Stay tuned….
