MOTORSPORT
But it's with the driver interface that
Rodin's attention to detail starts to
shine through, especially in areas
such as the titanium pedal box. 'I'm
obsessive about things like pedals,
you can have moulded parts for
where your feet are going and heel
rests so that you can brace your
feet and pivot the pedals properly,'
says Dicker. 'We use ball bearings
in the pivot and there are rollers on
the pedals that are on ball bearings,
so when the pedal moves your foot
just rolls on the roller and there is no
interference or friction between the
bottom of your shoe or the surface
of the pedal. This is important,
otherwise it just doesn't work very
well. The reason a lot of these
little details are only just coming to
the surface is, generally speaking,
engineers don't drive racecars. lf
they did then these kinds of custom
issues would have been introduced
long ago. 'We built the new pedal
box in New Zealand and the exhaust
system, which included a mild
silencer too, because you couldn't
really run it anywhere with an open
pipe, which was more of a stub,
than a pipe,'says Dicker. 'It was
noisy and very raspy, so it wasn't
even a nice note.'
'We 3D printed a titanium collector
and muffler, which is hollow inside,'
Dicker adds. 'We then PVD'd
physical vapour deposition with
titanium nitride, just to make it look
a bit nicer: The mufflers are hollow
inside so that they don't need
to be packed with any acoustic
material; just the shape is enough
to attenuate the raspy exhaust. It's
basically just a chamber with lots
of internal holes between the skins
made by the 3D printer, which is
just enough to take the edge off
the exhaust note. This means they
are completely maintenance free in
FASTER THAN
FORMULA 1?
The FZero is Rodin's own design and the stated
intention is to make a car that is quicker than the
current Formula 1, and Rodin feels it has a realistic
chance of achieving this kind of performance. 'The
target weight is 605kg, like the older Formula 1cars,
and we should be able to get 1000 bhp from our
engine without too much trouble: says Dicker. 'The
CFD on the aerodynamics gives us about 4000kg at
300km/h 186mph, so all the elements are in place to
make that work and all the indications are pointing to it
performing better than a Formula 1car.'
'It's basically a single seater with a canopy and closed
in wheels,' Dicker adds. 'So the aerodynamics should
be quite good. There are no regulations to work to, so
it's got massive front and rear wings to generate the
downforce. lt incorporates all the current thinking with
regard to aerodynamics. Initially this will be sold as a
track car and we are planning to build a road going
version as well. You should also be able to modify the
aero to suit some racing series.'
The engine for the FZero is a 4-litre V10, it's been
designed from scratch and isn't really based on any
existing unit. 'The design objective was to make the
lightest and most compact 4-litre V10 we could,' says
Dicker. 'It's not capable of any more capacity, but
it suits our purposes. It should weigh about 125kg,
which is similar to the Cosworth engine in the FZed.
It's pretty much the same length as the Cosworth, but
because of the bank angle, it's much narrower, and a
lot smoother than the V8s. It's designed by Graham
Dale Jones, formerly of Cosworth. He used to have his
own engineering consultancy in the UK, but he's now
basically retired. Neil Brown Engineering, also in the
UK, is doing all the machining and assembly. It's pretty
close to being finished now:
BOX OF
TRICKS
Ricardo is doing the transmission for the FZero,
Dicker tells us. 'It's an eightspeed sequential gearbox,
which fits inside a carbon case, which takes all
the suspension loads and the aero, it is basically a
self-contained unit. The carbon doesn't touch any oil
so the whole configuration is fairly stable. Because the
structural loads are shared between the gear case and
the carbon case the whole thing can be optimised for
packaging and weight.'
22 December 2019