42083 Bugatti Chiron - MODs and Improvements

[emielroumen]

I followed the excellent, improved building instructions. Pleasure to build, although it is sometimes not easy to figure out where the parts should go. Adding some arrows might be an easy fix. Would not mind if they would come with a small fee, given the quality!

[NKubate]

Impressive work with all the modifications and upgrades! The rearrangement of the gearbox in particular looks great. Now I finally got to build the official model myself, I couldn't help but think what if I would try to go a step further and do a complete overhaul of the Chiron... I got the impression that there is further room to reduce material, make it lighter while keeping/ improving structure integrity, basically trying to engineer everything more efficient. I like to keep the original as it is now, so I've been duplicating parts of the model, while redesigning sections of it. I'm working with placeholders occasionally, as I do not have duplicates of all parts. For now it's just a WiP so that's why I chose to work mainly in red and LBG, making it easier to see where possible module interfaces could be done differently. Here is the first part: a redesign of the rear axle.

Chiron redesign by Nathanael Kuipers, on Flickr     

Edited November 3, 2018 by NKubate

[x13liu]

I'm in the middle of building this set. Is it normal that I turn the shaft in the middle and only the right rear wheel turns with it? The left one does not. 

[LvdH]

In that case it means there’s less friction at the right one than the left one. That’s how a differential works. 

[jfb9301]

Yes, this is most likely normal.

A lego differential is what is referred to as an "Open Diff." This means there is no limited slip, or other fancy stuff in there to ensure that both wheels spin together.

Try this to test friction, spin the input. When only one wheel turns, or turns faster than the other, grab hold of that wheel and ensure that your slow one starts spinning. If the feel of the friction seems the same, you probably got it right. If it gets harder to spin that wheel, go looking for some friction.

[letsbuild]

9 hours ago, NKubate said:

Impressive work with all the modifications and upgrades! The rearrangement of the gearbox in particular looks great. Now I finally got to build the official model myself, I couldn't help but think what if I would try to go a step further and do a complete overhaul of the Chiron... I got the impression that there is further room to reduce material, make it lighter while keeping/ improving structure integrity, basically trying to engineer everything more efficient. I like to keep the original as it is now, so I've been duplicating parts of the model, while redesigning sections of it. I'm working with placeholders occasionally, as I do not have duplicates of all parts. For now it's just a WiP so that's why I chose to work mainly in red and LBG, making it easier to see where possible module interfaces could be done differently. Here is the first part: a redesign of the rear axle.

Chiron redesign by Nathanael Kuipers, on Flickr     

I look forward to seeing more progress, as this might be super helpful.

[Didumos69]

16 hours ago, NKubate said:

I couldn't help but think what if I would try to go a step further and do a complete overhaul of the Chiron... I got the impression that there is further room to reduce material, make it lighter while keeping/ improving structure integrity, basically trying to engineer everything more efficient.

That seems like a great challenge and I'm really curious to see where this goes. Even more so given the fact that this rework is in good hands ?.

I have been thinking about doing something like this with 42056, but eventually I opted for building a completely new model where I had complete freedom.

[brunojj1]

On 11/3/2018 at 5:07 PM, NKubate said:

... I couldn't help but think what if I would try to go a step further and do a complete overhaul of the Chiron... I got the impression that there is further room to reduce material, make it lighter while keeping/ improving structure integrity, basically trying to engineer everything more efficient.

Great to know about that and curious about the outcome. There is a lot of room to reduce material. May I ask you 2 things:

- It could be possible that the marketing strategy was to satisfy as many customers as possible of all sort - new unbiased clients who don´t care as well as more experienced builders who cannot be satisfied with any level of design quality anyway. Do you personally think the model has been designed deliberately "imperfect" to this extent, at least the chassis, to let room for everybody to improve anything and get a deeper satisfaction on the long term (same as with the Porsche)?

- What´s your motivation to do this instead of e.g. designing a proper B-model which IMO everybody would anticipate much more?

[SamuelYsc]

Finally after at least 250 Hours of test and LDD designing. I am happy to say that, My Moster Bugatti Chrion mod - The Bugatti Vision GT Plus is getting to the final stage.
Now i am waiting the parts from the shipping for the latest update - Pneumatic Driven Clutch Brakes & Rear Spoiler Controll.
But for now i only have some in LDD photo, i only have some old real life photo. The car now are dissembled for waiting the new parts.

This mod include:

Total parts : 4400+

PF:
8x XL 20:12 (1.67) power output drive (the previous version of this is 36:12, but the gear are so easy to get damaged, so i lower the radio)
1x Servo for turning
2x M for the Door / Pneumatic Dynamic Suspension control
1x M for the w16 engine
1x L for the Pneumatic air power
1x Servo for the "Pneumatic Driven Clutch Brakes & Pneumatic Rear Spoiler Controll & Door / Pneumatic Dynamic Suspension control" switch

4x Buwizz for the power of course
1x Bugatti Body light kit

Body mod:
Black & White colour tone
Bugatti Vision GT style rear wing
Front body cover hole covered
Front & rear Suspension rework (4 Pneumatic Suspension for each sde 16 in total. planning to reduce to 2 Pneumatic Suspension + Technic Suspension for each side)
Rocket bunny style widebody kit
Rear Disc Brakes turn to angle 45

Planning for the future :
Reduce Suspension to 2 Pneumatic Suspension + Technic Suspension for each side
Workng Pneumatic Disc Brakes (ref : Nikolay Pneumatic Disc Brakes Lego Technic by Nikolay )
Try to add gear radio back to 36:12(3:1) if possible.
Change the way of the door open to Koenigsegg open style
Instruction for RB ? not sure am i lazy or not

Photo : full

Note : Lego LDD don't have many of the parts, special for the new parts from the 42083. I have replace it with some similar parts.
1x5L Yellow technic arms & Technic Suspension represent 1x5L Pneumatic Suspension.
Porshe rims represent the Bugatt rims
92908 represent 35189 Brakes Disc
Blue 18575 represent 35185
1x5L Gray technic arms represent 19474 Pneumatic Switch with Pin Holes

The full look


Full look without body chassis


The parts i have added / changed


The gear driven train


The location of 4 Buwizz


The w16 engine


The rear body change


The rear body change with 4 Buwizz & w16 engine


The middle body change & Pneumatic Rear Spoiler ; the 2 M is for the Door / Pneumatic Dynamic Suspension control


The middle body change (2) - gear box for the "Pneumatic Driven Clutch Brakes & Pneumatic Rear Spoiler Controll & Door / Pneumatic Dynamic Suspension control" switch
The 2 white air tank is hidden for the photo


Front body change


The body chassis change


That is it, pls feel free to ask me any question!
Thank you all for the awesome mod post!

Edited November 5, 2018 by SamuelYsc
Add note for the LDD photo

[letsbuild]

Wow. I'm speechless. This build is absolutely stunning, and I bet it'd look even better as a real-life build.

Well done.

[technic_addict]

@SamuelYsc I have never seen anyone use 8XL motors for drive.  Why did you use 8 instead of 4 which I personally think would have been plenty enough.

Colour scheme looks good but the wheel arches don't exist in black or white.

 

[brunojj1]

5 hours ago, SamuelYsc said:

PF:
8x XL 20:12 (1.67) power output drive (the previous version of this is 36:12, but the gear are so easy to get damaged, so i lower the radio)
 

As technic_addict pointed out already, there is no need to use 8 x XL motors, especially if you are afraid to damage gears. You should engage the differentials at the axles from BOTH sides - that will reduce a lot of slack and allow much more torque to be transferred to the drivetrain. Then try out the max possible ratio. Please post some video once having figured out the optimum, I´d be very curious about the performance, for me this is still unexplored territory (BuWizz, AWD and such).

The idea with the radio is good however (joking) 

[NKubate]

On 11/4/2018 at 8:40 PM, brunojj1 said:

Great to know about that and curious about the outcome. There is a lot of room to reduce material. May I ask you 2 things:

- It could be possible that the marketing strategy was to satisfy as many customers as possible of all sort - new unbiased clients who don´t care as well as more experienced builders who cannot be satisfied with any level of design quality anyway. Do you personally think the model has been designed deliberately "imperfect" to this extent, at least the chassis, to let room for everybody to improve anything and get a deeper satisfaction on the long term (same as with the Porsche)?

- What´s your motivation to do this instead of e.g. designing a proper B-model which IMO everybody would anticipate much more?

When it comes to your first question I wouldn't recommend such a marketing strategy. Releasing an "imperfect" product should perhaps only be considered when you aim for early adopters and then plan to release a "new and improved" version based on the received feedback quite a while later. Generally speaking though it's considered poor business. There is a small chance that they wanted to go for a higher piece count to be able to increase the price, but I consider it more likely that the circumstances just weren't there for a fully optimized model.

Because it's been more than a year since I've built anything with Technic and actually several years since I've designed anything more advanced, I thought it would be better to start with this exercise first, especially when there is this strong feeling that this model can be improved (simplified) quite a bit. Perhaps a "proper" B-model could be a possibility somewhere in he future...   

[Didumos69]

14 hours ago, brunojj1 said:

As technic_addict pointed out already, there is no need to use 8 x XL motors, especially if you are afraid to damage gears. You should engage the differentials at the axles from BOTH sides - that will reduce a lot of slack and allow much more torque to be transferred to the drivetrain. Then try out the max possible ratio. Please post some video once having figured out the optimum, I´d be very curious about the performance, for me this is still unexplored territory (BuWizz, AWD and such).

The idea with the radio is good however (joking) 

@SamuelYsc It is of course attractive to bring as much power as possible from the Buwizzes to the wheels, but this puts unreal requirements on the drivetrain. I'm afraid you will destroy gears and U-joints even when they are braced well.

@brunojj1 About AWD and Buwizzes. I have such a setup in my Greyhound (4 L-motors and 2 Buwizzes). Based on the experience of others I started off with a separate drive train for each wheel. The biggest issue I encountered when putting a lot of power to the front wheels in a model that has some weight (approx. 2kg), was the slack and weakness of the standard LEGO wheels hubs and steering links. Slack causes a lot of too-in when driving forward and too-out when driving backwards. This introduces a lot of tire scrub, which means friction and worse performance. Weakness of the standard wheel hubs caused (in my case) wheels to come off in turns. The dbg pins of the standard wheel hubs are the softest pins out there. I had to come up with all kinds of tricks to make it work, like for instance the use of turn-tables as wheelhubs (my Greyhound is not only a rigidity-fest ?).

 @SamuelYsc So getting the best out of 2 Buwizzes and 4 L-motors in a 4WD vehicle is already very hard to do, let alone using 4 Buwizzes and 8 XL-motors.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Didumos69

[Homersapien]

I'm getting mine today, fingers cross, will be reading this thread first :D

 

[brunojj1]

21 hours ago, NKubate said:

.... I consider it more likely that the circumstances just weren't there for a fully optimized model.

Thanks, I understand. It was simply my personal feel of disappointment while assembling the Bugatti, even worse than with the Porsche. But I have made my peace with it now. I don´t blame the designer, because I have no idea what restrictions within which boundaries they have to follow which "free" artists even don´t think of. But I think they definitely should (re-)hire you for the next one  .

21 hours ago, NKubate said:

Because it's been more than a year since I've built anything with Technic and actually several years since I've designed anything more advanced, I thought it would be better to start with this exercise first, especially when there is this strong feeling that this model can be improved (simplified) quite a bit. Perhaps a "proper" B-model could be a possibility somewhere in he future...   

So this will be a nice warmup for greater things to come from you, can´t wait it .

8 hours ago, Didumos69 said:

@brunojj1 About AWD and Buwizzes. I have such a setup in my Greyhound (4 L-motors and 2 Buwizzes). Based on the experience of others I started off with a separate drive train for each wheel. The biggest issue I encountered when putting a lot of power to the front wheels in a model that has some weight (approx. 2kg), was the slack and weakness of the standard LEGO wheels hubs and steering links. Slack causes a lot of too-in when driving forward and too-out when driving backwards. This introduces a lot of tire scrub, which means friction and worse performance. Weakness of the standard wheel hubs caused (in my case) wheels to come off in turns. The dbg pins of the standard wheel hubs are the softest pins out there. I had to come up with all kinds of tricks to make it work, like for instance the use of turn-tables as wheelhubs (my Greyhound is not only a rigidity-fest ?).

Yeah, all that is a science in itself and has to be dealt very pragmatically. I´ve been following your Greyhound project and apreciated all the development a lot. I think making such a robust, well performing outdoor offroad vehicle like yours requires all these specific adaptations. Solutions for a supercar driving only on flat surface, probably don´t need to be as sophisticated IMO. Of course the slack, given naturally by the wheel hubs, results in some unwanted effects, but you can´t do anything about it. A model of the size of the Chiron or my P1 is happy if being able to drive at all . E.g. I´m driving my car (2XL + 2L) on the table (!) from time to time, just to be satisfied about the good acceleration and hearing no "clicking" gears which is an achievement for me, even if nobody would care. So the "maximum performance" philosophy is moving into abstract with the pure weight of the model. However, it shouldn´t discourage us to do more research. 

 

 

 

 

[Nikolay]

What do you think is relevant?
 

 

[x13liu]

I just got to the part to install the steering wheel on the dash and the front wheels don't turn. Are the front wheels supposed to turn right after this is done? Or there are more steps after this to make the wheels turn?

[imvanya]

On 11/13/2018 at 6:45 AM, x13liu said:

I just got to the part to install the steering wheel on the dash and the front wheels don't turn. Are the front wheels supposed to turn right after this is done? Or there are more steps after this to make the wheels turn?

I would say that in terms of steering the critical steps involving gears are as follows:

1. 293-298, book 1
2. 316-333, book 1
3. 335, book 1
4. 364-375, book 1

I would specifically check these as they are more likely to be missed:

• the 12t gear at step 296 (the one engaged with the steering rack, located right above the white 1L connector/liftarm)
• the 16t at step 335 (visible at the front, under the black curved panel), arguably the easiest one to fix

Edited November 15, 2018 by imvanya

[ctx1769]

Thanks everyone for their ideas for improvements on the Chiron, I have put some of them to use in my build, mainly altering that suspension, the hog and the piping on the bottom of the doors. I did add my own little custom job, nothing special just part 22385 in flat silver to cover the pistons. 

[NKubate]

The past few weeks I have been working on a redesign for the front section (box 2). However - similar to the rear section - many of the changes seem hard to notice because it's about parts optimization and efficiency, where the overall structure will not change that much in comparison. I could go more into detail of different sections and submodules with all the modifications I have done and my reasoning behind it if people are interested, but then it's perhaps better to make a separate blog of it... Suggestions?  For now some more pics to share, with the most notable differences visible at the bottom. 

Chiron redesign WiP front section by Nathanael Kuipers, on Flickr

Chiron redesign WiP front bottom by Nathanael Kuipers, on Flickr

[Lipko]

12 minutes ago, NKubate said:

I could go more into detail of different sections and submodules with all the modifications I have done and my reasoning behind it if people are interested, but then it's perhaps better to make a separate blog of it... Suggestions? 

Please, do a blog post, I love reading such things.

[brunojj1]

16 minutes ago, Lipko said:

Please, do a blog post, I love reading such things.

+1 

Suggestion: it would be nice to have a side by side comparison with the original model to be able to figure some of the major changes. Probably the easiest way would be to show the excerpt of that particular stage from the official instructions (pdf available). That way you would need to formulate a bit less of explanatoty text which may overstrain some younger people nowadays  .

[Bartybum]

@NKubate Are you planning to redesign the ugly squashed front of the original model?

Edited November 25, 2018 by Bartybum

[SamuelYsc]

Just a quick update for my 8XL Bugatti.
I know it has been almost a year after the first update, but I have not stop updating and keep building.

But sadly, my computer is broken. The LDD save is gone until i fix my computer.
Although I have some of the backup file in my Macbook , the file is like a few week ago and Mac version of LDD does not support developer mode (no hitting box), I can't continue my build until I really fix my computer.
Or I hope someone found a way to use developer mode in Mac version of LDD.

Here is the progress report.

First of it i want to motion about is 99% of the MOC build is using LEGO, just only a few parts and pf(s) are not made by lego.
And they are:
The 4 white&black wheel arches which TLG does not have this colours.
The 4 Red wheel which TLG does not have this colours.
The PFs, I am living in Hong Kong, buying official PFs is expensive like hell here specially i have 8 XL and lots of other things in this build.
And this is it. All Lego.

8x XL 12:20 (0.6) drivetrain - works fine, but i only test a few mins, no slack. last time i have write the radio wrong. XD
1x Servo for turning - works well
2x M for the Door / Pneumatic Dynamic Suspension control - Not working, problem solving in the latest LDD save but....
1x M for the w16 engine - works well
1x L for the Pneumatic air power - works well
1x Servo for the "Pneumatic Driven Clutch Brakes & Pneumatic Rear Spoiler Control & Door / Pneumatic Dynamic Suspension control" switch - works well, but have problem with Pneumatic Driven Clutch Brakes.

Problem with Pneumatic Driven Clutch Brakes, it does not activity as expert, once the clutch is in engaged in, they will not engage out and start slacking. Even it is not on engaging ! wtf !
Still trying to fix it, the worst of this is give up the Pneumatic Driven Clutch Brake, just straight out the drivetrain to the wheel.

Pneumatic Rear Spoiler Control & Door / Pneumatic Dynamic Suspension control - works well
Pneumatic Dynamic Suspension - Built, not yet tested

Let's see some of the wip photo.

Full wip image album : here

Some of the old photo before the Pneumatic update come in.

Full album : here

And here is video of the old version testing, i guess everyone want to see it...

Also the album of the very first building photo of this MOC build. Here.

I hope i can fix my computer asap.
And yes i know, 8 XL is crazy as F, and i know there is no reason to using 8 XL.
But... I just want to do it. This is the reason. I know it maybe 99% will be useless and fail but i am happy why the building, this is enough for me.
But still, thanks for all the replies and suggestion! I like all you guys! I am so happy that have so many people like me like Lego Technic, specially i am in Hong Kong. I am almost alone.

Edited November 27, 2018 by SamuelYsc
update image