WIP - 1:8 Nissan Silvia S15

[bruh]

Dude I totally get not having time to study lol! I am really interested in the outcome of this car. Also, putting macoherson suspension is really cool! I’ve tried a bit to get a macpherson suspension module, but not very hard :/ I hope you keep making progress! 

[dantheman12]

started working on the rear suspension, made a mock up of how it will look. 

IMG_1493[1] by dan.vperger, on Flickr 

IMG_1492[1] by dan.vperger, on Flickr

IMG_1491[1] by dan.vperger, on Flickr

IMG_1490[1] by dan.vperger, on Flickr

to make the cv joints fit i had to take apart the turntables and only use the black side, unfortunately i damaged the grey parts in the process. but the advantages of this mean it not only fits but spins much more freely, the turntable had a lot more resistance and a slight squeak. 

Really wanted to put a working sway bar in, and it works great, but the ground clearance is about 2 studs less than the front now, so when I properly build the frame for the whole back suspension Ill have to figure out a solution.

the top control arm / link will be one of the 5x1 steering arms,  but I don't currently have any.

their will also be another small link where the ball joint is on top, only really for decoration and consistency with the real car, it is already more than rigid enough.

The current design should also allow enough space for the springs to be upgraded to the new 9L shock absorber, which may be necessary to hold the final weight of the model, especially if motorised.

next step will be to build the gearbox, and figure out how much space ill have left over to connect the gearbox output to the cream 20 tooth gear driving the LSD. Then I can plan it out in studio and fit the whole back part in, and finish the whole chassis.

[bruh]

What is with the worm gear? I’ve seen them before, but can’t remember what is meant to do.

[dantheman12]

its part of the torsion diff it allows one side to turn a little bit and then gets pushed into the other side locking the back wheels. Theres a few videos on them just look up lego torsion diff.

 

[bruh]

Ok. I thought it might something along that line, can’t wait to see how it interacts with the model!

[dantheman12]

Gearbox is on the way! 

I've made 2 designs so far, both 6 speed manual. have been experimenting with my shifting mechanism to see if reverse is possible, but should be able to add in reverse to either fairly easily (at the sacrifice of more space). I've tried to replicate the real car's ratios as well as possible, which are:

1 - 3.626

2 - 2.200

3 - 1.541

4 - 1.213

5 - 1.000

6 - 0.767 

Design 1: 

credit to an unknown discord user - 'Talbe' for helping with this design

IMG_1518 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

IMG_1526 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

IMG_1519 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

IMG_1527 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

Ratios:

3,  2,  1.5,  1.25,  1,  0.8

It has a LOT of gears, although it runs fairly well with a motor. the one I built IRL above was a quick mock up to test if it worked, so there is liftarms everywhere. Could definitely be condensed down a bit more.

 

Design 2:

still yet to build IRL, don't have any of the new 24 tooth clutch gears, and only 1 of the old driving rings.

IMG_1523[1] by dan.vperger, on Flickr

IMG_1524[1] by dan.vperger, on Flickr

IMG_1521 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

ratios:

3,  2.25,  1.5,  1.25,  1,  0.8

So far i'm liking this design better, the long skinny shape is more realistic, and it uses less gears, so should run a lot smoother, although it presents its own problems. The goal was to make it so the car could roll slightly in neutral. I've pretty much accepted that the back seats will be nonexistent, which I'm okay with as I'm leaning more towards a modified/racing look (roll cage will also be put in later), but it might be just too long. I've also done some more work on the back suspension, built a working sway bar that I am very happy with, but I need some more parts. So a parts order is due, I think I will finish the back suspension, and see how much room I have to work with. 

Also wanted to express me disappointment that the red differential doesn't have a hole to put an axle all the way through, meaning I couldn't use a 28 tooth gear with a clutch like I planned, as combined with an 8 tooth gear gave a ratio of 3.5, closer to the 1st gear ratio than 3. Might be possible to still include this ratio, but it would definitely increase the volume significantly, and I don't have any normal 28 tooth gears anyway.

Thanks for reading :)

Edited October 10, 2024 by dantheman12
added a better picture

[2GodBDGlory]

Looks good! I'd agree that I prefer the longer design too, at least if you can find space for it.

You said something about "old" driving rings, though--just to clarify, you won't be able to use the old 2L one with this gearbox, since it doesn't mesh with any of the post-2015 clutch gears. You'll need the new 2L ones from the Yamaha set

Yeah, it is a real bummer that there's no clutch interface in that 28T gear. They were able to fit it into a half-stud space on the other end of the differential, so why couldn't they have added one on the gear side as well? Sigh

[dantheman12]

1 hour ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Looks good! I'd agree that I prefer the longer design too, at least if you can find space for it.

You said something about "old" driving rings, though--just to clarify, you won't be able to use the old 2L one with this gearbox, since it doesn't mesh with any of the post-2015 clutch gears. You'll need the new 2L ones from the Yamaha set

Yeah, it is a real bummer that there's no clutch interface in that 28T gear. They were able to fit it into a half-stud space on the other end of the differential, so why couldn't they have added one on the gear side as well? Sigh

I was literally thinking, why does no one use these they save so much space 😂. And when I read what you said I instantly remembered doing this exact same thing, I rebuilt a gearbox thinking I could save 1 stud easily and found out the hard way. Oh well.

Yeah I’m gonna have to get my hands on some of the new parts anyway, although the new driving rings are $6 AUD each from Lego 😭 

Hopefully bricklink comes in clutch but either way will have to splash out a bit.

 

[2GodBDGlory]

3 hours ago, dantheman12 said:

I was literally thinking, why does no one use these they save so much space 😂. And when I read what you said I instantly remembered doing this exact same thing, I rebuilt a gearbox thinking I could save 1 stud easily and found out the hard way. Oh well.

Yeah I’m gonna have to get my hands on some of the new parts anyway, although the new driving rings are $6 AUD each from Lego 😭 

Hopefully bricklink comes in clutch but either way will have to splash out a bit.

 

Yeah, those new parts aren't cheap! I got myself a set of those driving rings and 24T clutches off AliExpress to save money. I will say my driving rings feel pretty loose, but then I don't have any Lego ones to compare them to, so I don't know if it's normal or not.

[dantheman12]

Some work on the interior:

Made the glovebox and passenger side of the dash:

IMG_1557 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

IMG_1558 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

s15 interior 1 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

The glovebox opens, altough I need a better way to open and close it. The whole structure needs some reinforcing, I will start working on the main structure of the windscreen so that it can have a solid construction connected to that. 

After a long time of relearning blender and figuring out what file size parts designer liked I managed to get a 3D model into studio. Very happy with this, already been so useful (credit).

 

Also designed the seats in studio, yet to build them for real, definitely won't be with orange parts but ill use what I have and make sure they stay together well etc, but I am pretty confident they will, but would like to test before I spend nearly $20 AUD on each seat (according to bricklink).

Very happy with them:

Screenshot 2024-10-27 210339 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

Screenshot 2024-10-27 210326 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

Screenshot 2024-10-27 210308 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

They are based off the very rare option b interior, only came in navy blue and this bright orange I chose:

s15 option b seats orange door open by dan.vperger, on Flickr

Although they aren't particularly recognisable, they add a nice splash off colour to the interior which would otherwise be a lot of black and grey, while still being based off a real thing on a stock silvia. 

 

Finally, I built my gearbox with the parts I had (missing the new driving rings and two 24 tooth clutch gears), I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with it. It has so much resistance, nearly the exact same as the previous one I built, even though it has more than half the number of gear meshes and axles. I think one of the limited number of 8 tooth gears I have is a bit damaged, which contributes, but without this I think it wouldn't make a huge difference. I also don't think it will even fit with the seats now, but we will see.

IMG_1559 by dan.vperger, on Flickr

I try to stay away from 8 tooth gears in general, but for the ratios I wanted it didn't seem possible (ratios for this one are listed in my last progress update). It seems it will come down to deciding between very realistic ratios and actual performance. I still have a lot of these decisions to make, but they can wait. I'm going to focus on some other 'easier' things for now :)

 

Thanks for reading

[2GodBDGlory]

Looking good!

I was trying to import a file into Stud.io this summer to use as a reference, but I don't think I ever managed to get it small enough (except by splitting it in half), and even then it didn't seem to make Stud.io very happy. Maybe I'll try again later, but then again, I usually don't build digitally anyways, so there's not much need to.

[dantheman12]

6 hours ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Looking good!

I was trying to import a file into Stud.io this summer to use as a reference, but I don't think I ever managed to get it small enough (except by splitting it in half), and even then it didn't seem to make Stud.io very happy. Maybe I'll try again later, but then again, I usually don't build digitally anyways, so there's not much need to.

The model I used was around 400k polycount at first, had to get it all the way down to 40k to get it into studio. I had it at about 80k and managed to import it into parts designer, but when I tried to export to studio it didn’t like it at all.

[2GodBDGlory]

15 hours ago, dantheman12 said:

The model I used was around 400k polycount at first, had to get it all the way down to 40k to get it into studio. I had it at about 80k and managed to import it into parts designer, but when I tried to export to studio it didn’t like it at all.

I take it you're editing that in Blender? I've never used that, just more geometric programs like Fusion 360. Might be worth trying some time!

[dantheman12]

15 hours ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

I take it you're editing that in Blender? I've never used that, just more geometric programs like Fusion 360. Might be worth trying some time!

Yeah, I did a little bit of Blender at school a year ago, and then the model I found was a .blend file so downloaded it on my laptop and just did it like that. I'm honestly not sure how good it is compared to other software, just happened to be the only one I've used. Next year I believe I have a unit on CAD and 3D modelling, so looking forward to doing that, as I find it pretty fun.