More info on the project
On the second episode of the making of the electric car’s transformation our goals are to place wider tyres and lower the car. Applying these two modifications we gain better traction on the road, better aerodynamic and the car becomes aesthetically very nice.
The tyres that we have chosen to place are slick tyres by Pirelli that are used on racing vehicles. As long as we had chosen the tyres we should have made changes at rims to accept the tyres. Every rim was fixed and aligned on the lathe and then we cut one of its side. We removed a wider side from the other rims, which have the same diameter. We applied the two pieces that we welded with all of their perimeter on the rotary table that we have made. While the original rims had 12cm width after the transformation its width reached the 22 cm. On the four new rims we drilled new holes to fit the valves as the previous ones were at the side where the rims were removed. Then, we put the tyres on the rims and we put some air in them without any air loss.
After screwing them on the vehicle besides the big transformation of the image of the car we came across to some new problems. One of them was that while we were turning the steering wheel the tyre was bumping into the frontal part- the body of the car. Therefore, after removing all the parts that were connected with the front wheels, we moved the whole system 4cm forward and the problem solved.
However, to lower the frontal part of the car 15cm forward we had to move the position of the front springs creating a harder suspension at the same time. Also, at the back, the tyres were touching on the springs. Thus, we moved the springs and placed them in another spot to solve the particular problem and lower at 16cm the back part of the vehicle, too.
All in all, although the whole procedure of this project was time consuming, it was also very exciting.
See also Episode 1 of the Series
