You built an electric self-driving drifting car out of a DeLorean??

[mark w]

I want those damn LCAs. I emailed them a couple of days ago before I even saw this video posted on Reddit. I didnt notice until today, but it looks like they cut the front section of the frame out.

the upper and lower A arms were fabricated by the team. the frame section that the A arms attach too is stock, but missing the crumple section forward of the tunnel that the steering rack normally sits in. They added a plate to the front of it for strength since they mounted thier steering rack (stock does not have enough lock to lock ratio) to the front of it.

the upper part of the coilover suspension ties in with the tubular frame and rollcage they added.

Mark

[jontheg]

Hi all!

We actually posted a decently detailed write-up of the work done on the car here: https://ddl.stanford.edu/marty/overview
It includes pictures and descriptions of the work on the suspension, including the front LCAs.

mark w's summary above is pretty accurate. The LCAs are unfortunately not a drop-in replacement, as they 1) are designed to be used with coilovers and 2) require sacrificing the front 'swaybar'.

Personally, there are probably a few things I would change about them as well -- we had like 2 weeks to get this done. If we had a chance to redo it, I would have further explored connecting the coilovers closer to the hub attachment point, and thereby greatly reducing the bending loads on the LCA. Currently they need to be pretttty beefy to withstand all the loads.

To be fair, the DeLorean with actually good suspension is... awesome*. If there are folks interested in using this stuff to redesign a less invasive coilover conversion + beefier-fication, I may be interested in helping out.

Also, did you guys notice we have a 5 bolt pattern now? :P

- Jon

*Interior Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHU4Xop4dWw

[mr_maxime]

Jon, I'm interested in just about everything you mentioned. The only thing that I'd currently rather not touch is cutting the from section of frame off.

Stock turn radius is pretty bad. My front suspension is also pretty beat up looking. I don't know how people can fit bigger tires on the car cause mine rub the sway bar with stock sizes.

Ive been thinking about 5 lug conversion, but seeing how we got a 3d scanner at work now, I'm thinking of scanning the wheels and having one offs made in a larger size.

[DMC-81]

I just saw this thread. Wow, this is awesome! These engineers are helping to advance the autonomous future. And I thought we just had Johnny Cabs to look forward to.

Hats off to everyone involved, and for using the DeLorean as their test vehicle.