Update: Week of Sept. 17

This week has been a pretty eventful one at the Duke Motorsports garage. Last Saturday, we did some carbon fiber work on the new intake manifold, which turned out great. We applied 2 layers of carbon fiber, and will be adding some reinforcement ribbing in between layers to ensure that the manifold will not flex under the vacuum generated by the motor.

Carbon fiber magic

 The end result turned out really well, and I think this may end up turning out to be the best looking intake manifold we've ever made!

Half of the carbon fiber intake manifold

 We also rapid-prototyped our impact attenuator box, which will hold the Hexcel aluminum honeycomb material that will also be wrapped in carbon fiber. Our new members were introduced to the various labs that we use on a weekly basis, and were really impressed by the rapid prototype lab.

Watching the rapid prototype machine create a work of art

I placed an order for a lot of our stock orders earlier in the week, but unfortunately they were not delivered in time to have a lot of work to do on Saturday. So after we did our carbon fiber work and worked on assembling parts of the frame jig, we decided that it would be a good idea to wash the garage door because it seemed a little dusty/dirty. Bad idea. After washing it, we realized how poorly painted it was, and after finding some spare paint cans, we sprayed the right 1/4 of the garage door just for comparison purposes. I decided that it was necessary to repaint the garage to make it look better. I went to Sherwin Williams to purchase some nice outdoor paint, and now our garage looks good as new!

Before: The blue and white pattern was supposed to mimic clouds...

After: Much, much better

We're looking into putting the Duke Motorsports logo on the garage, which would look really awesome and help solidify our presence on the engineering quad.

The Transporter approves

One last shout-out to Boyd Crane for helping us get our welder up and running again. Last semester, we ran into some problems with the welder where it wouldn't actually create an arc, but thanks to Boyd and Machine and Welding Supply Company, we were able to get the welder up and running in no time!

Welder is as good as new!