Anyone have a CAD drawing of an S30?

[GunnerRob]

Well, hopefully my reply was an icebreaker for everyone. I'd like to here from everyone else as well.

BTW, did I get the job?

[26th-Z]

Sorry to just post the link to my drawing and blow town. I drew that picture in AutoCad when I did a garage for Carl Beck. He never built the garage.

That drawing is by no means accurate enough to model. I just drew it - like a CAD hand drawing, if there is such a thing. I have drawings of all kinds of cars, F1 racers, motorcycles, boats. I use them for presentation architectural plans. Send me your e-mail address and I'll copy some .dwg files to you AutoCad buffs. I picked up AutoCad v.2 when I was using VersiCAD in a UCSD Pascal P-system environment. I am a retired DOS-Meister. Bet you guys didn't know that. These days, I just surf porn sites and pay some young kid to service the computer network.

So....I suggest the easiest thing might be to draw plans and elevations from the design drawings in the Factory Service Manuals. Mark, your idea has some great merit to it. I don't think anyone is going to come up with any earth shattering aerodynamic discovery, but it sounds like a fun project and if pictures can be posted, they would be fun to see and discuss. I think we pretty much know all about the aerodynamics of the S30. Perhaps the information that has been published has now become collector's items. I think a new discussion would be appropriate. I'll warn you all, though. You're going to find out that the S30 is an aerodynamic...what was that?....turd in a punchbowl? TOO FUNNY! I don't think there is any need to expend a bunch of time and energy on "laser 3D profile dynamic surveys". The information you might get from all that accuracy isn't going to have any application value. If you want an aerodynamicly efficient Zcar, buy a 350.

[hls30.com]

The Nissan book, 280ZX, stated the drag coefficients of the 240Z t0 be .467

Will

[mdbrandy]

I don't think anyone is going to come up with any earth shattering aerodynamic discovery, but it sounds like a fun project and if pictures can be posted, they would be fun to see and discuss. I think we pretty much know all about the aerodynamics of the S30. Perhaps the information that has been published has now become collector's items. I think a new discussion would be appropriate. I'll warn you all, though. You're going to find out that the S30 is an aerodynamic...what was that?....turd in a punchbowl? TOO FUNNY! I don't think there is any need to expend a bunch of time and energy on "laser 3D profile dynamic surveys". The information you might get from all that accuracy isn't going to have any application value. If you want an aerodynamicly efficient Zcar, buy a 350.

Not looking to make any great improvements in the aerodynamics - it's just fun. I'm essentially the software engineering manager for our group, and push a lot of "verification and validation" of our codes. Modeling things where the answers are already known from either analytical solutions or experimental results actually gives us nice cases to "prove that our codes work". An S30 model would be half "fun" and half "hmm, I wonder if we'll get the same results that everyone already seems to know?"

[dogma420]

I'm the networking engineer at an architecture firm...I have a buddy that is head of the Autocad department, and uses ACAD 2002 and 2005....I can run this thread by him and I'm sure he can do a drawing for us...let me know if this is of interest and what you'd want...I was thinking a cad of what 26th Z just posted...what formats? Let me know...I know networks, don't know much ACAD....but a buddy will probably say....'that'd be fun!'....let me know

[dogma420]

26thZ....do you have a better version of that jpeg you posted? I can't read any of the numbers....

[mdbrandy]

I'm the networking engineer at an architecture firm...I have a buddy that is head of the Autocad department, and uses ACAD 2002 and 2005....I can run this thread by him and I'm sure he can do a drawing for us...let me know if this is of interest and what you'd want...I was thinking a cad of what 26th Z just posted...what formats? Let me know...I know networks, don't know much ACAD....but a buddy will probably say....'that'd be fun!'....let me know

Since I started this thread off, I'll chime in here and say that while 26th-Z's drawing is cool, it isn't much good for what I am interested in doing. If I put together a pseudo-2D CFD model, it would have to be of a profile from the side. I don't think we'd be as interested in the flow around the sides of the car, as we are of the flow over and under the car. So if not a full 3D CAD model, then I'd need an elevation view from the side. I'm playing with trying to figure out the raster to vector type conversions of the line drawings that are already available, but I haven't had 100% luck yet.

[26th-Z]

When I drew the drawing in my gallery, I imported the .jpg and scaled it to approximatley the metric dimensions shown by laying out the size in Cad with construction lines. Then I traced over the lines using the curve and line command. Once I got the basic curves and lines drawn, I edited the lines to make the endpoints meet. I didn't spend a lot of time accurately tracing the picture or making sure the picture was a matching scale. It's close, but it could be better. Lets see if this replacement picture will load. Its nice and large.

[WaltsZed]

Hi 26th-Z,

You mentioned you could provide a copy of the 2D ACAD drawing you did to those who wanted it. (.dwg or .dxf is fine)

Could you send me a copy to my email address? Many Thanks.

Hi mdbrandy,

As mentioned before, I've looked into doing a 3D solid/surface model of an HS30 in the past; there's a company here in Sydney that I know (I'm a self employed mech eng working with industrial design firms) that can do EXACTLY what you're after; check their website:

New Dawn 3D -> http://www.nd3d.com/

I'll give 'em a call next week and see if I can't call in a few favours. I'm pretty sure their scanner can handle things as large as a car. As my car has a front air dam and rear spoiler (check my Avatar) it may not be the best subject for a "baseline" scan, but I'm sure I could get one of the guys in our club (Z Car Club of Sydney) with a HS30 std body to offer it up for scanning! If not maybe a model might be an alternative (eg 1/24th scale Fujimi plastic model). Wadayathink?

Will let you know how I go.

Mark

[Mike]

Hi guys, I wanted to re-open this thread from 2005! Did anyone find a CAD drawing or (better) a 3D model of the 240z ? If someone wants to digitize or scan my Franklin Mint model I can send it to you.

[bpilati]

I may be able to do a CAD drawing for you. Ill need a side view of the car with visible dimensions on it, the one Mat73 has dimensions that are unclear. Or i guess I could also use a side view of the car period, but it would be very time consuming that way. Something that would also be very neat, would be to draw an S30 up in something like SolidWorks. I think making an "exact" CAD drawing might be teadious, but definately do-able

That won't give you any curvature though. If someone take a scale model and does a 3D scan of it, you might be able to work from there.

[Mike]

I found this pretty basic 3D model for Google Sketchup. It's very rough and looks like it was created after the 280ZX.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=2f649524f9fd2223ae66278f4022455