WHUB's Progress Keeps on Turning!

The corner assemblies for the 2022 SHU Racing car are well underway. The first, and arguably main, component has been machined and outsourced components are rapidly arriving.

The hubs are finished! After 3 years of design development our new larger diameter hubs are finally manufactured. These new hubs feature integrated trilobe bearings for the rear driveshafts hence the increase in diameter over previous years. The main advantage of this change is to reduce the weight of the corner assemblies by ditching the use of heavy CV joints. The new hubs were machined completely in house from billet 7000 series aluminium giving a much lower weight than previous designs but without sacrificing strength and stiffness.

In addition to this a defective hub was also used in destructive torsional tests to confirm the strength of the new design. A steel jig was welded up to hold the hub in the machine and a torque was applied through the brake lobes to simulate the forces under braking. The result was that the hub outperformed the strength of the welds surviving a torque almost 4 times the expected maximum braking torque! Success!

The brake discs have also arrived ready to fit to the corner assemblies. Their design features triangulations around the mounting points in order to strengthen the discs only in the necessary places in order to further reduce the mass. The team would like to thank local company The Disc Doctor for their help with manufacturing the discs.

Meet the Team!

Meet the Team is an opportunity for us to give you a chance to learn a little more about the people who make up SHU Racing. This week, we welcome a member of our WHUB's department, Afolabi.

Name: Afolabi Ajayi

Age: 35

Course: MSc Advanced Engineering & Management

Role: WHUBS team member

Number of years with the Team: 1

Hobbies and Interests: Sim racing, Anime/Manga, Rock music

Favourite Car: Nissan skyline R34 - Godzilla

Reasons for Joining SHU Racing: Always had an interest in cars and wanted to be part of a team that actually built one - and race one at that. Looking to learn what it takes, and exchange ideas with motorheads in a different climate