Sneak Peek: The NEMO Racing EVO, Part 1

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nemo evo cage

After the chassis and cage was completed, it was stripped, prepped, and repainted with a metallic grey paint. The finish of the interior paint despite being a race car, is good enough for a show car. It needs to be seen in person to appreciate it. Imagine what a pain in the ass it must have been for the guy with the paint gun to cover every single one of the tubes as many as there are in this car.

nemo aero

Unless you've been living under a Time Attack rock, you have probably heard of Andrew Brilliant. Andrew is best known in the US for his work on the FXMD NSX which currently holds the US Time Attack record at Buttonwillow, but his real gig that pays the bills is consulting for IndyCar, Super GT, ALMS, GrandAm Rolex, and Speed World Challenge GT teams. Andrew is fairly tight lipped about NEMO's aero however. Jeff and I did promise him we would not take any pictures of the bottom/front section of the car. I did take a look down there and it is nuts. There's no other word to describe it other than NUTS and of course I gave him my word that I wouldn't write much about either. Andrew developed NEMO's aero package extensively in CFD. I believe he uses one of the ANSYS CFD products which is the same software brand that Red Bull F1 uses.

nemo evo aero build

Brad Cawthorne of Cawthorne Composites in Queensland, Australia fabricated and finished NEMO's body panels and aero pieces according to Andrew's designs. Brad does a fair bit of composite work in the V8 Supercar world and is also well known in the offshore boat world. You really need to see NEMO in person to appreciate the quality of the carbon work. What I believe we see here are the original C-West front bumper and HKS bonnet with some holes filled and widened overall. The factory fenders are mounted further out in space to accommodate the new suspension and 18 x 11″ Volk TE37 wheels and the whole assembly is molded together.

nemo evo aero build

The amount of hours spent on the one piece front end alone must have been fairly ridiculous. Notice the top upper corner of the fender has been reshaped for air flow for what appears to be the new mirrors. As they say, the devil is in the details.

nemo evo aero build

Here it appears the original part in the previous picture above is finished off, gelcoated and final prepped to be the plug. The plug must be free of any surface imperfections or the imperfections will transfer directly on to the mold. A mold will be pulled off the plug.

nemo evo aero build

Here is the completed one piece front end.

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