Chassis Engineering is a great introduction to race car design. In a practical and down-to-earth way, it covers the fundamentals of how race cars handle and the requirements for designing and constructing a car. The book includes chapters on chassis design, suspension design, frame construction, aerodynamics and tuning. Overall it provides the reader with the foundation of how the key components of a race car work and interact together.

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A compilation of 27 SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) papers selected by racing engineer legend Carroll Smith which focus on chassis and suspension design for pure race cars. These papers provide deep insights and practical and usable information for chassis and race car designers.

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Teaches basics of 4 wheel drive vehicles and off-road driving techniques. Chapters on basics of 4 wheel drive, selecting a 4x4, customizing and upgrading, and off-roading techniques. Off-road techniques include crawling, hills, recovery/winching, snow, ice, mud, and crossing streams.

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Teaches how to use the correct fasteners and fastener materials. This book includes extensive information on fatigue properties, joints, mounts, and vehicle plumbing.

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A comprehensive resource for those building race car chassis or components with fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP). Types of composite materials, moulding techniques, structural techniques, layup, and applications are all discussed in this book.

Get "Competition Car Composites: A Practical Guide":

Book 2 of the Composite materials series which gets builders started by explaining the practical techniques. Includes projects to help the builder learn techniques of mold making, laminating, demolding and finishing. Includes many high quality color photographs to guide the reader.

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A comprehensive, easy-to-read guide on metallurgy (metal properties), fastening and plumbing. The book applies this information to many aspects of race cars with the goal of building cars that do not break or leak.

Get "Engineer To Win: The essential guide to racing car materials technology":

Teaches welding techniques, metal forming, hammerforming and practical metal fabrication projects. Project include forming custom body panels, tanks, roll cages/safety cells and exhaust headers.

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A guide to designing the engine as a system and constructing it to produce maximum horsepower. The design aspects use the airflow through each part of the engine as a basis for instruction. Provides detailed information on how to select, modify and tune each component to work at peak efficiency with others in the engine.

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This book explains how to select and match driveline components to engine power output to minimize or eliminate driveline breakages. Also covers gear ratio selection, differential rebuilding and driveline components.

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Explains how to design and construct exhaust systems matched to the engine to optimize power. The book includes theory and practical design of the entire exhaust system (headers, resonators, catalytic converters, mufflers) and teaches how to fabricate or select and purchase the individual components to match the design. The book also shows metal working techniques for fabricating full-custom systems.

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Includes explanations of how turbochargers are constructed and function, matching them to gas and diesel engines, manufacturers, installation, maintenance. It also includes detailed information on building the engine to handle turbocharging, rebuilding the turbocharger and turbocharger troubleshooting/failure analysis.

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Explains race car suspensions theory and design. The author explains the history of suspension design and types, handling theory, suspension design techniques, and the math/calculations used in design. The book also includes a unique string-based model approach to hands-on visualization of suspension movement.

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Teaches how to improve vehicle handling through suspension and chassis modifications and understanding vehicle dynamics. Includes basic suspension theory on roll centers, roll axis, camber change, bump steer, anti-dive, ride rate, ride balance as well practical chassis modifications.

Get "How to Make Your Car Handle":

The fundamentals of race car vehicle dynamics in a clear, well-written text. Explains suspension, weight dynamics and vehicle handling behaviours in a way that permits the designer to understand cause and effect and improve their race car design, vehicle tuning and even driving.

Get "Tune to Win: The art and science of race car development and tuning":

Advice from a 30 year veteran of 4WD machines. Explains what to look for in off-road machines and which vehicles are best for various terrains and conditions. This book includes a catalog of vehicles as of its publishing date. It also includes information on driving in and recovering vehicles from hostile environments,and includes planning expeditions and survival techniques. This book could potentially be used to determine requirements for an offroad 4x4 machine build project.

Get "The Off-Road 4-Wheel Drive Book: Choosing, using and maintaining go-anywhere vehicles":