Flux Capacitor – Henry Chang 2016

How to say ? Henry Chang is kind of the 21st century Leonardo da Vinci, at least in engineering related to art. Of Chinese origin, a father professor of engineering and a mother professor of jazz dance and ballet, he grew up in Laramie, Wyoming. He studied computer science and political science at the University of California in San Diego. Deep down, he always knew how to keep this artistic fiber learned from his mother, next to his Cartesian spirit forged by his father.

Henry began his professional life by designing and building houses, he had a passion for stainless steel tubes with which he designed quirky furniture that tried to place in his classic homes.

It was with his tubes that he built one day 2005, a musical drum wall, a laser harp and other instruments for a jazz group called Soul in the Machine, who was going to play music during the Burning Man of 2005.

This is where Henry Chang fell in love with Burning Man, and he likes to say that Burning Man has had a profound impact on his professional and personal life. It was at this point in his life that he felt a man among men when until then he felt a little excluded from society.

And Henry discovered the Creative Art Cars of Burning Man and decided to build one. Build an Art-Car yes, but how ? Which ? An exceptional, not like them 600 others from Burning Man…

One of Henry's conditions was that this car should be an entire work of art, including its chassis. And with stainless steel tubes, it would be possible to do a lot of unusual things…

His first Art-Car was going to be called Mister Fusion and was going to be born in 2012, inspired by nuclear fusion simulated by a laser beam integrated into the car with an induction chamber. The whole thing was made of kilometers of stainless steel tubes formed and welded together to create the whole car, chassis and bodywork, seats and steering wheel with all the details. Mister Fusion is powered by a small block Chevrolet V8.

I like this quote from Henry Chang : "It’s good to have a sculpture that I can drive instead of leaving it there, I’m learning from Burning Man. Larry Harvey, founder of Burning Man aptly coined the term "Portable Monumentality" to describe Burning Man's moving artistic installations.

Valerian Steel, is Henry's second Art-Car in stainless steel tubes 2015, and she is like supernatural, surmounted by a huge Tourbillon, a very small timepiece present in the old watches that he chose to show to express his gratitude to the engineers of this world.

Henry's third car was started in 2014 to appear at Burning Man 2016, the Flux Capacitor tearing a page from the film Back to the future.

On Sixmania.fr it's the car that interests us, first equipped with 6 wheels like the Tyrrell P34, 4 front wheels and 2 back, then modified and equipped in 8 wheels like the Nemo-Car, 4 front wheels and 4 rear wheels. In the film in French, we are talking about the time convector, The time machine !

Flux Capacitor measures 11,58 meter, powered by a large V-8 block, a tube monster ! "I wanted to do something epic", I think Henry succeeded.

Its realization is superb, a complicated tangle of tubes and yet a very fluid driving in the Nevada desert. The machine seems straight out of the future, in the manner of Leonardo da Vinci in his time.

The front wheel steering system is ingenious, with a suspension at 4 wheel independent, two wheels fixed from the inside and two others from the outside, with an overhang of more than 7 meters, a revolutionary technical innovation that is pleasing to the eye. they are mechanically linked, even if each has its own hydraulic cylinder. The steering wheel is on an orbital hydraulic valve.

Henry's Art-Cars are not frozen, they evolve over time and according to his inspirations.

I asked Henry about the technical specifications of the Flux Capacitor 2020, he kindly replied :

The engine is a big Chevy block 454 from 7,44 liters supercharged.
He does 630 horses and 908 Nm de couple.
Its weight is about 6800 kg.
It contains 2200 stainless steel tubes. He used stainless steel 304 (Mixture of Nickel and Chromium).

Long swing arms make driving very flexible. He thinks the reason why the front swingarm suspension is not used much is that it is very inefficient from a volume standpoint. It takes up too much space and is therefore not practical for normal vehicles. But it's an Art-Car and in the Art-Car, we don't care about the practical.

Henry designed and manufactured the frame and chassis from scratch, he works in 3D on Solidworks, French software as it reminds me, of the Dassault company, yes and Renault also uses it.

Henry has been using Solidworks since 21 years. It’s his favorite software.

He intends to ride 2 Niehoff military alternators on it. They will produce 27 kW of power and he can add an Italian ice cream machine for the next Burning Man. Apparently, at least there is a need 15 kW of power to operate a decent commercial ice cream machine in hot conditions.

Henry monopolizes us with his fantastic artistic creations of all beauties.

A combination of engineering and art, between mathematics and poetry.

We hope of course that Henry Chang does not stop there with multi-wheels and that Burning Man will return next year, exceptionally canceled this year due to Covid-19.