The Formula SAE Thread

[Guest]

I'm getting really excited now that we are starting construction on our 2010 car so I thought I'd start a thread. It's FSAE in general, not just my school's so if you're a member or just a follower please post what ever.

I'll start with some pictures of our car

Progress on 2010. We are going to have an amazing car this year but I can't post pics of it until the official unveiling in March.

Carbon fiber wheel from last year, just a test. We were able to inflate it to 90psi with out the shells separating. We stopped there considering we never run above 35psi, and usually stay between 12 and 20.

I'll get many more up when I have time. I've got a GoPro HD helmet cam so once the car is driving we'll have some sweet videos going up on youtube.

[PabloM]

I've been lurking around the SJSU team since last year and helping out whenever possible. I don't have the time to really devote to being full-time on the team though since I'm doing my internship right now. Hopefully next year I can take part.

[jochem]

I was with the Delft team at FSAE 2008. Had a great time and nearly took the trophy home...

If i remember correctly you are running the same engine (yamaha 450) and your team was in FSG last year?

[Guest]

We are actually running the Honda 450 because we have a Honda dirt bike shop local to us who are very generous. With our light weight concept car, same as Delft, the Yamaha might be a better engine since it's around 7lbs lighter.

We were at FSG09, and just a few points behind Delft going into endurance(with Stuttgart in 1st of course). Sadly the rivets holding our muffler together melted and the muffler fell off with 5 or 6 laps to go so we were pulled out. I believe Delft broke an axle shaft? I know something in the drivetrain broke. We ended up 21st, right behind Delft in 20th. One of the best sights at the competition was seeing us, a team pretty much no one had heard of, nearly knock Stuttgart off in Autocross. We were only 0.118 sec behind them I believe, Delft was right behind us by about 0.3..something.

[jochem]

How did you find the level of FSG in comparison to FSAE? They really should get a combined camping ground and Mahle party in MI!

We were the unknown team at Michigan '08. Had great help from MSU. Cornell was next to our pits and didn't even punt our team on their score board untill we had a ten point lead going into endurance.

Can't even remember how many times people asked us if we really had carbon shafts :-)

Keep the updates coming pls.

[Mattscott77]

i have been working with Cornell racing for the past year

we are one of the few teams still running 600cc engines (in our case a turbocharged yamaha yzf)

this year we finally made the step up to a carbon fiber monocoque and hopefully carbon wheels

[Guest]

How did you find the level of FSG in comparison to FSAE? They really should get a combined camping ground and Mahle party in MI!

We were the unknown team at Michigan '08. Had great help from MSU. Cornell was next to our pits and didn't even punt our team on their score board untill we had a ten point lead going into endurance.

Can't even remember how many times people asked us if we really had carbon shafts :-)

Keep the updates coming pls.

FSG was awesome, we did not attend Michigan last year because our car was not done in time. FSAE West was mediocre I'd say, many teams didn't show up due to funding or not having the car finished and it really was a battle between the top 5-8 cars. We pretty much did a 100% redesign from a tube frame 4-cyl to a half mono/half tube single and everything in between. We had our own little Mahle party because our adviser agreed to buy us 100$ of beer if we were top 5 since that had never happened for OSU previously. The Mahle party and combined camping were fantastic, I wish we were able to do that at the two US competitions.

The design is very different between the two continents. Over here the majority have little funding and small teams so they purchase many of the parts. Most of the European teams which have been around for 3 years or longer had a lot of funding and were able to make, or have made, some advanced parts like carbon shafts.

We may do them in the future, but for such an integral part we're going to spend a while researching and testing before ever running them at comp. We might do carbon a-arms this year since they are easier for us to make than our 0.028 wall steel arms(none of us can weld that thin consistently), but our steel a-arms are just about the same weight, or lighter than many schools carbon a-arms.

i have been working with Cornell racing for the past year

we are one of the few teams still running 600cc engines (in our case a turbocharged yamaha yzf)

this year we finally made the step up to a carbon fiber monocoque and hopefully carbon wheels

Actually the majority of schools run 4-cyl, only 3 or 4 cars at West last year had singles, and another 3 or 4 had twin's. Similar at FSG, 6-8 singles and 2 or 3 twins, and 1 3-cyl which was made for them by Mahle. 4's will be the majority for a while at least, unless they change up the tracks and make them more open.

What power are you making and what do the Tq/Hp curves look like? High hp really isn't necessary, we're only making 53ish and we're always in the top 10 in Accel and top 5 in AutoX/Endurance. Most of the time you can't use all the power anyways. From our MoTec we found we were only using full throttle 12% of the time(a little more on the FSAE west track since it is very open).

[Mattscott77]

i think we are getting about 95 hp, and that is a pretty steady curve, no spikes

we run at 8 psi of boost

[Guest]

but is it flat, or does it peak and drop? The really nice thing about our single is we hit peak power from 6000-10000rpm, and the torque curve peaks and flattens even earlier. It makes the car very drivable compared to a curve which peaks and begins to drop. Also with less power we are significantly faster in the rain than any of the 4-cyl.

At first I was disappointed to hear we had decided on a single for the 2009 car, and it definitely doesn't sound as good as a well tuned 4, but after last year I think it is the better choice. That said, if I were to ever make one myself it would be larger all around and 'Busa powered..giggity

[Mattscott77]

it flattens out early like yours

we have been using the same engine for a while now, so we've got it pretty well figured out

having an engine and chassis dyno also helps

[Guest]

One thing we've not had great success with is engine tuning, we're definitely getting better at it though. Our old 4-cyl Kawasakis were such bastardized/franken motors they never went nearly as long as they should have before needing a rebuild. We do have an engine dyno and a chassis dyno, but the chassis dyno has not worked in a long time and probably won't be fixed for years to come.

I was talking to one of the RMIT guys at FSG and he said they have used the same single engine for going on 4 years now. Now that is amazing! Basically their school would rather fund the solar car team so they get very little money, yet have continuously had really good cars.

Got any pics of your new or old cars?

[Mattscott77]

yeah we've been using the same engine for probably 8 years, and running a turbo for the last 4 or 5

heres a link to our website

http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu/history.php?name=08

[Guest]

Same engine, as in same single engine(so you only have one running car at a time), or same engine(but more than one of them).

Here's our links

Blog : http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/formulasae/

Website : http://groups.engr.oregonstate.edu/SAE/Formula/

We're working on a new website(should be ready in a month) and youtube channel once we get some videos made.

[Mattscott77]

sorry, we have like 6 engines

usually, one in our current car, one in the previous years car, one permanently on the engine dyno, two rebuilt and ready to swap, and the rest waiting to be rebuilt

we only get a couple hundred hours of run time out of any given engine before it needs to be swapped

[oldguy]

back when I was doing this. The car was supposed to be designed so a weekend racer could buy the roller chassis. Fit his motor and go racing on a "modest budget". If your car was expensive, you lost points. Mind you this was over a decade ago. But even then 8 piston titanium monoblock calipers were all the rage. Judges also believed they could be made for $1600.

So I guess that and carbon fiber wheels have crept in over the years as this has pumped the entry and development price into the stratosphere.

I would have always liked to have seen a team go and develop a car around 4wd.

Something like a 4wd and 4ws gearbox combo with like a CVT off a polaris 4wheeler or something. It's shaft drive but you could gear them with wheel size. They go about 60ish out of the box.

The ultimate would be if you could package it so it's like a kit. IE. Buy this chassis and this 4 wheeler to make a car. Design it to use the hubs. bearings. brakes. gearbox. brake light. head light. steering box. Engine and gearbox. That's something the weekend dude would love. Most parts are available at whatever 4wheeler dealer you choose.

Eventually FSAE will need to cut some costs as there are fewer and fewer teams that can afford the program.