I'm looking for advice on building an FSAE car. If you've been involved with these before, please throw me some tips. The chassis is pretty well designed(I'll post the CAD rendering up later), and the suspension is being designed. We are planning on going with an inboard shock/spring system.
Formula SAE
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rsanter
Well-known member
I worked with the formula SAE and minibaja projects in school
boy that was 20 years ago or so
bob
boy that was 20 years ago or so
bob
Bob Paulin
Well-known member
www.fsae.com is probably the best place for up-to-date info on FSAE cars.
They've even formed a consortium that has the various tires used in FSAE competition tested at the Calspan facility in Buffalo, N.Y.
It is "THE PLACE" for FSAE info.
They've even formed a consortium that has the various tires used in FSAE competition tested at the Calspan facility in Buffalo, N.Y.
It is "THE PLACE" for FSAE info.
ahaidet
Well-known member
I competed four years in FSAE for Univeristy of Akron; we had two top 10 finishes and 2 top 20 finishes while I was on the team and we even traveled to Formula Student in England.
Best advice for a new team I can give you is keep it simple... you do not have to have 80+hp or a carbon tub to do well. Finishing endurance should be your first priorority... Just finishing endurance should almost guarantee a top 20. Get the car done early and test it find out what the weak points are and get them beefed up. Finally the driver is a huge part of the equation since everyone is amatuers.. so get your drivers out practicing. Finish building it early more practice time or if you still don't have it done in street cars at local SCCA autocrosses, driver schools, whatever it takes seat time is key! Finally have fun with it, it will be very stressful at times especially when you are spending your 3rd over nighter in the shop for the week before competition, but its probably the last time you will get to race entirely on someone elses dime and have nearly unlimted access to TIG welders, Bridgeport mills, and lathes...
Best advice for a new team I can give you is keep it simple... you do not have to have 80+hp or a carbon tub to do well. Finishing endurance should be your first priorority... Just finishing endurance should almost guarantee a top 20. Get the car done early and test it find out what the weak points are and get them beefed up. Finally the driver is a huge part of the equation since everyone is amatuers.. so get your drivers out practicing. Finish building it early more practice time or if you still don't have it done in street cars at local SCCA autocrosses, driver schools, whatever it takes seat time is key! Finally have fun with it, it will be very stressful at times especially when you are spending your 3rd over nighter in the shop for the week before competition, but its probably the last time you will get to race entirely on someone elses dime and have nearly unlimted access to TIG welders, Bridgeport mills, and lathes...
kartracer55
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2005
- Messages
- 5,317
Well Im a Newbie on the Rutgers Formula Team. Some cool stuff for this years car, even cooler stuff in the works for next year. BUT, Id probably have to kill you if I told you =]
And Im with ahaidet. Awesome resources at your disposal and major technical stuff. Its shaping up to be an awesome thing to be a part of. THe thing is, I dont think your really gunna find any teams likely to give up tips for formula cars that easily. Its crazy amounts of work that go into these things, I mean, HOURS. They meet like 4 hours a night every night and weekends ya know?
And Im with ahaidet. Awesome resources at your disposal and major technical stuff. Its shaping up to be an awesome thing to be a part of. THe thing is, I dont think your really gunna find any teams likely to give up tips for formula cars that easily. Its crazy amounts of work that go into these things, I mean, HOURS. They meet like 4 hours a night every night and weekends ya know?
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Our team does not have the resources at our disposal that most teams have. We have $3000 to build our car. Sponsorships are scarce for a new team no matter how hard we try. We are working in an old maintenance facility and are short on tools. We are going to give it all we have but its tough. I'm not looking for specific tips, just general tips. Our team doesn't meet as much as yours. I barely have time to meet for 2 hours a couple times a week. My schedule is too full for 4 hours a day. I put in as much design time as possible though. I know they take a lot of work. I have spent over 12 hours with a group of four others just designing a spindle. It isn't even finished yet...
afazz
Well-known member
Only $3000? I hate to be pessimistic here, but I'm not sure that will even get you through Tech inspections! Add up the registration fee, one set of slicks, one set of wets, a set of seatbelts (they have to be new-ish), 2 fire extinguishers... that's at least half your budget right there. Hopefully that's not your whole budget and just the "car" budget, but still, it is going to be extremely difficult to build anything for $3k.
I was heavily involved in FSAE for 4 years. Honestly some of the most important work is not done to the car! Organization, leadership, sponsorship relations, scheduling, acquiring resources... that stuff all takes time and is just as important as building a car - you can't build a car without it! As said above, getting a car done as early as possible is one of the best things you can do. And that's surely not easy - you need to effectively manage your team members and their time, time (calendar), cashflow, and do plenty of testing.
As far as not having many resources, don't let that discourage you. My freshman year, we had minimal CNC access, no machine tools, a crappy tool chest filled with Taiwan sockets, and a small garage that had leaky pipes and holes in the floor. My senior year, we told the shop forman when HE could use the CNC machine, we had a Bridgeport of our own (fully tooled), three lathes, a new garage with exhaust suction and enough electrical power to run a small town, ball bearing tool chest filled with machinists tools, internet access, electronic keycard doors, and fresh concrete floors. Some of it was luck and timing, some was paid by the University and some by sponsors, but none of that stuff fell into our lap! And it definitely wasn't achieved on <10 hours a week.
Again fsae.com is the place to be, but use caution. Just like any internet forum, it's filled with retards who love to type just to hear themselves talk and may not have any technical knowledge backing the BS they're slinging. As an example, the people on our team who posted were the people that knew the least and did the least amount of work, and the guys running the team hardly had time to even read the forums, let alone register and post. I have also heard "xxxx team did it this way" as justification for way too many designs, in my opinion that's just plain ******.
Hopefully that's a bit helpful to you, best of luck to your team and be sure to post up some pics when it's underway!
I was heavily involved in FSAE for 4 years. Honestly some of the most important work is not done to the car! Organization, leadership, sponsorship relations, scheduling, acquiring resources... that stuff all takes time and is just as important as building a car - you can't build a car without it! As said above, getting a car done as early as possible is one of the best things you can do. And that's surely not easy - you need to effectively manage your team members and their time, time (calendar), cashflow, and do plenty of testing.
As far as not having many resources, don't let that discourage you. My freshman year, we had minimal CNC access, no machine tools, a crappy tool chest filled with Taiwan sockets, and a small garage that had leaky pipes and holes in the floor. My senior year, we told the shop forman when HE could use the CNC machine, we had a Bridgeport of our own (fully tooled), three lathes, a new garage with exhaust suction and enough electrical power to run a small town, ball bearing tool chest filled with machinists tools, internet access, electronic keycard doors, and fresh concrete floors. Some of it was luck and timing, some was paid by the University and some by sponsors, but none of that stuff fell into our lap! And it definitely wasn't achieved on <10 hours a week.
Again fsae.com is the place to be, but use caution. Just like any internet forum, it's filled with retards who love to type just to hear themselves talk and may not have any technical knowledge backing the BS they're slinging. As an example, the people on our team who posted were the people that knew the least and did the least amount of work, and the guys running the team hardly had time to even read the forums, let alone register and post. I have also heard "xxxx team did it this way" as justification for way too many designs, in my opinion that's just plain ******.
Hopefully that's a bit helpful to you, best of luck to your team and be sure to post up some pics when it's underway!
Stuey
Well-known member
Where do you plan on learning mill and lathe techniques? I keep asking around, and nobody knows anything around here. I know there's a machine shop in the physics dept and one in mechanical engineering, but nobody seems to know anything about training.
I got the email about the info session, but I assumed that the time requirements would be immense, and well, my research and wife don't leave me with much free time.
Dang it. I want in! Maybe I'll look into mentoring a FIRST team this year. hmmmm
ahaidet
Well-known member
Most of the Mill and Lathe training was done OTJ (on the job). We would have new team members team up with senior members to learn machining and welding. We were lucky a couple of times to have new guys that knew more about machining than senior members as their dad/uncle/family owns a machine shop..etc. We have had a few guys on the team that I would jokingly call "Human CNC machines" as they could machine nearly anything you could imagine. But that was a rare case and those guys were crucial in traning eveyone else in proper machining techniques. THe university also had a shop supervisor that gave safety training but he basically only knew safety and had little production machining expierience. Depends on how your team works I guess, but try and find a part of the car where help is needed and you are interested. Fastest way to get into the car is showing interest and getting involved, not everyone that works on the car is a journeyman machinist.
Stuey
Well-known member
I specifically meant Rutgers - I know that the Formula SAE team has access to a machine shop, and if I need a part made, I can send my request to one of two machine shops, but I cannot seem to find specific formal training for such equipment at Rutgers. I know roughly who to ask and where to go, but if kartracer knew offhand, it would have saved me a lot of trouble.
The entry fee has been paid, slicks and shocks were purchased last year. The $3000 is just to build the car. We are working hard to acquire sponsorship. We have a meeting with a BIG sponsor today. Hopefully it goes well. I am good at working within a budget but I can't work with nothing. I'm almost over budget on the front suspension just for threaded inserts and hime joints.
speed bump
Well-known member
For sponsorships just go look at the companies that hire the most people out of your school. When we were doing ASME HPV Granite Construction dropped a huge pile of money into our HPV program.
As far as teams go, look for people that know what they are doing and actively recruit them, telling them were going to blank with it usually works well.
Also work on your design and concetrate on the KISS principle, look for off the shelf components and refine the stuff you actually understand. Also realize that just before you go to competition you will be spending piles of time just trying to make it work and all that carefully designed stuff will go by the wayside. Finally good documentation, presentations and a team that isn't willing to tell the judges "you don't know what your talking about" when they don't is where you make the important points.
As far as teams go, look for people that know what they are doing and actively recruit them, telling them were going to blank with it usually works well.
Also work on your design and concetrate on the KISS principle, look for off the shelf components and refine the stuff you actually understand. Also realize that just before you go to competition you will be spending piles of time just trying to make it work and all that carefully designed stuff will go by the wayside. Finally good documentation, presentations and a team that isn't willing to tell the judges "you don't know what your talking about" when they don't is where you make the important points.