2009 FSAE West wrapup

[Will Kalman]

http://public.fotki.com/wkalman/autocro ... west-comp/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZQl4ogum0c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ian Stewart]

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a great time at the event.

Great weather, good prep and all of your help and expertise made things run VERY smoothly this year...

You all did a great job, and the competitors and SAE officials commented repeatedly about how well the event was supported and organized

some notes from Endurance

35 cars ran the endurance out of 49 teams that made it to the event this year.

15 of the 35 didn't finish for various reasons but we were able to keep the cars moving and finished the event at 12:15 or so...

RIT won the competition, with a little help from one of our own with a rush cylinder head rework from what I heard.

Pics and dialog from the students about the event are here

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8256 ... /953108962" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Please post any stories or suggestions you want to share.

My favorite visual was a stalled car just below the first flag station frantically trying to start as the Grice Reaper stood ominously over the car... Me thinks Marshal likes his role a little too much!!

I actually got to stop and talk with people this year too which was really cool.

See you at the next Championship!!

Ian

[David Bauer]

Great event ! !

Congratulations to the competitors and to the event organizers ! !

Pictures from the Endurance event.. Unedited.. Everything that was in the camera…

Dave

http://picasaweb.google.com/bauerdpb/09FSAEEndurance#

[Steve Glusman]

I wanted to say this was a really well run event....lots of great volunteers and to the folks that led us -- WOW -- you were calm, cool collective, and appreciative. I love seeing the kids cars and talking to them...while we all wanted the Indian's car to go faster, I got to appreciate the cheers from their team as it finally finally finally finished! That is what it is really all about. Our own John Edwards got to asist RIT team with head problems and they wore his CostaMesa R&D logo on their victorious car....what a cool local connection as John's passion is really teaching....it was great for me to see at least 2 Boeing sponsored cars -- both of which seemed to do well!

I for one hope we do this again next year. A great way for our club to share our love of autoX and give back to the community.

Steve G 424
cart driver
course liner
go 4
radio operator
grid myster
course walk host
and of course....Dad of volunteer course worker!

[John Edwards]

FASE - RIT team, A little Help From a Friend...

Thursday started off like most days here at the shop, phone ringing off the hook and people wondering in and out bringing and picking up work. Get this call from some kid, says he’s looking for a couple of Honda valves, he’s tried nearly a 100 places, so he says, with no luck. Can I make a valve? Yes, if I have the blank, what size stem and valve head? Um, 4mm and 26mm. I go look in my catalog to see what’s available – I only find 4,5mm valve blanks. Oh, I’m with my FSAE team and we’re trying to our engine back together so we can compete tomorrow… Is the head off? Yeah. Bring it on down, maybe I can straighten the valve and make it work. WHAT? Muffled communications with his team mates. Straighten a valve? Are you kidding? I never heard of that! Just bring me the head so I can have a look guys. This is not your typical automotive machine shop here, do you know how to get here? Yeah, we’ve got a GPS. Okay, here’s the address… We have your address, got it off the internet.

About an hour and a half later, here comes’ these two kids with their head wrapped up in cardboard and the cams wrapped in paper towels. Hello, are you John? That’s me, come on in. I get the head unwrapped and on the pneumatic disassembly bench to remove the offending valve. Since I knew that they were coming I hade set up my lathe with a precision collet setup and had a 4mm collet waiting.

How are you going to straighten a valve, I’ve never heard of that? Come on and watch. I judiciously tap the valve back to within .001” TIR. Needless to say the kids are astounded! I never knew that you could do something like that? Dude, like I said, I’m not your ordinary shop. When people are in a pinch, they usually wind up here and I bail them out, that what I do here at Costa Mesa R&D.

The valve was ground and stem end trimmed, and reinstalled. Think we should check the other valve? Okay, wound up doing the same operations to it as well. Reinstalled the cam & lifters on the one side and checked the valve lash, was a little on the loose side, but the kids had shims to get it closer. I told them, kinda loose is okay, tight is not!

I had a friend who worked for his dad in Rochester where they rebuilt steam turbines for electric power stations and asked the kids if they knew of such a place, one of the says, yeah – I’ve got a friend that works for AGT, is that the place? You bet! Small world, huh? Boy, I guess!!!

Saturday afternoon, one of my Mazda Miata clients came by with some pix of the RIT car and said that he had talked to the kids. Also, got a couple of calls from Steve Glusman telling me that the RIT car had one of my stickers on it, and another call later to say that they won the slalom event.

Oh, the power of the internet! The kids did a search and Costa Mesa R&D came up first on the list. I’m so glad that I was able to help with the FSAE event this year, even if it was from my shop. And I’m proud to hear that the kids did so well – First Over All ain’t bad!

John…

[Tom Berry]

Thats cool John!.
Thanks for helping the RIT team out.

[George Schilling]

My favorite memory of this event happened at the end of the endurance on Saturday. My job as driver change and grid coordinator was done but I was still monitoring the timing and control channel while I stacked cones in the grid and start areas. Generally the cars you get at the end of the endurance portion are those that belong to the teams who are not in contention for anything, just happy to be there with a car that is still running. The last team running, an entry from India, certainly fit that description.

India's car didn't look half bad but it was clear that this may have been a first time effort for this team. They were they only team to show up with threaded tires and an alignment more suited to a family sedan. I found out later that the car was built for $5,000 with some parts coming from the junk yard.

It was clear that this team had done very little in the way of driver development or road testing. They were slow. But their car had made it here from India, cleared customs, and was now about to reach a goal of completing the competition with a running car, something that couldn't be said for many of the teams that made the trek to California. Their first driver had completed his 10 laps, they had successfully completed the driver change within the required time, and when the engine started for the second driver, the elation felt by the team was clearly evident as the team cheered and jumped for joy.

The first driver had been slow, but the second driver was painfully slow. As I stacked cones, I listened to event officials on my radio as they discussed the situation. I was shocked as the decision was made and a call was given to the starter to wave the checkered flag and bring him in. My thought was that this team had come all the way from India to compete and was being denied the satisfaction of completing their goal. I was standing near the start line as their car approached, the starter had the checkered flag in hand and was beginning to display it when an anonymous voice came on the radio and said "let him run." The started immediately brought down the flag and the driver from India finished his last seven laps to the delight of not only his team, but also to the cheers and claps of the onlookers as the last car crossed the finish line.

Many thanks to all those who helped put on this event. As always, this was a truly rewarding experience for me. I hope others who were there received the same satisfaction.

[John Williams]

George.
I have to say that was the best part of the day. I thought they won by the cheers and jumpin up and down they were doing. Good stuff.

[Joel Payne]

I had a blast volunteering. Despite all the warnings that these were home built cars by students I was DAMN impressed. Carbon monocoque chassis with wheel speed sensors and launch control? Titanium control arms and cars that weighed less than my motorcylce? Yeah, clearly this was all amateur hour. ;) I don't think I've ever a car rail a corner like that, and I definitely haven't from that close a vantage point.

Anyways, great day and I was doubly stoked that endurance finished early enough to allow volunteers walk around and talk to a lot of the teams. It was fun to see the cars with the shells off and get all kinds of bad ideas about a home brew effort. A-mod perhaps?

-Joel

[Bob Beamesderfer]

I had a blast volunteering. Despite all the warnings that these were home built cars by students I was DAMN impressed. Carbon monocoque chassis with wheel speed sensors and launch control? Titanium control arms and cars that weighed less than my motorcylce? Yeah, clearly this was all amateur hour. ;) I don't think I've ever a car rail a corner like that, and I definitely haven't from that close a vantage point.

Anyways, great day and I was doubly stoked that endurance finished early enough to allow volunteers walk around and talk to a lot of the teams. It was fun to see the cars with the shells off and get all kinds of bad ideas about a home brew effort. A-mod perhaps?

-Joel

Not exactly home built. I hear that the Austrian university spends a ton of money on its car.

[Derek Schultz]

I think its awesome the Indian team finished. Did anyone see their car? It was carburated with a turbo, no fuel mapping all old school by cable stuff, it had a stick shift and manual cluck pedal. I spoke to them about where they could practice.... think they said a dirt field. It was also their first year out there! I was sooo suprised they finished with such limited technology and practice.

[Joel Payne]

Not exactly home built. I hear that the Austrian university spends a ton of money on its car.

That was a question I asked everyone. For the teams I talked to it ranged from $6,000 (SDSU) to north of $50,000.

If you've got a machining hook up I'd say you could build something very capable in the $10-15k range. Like I said, it was enough to get me thinking. These are not that complicated, but it's easy to see that the established programs have a ton of development time into these. You don't have to dyno tune primary and secondary header lengths to build something that will perform 90% as well. The upside is at the end of the day a privateer will have more development time driving the car than a you can ever get in a single school year.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Not exactly home built. I hear that the Austrian university spends a ton of money on its car.

That was a question I asked everyone. For the teams I talked to it ranged from $6,000 (SDSU) to north of $50,000.

If you've got a machining hook up I'd say you could build something very capable in the $10-15k range. Like I said, it was enough to get me thinking. These are not that complicated, but it's easy to see that the established programs have a ton of development time into these. You don't have to dyno tune primary and secondary header lengths to build something that will perform 90% as well. The upside is at the end of the day a privateer will have more development time driving the car than a you can ever get in a single school year.

The figure the Indian team gave during the business case presentation was a little over $5k. Turbo came off a car in a junkyard. OTOH, University of Washington once built their own 600cc V-8.

[Kurt Rahn]

600cc V-8.

I'd love to hear the thinking behind that one.

[Christine Grice]

600cc V-8.

I'd love to hear the thinking behind that one.

Trying to show the design judges something they had never seen before.

http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/v30/v30pics.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Kurt Rahn]

Trying to show the design judges something they had never seen before.

http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/v30/v30pics.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'd say that qualifies! That thing looks like a 2/3 scale model or something. It's beautiful, though.

[Marshall Grice]

OTOH, University of Washington once built their own 600cc V-8.

it was Western Washington, not UW.

The idea is to smooth out the pulses in the intake system and thus be able to maximize air flow through the restrictor with out having to run a 50 gallon trash can as your intake plenum.

although i think the consensus is that a turbo is far more effective at maximizing the flow through the restrictor, but the V8 wins on bling factor.

[John Fendel]

Did you notice the photo of the V12 mockup? Lets take the bling a step further.

[Steve Ekstrand]

With a V12 they could have used Comer C50/C51 50cc pistons and rods! From one of those 1.8 stock HP Kid Kart motors.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

OTOH, University of Washington once built their own 600cc V-8.

it was Western Washington, not UW.

The idea is to smooth out the pulses in the intake system and thus be able to maximize air flow through the restrictor with out having to run a 50 gallon trash can as your intake plenum.

although i think the consensus is that a turbo is far more effective at maximizing the flow through the restrictor, but the V8 wins on bling factor.

Ah, thot it was the "big" school.