Formula SAE Build Thread! Road Warrior 11

Hello all. I'm a mechanical engineering student at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI and I'm gonna give you all a build thread for this year's car. Projected Specs -

405 lbs wet

60.25 inch wheelbase

10 inch rims, Hoosier R25B compound tires

Restricted Honda CBR600RR 4-Cylinder with custom headers, intake, internals ~85hp

Chain-drive to Torsen LSD

Inboard Pullrod Suspension, Ohlins coilovers

Rowdy as E36 M3

Yes, sooo much yes! I am interested in your chain drive setup

Since we haven't built anything yet, I figured I'd throw my brake pedal box designs up here for your enjoyment.

In reply to singleslammer:

What do you want to know? I'm not part of the drivetrain group but I'm at least familiar with how it works.

Parts you are using, issues that you have to over come, lesson worth sharing.

Also, I have a CNC Plasma cutter coming. If you guys need parts, let me know.

Our shop has a CNC plasma cutter as well, but I greatly appreciate the offer. We are using a Taylor Racing MKII differential. It is a helical style differential that they sell as a package. Our team machines custom sprockets, an eccentric differential mounting setup, and a. . . unique differential housing.

It looks something like this

Cool stuff. Thanks for the info

As many pictures as they'll let you post. Suspension, frame, seat, everything! I doubt there will be a piece on this car that isn't interesting to us.

mazdeuce wrote: As many pictures as they'll let you post. Suspension, frame, seat, everything! I doubt there will be a piece on this car that isn't interesting to us.

This X2!!

I want to build something like this some time....

In reply to mazdeuce:

More than happy to post stuff from our last car, not sure I can get new development on here yet?

Photo dump. We'll look through them and ask you questions about what we think is cool. I promise.

Awesome, definitely gonna be following this thread! FSAE is like the Challenge on crack.

I did 3 years of Formula Hybrid in college, on a team that attended the competition for the first time my first year on it. We struggled to even get a car built and semi-functional for competition, let alone developed to the level of refinement you FSAE guys and the top level Hybrid programs are, but it was still by far the most beneficial part of my education. Grades didn't always reflect that, but still totally worth it. Have fun and good luck.

PS: Why the eccentric diff?

In reply to mazdeuce:

I'll see what I can do.

In reply to Furious_E:

I totally agree with all that you said, it takes a lot to get a car running and ready, and grades take a hit. Fortunately, employers know how much it teaches, and looks at Formula kids first and let grades slide somewhat.

The eccentric diff mounting is to give us chain tension adjustment without compromising the integrity of the diff mount as I understand it.

Post-season photodump! I apologize about the sponsor logos, but we like to shout out the local companies that help us out with machining.

This is our frame table/jig. We used extruded aluminum and brackets made in house to jig, bolted to a massive multi-ton frame table.

Seat goes in. Single piece carbon bucket seat, very light but horribly uncomfortable and non-adjustable. I don't even want to know how expensive it is, materials get donated to us. The pedal box moves to compensate.

Aforementioned diff mounts.

That rear end though. Shows off our massive rear tires (13x8!), pushrod rear suspension, more drivetrain stuff.

Some of the engine's naughty bits. Still CBR600RR, this shot was preparing it to get a shorter, custom fabbed oil pan by shortening crossover pipe and pickup tube.

Custom oil pan. Made this with five plasmacut pieces, one lathed bung and determination.

Brakes. Brembo calipers, HEL Lines, in-house grey iron rotors.

Drivetrain parts, fresh off the sponsor's mill. Specifically tripod bearing tulip hubs, retainer rings, centerlock nuts.

First time on the tires.

Mostly in-house parts - Bellcranks, cooling system flanges, antiroll bar moment arms.

berkeleying works of art. Uprights and wheel centers. Fun fact these wheel centers broke.

3D printed intake. Looks like cash money, but gave a. . . unique torque curve. Our fault on that one, didn't consider resonance effects.

Hope you enjoyed all that, more to come as we manufacture our next car.

Those center lock hubs are beautiful. I'd love to see how all of the pieces go together. And what do you use to a steering rack?

Looks like an awesome car! Former member of the Old Dominion University team here might I suggest that you make sure to add a swirl pot to your cooling system. A lot of the cars at competition had the high point in the cooling system in the cylinder head. At least a header tank to make the high point a good place for air to escape. Also make sure to add an external battery connector because trying to remove body work and throw a battery charger on your car in the middle of the sound check isn't fun for anyone.

In reply to mazdeuce:

We use the FSAE Parts z-rack. Beautiful piece of machining. The hubs and retainer plates sandwich two wheel bearings, something like this.

In reply to VonSmallhausen:

We do have a swirl pot on recent cars, but the battery connector idea is good. I think our electrical person is planning on that, but I'll make sure to check. Love talking to other Formula participants, thanks for the input!

Old Baja guy here... keep it coming!

Lookin' good so far! I assume you're going to make some foam padding for that seat?

I was in FSAE briefly about 10 years ago.

IIRC, we had lazer welded sheet titanium bellcranks. We were carbon intensive (all chassis in front of roll hoop was carbon, except for the year we couldnt get it), with a carbon intake. The nozzle for the restrictor is of huge importance. IIRC we made 91hp with a F4i Honda and were looking at transitioning to the RR motor.

We had a similar-ish diff solution I think. A torsen (some old getrag application maybe?) in a can we made. We didnt have a CNC lathe, so if I recall correctly we had about 20 hours on the lathe into making the caps to our can (that attached the sprocket, bearings, and axles).

We did some testing of carbon tie-rods and push rods for the suspension. I dont think it made it to competition the year I went, but I know we did make it to testing them on the car. Carbon tube with metal caps (cant remember if it was titanium or aluminium) hysol'd in.

Looking back... if you can get the composites together, there are huge dividends to going down the aero rabbithole. We didnt and I think its why we rocked at acceleration, but didnt do so hot at the turning events.

Best thing we did: recruit from the business college to manage sponsorships. One of our business college people was a 95lb lady that was really short. DESIGNATED ACCELERATION DRIVER!

I miss the days of working so hard to figure out how to drop grams of unsprung weight!

Old GA Tech FSAE memeber here.

Good to be reminded of a lot of fun times!

We made our intake plenum basically as large as physically possible. It made enormous power, but had horrible throttle response. You could snap the throttle open and shut, then then engine would rev a second or two later. The thing was, that didn't matter because when you're actually driving the car, if you're being smooth enough with the throttle you never noticed any lag in the throttle response.

I have a broken wheel stud from one of the cars I worked on in my garage. The team gave it to me as a trophy. I was a good test driver because I was fast (one of the few people on the team with actual racing experience) and one of the heavier guys that could fit in the car.

Former Lehigh FSAE here (check my garage for our cars from that era). We were very composite centric, and it was actually less labor intensive to build the cars out of carbon for us (although some judges couldn't be convinced of it )

I'll ask you the standard design judge questions: why 13" wheels (we loved our carbon 10 inchers) and why put all the coilovers so high up on the chassis?

Car looks good BTW. We ran our chain fully enclosed in an oil bath, which helped it live longer and had a nice side effect of circumventing the chain guard rules.

In reply to collinskl1:

Will do!