quote:

Originally posted by Pennyman:
One quick question for you fellows about template Y.

When it say's it will be passed through the cockpit to a point "100mm behind the face of the rear-most pedal blah blah blah..." by "behind the face" do they mean behind relative to the car? Or behind relative to the pedal? (assuming the "front" of the pedalbox is the side closest to your feet)

The wording just seems so vague. Aren't engineers supposed to be good at clear, concise writing?

I like the Formula whale comment. Maybe I'll have some stickers made up for anyone who wants some, haha.

I'm curious to hear everyone else's interpretation on this as well.

The template is to pass to 100mm aft of the pedals . Mr. Royce told us during tech. In other words, it stops 4" short of the pedals when passing through.

I'd say like so:

quote:

Originally posted by screwdriver:
I'd say like so:

This brings up another important question:

What about adjustable pedal boxes? If the pedal box is adjustable up to the front roll hoop (a bit extreme, but still), where would you set the pedals in order to do the test?

The plot thickens still with regard to teams who mount a "clutch pedal" to the chassis tubing rather than the pedal box. An example would be Helsinki's car from 2006 I believe.
View it here

If that pedal was located a significant distance rearward of the pedal box, would the template still stop at that pedal?

Discuss.

It's in the revised rules- I'm sure it's for the pedal setting closest to the front bulkhead.

Internal Cross Section:

A. A free vertical cross section, which allows the template shown in Drawing Y to be passed
vertically through the cockpit to a point 100 mm (4 inches) behind the face of the rearmost
pedal when in the inoperative position, must be maintained over its entire length.

it is written somewhere (sorry being lazy to don't copy and paste it) that in case of adjustable pedals, it should be set on the closest-to-the-bulkhead position. Revised rules 2008, but I am pretty sure is not on the part about the cockpit templates but about brakes/pedals (although they make a reference about this rule on the template part). I was planning the extremist "pedal box adjustable up to the front roll hoop" but I guess they prevented this kind of stuff... hehehe

and about the 100mm distance, I'll stick with Screwdriver, is the same idea I got after reading the same thing for 5min...

I think an answer to several people's questions, on "how would you interpret XX, or YY..."

Its all up to the tech inspectors when you are in the queue. If you would like to have a more conclusive answer before you go to comp, write a rules clarification. It is easy and you will likely have a complete answer in around two weeks.

With the new rules and this year's course management policies (extremely bad passing zones, meatballs and black flag penalties for whatever) I'm inclined to think it will become like NASCAR has lately: big punishments for every single marginal infraction, in order to suggest not pushing the rules so hard. Its a shame to do this with so much talent and opportunity.

Come on Matt, FSAE rules are the most open rule set of all motorsports. If you can't be innovative in FSAE car you might as well give up all together because you suck at life. Most rules in FSAE are aimed at making the cars safe. In other racing leagues rules are put in place to prevent excessive costs, in FSAE, this really is never the case. Certainly you will be penalized in the cost event if you are overly excessive but you can still do it.

You all are engineers, it shouldn't be difficult to read and follow the rules. I'm amazed at how many people brought cars to competition not meeting the 2" helmet clearance rule this year. I mean they made it kind of obvious last year that they were going to crack down on this rule and there were still a huge number of teams that appeared to be in violation. Saving that last ounce of weight when designing the car is not worth the stress of struggling to get through tech because your roll hoop is .5" too short.

Seriously, with the invent of CAD software there really shouldn't be any reason to screw these rules up. Also, you guys are all so concerned with weight and how the new cars are going to be slightly bigger and heavier but honestly its not going to really slow these cars down at all. 90% of these cars that come to competition (more than 1-2seconds off the pace) need a lot more work than just weight reduction. So don't worry about the weight so much, get the car done early and try to tune the damn thing.

quote:

Originally posted by MalcolmG:
I'm not sure that the rules really allow you much extra space to do crazy things, remember this space must be open and free of obstructions (except removable padding). The only extra space that was created on our car was behind the seat, as the monocoque width was considerably wider around the driver's shoulders than it used to be, so it creates a bit of room on either side of the front of the engine. I don't really expect to see these new rules allowing more room for innovative layouts, in fact I imagine that template X may be causing some issues for Deakin (Ashley? I saw you guys are building to the templates, any comments?)

Yes Malcolm we are joining the bus brigade this year aswell. We havnt run in to many dramas with template x even though the car will be slightly wider than the previous cars. We did have some trouble with getting the y template to fit but these have been rectified.

We wouldnt be too happy if the brought in a seat angle rule it would probablly spell the end of the sidewinder. but that is in the future we have much to do before then.

Ben
Deakin Race Technologies

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Cook:
Come on Matt, FSAE rules are the most open rule set of all motorsports.

And that's why it's so tough. Designing with no constraints is much harder because you have nothing to go off of.

quote:

Originally posted by flavorPacket:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Cook:
Come on Matt, FSAE rules are the most open rule set of all motorsports.

And that's why it's so tough. Designing with no constraints is much harder because you have nothing to go off of.

That's why you copy winning designs and reverse engineer them! (beer talking)

No really. It's good that they give us so much leniency in our designs. Unfortunately it seems like lately they've been cracking down on things that could "cause" safety problems or the like.

I remember talking to someone on a team from the early 90's. Apparently they allowed multiple cars to be entered per team. Pretty unheard of now! I'd like to see a rulebook from 15 years ago and see how it compares to today's.

I have no complaints though. I'm really excited to be working on FSAE and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Indeed. What's most interesting to me is that when the ergo judges sat in our 07 car at design finals (which was nearly big enough to fit the leg template), they said it was unsafe because the driver's legs flop around too much and could fall off the pedals.

Ah, how much difference a year can make!

So the cars are going to be bigger at the front - who cares? Why not shift the radiator there and make your car look like something Jackie Stewart would have driven in the early 70's? You know the type, big front spoiler, bulging sides, massive slicks, DFV...

Okay, it won't be competitive (maybe) against the other whales/buses/whatever, but it would look awesome...

I'd drop a picture in of what I'm talking about if only I knew how! But google Tyrrell 001 or Matra MS120D and you'll see what I mean.

I'd imagine that there might be issues with using the radiator as the impact attenuator.

And bear in mind that there's a reason those cars went away...

Namely, broken feet.

Broken feet? The reason those cars went away was a little thing called the Lotus 72, which was the first successful F1 car to stick the radiators down the sides, not in the nose.

But given the new rules, if you wanted to make your car look good, which seems to be the main gripe everyone has (Formula Whale blah blah blah...), it wouldn't be a bad option - even stick your radiator down the back somewhere but 'style' your car if need be.

I'd buy one if it looked like a Tyrrell...

Well, aside from F1 cars from the 70's and whales, what does everyone think of the new Fuel Economy rules for 2009?

I'm guessing that RMIT and Buffalo are big fans

This message has been edited. Last edited by: D Collins Jr,

Cant open it. Please copy and paste it here.

Fuel Economy Scoring Changes for 2009!

WARRENDALE, Pa., Aug. 1, 2008

Fuel economy has become an increasingly critical design consideration for vehicles of every type and we believe it is appropriate that it be given greater emphasis at Formula SAE. Effective with nest year’s Formula SAE series the maximum score for the Fuel Economy event will be doubled from 50 to 100 points. The scoring formula is also being significantly revised to all the Fuel Economy score to range from positive 100 points to negative 100 points (+100 to -100).

Scoring for the Endurance event will also change. Specifically (1) the maximum score for Endurance will drop from 350 to 300 points and (2) the 4 minute fuel economy penalty (2008 Rule 5.7.15.9 “Poor Fuel Economy”) will be eliminated. Endurance and Fuel Economy will still be related in that a minimum speed must be maintained to receive a score; hence driving slowly to get better gas mileage only works to a point.

Under the old rules if your car’s fuel consumption during Endurance exceeded 26 liters/100km, your team received a 4 minute penalty applied directly against your Endurance score and zero points for Fuel Economy. The new rules will implement a curve of negative points that will drop steeply once your consumption exceeds 29 liters/100km.

How will these changes affect your team? If your car has good fuel economy you have the chance to score more points. If your car burns just a little too much fuel you’ll avoid the huge 4 minute penalty in endurance, but get some negative Fuel Economy points. If your economy is really bad then you could end up with as many as 100 negative points!

I like it .

We jumped 6 spots in endurance scoring 48 out of 50. I would guess this could move us up another 5 and a couple more overall.

It should be interesting to see what the top teams do this year. RMIT might have won overall if this rule was implemented last year. I think they were the only team in the top ten that didn't use a f4i.