Lame...

I'll miss our f4i...

remind me again why the weekend autocrosser cares about fuel economy? If I cared I would join formula Hybrid.

ah, nothing like a rule change after 75% of your car is already designed...

Thank you, rules committee.

again

RMIT, Buffalo, and ETS may be set up to take a big benefit from this rule, but as I am looking at the MIS fuel economy scores, UWA was only a couple tenths of a gallon behind ETS's WR-450 in consumption, and Toledo, Graz, and MO S&T weren't that far behind in consumption. And since we can't see the formula yet, there's no way of knowing how steep the points dropoff from the leading cars is.

The large disparity in how little fuel the RMIT car used compared to the other 450's and Briggs engines might also be an indicator of the level of development they put into tuning.

Best,
Drew

Drew,

You hit the nail on the head on that one. Our car ran rich and safe so our full potential gas milage and for that matter power was limited. Shitty BSFC on a engine that made dick for horsepower is still much better than most for getting good milage and for that matter an 18th finish. I would assume that we could have won the milage part with good tuning. I saw the same milage results from UWA as well and they were shocking compared to their performance traits. Some teams spend an extraordinary amount of time getting good tunes and as a calibrator I know how hard it can be.

Everyone,

If anyone complains about this being the end of anything is just belly aching. For that matter anyone who really complains about any of the recent changes is belly aching because the only reason most of these changes are here are because we have been trying to skirt the intent of the rules and design of the competition for far too long and the judges are got fed up with it. We tested their patience and they reeled us back in. Couldn't see that one comingAs far as changes in rules that "screw people over in their design phase" is garbage too. The rules come out in September. Your car is an idea in your head/paper/CAD until you have official rules sets to work from. I love how people moan about changes ruining the comp and how these suck blah blah blah. Most teams also design for the their resume for future race employment instead of the competition. But the judges implement rules sets and regulations that are used in real racing and then these same people cry bloody murder about fuel economy, "formula bus" sized cars, crash safety rules when they are trying to get jobs doing this in real life. Look at what is going on with F1. Can-am/GTP/Group 8? cars were more or less killed by fuel economy standards because the series just got too out of control. What side of the fence do you want to be on because it cant be both. Cake and eat it to just isnt going to happen. It is so easy to pass the buck and say "stupid judges" but in reality a persons inability to accept changes that are for the betterment of the series, your design experience, etc are what the problem is. UB finished 18th with a car that meets the "bus" rules, had about 30hp on a very shaky tune, junk suspension tuning, overweight with almost no driver training so obviously these new rules and factors arent killing anything. In other words "Man up and quit bitching like a little children."

Rob, give me a break. When the judges let a car with rapid prototyped titanium uprights and ceramic wheel bearings that cost more then your team's car win design, they aren't reeling anything in. When a team with a $35,000 electronics system comes in the top 5 in cost, they aren't reeling anything in.

There is a huge disconnect between the design judges and the rules people, and it's absurd that we have to serve two masters, as it were. It is not like this in any other motorsports series because the rules committee is the only relevant body.

The organizers of this event need to choose if they want an engineering competition or a racing series. You can't have both.

If the rules people see us skirting the rules, what did they expect? This is a competition, and we are trying to extract every single advantage we can.

And the rules coming out in September IS far too late. If the judges want a car that has been thoroughly designed, giving us two or three months to design it doesn't make much sense. Why can't they give us the whole summer? No team has the resources to put out something that's 100% well-designed in that kind of time frame. Even F1 teams struggle to do it.

And please show me the real racing series where the front suspension and driver's legs must occupy the same longitudinal position while complying with a template as big as the one we have to meet.

I'm probably going to come off as an asshole, but I feel like this should be said. "We finished 18th, therefore all the design choices we made are competitive" seems to keep cropping up in discussions here. 18th is in the bottom half of the teams that finished endurance and justifies nothing about your design except that it is reliable.

Reliability is good, I commend you on accomplishing a goal that most other teams undervalue. A solid axle bus with 30 horsepower is still a bad idea if you want to be a top team. And if you don't want to be a top team, it doesn't really matter what you do.

Sorry.

As far as the rules: if you want real world experience, then you should really appreciate design changes that crop up after you've already finished your design. Also, you should enjoy random and seemingly arbitrary design requirements, especially in racing. These rules are more reasonable and come with a lot more warning than what you would see in most major racing series. They could announce ten days before the competition that a Subway Cold Cut footlong sandwich must be used as a rear impact attenuator, and you'd get some really good experience balancing the design requirement and the performance benefit of extra pickles.

quote:

Originally posted by rjwoods77:
blah blah blah blah

The fact of the matter is these cars are designed to be weekend autocross cars. Fuel economy doesn't matter because these cars don't have to pit, and they only run 4-8 laps.

So we have two cars we're trying to sell our weekend autocrosser -

Car A has a Briggs engine, is gigantic, unattractive, handles like a bus, an all around POS, but gets great fuel economy.

Car B looks great, handles great, pulls out of the turns wonderfully and still gets 20mpg.

Which car are you going to buy?

and btw Robb, 18th place is an eternity from 1st place.


To follow up with what Matt said - I think rule changes are good bc they benefit the best teams (that is, the teams the most able to quickly analyze and adapt to a new situation.) and I can get an advantage. Still, running an f4i, even tuned for fuel economy and probably restricted down past 20mm is going to be tough to compete with the single cylinder engines.

These cars are not designed to be weekend autocrossers. They're meant to score 1000 possible points in an engineering competiton. One in which the rules specify part of those 1000 points for fuel economy. Everyone has the same rules and got them the same day.

You want to know what unfair is, how bout the week before competition they tell you all gasoline cars are to run 19mm restrictors. That's what they did to toyota last week in the NGN series, that's what real life is.

I think the fuel economy rule is great, not one of you will go into a field that energy is free. Not one. Every racing series has fuel economy rules (mostly size of fuel tank). You like that idea better? If you dont' meet fuel consumption expectations you fail endurance because you run out. At least you've been given the chance to finish and been told a year ahead.

Why good bye to a CBRF4i?

The only downside to a CBR is the weight (offset by driveability torque and reliability), our car was second in fuel economy at the recent formula student event with a 249kg car. Only being beaten by a single cylinder 150kg car! (Using 3.654 litres 2.6 litres adjusted).

We designed our fuel tank around 2007 fuel consumption then multiplied it by the increase in power we were expecting and again by the ratio of calorific value of gasoline and E85 as we made the switch.

There seems to be a major advantage with E85, there is a 40% bonus in recalculated fuel eco, but you only actually need 30% more tops. I have read a lot of people did not want to change to E85 as there is a weight disadvantage, on a 4 litre tank that is less than 1kg for a massive points gain!

I think this rule change is good as it will make people think about where the biggest gain are to be made in thier engine package within the rules. Most of the cars as fsuk sound like they have never seen a dyno, and I cannot see why teams spend so much time optimising restrictors and plenums without looking at their engine fundamentals first and prioritising their time accordingly for their engine development accordingly.

Things will only improve for us next year once we get individual cylinder trim on the go, some trick coatings and stick our car on a much needed diet! We'll be aiming for No1 in eco.

enduro/eco results fsuk08 http://www.formulastudent.com/NR/rdonlyres/8FCB42A5-693..._Class1Endurance.pdf
James Morris

Swansea Metropolitan University

My point in bringing up 18th while mentioning that it wasn't ideal is to show that you don't need to even run certain equipment to finish high in this competition which has been mentioned time and again in this forum. I am not using it as a bragging point because after 3 years of working to get the car there it should have done much better but thats tuning and real engineering not being done for you. I know where we ended up in the pecking order and I don't need it pointed out. If your contention is that 18th is no-where place you just slammed way more teams that care than I do about our finish. 18th justified plenty of stuff in our car because the areas that we knew it would pay off it did. The areas that we knew we weren't going to do well didn't. So to say that finishing 18th didn't prove anything to us is really just a junk statement because our car, for the shitty nowhere place of 18th proved that the equipment and direction we are headed is the correct direction. Nowhere near perfect but hopefully that will come in time. Its funny when reliability is spoken of lightly in the competition when it is everything. I am sure when an F1 team fails to finish a race that they are stroking each other off in the garage because it goes fast when it works. Or so by that train of thought. A solid axle, cvt, engine with 15hp more and 50lbs less, which are the teams future design goals, while being cheap, reliable and easy to drive are more than enough to win the comp I am not sad to say. All of which are achievable with some real work done by the team. Time will tell I guess but for all you future wannabe race car designers these rules changes will benefit you in the future.

Rules,

The American comps end at the beginning of summer and it takes time for the judges to compare all the "i cant believe they are still doing this shit" notes and pass rules changes that they have either been looking at for a while or nipping news ones right in the bud. But seeing that they give notice to most changes shows they have been thinking about them for a while and they don't see us fixing the things they don't like so they go ahead and make them law. Sort of like mom and dad warning you before they hit you. Once again whine and cry about how life isn't perfect. I wish the rules came out early but they don't. There are many teams who are able to get there systems integrated after changes are made due to fall rules. There are a bunch that don't. This even goes back to my thread about a year ago about rising costs of fsae and if teams even belong in this competition, my school included. If you cant do what the other teams do in the prescribed time then it means you are not as good as they are and you deserve not to finish as well as they do. I know this about our program and hope in time they work out of that.

As far i know.. our standard of what to name a "judge" is precisely a design event judge. People that do the rules are in no way connected with design judges at all.. see the example of the titanium rapid prototyping above.

About the rules in september.. isnt about "whining and crying" (btw, you were trollish saying that"), it's about a PROCESS. you need to Design and then Build, then test and test and test. And by september, some teams (as us) have as a goal to make half chassis and other parts. The discussion here is not about the known changes (templates, Fuel economy etc etc) That's ok and we don't worry about that. It's about the "surprises" that can be found on a september release of the rules that can ruin an entire month of the design phase. As last year's steering wheel rule clarification on december.

If you say "in the real life, in the real blah blah" you can say also that in the real life that's your JOB and you get paid for that, and you can focus on solving things in a hurry, you don't have to attend school or struggle against the difficulties that arise from being "a group of college guys making race cars", like getting sponsorship and money, so time is pretty gold valued at F-SAE

The "prescribed time" as you said, is an entire year, say 9 months being realistic. Not seven or less.


Try to smuggle into a top 10 with Acceleration, Skidpad and Auto X results on the 50ish-60ish .. You simply WONT get there. just because it's cheap doesn't mean it can't be fast.. and your car isn't a bit near of being fast. Think that almost all the fast teams also finish enduro so, you'll get hard to go from 18 to 15 for example. So don't say that you have "the correct direction to win" because that's a lie of the size of the Y template.

The only thing you can prove here is that you know about reliability, But nothing more. As you said (and i'm totally agree) Reliability is the whole 100%.
Sad is that in order to win, you need to give as much as 200%

quote:

Originally posted by The AFX Master:

Try to smuggle into a top 10 with Acceleration, Skidpad and Auto X results on the 50ish-60ish .. You simply WONT get there. just because it's cheap doesn't mean it can't be fast.. and your car isn't a bit near of being fast. Think that almost all the fast teams also finish enduro so, you'll get hard to go from 18 to 15 for example. So don't say that you have "the correct direction to win" because that's a lie of the size of the Y template.

The only thing you can prove here is that you know about reliability, But nothing more. As you said (and i'm totally agree) Reliability is the whole 100%.
Sad is that in order to win, you need to give as much as 200%

I hate to keep draging this on but we pretty much were a rookie team, with no competition experience, and a 1st year car. Our goal was to just finish all the events. I know 18th isn't anything to brag about. The reason your hearing it is because there was so much done incorrectly and the new guys taking over know that 50-60th is not what the concept is capable of.

My only complaint would be that there was no warning for this change. The Rules Committee knows the design starts way before the rules are released. That's why the warn us at comp and in the rules. Results show that all engine options can be competititve in Fuel Economy. I doubt anyone would change because of this. It just puts more of a focus on tuning which does not start until the winter for most teams. It's really not that big of surprise.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Macie:
Results show that all engine options can be competititve in Fuel Economy. I doubt anyone would change because of this.

well Mike, that's the difference between your team and mine. And we cannot make a powertrain change in mid August.

I can understand why the rules committee would want keep changing the rules. Besides safety issues they'd do it to stop the designs from stagnating. People are saying that the design judges and the rules committee are completely separate and although they may have different goals, I'm sure the rules committee would be in close contact with the people who lead the design judges. And they'd be hearing more and more that the cars are becoming clones of that school's previous efforts. Rule changes simply give us new challenges.

However in saying that I don't see why non-safety related rules have to be announced within a year of the comp. Why not say they'll be in the following year? It's still the same technical challenge only teams would have more time to fully understand the challenge and learn more from it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this topic that the best teams would get past sudden rule changes while the lesser teams would struggle. Maybe it depends on how you define the "best" teams but I would think that the teams with the most money would be able to adapt better. Being part of a smaller team I can understand why some teams aren't real happy about the changes. I know we carry over elements of the old car purely because we know it works and we'll get it right first time. Having to go a different direction is fine but you're bound to stuff something up. If that a big enough stuff up (blowing up a new unfamiliar engine springs to mind) a team with a shoestring budget could be ruined.

Well if you think 7 months is not long enough to change your design how about 7 weeks? Our '08 car, for the '09 international events, is due for launch in 7 weeks, with some test time before exams and then the FSAE-A comp in November. There won't be many changes to the car at this point. It does already incorporate the previously advised changes to the rules.

I have mentioned before and will again, RMIT are the only team to score 400 points for enduro/fuel and have done it a couple of times. If you fail to be impressed by that and strive to get somewhere near them then you are very short sighted. I'm not suprised by increased weighting on fuel economy, and maybe the fact that not many teams seem to chase the relatively easy and valuable fuel points in the old rules is part of the reason for the change. Everybody will surely make fuel effeciency a big part of their design compromise now! This (late) change will hand a big advantage to the teams that have worked hard on fuel effeciency in the past (and particularly to RMIT and their Dilithium crystal ion drive, or whatever it is they use to make it go fast without petrol) regardless of engine choice, but only until others change their focus to suit the new rules.

It would have been nice to know a little earlier so as to include a new speed vs economy balance in the design, but hey! its not like the rule has been anounced during tech inspection as has happened in the past.

Pete

A few other points:

FSAE is largely sponsored by automotive OEMs, suppliers, and the namesake professional engineering organization. Their goal is to help young engineers develop a skill set valuable to the sponsoring organizations via a ploy we will call a race. Fuel prices seem to be having an effect on the business models of these corporations and they will probably be more interested in efficiency minded employees. In the same respect, SAE is probably going to mirror this demand by emphasizing efficiency in their educational programs, or races as we call it.

Secondly, this is also a point of fairness to some teams, and maybe a lot more teams if they would finish endurance. With endurance times becoming more and more competitive each year the critical nature of a 240 second penalty is immense if your team is somewhere at or below the midrange of the 133% time cutoff. Looking at the results of the 3 US competitions this year several teams were affected in this way. If it affected you in this way, you 'finished' all events, but you don't even get the darn certificate of participation due to the fuel penalty after the fact. I'm sure those teams would have take the -100 points and said they finished all the events officially. Granted, this change will also allow the sippers to score more points, but I'll still have fun.

On a different subject, but still pertaining to economy, I wonder if they will ever institute a tire (or tyre) penalty or point system of sorts To encourage tire management, add another level to chassis development, and maybe level the playing field between teams with many tires and those with few. Lets say everybody gets their first set for free. For each subsequent set you pay for them with points in some respect. You're still free to use chewing gum tires if want, but it might be questionable whether you will make back the points? Keeping the issue of tires a relatively totally rule free area of the competition is one of the best things about FSAE, but I think such a system would enhance the process by expanding the necessary considerations on tire choice, management of tires, and suspension design.

I love the "these rules are stupid, you don't worry about fuel economy in autocross" arguments. As if the SAE implemented this competition to address a skill shortage in the weekend autocross vehicle design industry....

VFR and Derf have got it in one. This event is about improving our automotive engineering skills in general, and the rules as they stand give us a damn good opportunity to do so. The organizers want to make us reason our way through a design process, with all the inherent constraints and conflicting demands that we might find in real world projects. If changing the fuel economy rules, or the minimum cockpit size - or even if they decided to make us carry two full size passengers and a donkey in the back - would make us reassess our designs and adjust accordingly then the educational objective is achieved.

When I was competing I always enjoyed listening to heated rules arguments - mainly because I knew that those doing the arguing were showing the least ability to make objective decisions. And therefore they were leaving themselves wide open to be hammered in all those aspects that aren't "real racing" like fuel economy, presentation, etc.

Of course my opinion will probably be considered biased, given that the new fuel economy rule is exactly in line with the direction we headed 5 years ago. But if for some reason a new rule would be introduced that would render the RMIT car uncompetitive, then the team would be encouraged to do the same thing it has been encouraged to do for the last 5 years. Take an objective view of the competition as a whole, assess the point scoring potential and feasibility of proposed designs, and then make informed decisions based on sound engineering principles.

Agreed though that a significant change like this would be best flagged at least a full design cycle in advance. And agreed that all that super-trick stuff like rapid prototyped titanium or whatever it was doesn't really help the comp (although I'm yet to be convinced you need such stuff to take an overall win)

I think Fred's tyre idea is interesting. It might be hard to police, and given that many teams don't get to the stage of advanced testing it might be a moot point. But an interesting idea to get us thinking all the same.

And Pete, my apologies for not attending to this earlier, but my heartiest congratulations to you and your whole team for finally potting the big one. Well deserved I must say, your car and team have been an inspiration for us for as long as I have been involved. I'm sure it is a relief for your good self and your own team, and a fitting tribute to the hard work put in by the UWA crew over the years (Kev, Nick, Guz, etc etc.) Cheers, and say gidday to Neil for us (you should bring him round for a couple of beers in November, we'd love to see him again).

Cheers all,

quote:

Originally posted by flavorPacket:
There is a huge disconnect between the design judges and the rules people, and it's absurd that we have to serve two masters, as it were. It is not like this in any other motorsports series because the rules committee is the only relevant body.

If I remember right the Design Judges are responsible for 150 points out of 1000. It's up to the team to decide how / where to focus it's engineering. A big problem from my perspective is that when asked, 9 teams out of 10 can't present a competition points vs. team resource trade-off analysis.

quote:

And please show me the real racing series where the front suspension and driver's legs must occupy the same longitudinal position while complying with a template as big as the one we have to meet.

I don't recall a rule stating the drivers legs have to be in front of the front axle... That's just a free design choice.

Regards, Ian

quote:

Originally posted by murpia:
I don't recall a rule stating the drivers legs have to be in front of the front axle... That's just a free design choice.

Regards, Ian

you're right! we could just have a 90 inch wheelbase, or a go kart...why didn't I think of that?

But regardless of the challenges of FSAE front suspension packaging, my point was that people are making the flawed argument that 'FSAE has rules like real racing, so fuel economy should be part of FSAE rules, too'. In real racing the cars are designed to be safe/cheap/entertaining, NOT challenging to design (at least not directly). This is not a valid parallel to draw.

When less than 1/2 the field completes the competition, why make the competition harder?