Still excited about our accel. time in Baltic open, I'm asking for your best time in this event, during testing or training.

Our time with the Chalmers 06 car was 3.75s and 109 km/h.

Helsinki wasn't far behind with 3.77s with there 06 car.

As far as I know this is the best time in any event. Wich makes our car the fastest in the world...

Am I right?

/Per
CFS

quote:

Wich makes our car the fastest in the world...

No offence, since when is FSAE all about straight line acceleration? IMHO the fastest car is the one with the highest overall score from the dynamic events.

Peter
Delft (where less is more )

Yeeesh 3.75 is fasssst. Remind me, what'd you guys do at West? What made the big difference?

Just to add to the discussion: exactly how were the times measured? With a transponder mounted at the rear end of the car, or by other means? How exact were those 30cm behind the line? How many runs did the teams get? What kind of surface? Obviously, al these things have a big influence on your times...

What I mean to say, you really can't compare the times from different competitions, so saying you have the fastest car is a bit too much. No offence intended though. You guys have a very nice car

MH

There is a difference between fast and quick. You may not have the fastest(topend) but you may have the quickest(accel). Anyway it goes, I am not going to jump on here like others and shoot down your joy of a substantial accomplishment.

Sure, Fsae isn't about accel, it's about everything. But then again, when was the last time that you saw the 1st place car win every event. I am sure that when they won, no one ws standing there saying "Duuuuhhhh, we beet ya in dat der dollar purt a da comp." We jacked them off repeatedly for weeks on there accomplishments, as anyone should. And why shouldn't the other guys get to do the same for something no one is recognizing them on the forum for?

Oh well, I think RMIT cheated, maybe they had sex with the judges. The Toronto driver was on steroids. Texas A&M's car had the ability of human though and drove itself and gave its own presentations.

Give credit where due,
Congrats Chalmers, and don't take some asses ball busting cause they have a small pair.
Bill Kunst

Just to be clear: I really like the Chalmers car, it looks and sounds fantastic.
All I'm saying is that a time of 3,75 is amazing, but you should consider all the circumstances before claiming you have the fastest car in the world.
For example the guys from Graz claim 3,6 sec runs regularly during testing, does that mean THEY have the fastest car in the world?

@Bill: after reading your deep, meaningful and well-arguemented post, I'm really curious: does your post mean YOU have a big pair????

MH

That was just what I was asking for, and it doesn't suprise me that a car like Graz can run that fast under good conditions. Electronics is also important to run stable times.

Unfortunately we don't have any electronics yet, therefore we see a great viriation in our times.

In Finland, Delfts fotocell timing system was used. Thankx for that by the way, Delft!

Otherwise the conditions in Finland were pretty good. Tarmac was nice, and tyres were pretty warm. But we ran on our England tyres, they were a bit slippery.

Alex Kwan: The difference from USA West is a supercharger. Mounted on a completely new vehicle... The car you are talking about, also known as the "Volvo car", is our -05 car, this is our -06 car.

You might see it in West next year.

/Per

MH,
What is your name, where are you from, and all the rest?

I think that you can read pretty close to the type of personality each person has on here. I am merely trying to defend someone who was excited about how well they did and was asking "Is our car the fastest?" I just found it annoying that lloper and chalmers gets slammed because you need proof that they are fastest. Maybe we should have all the cars at one event. How do we know that the winner of FSAE west is really a championship car? Sure, you cannot compare the scores on events to scores from other events. But I think, just short of them running the car in a vacuum, accel times could be compared. Hell, a person who had doubts could have said something like, "If its not the fastest, it got to be one of them for sure! Congrats!" And then that person could have sat at home and stewed over it.

Bill Kunst

Under 3.8 is awfully quick. Never heard of an SAE car that fast. 4.0 wins in the US in the dry

quote:

Originally posted by Iloper:
Alex Kwan: The difference from USA West is a supercharger. Mounted on a completely new vehicle... The car you are talking about, also known as the "Volvo car", is our -05 car, this is our -06 car.

You might see it in West next year.

/Per

Ah, sweet. Bring it to West!

IIRC, Ohio State had a 3.98 to win FSAE a number of years ago (late 90s?). Texas A&M has told us that they've run 3.5s in the College Station heat, on asphalt, with hot tires.

Sorry to ruin your day.

Firstly before i start my rant id like to say congratulations to chalmers for their fast time.

Its not as easy as you think, and so far everyone has come out asking some fair questions but have neglected some things. What about tail wind or head wind, what about the launch you get. A good launch makes all the difference. And thats where most teams find repeatability an issue.

On a more serious note, it doesnt really count unless you set the time at comp. I know my team has run under 4 seconds, and recorded 3.6s on concrete, but because no one else (officials / other teams etc) was there to back it doesnt make it believable.

Fair enough if they did it, well done. But its not officially the fastest time.

Uh... his post says they did it at the Baltic Open. There were 4 teams (Chalmers, Delft, Helsinki and KTH, an elite group for sure) and 7 cars.

Regardless.. the point being made is - you can be as quick as you like in testing and practice, but the competition numbers stick.

..wait, is there a point being made?

Here is a clip of the 3.75s run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLYHaQfOAlc

Enjoy it!

/Per

quote:

Originally posted by Iloper:
Here is a clip of the 3.75s run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLYHaQfOAlc

Enjoy it!

/Per

Either that clip suffers from an optical illusion or that track slopes downhill towards the end...
Regards, Ian

I drank a beer in .02 seconds. Fastest in the world.

Thats how the CU FSAE/drinking team rolls.

I have to admit that in Baltic Open there was a small downhill which began in about half the way of 75m and lasted till the finish. Here's a video which contains the same run from a different angle and with speed radar reading:
http://www.formula.stadia.fi/videot/BO_Chalmers_acce.mpg

Here's also a video from our run in FSG, which might be one of the fastest in official competitions:
http://www.formula.stadia.fi/videot/FSG_Helsinki_acce.mpg

Both of these runs' times were taken with photocell system and just out of curiosity, has anyone else measured how much does it affect on time if the transponder is mounted at the rear of the car or if the time is taken with photocell system. We have done some testing with this. We put the transponder to the front of the car and then to the rear and the time difference supprised me quite a bit. We got 0.15-0.25 second differences with this so it seems that it really affects the time a lot.

quote:

Originally posted by Kimmo Hirvonen:
I have to admit that in Baltic Open there was a small downhill which began in about half the way of 75m and lasted till the finish.

Both of these runs' times were taken with photocell system and just out of curiosity, has anyone else measured how much does it affect on time if the transponder is mounted at the rear of the car or if the time is taken with photocell system. We have done some testing with this. We put the transponder to the front of the car and then to the rear and the time difference supprised me quite a bit. We got 0.15-0.25 second differences with this so it seems that it really affects the time a lot.

Here's a few 75m times from a simulation of a 'generic' FSAE car:
0m staging 4.45s
0.3m staging (as competition) 4.20s
1.0m staging 4.00s
2.5m staging (roughly equivalent to rear transponder with 0.3m car staging) 3.75s
Getting the car rolling is key. That last car is already doing ~18kph when the timing starts...
Regards, Ian

[quote Iloper]As far as I know this is the best time in any event. Wich makes our car the fastest in the world...[/quote]
If your course went down a mineshaft rather than down a hill, you might go faster!
Acceleration times are only relevant when comparing one team against another on the same course. Claiming a 'World record' from an event that was gravity assisted is juvenile at best.
Pat