With around 150 days (roughly 5 months) left till competition, I was wondering how far along people are. Given it's Christmas break for most of the schools in North America, what are you guys looking at doing over break. I helped our Captain Chassis bust ass to get our frame about 75% done only to see motors come in late, people with no idea how they're going to make a part and various other things. I saw this all last year, so I pretty much expected it, but was wondering how everyone else was doing. With any luck we'll make our running driving car by March 15th. But the closer it gets, the more luck I think it'll take.

Frame is looking good. The engine guy got ahold of the engine and will be working on installing the Megasquirt over break. I have the stock honda atv parts and now I have to figure out how to make them work on our car. Intake calcuations are done and now we need to figure out how to fab it up. Brake parts are on order and we should see them shortly. Paddle shifter is built and installed on the car for testing/ ergonomics. Things are going ok, its finals week so everyone is burned out, hopefully we will get some things built over break and pick up strong next semester.

I"m going to go out on a slight limb here, but am going to say that our frame, which has not been started other than a jig being made, will be finished by jan 15th and a rolling chassis will be made by feb 1. I will soon post some pictures of how to build a frame in 3 weeks or less.

The car is only waiting on one or two parts still in the mail. We should be driving her by January 1.

John Hunt
UF FSAE

Suck a ball

We as SDSM&T just kicked everything into high gear with the onset of Christmas vacation. The frame will be done by the end of break.

just wondering if any of the teams outthere has found a place to stay yet? any discounted hotels that is closed by?

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Cook:
I"m going to go out on a slight limb here, but am going to say that our frame, which has not been started other than a jig being made, will be finished by jan 15th and a rolling chassis will be made by feb 1. I will soon post some pictures of how to build a frame in 3 weeks or less.

That seems a little hard to believe, unless you MIG together a turd box with just enough tubes to meet bare minimum.

Do you only want to meet the bare minimum with 15 tubes, or would you rather express yourself with 37 tubes like Brian University? Oh wait, I'm wandering with that one..

If you actually get the frame done that fast, I'd like to see some pictures.

building the frame in 3 weeks is not that impossible i think. And im sure if we had a good tube notcher, we could probably do in lesser time. And only 2-3 of us working on the frame. And i've always thought that the fabrication of the frame is the easiest part of getting the car done. It's those tiny little things that take so much time to finish.

so how long does it take you guys to make the frame mtg?

p/s: btw ... any suggestion on hotels for east this year guys?

We've gotten frame building down to a week before with about 6 guys working 10-12 hour days. It's possible, you really just have to know what you are doing. That included mounts, tabs, setting up the frame jigs, etc... I wouldn't recommend doing it that fast if you don't have to though!

I guess I was assuming a certain level of quality and accuracy. Yes, I'm sure you can slap something together in a couple weeks; but to have all of the important points of the frame properly jigged, the tubes properly fitted with an acceptable tolerance, and the time to do high quality welds, weld on all the tabs, and anneal, you'd be real hard pressed to do a quality job of all that stuff in 3 weeks.

There are some webcam shots with dates stamps on the UMR website in the image library of frame building when I was on the team.

MTG, I don't appreciate your comment. Just because you might not be able to do a frame that quickly doesn't mean it can't be done. And Everything is jigged correctly and our gaps are pretty damn good. Here is a small album
umd picture album

Minus the time it took to do all the square tubes and the jig, we have about 5 days on this car. That is with 2 people working on it 8 hours a day. The jig took a few days and the square tubes took a few days .

I stand corrected.

Our frame has been done(and off the jig) since 3 weeks ago....which is about the same time as last 2 years.....though the carbon panel will not be bonded in for sometime for accessibility reason...uprights will be completed by the end of the week and most suspension parts will be done as well...minus hubs which we are waiting for the sponsor to finish those. We are hoping to have a drivable car by end of Feb or early March...

At any rate, do we know if we can bring Camera this year to the event?

Don't sweat MTG. I have a lot of respect for you and UMR's car. You all did smoke our asses at nationals.

Quote from a previous student newsletter:

quote:

Ford generally does not permit cameras within the Michigan Proving Grounds, however for this event; they are working on a resolution to allow camera use only at competition site.

Hopefully we can bring the cameras!

My boys were busy on the frame over break, I think they did everything you see here in about 4-5 days...

http://evilallianceracing.com/ipw-web/gallery/FSAE06Fab


We had to cut/grind/weld on some extra tubes for toe protection last year, which is why we went a little overboard there. Also got chastized for not having enough elbow room.

Its 53 lbs right now, but we think the scale is actually a few pounds heavy. Still needs to be finish welded, as well as get all the tabs/brackets, you get the idea. Still pretty good results for a few days work! Just wish I was around to help out.

Dan,
It looks like your car doesn't meet the rules for footbox triangulation. Check out the Excel Document that the rules committee put out last fall.

Here.
From Here.

Your chassis looks very similar to the "Not OK" picture listed in cell B20.



It would suck to have to ˜cut/grind/weld on some extra tubes' at competition again. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe the chassis isn't complete in your pictures. Feel free to tell me to shut up if either is the case. Nice looking chassis though.

I didn't have a hand in any of the frame design, but needless to say, I'll bring it up with those that did! Thanks for the heads up guys (PM from another contributor) I'd much rather fix things now than later!

Thanks for the heads up James. I did not see the info from M. Royce. I was trying to plan to get away without the diagonal tube. I wanted to see what the torsional stiffness was without it before I decided to put it in or not. I know that this is the "weakest" area but wanted to see how bad it really was. Guess I need it for sure now.

Hope everyone's construction is going well.

bump for updates

Frame contruction completed, engine running with prototype intake and PE ECU, suspension underway (one corner done within the week), drivetrain spool construction underway while waiting for differential case (go interchangable parts!), mechanical shifter assembly near completion and adjustable pedal assembly 90% complete.

target driving date: March 13th

It's gonna be a close finish.