Great Posts James, must have been hard work!
RMIT's problem was a wheel bearing chewing itself up. The car uses cartridge style double roller bearings. The incident with Texas A&M cost them a shot at beating Cornell so the wheel brg. was not so devasting but not finishing meant not knowing how many fuel economy points we would have scored over the 600cc cars.
The bearing was an unusual failure, probably due to the "offroad" style track and increased grip from the Hoosiers.
ps The Land&sea dyno figure at 35hp don't match fuel flow rates or on track performance.
It's a shame Rotor only got one chance at Detroit.
I'm really going to miss fsae.
but a lot more work might get done

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BryanH,

quote:

Originally posted by jack:
texas A&M broke the inboard hiem on thier right rear pull-rod, it looked like. i heard someone on the team say that, after analyzing the failure, it was fatigue, not anything sudden. i think it was a 1/4 hiem.

UTA was leaking oil out of the rubber plug around the engine's wheel speed sensor wires. aperently, they rubber just got loose and crapped out.

RMIT had a cotter pin fall out of their rear spindle. the bolt didn't comeoff, but the wheel was loose.

if anyone has better details, feel free to correct me...

Yep, I talked to the guys on our team while they were drinking their sorrows away at Big Bucks It was a fatigue issue on the 1/4" rod end of one of the pullrods. Guess our new shocks and rocker orientation gave us some higher forces. DOH!

Other than some crazy testing on off-the-shelf rod ends, fatigue is one issue that's like black magic for analysis. Other than aluminum and certain steel parts (where we just threw in some stress reducers and removed any / all stress concentrations), we didn't do much fatigue analysis.

Looks like that's something we'll have to focus on more next year

Thanks for the updates and picture everyone! It's amazing how intense the competition is getting, and how much it is spreading. With all this passing and racing action, it would be nice if a TV network covered at least the endurance event. Only one 1-hr show would be necessary for the top teams. Maybe SPEED channel, or TLC or Discovery could do it?

Guess the Big 3 aren't teh ones to sponsor that though, considering their financial situations.

Congrats Cornell and the other finishers. Good job on making some quality cars!

Road & Track tomorrow! Gig 'em Ags!

Anybody know the final results?!!!!!!!

This is all I know:

Enduro Results
1. Cornell
2. UW (slower by 2 seconds total)
3. UWA (slower by 2 seconds from UW)

Enduro+Fuel Economy Results:
1. Cornell
2. UWA
3. UW

Overall
1. Cornell
2. UWA
3. UW Madison
4. Waterloo
5. UW

Does anyone know how Penn State finished? Thanks!

Final Results:
1. Cornell University
2. University of Western Australia
3. University of Wisconsin-Madison
4. University of Waterloo
5. University of Washington
6. Penn State University
7. North Carolina State University
8. Saginaw Valley State University
9. University of Missouri-Rolla
10. Ryerson University

These are the official results they handed out at the end of the awards banquet. This is just the main page.
2005 FSAE Final Results pg1
2005 FSAE Final Results pg2
2005 FSAE Final Results pg3

The difference between 4th and 5th place is 0.422 points!!

111 teams showed up.
108 teams started the endurance!
48 teams completed the endurance!!

Design Event
1. U of Western Australia
2. Waterloo
3. Penn State
4. Cornell
5. RMIT

just a quick question to the WA guys

at 04 FSAE-A you guys said you were going to have your wings ready for the Detroit competition,

ran out of time or or just ditched the idea over all? just wondering

nice work on the result

to be honest, i'm perplexed by cornell's rediculous cost score too. We lost 15 points for price, and only 10 of the remaining 70 in report/event day discussion, and yet we were 70th (2 above a&m). Because we implemented a new purchasing procedure this year, I had every single receipt for every piece of the car, and our CNC programmers gave me machining time for those parts in 1 minute increments. Other than using rediculously short jig/assembly times and costs, i don't see how a team like cornell can score 90+ points (meaning they lost less than 10 on price, or about $14000 by my calcs) with all their goodies is difficult to believe at best.

Raid,
The individual working on wings gave up on it, and we haven't pursued it since.

The '04 FSAE courses were much faster than the '03 and '05; this year I'd hate to have wings on the car in Detroit. Topeka, however...

I'll post pics of the full results tonight to fill the gap before SAE makes the spreadsheet available.

I'm hanging out at SVSU, getting ready to drive tomorrow...

OK, here are snapshots of the results and the two coursemaps:
http://students.washington.edu/dennyt/fsae/2005results/

I had a great time this year, I talked with more people than ever, it was really amazing.

My respect goes out to each and every team.

P.S.
I'm thinking of changing my sig to "DNF'd Big Buck 2005". I feel like such an ass...

"thanks" for the bearing snapshot Denny
You are a hopeless smart..... sometimes!
Did they get the car back together for R&T?
Bryan H

Halfast,
Sorry, I've taken it down. Let me know if you want to see more, though.

You guys were fast, and didn't deserve to go out like that. There's not much anyone can say to console a DNF that steals a top 5 finish, I've been there before as well. But RMIT, UTA, A&M all have my respect. It was a fast group this year.

I wasn't awake for R&T, I don't know.

Also, I've heard through word of mouth that the announced lap times in endurance were BS, at least our 61.8. The official timing is separate from the announced times, apparently there are individuals with stopwatches in the announcing vehicle.

Does anyone have a contact for EDS or a printout of endurance lap times? I'm sure several teams would be very interested to see the numbers.

did anyone catch torsion numbers for UWA, RMIT, and Penn state?

also, i didn't get a chance to ask the UWA guys their wheel rate, anyone got it?

Just got in a bit ago and heard about this thread through the grapevine.

It was a strange trip for Cornell in general and myself personally. I was more or less a pinch-hitter this year - I'd throw in my two cents when required or I felt it was necessary, but otherwise laid back until this week.

Sunday to Thursday was a 80-hour week, spanning everything from truck packing to logistics to cost and business presentation assistance.

This was largely driven by my lapsing into catatonic boredom waiting for my dissertation edits to materialize. I figured I'd head to competition anyway, so why not snag a ride and see what I can do to help out.

It was also highly driven by the fact that Cornell's team needed the help. Anyone who talked to us this year discovered pretty quickly how incredibly unsure we were about finishing endurance, much less doing well.

The car had reliability issues right to the end. As much as 2004's car was a immutable force (200+ hours of testing, no major issues) 2005's car was a real pain in the ass, and all the hardcore effort in the world didn't seem to advance things much.

Things gelled amazingly well in the last two weeks or so, and I was blessed to be involved with this process first hand in the last week. The car was good when it ran, but it ran so infrequently. This in turn impacted testing, refinement, and general team administration.

I was giving us about a 25% chance to finish endurance, and if done, not very well. We were basically expecting to beat ourselves. We didn't. God knows how or why. I guess He figured the last couple of months of purgatory was sufficient.

The quality of competition continues to improve. Of the five years I've been involved with Cornell's team, this is the first I've seen a number of high-quality contenders getting too close for comfort. UWA and Wisconsin put in solid runs, A&M, UTA and especially RMIT's first driver were giving me ulcers in endurance. And it was nice to see the Ryerson car mature into a top 10 finisher, SVSU rip it up again, Waterloo return to the top 5, USB make secondary design, and as noted earlier today, record green flag and endurance completion numbers.

Based on the narration at the awards banquet, we're considering asking Target for a sponsorship. Hell, they already sponsor racing, the color scheme matches, and we know damn well that we're in a lot of people's sights. Keep aiming. UTA, A&M - be warned that Michigan does not permit concealed weapons, so leave those at home, will ya?

P.S. Given I've done at least some bit of cost over the last five years now, I'll answer the cost issue. Our car is retardedly simple in the end - very well integrated and refined, but basic R&D of course isn't costed, only materials and production labor is.

Labour costs are checked as near as I can figure - if you're way off logical expectation or (most likely) the median score for that part, you'll get dinged.

It also helps that we build many parts (e.g., engine control) from scratch, so we are essentialy saving Motec (or similar ECUs) overhead, profit, marketing and associated expenses buried in retail price.

And this year especially, the report was as close to flawless as I've seen (the core cost team did a kick ass job) and the day's judging went perfect - apparently, I'm now reasonably expert in lean manufacturing principles as applied to FSAE cars, and the technical folk spun off brilliant descriptions with very limited prep time.

Kudos to all involved on that - like the rest of the competition, it was the right mix of good people, good design, good timing, and good luck. Perhaps a bit too much of the latter, but whatever.

--
Michael Jones
Cornell Racing [2001-2005]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Michael Jones,

Congratulations to all those who made it to the event and particularly Cornell who continue to be pretty much the most consistent team out there.

I would also like to agree with Michael on the cost issue, I looked at Cornell’s car last year and anything trick in terms of electronics seemed to be in-house, those bits are very cheap as Michael has pointed out, the rest of the car was very conventional.

We did ok in Detroit last year and won cost in the UK, presentation is everything. Also if you don’t get 100% on the manufacturing process questions you’re losing easy marks. I do agree that the cost report format and rules aren’t perfect but it’s the same for everyone.

Ben

Congratulations everyone who competed, alot of us on the other side of the world were on the edge of our seats waiting for information to come in =]

RaID: Since FSAE-A we have decieded to take a longer term approach to wings. I think it came down to they simply were not ready early enough. The amount of testing that has to go into any component on the car is massive, and especially so with a system that can change so many aspects of the car - like Aero. UWA Team Aero is still alive but we could not justify putting something on the car that had not been tested to the degree that other systems have been.

keep the photos and info coming,

Mike
UWA Motorsport

Does anyone know the official results of R&T? What teams participated and what were the final results?

Denny please put it back up, I was just legpulling. besides the Cornell guys may want a copy. Yes I'd love to see all of your shots.
Hard to get upset when we lose a race to a component failure, its not like someone has stuffed up or driver error.
When everyone has gotten some sleep it would be good to read some dispassionate observations on 450cc single V. 600/4 now that you guys got to see both race head to head.
My thoughts after Dragstrip was wow! there are at least 50 well tuned 600's running and WR450 = not enough torque and 5 valves are 11 too few. Maybe RO4 would be a better package with an FZR in back! But on reflection it was maybe a 20 point hit here versus the 600's historically taking a 40 point hit in fuel econ. against RMIT, so that more or less balances out. The roughness of the track seems to negate a fair part of any advantage a 380lb car may have over the more normal 440lb cars.
Bryan H.

I talked to the guys at the competition, and word is A&M won R&T for the 2nd straight year. Seems all was not lost, although finishing endurance would have made the trip all the sweeter.

Not sure of the times or anything.

Here's to free advertising courtesy of Road & Track. WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!



Good job to all the teams that finished. 20 laps is not an easy task, especially pulling the loads these cars do. With so many parts, and such a delicate balace between weight and design factors, designing a winning car is no easy task.

Someone really ought to send a video of the enduarance to Speed channel or maybe ESPN-U and see if we cant get some TV coverage of the next competition. I really enjoy watching the competition, especially since such a variety of schools are representing.

i don't think we'll ever get coverage if SAE decides to keep having it on the same weekend as the monaco gp...i've missed it 2 years running now, and that's not cool.