Does anyone have a picture of the final results that were posted at the event? They still have not posted it up on the website.

Congrats to UWA, an awesome car as always. Also, congrats to Stuttgart and Munich, we wish we could come to FSG again, just won't happen this year.

Results were posted a day or two ago.
http://www.sae.org/images/cds/211313531_FSAE_2008_result.pdf

Whats your favourite colour???

quote:

Results were posted a day or two ago.
http://www.sae.org/images/cds/211313531_FSAE_2008_result.pdf

Thanks, must have missed that.

quote:

Originally posted by AutoJim:

quote:

Originally posted by golftdibrad:If that 'marshal' continues to carry an attitude like that he is going to have a much more sensitive jaw line in the future.

Then you can find out how the jails are in Michigan. Nearby Jackson is the home to the state's maximum security prison.

After a brief stay in the hospital to have your injuries tended to.

Don't mess with the white-suits. We volunteer our time, our physical safety (yes, #2 enduro driver from UWA, I'm talking to YOU), and our travel budgets to stand on asphalt for several days so you kids can play racecar driver.

To be perfectly honest here, there were 4+ cars that should not have been allowed back on track after either meatballs (mechanical black flags) or driver change, but tech let them back on course. We were fortunate this year that none of them let go and oiled down the track (or worse).

So how about channelling all that anger into making your car more reliable next year so you don't have to worry about whether or not it restarts?

Was it you? Probably not. Most of the SCCA guys there were awesome, and don't take my dissatisfaction with one person as a general 'anger at everyone' attitude. Most of the people there were really nice and very helpful. The question, and the post is done in the context to make improvements to the event.

I am also not stupid enough to actually hit someone, but i cannot speak for others. my point was if the dude has an attitude like that with everyone he'll catch someone on the wrong day. If I was actually on the dynamic pad for all this he would have guaranteed gotten a piece of my mind.

As an active member in my local SCCA club and future safety steward I know exactly what is involved in putting on event so 'you kids can play racecar driver.' - I don't need the lecture so save it. I didn't mean to ruffle everyones feathers that bad, so my apologies. I'll get back to splitting atoms.

-Brad

Wow its a long way to the USA from here! For those of you who are going to come to Aus when the world cup is here(lots of you I hope) try to arrange an overnight transit stop before your last leg. I just did 40 hrs of travel with only short transit stops and I don't recommend it!

I would like to thank EVERYONE for an awsome comp. Fantastic venue, well run, great track layout with something for every sort of car. Plenty of stiff competition and a very close finish!
The only way it could have been better would be for RMIT, our greatest rival and motivator, to have had things go their way and be on the podium with us. Behind us in second of course!

For the teams that have never won, hang in there! We didn't really do or have anything different this time compared to other attempts at Detroit, its just the cards fell our way this time. You MUST score well in EVERY event to be there at the end and the rest is out of your control. So many teams do all the right things every year and its easy to feel hard done by if you don't get the result you deserve. But it can happen!

Now get working on something that you can bring to Aus and kick our buts with!

Pete.

quote:

Originally posted by AutoJim:

Don't mess with the white-suits. We volunteer our time, our physical safety (yes, #2 enduro driver from UWA, I'm talking to YOU), and our travel budgets to stand on asphalt for several days so you kids can play racecar driver.

To be perfectly honest here, there were 4+ cars that should not have been allowed back on track after either meatballs (mechanical black flags) or driver change, but tech let them back on course. We were fortunate this year that none of them let go and oiled down the track (or worse).

So how about channelling all that anger into making your car more reliable next year so you don't have to worry about whether or not it restarts?

You also have to remember that some of us do this competition as a way to get a job. It's the culmination of a year in the shop, thousands of man hours, and lots of frayed nerves. We do thank the whitesuits for everything they do. As a SCCA member myself, I also know what it takes to put on an event like this. Seems like golftdibrad is just asking for a little respect to be returned.

quote:

Originally posted by golftdibrad:

Was it you? Probably not. Most of the SCCA guys there were awesome, and don't take my dissatisfaction with one person as a general 'anger at everyone' attitude. Most of the people there were really nice and very helpful. The question, and the post is done in the context to make improvements to the event.

Nope. I was out at Turn 3. In which position I told a few of your fellow competitors that they were done. Usually after an operating mode of "Move 10 feet under power, stall, crank for 30 seconds, restart, splutter for 10 more feet, stall, crank for 30 seconds, restart, repeat ad nauseum". Meanwhile, traffic is stacking up behind them unless we can get the driver to release the brake/take it out of gear long enough to be pushed/pulled off the track...

At that point, any sympathies for that team's plight are overwhelmed by an immediate need to keep the track clean so the event can keep going. I don't intend to be harsh, but I'm sure I came across as "that mean guy who made us stop".

Conicidentally, if we *didn't* keep the track clear, this place would be full of "We'd have done better if the workers had only gotten {slow car X} out of our way!" posts.

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I am also not stupid enough to actually hit someone, but i cannot speak for others. my point was if the dude has an attitude like that with everyone he'll catch someone on the wrong day. If I was actually on the dynamic pad for all this he would have guaranteed gotten a piece of my mind.

What you said was "he is going to have a much more sensitive jaw line" which is pretty much a threat to hit said person in the face, not speak vigorously in his general direction.

quote:

As an active member in my local SCCA club and future safety steward I know exactly what is involved in putting on event so 'you kids can play racecar driver.' - I don't need the lecture so save it. I didn't mean to ruffle everyones feathers that bad, so my apologies. I'll get back to splitting atoms.

Say hi to my friend, old-skool Mini driver John Lieberman at the next Red River Region event... he should recognize my nom de net. When I'm not waving flags at races, I'm driving an ESP Mustang in Solo.

quote:

Originally posted by Matthew Bell:

You also have to remember that some of us do this competition as a way to get a job. It's the culmination of a year in the shop, thousands of man hours, and lots of frayed nerves. We do thank the whitesuits for everything they do. As a SCCA member myself, I also know what it takes to put on an event like this. Seems like golftdibrad is just asking for a little respect to be returned.

As an alum of the severely under-funded (so underfunded our team leader's credit card was declined at the hotel 'cause it was maxed out, as were just about everyone else's personal cards with no hope of reimbursement) University of Tulsa Mini-Baja program, I understand the work, long hours, all-nighters, and general mayhem one of these efforts makes of the rest of a student's life (My senior GPA was well below the other 3 years I was there, though I aced my MechE classes).

I also understand the "trying to get a job" aspect as well. Baja was featured prominently on my resume and I'm sure played a part in my entry into this business 18 years ago. One of the reasons I've worked FSAE since 1992 (with a few years off in there as job situations changed, affecting my ability to get time away from the office for the event) and was deeply involved in the inaugural HEV Challenge organization was a desire to give back to the kind of student competitions I got so much out of.

As I said above, when you're trying to get as many cars through as you can in a small window of time, expediency often trumps, well, just about anything else. Particularly with the way the weather was looking -- when an against-the clock event like the enduro starts dry and looks like it's going to become very very wet (and it did look that way for a while), you want to cram in as many cars as can safely fit on the track while it's dry.

"We'd have been faster if the {insert suitably perjorative adjective here} officials hadn't made us wait until the rain started."

I guess I should be used to it by now -- we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. Everyone has a better idea about how it should be run (myself included -- and y'all really don't want all of my ideas incorporated unless, like me, you want to have the event over and be on the way home on enduro day by 3pm).

There's NEVER a reason to threaten a volunteer race official with a knuckle sandwich, however. THAT remains a constant.

quote:

Originally posted by AutoJim:


There's NEVER a reason to threaten a volunteer race official with a knuckle sandwich, however. THAT remains a constant.

That was not my intent, and admittedly after re-reading the thread that is how it came off; again my apologies. I still hope my suggestion/advice is taken in good faith.
Lets get back to talking about racecars and keep in mind this is supposed to be FUN!

-Brad

No worries, Brad.

Now... back to the subject.

I'd love to see a thread here talking about reliability development. Not just because I don't want to move cars by hand at the event , but most importantly because it'll help everyone get better at finishing.

The enduro finish percentage has been in the mid-to-high 40s (I think this year was around 47-48%), and with a little attention to reliability, I see no reason it couldn't get up into the 70s.

There's also a direct carryover into the auto industry with that kind of work. We live on FMEAs (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) and DVP&R (Design Verification Plan & Report) processes. The FMEA feeds the DVP. Between customer expectations and regulatory requirements, reliability is a critical function and not something to be glossed over.

Getting back to the tech inspector looking at the wiring buried under the engine in the LSU car, Brad -- there are a couple of reliability-related reasons to look at that. One is ensuring that nothing is pinched or shorted, and that the wiring is protected from abrasion, pinching, foreign object damage, and/or heat. The other is servicability. If you have to disassemble the car to get to a wiring connection to troubleshoot, that's a problem. In the real world, the proverbial 10-cent part can incur several hundred dollars in repair bills if it's not in the right place.

Why would tech want to know about that, and not design judging? Well, probably more the first reason than the second. The scrutineers (most of whom are veterans of 10+ FSAE competitions, and in the case of the Royces, many, many more than that) have seen where a poorly-located wiring harness caused a significant problem (i.e. a "thermal event"). Sounds like a minor thing, but it can cause a major problem.

Believe it or not, they're usually not trying to be difficult -- and if you ask (in a non-whiny fashion ) why they're interested in something you think is minor, they'll likely tell you.

quote:

Originally posted by TMichaels:
Does anybody know what the kind of failure was that stopped Delft in the endurance?

Regards,

Tobi

The wiring to the camshaft sensor. Engine stalled once during my run (1st enduro driver) and a lot of times during the second run. In the 14th or 15th lap we were pulled off. Just as well, you can't finish enduro on the starter

The team was devastated obviously, going into enduro leading the field.

MH
Delft

Thanks for the Information. I offer you my condolences.

Was the wire broken? Or was it the connector that failed?

Regards,

Tobi

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Originally posted by TMichaels:

Was the wire broken? Or was it the connector that failed?

The connector.

MH
Delft

Excellent points about wiring, Jim. We did not make it to Detroit this year, but did go to Virginia. Upon replacing a battery, the terminals got switched, melting the wires to the rectifier. Luckily, they were in a separate loom from the main harness or else we would have been sunk. A few wire snips and a new rectifier and we were able to continue. Now, if we could just fix the problem of the wheel falling off...

The biggest thing any team can do to improve their reliability is to finish the car at least a few weeks before competition. Easier said then done, i know, but starting the car at comp for the first time leaves anyone in a thick part of the failure probabilities curve.

Failures are going to happen regardless (prototype race-cars) but at least in those few weeks you can work most if not all the bolt loose, bad wire type failures that are the most frustrating.

Wiring kept UBFSAE hostage for nearly two months due to a EE major that we relied to to get it done right. Even after buying all of the crimp tools, correct pins, correct connectors, correct Raychem stuff it still amounted to attention to detail which this kid neither possessed nor cared for. Shit, we completely grenaded an engine at VIR due to an intermittent ignition trace that was later fixed by an ME. Talk about expensive mistake. In the end we squeezed out 18th at MIS which has got us all thrilled beyond belief but we could have done better with more testing time. The car wasn't prepared and didn't handle not so great and the CVT/engine was off so it was slow but just finishing made all the difference. In the weeks leading up to the comp our boys learned on a steep curve about wiring and electronics. This electrical reliabilty fiasco will not soon be forgotten and hopefully wont be a problem later on. I am sure other teams have been victim to reliance on a person who isn't qualified or doesn't do his job and the team pays heavy for it. Mechanical stuff can be figured out quite easy. Electrical gremlins can not. I think it is super important for more than a couple people on a team get familiar with all the electrical stuff on the car since it seems to be the most painful to fix. I guess you can say this about any subsystem but the electrical one is the SOB of them all.

I agree one can spend weeks on hunting down gremlins in the electrical system, but it is like in every fsae car system: If it was done and documented properly the first time, it will save you ages in sorting out your problems.

Mechanical engineering and electrical engineering is nearly the same, the only differences are some changed constants in differential equotations.

Regards,

Tobi

Here are some pics I took from MIS. If there are any of your car, feel free to use them.

http://gallery.uwracing.com/v/208/MIS/Ganskis+MIS+Pics/

That german car that Mexellent is refering to was reported with pictures provided. However nothing was done within the officals.

i havent seen a lot of close ups on all the cars lately. Is it because of the outsiders not allowed to walk around in the garage area?