You can still talk the tail off a brass monkey, eh Pete?
(Thank you)

Joel
UWA Motorsport Alumni (2002-05)

Thanks for noticing us Pete. Sorry i didn't see you at the afterparty, but with organisation typical of this year, we arrived at the afterparty about 30min before it shut.

I was disapointed, but not suprised we weren't allowed out for the second half of the enduro. There was a leak in the sump and all the seals on the engine were gone, so we were dropping alot of oil. I encased the bottom half of the engine in 0.3 ally sheet, silastic and racetape, but it was not enough.

Big thanks to the monash guys for lending us their hallway, where most of the car was built on wednesday and thursday, and congratulations on third.

And thanks to everyone who lent us spark plugs, which turned out to be our problem in getting the car started (stupid stupid stupid).

Good luck next year everyone.

Ross

quote:

Originally posted by Pete Marsh:
How about The Germans accel winning run, you could see that was a winner right there. Is it true they weigh 260kg?

Thanks. I can't give you the official number for the Australian Event yet but in FS Germany we were weighed at 245kg. We like to call that natural traction control. For a giggle our first ever car weighed in at 330kg and scored a 3.86 in the German 06 Event taking 2nd place.
But don't mind our victory in accel. I think I'm going to bury my self now because if you did that to us without proper testing and an unfinished car, I think we have a looooooong way to go before we can keep up with guys like you.

Congratulations!

Another event over and 2007 unfortunately wasn't our year at UTS.

Throughout the weekend we had all sorts of problems which were mostly due to a lack of testing time. Even so we left knowing a hell of a lot more than when we came, especially for the static events.

We'd like to thank all of the judges, officials and volunteers at they event. They did an awesome job, especially the guys at the tilt table and brake/noise test on the Sunday who were really helpful.

A big thanks to the guys at RMIT for letting us use their workshop on the Friday night. Not only were they a huge help and let us get a lot done but it also meant we didn't get kicked out of our campsite for making noise all through the night so cheers guys.

Also a big thank you to QUT for helping us with our engine on the Sunday.

Another thanks goes out to ADFA for lending us some sandbags on a rainy Saturday morning.

Congratulations to UWA, RMIT, Monash and everyone else who competed for a job well done.

And finally congratulations to all the guys and gals at UTS Motorsports for their work throughout the year. For a team that is almost entirely first year students to get a running car to the event is a huge achievement and next year is going to be a big step forward.

And another thing.

Wheelie Tunes will return.

Hi,

I spent another FSAE “on the dark side”, and felt mixed emotions about what I saw last weekend.

It seems to me that the major AUS teams are starting to plateau, a few of them are going backward at a rate of knots, UQ and UNSW especially.

Whilst scrutineering I enjoyed seeing the “concept” that Newcastle presented, a FSAE car that you actually would “buy at the shops”, and was impressed by 95% of what Auckland had. Sorry about the 2 hours in scrutineering NZ guys, but it’s both our fault hey?

I heard the story about NZ coming to scrutineering on Thursday and being turned away. That sounds like poor form to me. If I had my way I would hold a mandatory scrutineering session on Thursday arvo to inspect the validity of the structural equivalency variations (mono’s and ally cars) only. I mean ONLY the structural aspects, not checking for brakes, catch cans, 2 threads protruding, etc. I would write it into the FSAE-A addendum too. Big thanks to Steve and Michael for their guidance, and especially Ahn, Evan, Mick, and John for their help (these folks are all ex FSAE’ers, and make for excellent scrutineers).

Saturday morning was a bastardly time for me, setting up marquees in the rain. I’ve got to mention all the hard work that James puts into this event, and I was very glad for receiving some praise from James for helping with the marquees.

On Sunday I marshalled the slow section in front of the main grandstand. What I’ve noticed is that very few teams found 4 ringer drivers, and it’s hard to get a grip on what car is fastest until the best driver takes the wheel.

The reliability of this year’s cars was poor. Lot’s of failures and some petty one’s too. The ‘Gong were lucky to get enduro points after the bodywork incident.

RMIT’s throttle response (too big a throttle, too big a plenum, or crappy map?) was awful, and tainted the performance of a slightly too stable, but otherwise great chassis.

When Auckland engine was running well the car was blisteringly fast, they’re my pick for 08. I hope Auckland head overseas with that car.

The gong was quick, but I can’t help but think they were quicker before the turbo’s started.

WA had a better engine package this year, and it seemed lighter. Again it dominates in the bumpy sections. Well done WA!

It was the first time I really gave credit to the Monash areo platform, even in the slower sections. I’m guessing you need a heroic driver to display what that car can do. Monash seemed more serious this year. They’re my other pick for 08. A bit lighter, bit narrower, more horsepower and BANG, Monash will punish.

It was frustrating to see Swiny run out of CO2. A sweet little car, that was certainly mixing it with the big names.

QUT, after an overnight engine change, had a stupid failure which cost them a certain top 5 placing. One interesting thing was that QUT effectively did a “back to back” test on a slipper-clutch (one engine had it, the other didn’t). Spool disciples take note! Use a slipper-clutch, the braking is fantastic, no more ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.

FSAE is a endlessly fascinating event where the rules and specifications meen you can witness 8 totally different design architectures compete with similar results. I love it. It was great to see the “old-boys” again too. Only 355 more sleeps till FSAE-A 08.

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

I think this was another good event at AUS.

Although i must admit my (and alot of others) dissatisfaction at the "staging" of the acceleration event. For a second year in a row it was bullshit. While a little more consistant, cars were not being lined up "30cm" behind the line as told in driver briefing. And when asked about staging the officials replied "What???"

That being said UWA had a pure sounding 4, and Wollongong's launch settings set my pants on fire; think of a WRC cracking away at the gate! WOW

I have videos of both these two, anyone know where i can host them??

I also have a funny picture of all of the major officials resting in RMIT's tent for lunch

A bit of a disappointing comp for us. We had a couple of fairly lame issues that i don't particularly want to make excuses for. A real shame because the car showed a lot of promise in testing and was believed by most who saw it and all who drove it to be one of the fastest cars we've made thus far. Disappointing that we couldn't mount a more respectable challenge on the day.

Speaking of which, I think people perhaps need to be careful about judging cars based on one weekend's performance. Race cars are fickle creatures and even top formula one teams occasionally DNF. As Geoff mentioned, a team like Adelaide can do everything right all year and not have it all come together on the day. Oh well, that's racing. It's also why overseas competitions exist.

See some of you in May.

This year was perhaps a bit of a disappointment for UNSW Redback Racing as all the effort the team put in to finish our completely new car during the last few months in the lead up to the competition almost counted for nothing when we experienced difficulty firing up the engine.

Although mechanically finished for the start of the second day of competition we were dogged by tiny gremlins all over the system which added up, making it extremely difficult and frustrating to start the engine and then keep it going. Nonetheless we persisted (and called in some experience in the form of Whitey) and finally got the car going around midday on the last day of competition.

Just to see the car running at last was a great relief for the whole team but the surprise of being able to clock in very competitive times (consistent 45ers matching UWA's autocross times ) during the final enduro which was essentially our shakedown run really showed the potential of our 2007 competitor.Unfortunately we were also dogged by some dodgy welding in the sump and a radiator that was far from being in perfect condition resulting in the car's retirement during the driver change due to massive ammounts of fluids being left on the track.

Nevertheless this glimpse of potential has no doubt motivated our team and we will certainly be addressing the issue of faulty components as soon as possible so that we can actually begin to improve the car's performance with further testing and design and implement new components.

Congratulations to UWA and RMIT for their excellent results and especially to Monash for helping our team out with some lab space as well as their great performance in taking out 3rd place overall! Also special thanks to Tim White who came all the way down from Sydney to help us out with our engine problems and make our trip totally worth it.


Cheers,
Guang.

P.S. Regarding the hosting of photos, why not just create a Flikr or Photobucket account for FSAE-A and upload it all there?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncalaskan/sets/72157603513126873/

Courtesy of Pat Clarke

wooo been looking for those thanks!

Thanks for the pictures Pat. Thanks to whoever set up the account to host them (ncalaskan/seth/chavez?).

Pat, there seems to be a defect in your camera. It appears to have trouble with focus and composure on shots of the Swinburn car. You should have it looked at.

The Auckland car makes a strong case for aero/underbody. I mean, look at the number of cones that thing sucked up!


Did the Monash guys mount the wings upside down after they fell off? It looks like they’re not providing the desired effect on the rear tires:


For those lacking a sense of humor - those were jokes above. Don’t get all worked up.

Congratulations to everyone that even tried to field a car. It’s no small task.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: James Waltman,

First, Congratulations to UWA, RMIT and Monash.
It is teams like this that send out the message to the world, letting them know the level of FSAE in Australia!

I almost didn't make it this year, I was not officially registered as a QUT team member and was on the other side of the country, however after some calls from my old team mates I decided (on Thursday) that I had to go.

I arrived on Saturday morning and after a quick look around the pits I wandered into the Volunteers tent and signed up to see if there was anything I could help with. As it turns out I would be marshaling for the Autocross.

At this point I would like to say after "being on the other side of the fence" how appreciative I am of the organisers and volunteers that work very hard for this competition to occur. I have a new level of respect for the hard work of these people in making sure the competition goes as smoothly as possible. Some of these people work as hard as the teams to make this competition occur and yet, some teams or members still give them grief.

Marshalling for autocross was a great experience (albeit wet, windy and freezing) seeing the cars go around the track at close-range was, for lack of a better word, awesome!

The rest of my time was spent helping struggling teams as much as possible.

Sunday I helped Marshal for Enduro. But also helped teams with track-side recovery of cars (or taking the Monash bloke across infield to retrieve their wings from turn 6). As well as running around the pits trying to get teams to the start line in order.

It was a great experience and hope that I can do it again next time!

As for my general opinion of the competition, 2007 was a year of lack of preparation and 5c failures, even for the elite teams. I agree with what what others have said, the overall quality of cars at this years competition was down. This certainly echoes in the results.

I had kept a close eye on a few struggling teams thoughout the weekend; UNSW, UTS and UQ. What I saw impressed me, that these teams will fight right to the bitter end and to that I tip my hat to them.

I was particularly dissapointed that UNSW didn't run with that unfortunate leak, they are a great teamm have a great morale and I spent alot of my free time with them! I hope next year turns out better for you guys!

Finally for my old home team, QUT, it was sad to see the trottle failure in the last enduro cause the spin. It could have been a excellent result this year otherwise. The overnight engine change was an impressive feat, especially seeing it start first crank after 18-months of sitting on a shelf.

I'm off to University of Waterloo and their team for Michigan in 2008, see you there RMIT (and others?).

This is already too much, but
To all the teams, the volunteers, organisers, Frank, Mick and QUT,
Thanks for the great time!

Also, from the QUT team photographers: (around 3000 shots from the WE)

UQ, so close, yet so very very far.

Quote James Waltman..."Pat, there seems to be a defect in your camera. It appears to have trouble with focus"

Quote Muffrx4 from the first page of this thread..........."And Pat if you think that having a good driver is why Swinny is doing ok I suggest you really consider taking photos for the rest of the w/e as some might even turn out focussed and worthy of this forum".

Seeing as muffboy has an association with Swinburne, a total lack of ability to read what has been written, presumes to put words in my mouth and not to mention a sh!tty attitude that is having a negative affect on the Swinburne team..Maybe you are right ;-)

Cheers to all

BTW if anyone wants the full size, uncropped originals, the just PM me. Use them as you wish.
Oh, that doesn't include Swinburne!

Pat

Piccies from the comp are up at the Wollongong website:

http://130.130.24.178/

I've added around 1900 images of Wollongong and most of the other teams ... images have been resized only.

If any teams are interested in image pls email me and I'll throw them on a disc for you and drop them in the mail :-)

Cheers and a Merry Christmas to all!!

Steev S, UoW

Congrats to all that came down this year and particularly UWA, RMIT and Monash.

Big thanks to all the people that made the event happen. We at Sydney were fairly happy with this years run although we still have some areas to improve on for 2008. Particular thanks to the Army boys who let us use their design boards, and the Gong and RMIT who gave us a hand after our rear left suspension decided to die after 10 hours of testing in first enduro :P. Should have tested with more right hand corners!!!

For interested people it was a small manufacturing error on the bellcrank pivot which then decided to shear that caused our problems

Special mention should also go to Pat and Ron for their time earlier in the year when they kindly payed us a visit.

And of course a big thanks to Claude for his wise words at the comp and the long but very very good seminar, hope you can make it back down in 08.

Good luck to all in the new year, cant wait for 08

Adam

2008 USYD Racing Leader

Anybody else notice that RMIT was picking up inside front wheels?

Matt

quote:

Originally posted by eonn:
Piccies from the comp are up at the Wollongong website:

Wow you guys took heaps of nice photos! Nice work. Might take a few hours to look through em all...

hehe.. thanks I can't wait to get the shot's off the rest of the team ;-)

The site http://130.130etc .. run's off'a my desktop so if things are a lil slow sometimes pls be patient? :-)

Steev S, UoW