General Help Needed

[J Boiii]

Hi

Im completing a project on the early stages of a formula car design.

Im basically going to complete a literature review and detail the competative, legal, health and saftey etc requirements for the competition and develop a costed strategy and proposal for persuing this objective. Essentially I need to come up with a concept; engine type, location, possible power, tyres etc.

From reading the forum, seems that you guys are well past this stage and wondered if you have some general pointers to help get me started.

Any help would be most appreciated.

[J Boiii]

Hi

Im completing a project on the early stages of a formula car design.

Im basically going to complete a literature review and detail the competative, legal, health and saftey etc requirements for the competition and develop a costed strategy and proposal for persuing this objective. Essentially I need to come up with a concept; engine type, location, possible power, tyres etc.

From reading the forum, seems that you guys are well past this stage and wondered if you have some general pointers to help get me started.

Any help would be most appreciated.

[JerryLH3]

Two main choices will help dictate the rest of the car:

Wheel & Tire size
Engine

Some teams use 10 inch wheels, some teams use 13 inch wheels.

You also have the choice of single cylinder, four cylinder, or even a Briggs twin.

Those two choices will determine a lot of the subsequent design features and are the place to start.

[Buckingham]

After engine and tire, you would probably want to think about:

Min. weight
Wheelbase/Track requirements

Go download the SCCA rulebook(available online), it has examples of the restrictions and requirements for many different classes. The FIA regulations for Formula 1 are a much better example. I know they can be found in the book "Formula 1 Technology" ISBN: 0768002346

[Erik Whoa]

Even better, download the FSAE rulebook. It covers most of the aspects of the car, and it should be sufficient in preliminary design.