Iowa State FSAE gocart rollover

[t21jj]

"nothing that was a good idea went into this car"
-Iowa State FSAE Technical Director

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiczHkYgMTc

This was taken back in the fall of 2006, our former President and Project director was driving.

t21jj ISU FSAE

[rjwoods77]

Thats funny because hes dumb but I would take this down before your school gets a wiff of it.

[t21jj]

I didn't post it on youtube and its been posted since January, it was filmed close to a year ago. The person who was driving graduated and we don't have the gocart anymore. It's used more of an example of what not to do now.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

I know Adam has been lurking around here some, that has to be the quote of the century for FSAE.

[Composites Guy]

I'm with Rob on this one. If your campus risk management guy sees that you are going to be in for some changes.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

They dont need to know it was SAE related....

[Rellis]

the gocart should be one of the least of there worries

[Adambomb]

No worries, about 5 minutes after this video was shot I slid the thing into a curb sideways at about 30 mph (or about 1200 rpm above the factory recommended engine speed...hard to speculate). Sort of did a number on the entire back half of the car and sheared the 1/4" bolts that were holding the seat on. Also managed to take a bug chunk out of the curb. My kidney also hurt for about a month after that too, but I got an ultrasound after my motorcycle accident a couple months ago, and the doc says everything looks OK.

The go kart was never fully resurrected because it was true, nothing that was a good idea went into it. We did replace the seat with an awesome padded one we made by cutting the legs off a stacking chair we found by the dumpster, which was by far the least bad idea.

The brake caliper was supported by 2 chunks of 4" long allthread and 3" stacks of washers. The brakes only worked for about 3% of the kart's life, the rest of the time we just found something soft to run into. This became a bit of a problem when combined with the fact that the kill switch didn't work, and the throttle cable mount was made from a wad of zip ties that mostly just made the throttle randomly stick.

The suspension uprights were made from 3 large bolts welded together (that were supported by random chunks of 1/4" steel with more large bolts for kingpins), and the hubs sported an "innovative" no-wheel-bearing design.

The sprocket had less than an inch of ground clearance so Tony (AKA Thor, Roller of Crappy Go Karts) welded on a chain guard/skidplate comprised of about 30 lbs of random steel (he spent about 2 hours straight MIG'ing it together). The chain guard worked more like a plow off-road, so it was renamed the "Land Skeg," and was left in place because it greatly increased the kart's stability off pavement and sprayed cool sparks on pavement.

We did install an Anti-Adam Bar around the car to prevent future damage in the event of a high-speed curb check, but we just couldn't get the rear end to hold together, mainly because someone welded the rear wheel bearing retainers on backwards, so it was pretty much impossible to get the wheel bearings pressed into place properly once it was apart. We ended up throwing it in the scrap pile early this fall.

More pics (http://sae.stuorg.iastate.edu/formula/gallery/album65)

We just went through a big shop safety ordeal with the new department chair this fall because of Baja trashing the place over the summer that resulted in us being kicked out of the shop for almost 2 months (OUCH!!!). My next big fear is that they will discover that we actually drive the car to test it before we go to competition. Think I heard a rumor about that happening at OSU.

Ellis is right though, this video is nothing compared to the dry ice bombs and the official Shop Spear (maintenance still hasn't noticed the hole in the wall). Fortunately safety has been enforced by the ME department, so even though they are university hippies, they are at least logical hippies. Besides, they are too preoccupied with the more obvious safety threats, like the possibility that an engineering student might get to touch tools in manufacturing class.

[Patrick C. McDuffie]

As far as the thing at OSU the baj haha guys were working on a new frame shorting technique and it worked.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Sweet!

As my boy BVD used to say: Safety Second!

[BryanH]

Looking at pic 22, there is an sort of purity - coolness to it. Very 60's.
Did you get some of your vaseline on the lense or is the r/r wheel totally fucked?

[t21jj]

If you mean this one, yes that was the wheel that hit the curb first at about 30 mph. We just put it back on the car lol.
http://sae.stuorg.iastate.edu/albums/album65/IMG_0604.sized.jpg