2016 FSAE-A Australasian Competition

[NathVanVugt]

The 2016 Australian comp is going to be held 8th - 11th of December 2016.

Although ECU isn't attending this years competition we are still going to be watching closely due to it being our home competition and all.

After a student committee meeting a few days ago SAE-A raised a few points about the competition which I thought I'd share here and get everyone's opinions.

At the competition there will be no or minimal marshal's on the track during such events as AutoX or Endurance to pick up hit cones or stricken cars, this is to ensure the maximum protection and safety of marshalls which is an understandable argument.
In turn a solution has been proposed that cones will not be used but tyres will be. They will NOT be used on the apexs of corners.

This gets more interesting as cones will be used in braking run off points and if one of these cones are hit a safety car will be deployed under yellow or red flags.

I must stress these ideas are all proposals and SAE-A have done a fantastic job starting a Student Committee who are involved (or at least informed) with
some of the decisions and I am sure they are being strong-armed by the insurer for the event.

[Mitchell]

This is the proposed method of track marking provided by SAE (I did not draw that "racing line"):
http://i.imgur.com/TPxgwJG.png

The tyre bundles are three large old touring car racing slicks bolted together in a triangle. Drivers will be sufficiently afraid of the DNF they will receive by a tyre collision that they will avoid them more than cones, and this means marshals will not need to count 2 second penalties.

[Westly]

The V8SC tyre bundles are not a new things at FSAE-A. They tried to use them in a similar layout in 2014 – but after a number of team complained most were removed. I believe they also tried to use them again in 2015 (they are visible in the track walk video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxZVcYdgayY ) but I don’t think they were not used during the actual events? Maybe someone can confirm?

These are not suitable corner markers in FSAE in my opinion. They weighed ~60kg for a bundle of 6 tyres and would cause significant damage to a FSAE vehicle and potential injury to a driver if one was to be impacted.

Formula Student Competitions have successfully been using cones as marker for over 12 years. With cones being retrieved and replaced with cars controlled with caution flags to make the track safe. These tyre bundles will create a significant hazard and increase the risk of injury during the event in my opinion which is easily avoidable.

The assumption that teams will leave a gap is not realistic. A quick google from 2014 autocross shows ->
http://oi64.tinypic.com/iwjgbq.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haXcCrZcnTI
I know we had some on-board footage of us very close also.

Westly.

[Bemo]

Using tire walls as track marks for FSAE cars is grossly negligent in my opinion. The cars don't have a proper safety concept for impacts. Especially if the front suspension hits a tire wall (very likely if the tire wall marks the apex) the suspension will fail and broken A-arms will be pushed into the footwell which makes severe injury of the driver very likely. If you would want to have the tracks marked like that, at least a rules change which forces the front axle to be in front of the driver's feet would be necessary.

The assumption that the students would leave enough gap to the tires is completely off the line. This would mean that you can gain an advantage by taking a higher risk than the others. Someone will be willing to take that risk, so the others will do as well and at some point it will go wrong.

I'd suggest that you try to make clear to the CAMS people how the cars are made and kind of risk it means to the drivers to mark the track like this. In my experience it works very well to warn the drivers with yellow flags while marshals have to push away broken down cars or rearrange parts of the track. This is by far the lower hazard compared to solid tire barriers.

Of course marshals who work on a track during autocross or endurance have to be very cautious and be aware of what can happen otherwise it can get dangerous, therefore you need to brief them properly and you need people who are in a physical and mental constitution which is suitable for this job.

Long story short. In my opinion this suggestion is an absolute no-go for an FSAE competition. Overall safety will be much worse compared to having it run in the conventional way.

[JulianH]

Fully agree with Bemo here.

As a team leader, I would not let my car run on such a track, period.

[Dunk Mckay]

I agreed with Julian on this one.

I've seen a car skim it's wheel on a tirewall doing only ~5mph. The front wishbones buckled, and the nose of the car crashed to the ground. I've also seen a carbon wishbone failure (delamination this time) cause a car to take the exact same nosedive while cornering at very low speed (<10mph).
While in both cases the drivers were fine, although a little stunned, had the cars been travelling at 30mph+ it may have been a different story.

We see wheels that go for a walkabout at almost every single event, without the need for any external impact. How many more will be sent careening towards other cars, spectators, or marshals who are "not on a hot track" (but just outside it), if wheels are constantly clipping tire walls?

[Z]

Using tire walls as track marks for FSAE cars is grossly negligent in my opinion. The cars don't have a proper safety concept for impacts. Especially if the front suspension hits a tire wall (very likely if the tire wall marks the apex) the suspension will fail and broken A-arms will be pushed into the footwell which makes severe injury of the driver very likely.

Yes, I also support Bemo's view.

The FSAE-A taking feedback from a Student Committee is a good thing (VERY GOOD!). And in keeping with this enlightened approach, I think they should also place considerable weight on the opinions of people like Bemo and Julian who have "been there" for nearly a decade now (?), and have "done it" as both students/competitors (= doing "anything" to win), and also as organisers/scrutineers/marshals (= trying to stop the testosterone-overdosed kids killing themselves).

As in Bemo's quote above,I see cockpit intrusion by wishbones, or by anything else..., as one of the most dangerous aspects of FS/FSAE as it now stands. The Rules do almost nothing to prevent such events. Personally, it is one of the most dangerous things I would be thinking about if I drove a typical FS/FSAE car (especially a spaceframe-with-flimsy-side-and-floor-panels). I have grown quite attached to the family jewels!

I am actually quite surprised that after 30 odd years of these competitions no driver has yet received a new a-hole. I put this down primarily to the slowish speeds combined with wide open spaces with nothing hard to crash into, other than the relatively soft and squashy cones. The proposed tyre-barriers, especially the 6-tyre ~60 kg ones, will very easily detach a set of wishbones, even relatively sturdy steel ones. After that, there is almost nothing preventing a wishbone-arm travelling the ~0.3 metres to where it can do serious damage.
~o0o~

On the other hand ... assume they only use a single layer of 3 tyres, as in the earlier pic. Now a ruggedly built car could possibly send one wheel straight over the top of the tyre-barrier. The tyre-barrier-slicks are quite floppy, and a heavy-ish car on 13" wheels should be able to take this "speed-bump".

So does this "driving over the tyre-barrier", without MOVING the barrier, count as a 2 second penalty?

If not, then you can bet that each lap the drivers will be cutting more and more off the corners. In fact, I see a whole new concept in FSAE-winning cars on the horizon. Think "Monster Trucks"! (Well, just a bit wider, higher ground clearance, and heavier-duty long-travel suspension...)

The orange cones work well enough. Stick with them.

Z

[Swiftus]

I would say stick with cones or possibly simply chalked lines. They used to seem to hold up well enough at FSAE Michigan back when I attended there and you could easily see the chalk residue on a car's tire that crossed the line.

[NickFavazzo]

If you want to get fancy, why not bolt a small bracket to the ground, tether the cones to that, pull a string and bam, cone is back in the right spot. :P

Jokes aside, the marshals have done well to manage to risks running onto a live track to reset cones. I don't see there being a large risk because the marshals are aware of the hazards and can choose to wait until they have sufficient time to do it. Big tyre stacks and walls will just make the situation more dangerous for the drivers. Its just moving the problem onto someone else.

[ausracing]

Feels like we've been over this but still having the same issue... See FSAE-A 2015 thread or FSUK Safety thread.

Similar problem at FSUK where tyre bundles are placed in line with braking and on outside, which doesn't leave much wiggle room of a brake failure or a wheel failure happens (as happens often in fsae).

Agree with Bemo. Cars aren't built for hillclimb and khan across style events, more carpark with cones type tracks.
A front impact attenuator and side impact structure isn't going to do a whole lot if you rip off a front corner - everyone should know how Senna died...

Need to work out a better solution for everyone. If this event was run by a company, there would be a million risk assessments and half of what happens at comp wouldn't be allowed (running on track to grab a cone for example).
I get where SAE and CAMs are coming from. Protecting marshalls from cars is a high priority but shouldn't be compromised with unsafe track for cars.

The core of the issue is Calder Park. The track is long and narrow (comparatively speaking).
So the has to be lots of slaloms, dog legs and bus stops to reduce the overall speed as per rules.
I'm stumped at finding a way that slows cars down that doesn't have many cones or tyres on the track....
Maybe for future events need to find another facility? Maybe the toll wharf near the west gate bridge might be an option.

Good to see SAE are working (at least talking) with the team's to find a solution. It won't be easy.

I just hope that they don't go with what Mitch posted..

[Billzilla]

All the teams have to get together in unison and say 'no'. The strength of numbers will force them to do the right thing and go back to cones.

(Hi there, first post here. I'm with the Griffth Uni team.)

[Adman]

I'm also not a big fan of the tyre gate idea. Seems like one step forward and two steps back. The Calder track is long enough that there should be plenty of time between cars to pick cones up safely, so no judges should be put in danger. As has already been said, more danger now applies to the drivers than the volunteers.

Calder also seemed to produce very different track styles to that seen in FS and FSG, the track layout was much more varied so it was more challenging for the drivers to nail it every time. I wonder if the track layout is going to be brutally simplified by large tyre gates and whether the track will be more akin to long slaloms?

If the organisers are having trouble finding enough volunteers, perhaps enforce a minimum number of volunteers from each team that should help in the large events (autocross and endurance). I don't think there would be issues with marshalls being biased for their teams' benefit, but others might have a problem with it.

On a more positive note, how are the teams going?! Based on Facebook updates, most teams are transferring components across to their new cars, pretty much everyone has a completed chassis it seems... but only Wollongong have announced they'd hit the track. Any teams laying quiet?

UTAS are one component short of a rolling chassis, and aiming for a testable platform in 4-5 weeks time. No doubt this'll be pushed back in typical UTAS fashion ;)

Really excited for this year's comp. 36 teams!

[Westly]

If the organisers are having trouble finding enough volunteers, perhaps enforce a minimum number of volunteers from each team that should help in the large events (autocross and endurance). I don't think there would be issues with marshalls being biased for their teams' benefit, but others might have a problem with it.


Some history of the discussions I had in 2014 with the organisers:

The size of Calder and shortage of marshals was one of the reasons they pushed for the tyre bundles in 2014. Teams offered to supply members to marshal but were declined due to issues with perceived impartiality when counting cone hits.

The other reason was setting up the concrete barriers for the marshals which were suitable for both autocross and endurance. An example of this was the turn coming down the hill.
http://oi65.tinypic.com/24wtw78.jpg
Some counter points were the marshalling point could be moved between events - but the organisers said this was not practical with their equipment. Also the location for autocross marshalling point would be in a sand trap which the organisers believed was not an acceptable place for a marshal to operate. Therefore they would not budge on these tyre bundles and they were retained as per the picture I posted from the 2014 competition.

I guess safety is viewed differently in different organisations, etc - but the impact of an injury would be serious for FSAE in Australia in my opinion. I know my team as struggled with insurance to operate track days, etc in recent years - how much harder would this be if a person was injured at competition - would universities re-consider their support?. This would be especially frustrating if occoured due to an easily avoidable reason. I would be interested in how many teams have actually read the fine print of their universities insurance policies to see if/ or how far their cover extends. Are drivers/team members covered on test days(on and off campus?), for completing composite work, etc.

I have had discussions with plenty of people (mostly across Subsea/O&G) regarding safety and why is it such a large issue. Overall it boils down to - it safes Money - all the time doing JHA/JSAs, step backs, QRAs, HAZIDs, HAZOBs, etc saves money in the long run. And for FSAE the cheaper the competition the more viable it is.

[NickFavazzo]

But why is it cheaper? There isn't as much 'lost income' time in FSAE...

[JulianH]

Teams that run in the afternoon (e.g. the fast ones) send 3 marshals each into the morning session and vice versa. With that you ensure that they don't "gain" a lot from cheating.
Each post is set with people from multiple teams. That even helps to increase the bond between all teams, yey!

Come on, this is FSAE, not Formula One. Be fair to each other, damn it.
Only this year, at FSG my old team gave away their AutoX victory because they protested themselves that they had a cone in the (no longer) winning lap.
And at FSS, Karlsruhe gave up their 2nd place Overall because they informed the organizers themselves that their was something wrong with their Endruance timing.


Make sure that those damn tracks are safe. And don't subdue yourself to the organizers. If the track is unsafe, you frickin' don't drive!

[Bemo]

If I understand the picture correctly Autocross and Endurance were run in opposite directions therefore there were the different run-off areas right? If it would be too much of an issue to move the marshal barriers between the events, just run them in the same direction...

Or you put the marshals somewhere you don't need to hide them behind concrete barriers. At Germany and Austria marshals don't have concrete barriers, while they are on idle they just move to a safe spot from where they can observe the track properly.

I've been at the Aus comp only once in 2008. Is it still the same venue? The track there was definitely not ideal to set up a track for FSAE cars, but it worked quite ok back then.

If the number of marshals is such an issue, I think Julian's idea is worth a thought. To my experience if you ask them, teams are usually happy to help. During the last years at FSA the red shirts had to work for another hour or two after the award ceremony to clear the place. This year we asked the teams from Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and GFR to help us and we were done within ten minutes (one more time a big thank you to everyone involved!). And as others stated the level of fairness I usually observe at FSAE events is completely outstanding. I don't believe that people would actually cheat if you have them as track marshals. I'd still avoid having someone as marshal while his/her own car is running. Julian's concept is simple and would perfectly avoid that.

It's a good thing the organisers are talking with the teams regarding these issues. You should try to use this chance to push them in the right directions by making proper suggestions which are thought through and properly explained.

[Freddie]

Slightly off topic, but still: to be honest, I'd be more worried about some sort of "reversed" bias than anything else at an FSAE event; people being more lenient towards all other teams than their own. But some suggestions in this thread could be used to minimize the risk for bias in either direction.

[Z]

Bias or cheating of "student-marshals" is a NON-issue, IMO.

Even under the current system of "independent" marshals, I expect that all top teams (ie. the ones with a shot at podium) would have multiple cameras videoing all their AutoX and Enduro runs. They would be doing this just for the publicity shots, ... or even just for fun. Of course, such video evidence is also handy if the final result is really close, and it seems that maybe an independent marshal made a small mistake (it happens!), and one cone is making the difference between first and second place, and the easiest way to resolve it all is simply to view the video...

As for teams further down the ladder, well perhaps they don't have enough members or money to do the videoing? (Who does NOT own a video i-whatsit these days ... other than me?) But who is going to try to cheat a mid-level team? Maybe the team just behind them, but I doubt it. And the true tail-enders are just wishing they could get their car running so they can actually knock over some cones!
~o0o~

As for a quota for "student-volunteers", I suggest one team-member, working for the full comp, per each ten official students on the team. (<- This just a round number to get things started.)

So a really small team of only five students provides one volunteer for half the total hours of the comp. (This saves having to cut one student in half and then donating that half-body for the full comp. :))

A really big team of ~sixty students would have six students involved in "organising" duties for the whole comp. However, any of those six students could be exchanged with any other students from their team, at any time.

So, say, Team-Big gets six "Official-Student-Volunteer" hats at the beginning of the comp, with these hats labelled "Team-Big, #N" (N = 1 to 6). The team then has to put a body under each of those hats throughout the whole comp. The organisers can then allocate the workforce by "hat-number", such as, "Team-A#2, Team-B#3, and Team-C#6, go to Marshalling-Station-7". (Of course, "hat" can be changed for "T-shirt", or "hi-vis-vest", or whatever.)

Z

[Adman]

As for a quota for "student-volunteers", I suggest one team-member, working for the full comp, per each ten official students on the team. (<- This just a round number to get things started.)

So a really small team of only five students provides one volunteer for half the total hours of the comp. (This saves having to cut one student in half and then donating that half-body for the full comp. :))

A really big team of ~sixty students would have six students involved in "organising" duties for the whole comp. However, any of those six students could be exchanged with any other students from their team, at any time.

Exactly what I was thinking Z. Just get teams to volunteer marshals relative to the size of their team. You would not even need that many on top of the standard volunteers!

[Z]

(Non-Negotiable) "Student-Volunteers".
=============================

Even with a relatively small competition like Oz, the above quota of "one S-V per ten team members" means having about 50 to 100 bodies available for all sorts of jobs around the competition.

Obviously, this is many more than are needed purely for marshalling, or most other "official" duties. But no problem, because the organisers can just pick as many S-Vs as are needed to do whatever work is needed at the time, and the rest of the S-Vs are "on call" (ie. available if needed, but can do other stuff if not needed).

However, with such a large and FREE workforce available, there many smaller jobs that could be done that could make the whole competition much more enjoyable for everyone. For a start, I would have a half-dozen S-Vs manning a large barbecue so bacon/egg/sausage/onion+++ sandwiches are available all day. Each individual S-V only works one hour per day at the BBQ, with a rostering process cycling through all the "on-call" S-V workforce. This is how it works at many junior sports in Oz, with parents at Club-X, Team-Y being rostered for a given day, then splitting the hours between parents. Works well.

Another possibility is a half-dozen S-Vs constantly updating a huge manual scoreboard. All points in the different events would be constantly updated, with the current top Team at the top of the board. This area would become the de-facto newsroom/information-centre/message-board, etc.

Any other suggests for what you would do if you had such a large and free workforce?

Z

[JulianH]

Sounds good, Z.

I don't know how many volunteers the FSAE-A competition has. In Germany there are usually plenty of volunteers, so no need for free student labor.
If there is an issue about workforce, let's do that.

Looking at the old days of Europe, each (at least top) team had a guy sitting at SkidPad and Accel and writting down times of the competition. Just offering a "global" live timing like FSG or FSA would reduce the need of these people drastically.
Additionally it helps the competition globally if the whole world can follow the timing.
Let's use the workforce for that and offer it to everyone that wants to have it :)

Additionally, it would be always awesome to have water in the pits. Students drink way too little during a competition day, make mistakes, etc. That's stupid.

Other jobs are probably found on the go :)

[P^squared]

http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/future-cars/news/a31076/and-with-that-ford-australia-is-done-building-cars/

In the last paragraph was the article serious when it stated "import only market" ??

I know this isn't the correct thread to ask this, but I guess I might get the most relevant answer here . . .

[Jay Lawrence]

We have some small scale manufacturers, but basically yeah... we will be an import only market. We used to have Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford and Holden (at least). We then had a mining boom that helped us 'survive' the GFC, but also pushed prices of everything up. People then spent more money on big houses and other unnecessary crap and demanded inflated wages and of course the unions made all that worse and then the government started subsidising when people realised that Commodores and Falcons weren't very good and stopped buying them, and on and on it went!

A similar thing occurred in the US, where protectionism created a generation of comparatively awful cars, but luckily for some US manufacturers I guess they were too big to fail, so the government stepped in until they got their shit sorted.

[mech5496]

With the competition 40ish days away, any news from down under? Eagerly waiting to see the new breed of cars, as FSAE-A has produced some of the most interesting/original FSAE vehicles ever.

[Mitchell]

UQ Racing launched our two cars last night. It has been a challenge this year as the majority of the team are fresh to FSAE. The concepts for both of these vehicles were only laid out 10 months ago.

IC: R6, hybrid chassis, dual beam axle, rubber springs, mechanically mode separated suspension, full aero with split rear wing and front side wings.

EV: Folded aluminium panel chassis, direct acting all round, rear beam with unsprung mounted emrax motors individually driving both rear wheels using gates polychains, 10" fronts/13" rears.

Both cars are completely different with the only common student designed component being the front brake rotors.
1060

[Z]

Mitchell,

Tell'em to MAKE SURE NOTHING BREAKS!

Check, and check again.

Then check a few more times...

Z

[Georges]

Mitchell,

Tell'em to MAKE SURE NOTHING BREAKS!

Check, and check again.

Then check a few more times...

Z

No hydro for monash any more?

[mech5496]

Yeah, was wondering what led to that decision. I have a feeling that teams were running earlier last year than this one. However I have seen some cars running, and looking particularly fast.

Monash, UQ, UTAS as well as the new electric boys (Auckland and Cantebury) look really really strong

[ausracing]

Yep, no hydro for Monash this year. Gone for simplicity and reliability after a tough Europe campaign. Hydro is difficult to get consistent each testing day. Plus needed more driver seat time.

From what I have heard and seen, Canterbury will go in this comp with a decent chance to win.
Testing with Monash they were slightly slower but with better accel times and efficiency could easily put money on them to take it out. They are also great with statics.

Curtin was also slightly slower than Monash at the netball courts the other day but they build reliable cars so endurance could be their shot.

MUR is apparently driving but not sure if they have had a lot of actual testing time. Good drivers from last year so they should be a chance for autox and enduro again.

RMITe is up and about, not sure how they will go against the quick drivers and 4wd of Canterbury though.
No word on RMITc though, last pictures on Facebook were of a nice new shiny turbo a few weeks ago.
Keen to see how their wings look as they've done some impressive research into it this year.

Auckland have been struggling to get their first electric car going, saw a video of it working the other day (on stands) so fingers crossed those guys get it on the tarmac.

UTAS looking like their car is working reliable with a few driving videos up lately.

QUT coming down with their electric car, been a few years in the making but looks amazing in the photos.

No idea how UQ c & e are travelling, launch pics look great though.

No ECU-R this year unfortunately but I think a few guys are coming down for a look at the comp.

UWA-M were still busy building their car last week (put up some excellent facebook live of their workshop) so hopefully they get to comp and drive.
Looks to be an iteration of their wild innovative concept of last year.

My dark horse is Wollongong. Have some awesome drivers and a 4cyl winged car that has been testing from August(? correct me if I'm wrong).
Went close last year to winning autox and would have gone great in enduro if they didn't beach it on the kerb for a couple of minutes. Skidpad and accel times were also quick.

The testing day at Oakleigh was held yesterday with 7 teams driving. Don't have times yet.

Forecast to be fine 19-21°C Sat/Sun so more cars should finish this year given the lower temps.
Also live stream is up again for the comp! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDEdq2C8j0s
Monash should be doing some Facebook live videos (as will other teams since a few used it for launch) plus hopefully some twitter updates.

[mech5496]

Thanks for the insight Ryan! Seems that quite a lot of e-teams have done a leap forward this year, which is great!

Here are some photos from the Monash FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/monashmotorsport/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1323024301052152

[NickFavazzo]

Hope comp is going well! I'm stuck on the other side of the country... Does anyone have a bunch of photos they would like to share? The more technical and less artsy the better, maybe even suspension shots? ;)

[JSR]

Here is the official score's after the static events, haven't seen the results after acc and skid pad just yet.
Also made an excel spreadsheet that I will try to keep updated as the scores are revealed.

If anyone sees something that I did wrong, just let me know and I will try to fix it.

[GTS]

Incredible result UoW!

[JSR]

More results are posted!

[Billzilla]

It was my first FSAE competition, I quite enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone for a fantastic weekend - The varying weather (!!), the organisers, volunteers, competitors, and the help that everyone gave.
We were very happy with our car, it went very well considering the lack of testing - I'm with GRT.

[mech5496]

Congrats to UoW, looked like a great battle till the end from overseas! Also many congratulations to all teams making it there, hope it was a great learning experience for all. Anyone willing to report what went wrong with non-runners? Also is there any place where the car specs etc. can be found (like the EU competitions' handbooks)? God, I miss Z's comp updates/posts.

P.S. Anyone having a link with "naked" photos, please post them up!

[Jay Lawrence]

I watched some of the live stream and kept up to date with my old team. Awesome for them to get their first win in about 12 years!
From what I could see, I really liked the Griffith car. 600-4 on 10's in a minimalist chassis with massive rear mass bias :) And of course they won accel. Not sure what was going on with their suspension but it looked awfully bouncy and possibly lacked the drivers for auto-x/enduro.

Track looked like a whole bunch of fun. Makes me miss competing!

[GTS]

It was my first FSAE competition, I quite enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone for a fantastic weekend - The varying weather (!!), the organisers, volunteers, competitors, and the help that everyone gave.
We were very happy with our car, it went very well considering the lack of testing - I'm with GRT.

GRT certainly had the most entertaining driver at comp - push-on understeer followed by boot-your-way-out oversteer - and the car ran well. (Could have been just warming tyres, but great to watch nonetheless).

Solid engine tune too.

[Mitchell]

UQ combustion destroyed a bottom end in the first dynamic events. No spare engine and missing AutoX meant there was little that we could do. The IC team will rebound from this though, they performed well in statics with essentially a first/second year team.

UQ EV not sure what broke first, suspect a weld was cracked. The car drove for the first time ever on the brake test. On the lead up to the braking zone, before the driver even touched the brakes, something failed first and then bent/broke a handful of other components.

We then became a bit of a FSAE wrecking yard with brake masters going to UWA, safety harness going to QUT and shocks going to Griffith. They were running borrowed shocks from QUT from the 2009(ish) car, which were well overdue for a rebuild. Our shocks went on just before endurance and seemed to settle the car down a heap.

I then marshaled (along with ~10 UQR members) for the rest of the weekend and got to enjoy the cars up close on the back straight. RMIT Electric and Griffith were by far the most impressive through that section, probably owed to the narrow track on these cars and the drivers massive balls. GRT was coming through in 6th gear!

Interesting this year to me was the dominance of the high power cars and non aero cars.

I would also like to say that SAE Australasia absolutely nailed the track. It was an interesting layout, fast, technical, challenging and safe for both marshals and competitors. Well done to Rob Chadwick, Matt Chapman and whoever else was involved in the setup and running of the AutoX and Endurance event.

[Billzilla]

I watched some of the live stream and kept up to date with my old team. Awesome for them to get their first win in about 12 years!
From what I could see, I really liked the Griffith car. 600-4 on 10's in a minimalist chassis with massive rear mass bias :) And of course they won accel. Not sure what was going on with their suspension but it looked awfully bouncy and possibly lacked the drivers for auto-x/enduro.

Track looked like a whole bunch of fun. Makes me miss competing!

We have hand-me-down dampers from UQ, I also spotted they were pretty average on the Saturday. As mentioned we were very lucky to be able to borrow a good set from UQ and it took a useful chunk of time off the autocross track for us. Guess by not having the car literally bouncing off the ground is good for lap times!



GRT certainly had the most entertaining driver at comp - push-on understeer followed by boot-your-way-out oversteer - and the car ran well. (Could have been just warming tyres, but great to watch nonetheless).

Solid engine tune too.

Thanks -I did a bit of the work on the engine to get it like that, I'm trying for more next year. Yes the car was a bit nasty to drive, but our excuse (like too many other teams) was that the car only turned a wheel for the first time a few days before the event. We took our best guess at the suspension settings .... we didn't get it quite right unfortunately. There's a lot more time in the car with tweaking & testing.

[Westly]

Very happy to see that there was no tyre barriers used in this years track!.

Looking at the times from natsoft the second endurance appears much faster. Did teams save their faster drivers for the afternoon? or did the track clean up maybe?

[Jay Lawrence]

From my experience, teams usually do a banking run in the morning and a fast driver run in the afternoon.

[JSR]

And the final results!

[Jonny Rochester]

It seams Thursday of comp is just to setup and keep building your car if you havn't finished it yet.
We identified some tech inspection issues our self, the usual steering column protection which we brought some materials for, some bolts that needed drilling and lock wiring, and our new tyres still hadn't arrived.
Parts of our paddle shift system where zip-tied in place, it worked a bit but was temperamental.
Then we discovered the leg template would not fit, so it was a long drive to Monash workshop and a late night cutting and welding the chassis. (Arrive back at camp before 4am).

Fridays early tech inspection was all fine (however I'm still sleeping at camp). I'm partly upset we passed tech inspection first go because I know at least one thing that should have been picked up.
Our ARB adjustable links did not have jam nuts on all threads. Even if trivial, an ARB link is suspension (so technically "critical") and should be under the same rules as a pushrod with jam nuts. A couple of suspension bolts didn't quite have 2 threads showing.
In 2014, tech inspection told me to re-lock wire some brake bolts, just because it wasn't neat enough or wasn't pulling in the right direction. I'm not sure if they had that attention to detail this year.

I identified some things in our car which I thought could fail in dynamic events. (I'm not head engineer so I can't just run around and fix or remake anything I want).

With 10 bolts and 10 nuts holding each wheel rim, tyre change is taking too long and holding up the team.
Wheel hub "whub" bolt pattern allows air to leak from split rims when the wheel is changed.
Tyre valve hole was drilled the wrong size. Temp fix with some silicon.
A fuse had been placed between the battery and isolation switch, taking all current (starter current!!!)
Wiring harness now a mess compared to previous year, too many unknowns...
Manual gearshift pivot is now just a M6 bolt left loose to allow movement, stiff with high friction (causing problems for paddle shift)
Rear wing lateral control rod looks bad to me. (A similar rod bent on our car early in the year).
One feature of our "whubs" looked like a stress riser to me.


On the whole, UTAS did extremely well in dynamic events. The third car and third year for this team. It's our second year with the Honda CBR600RR, but the first year with 10" tyres, LSD and paddle shift.

Acceleration went well, using launch control in the MoTeC M400.

After autocross I changed the LSD ramp rates from driver feedback, which worked well I'm told. The team repaired the front wing with wet carbon, impressive turnaround.

Paddle shift is apparently not been working so is totally disabled.

[Jonny Rochester]

Our car struggled last year with tight corners in the track, and heavy steering in our car, and large turning circle.

I wasn't a driver this year, but both those problems where fixed. A much faster and flowing track design, and a new steering rack ratio and 10" tyres for us. I did alot of work selecting rack ratio and we use about 86mm/rev from memory, toe-base around 70mm. Also we managed a much smaller turning circle (lots of steering lock).

It's been said a few times, so I don't mind saying our UTAS car looked and sounded awesome out on track. Driving it you realise there is a very wide power band (thinking now this could be due to standard diameter exhaust runners and slightly unequal length primarys.) I hadn't really put a rev limit on it, so the rev cut is at 16000rpm. As other drivers comment also, you can almost use any gear, or just keep it in the one gear if you like. But drivers that let it rev and open the throttle seam to get the most out of it.

We failed morning endurance. The first driver experienced a misfire and needed full throttle to run on 3 cylinders. At driver change, when the starter was pressed the main fuse blew. The end. Don't ever say it was bad luck. I didn't have a fuse in this location last year, I advised them not to put a fuse there. A normal car or bike does not have a fuse there. This problem happened in testing back in Tasmania, and I again warned them of the problem...

At lunch a replacement cable bypasses the fuse, and the misfire was found to be poor wiring.

Endurance after lunch went well, so we gained the points. But during this run the throttle was sticking (known issue, too late to redesign) and a rear tyre went flat. Rear tyres also starting to rub on defuser.
Further problems show themselves on driver swap day, but we got endurance done. (Failed reliability, but Gold stars for all!!!)

[Wolfsburg]

Thanks GTS, Jay and Mitch for the Kind words on the GRT car
Everyone seemed to enjoy spectating the Griffith car on and off the track so as a small team we were quite overwhelmed at the support as well as humbled by the kind words! thanks to everyone at competition that I had the pleasure to talk to about our car as well as going around through the pits myself to have a squizz at everyones hard work, its a great atmosphere and community.

As Bill Mentioned alot of work this year went into simple key elements which would improve performance of the car without large cost of man power, $$$, and reliability, as TD/chief engineer for this year i spent alot of time myself and with others purely refining our design so that it was correct the first time and as simple as it needed to be to get the job done. I think this would be the key to make any car do well in the dynamic events. For us, we now need to bring our static events up to scratch to become more competitive.

Our goals for the year were as follows:
- KISS, keep it simple stupid...plain old double wishbones and a 600-4 with a swinging pickup which was a nice familiar territory, nothing fancy, no diffs, no aero, no traction control, no flappy paddles, no problems. (not saying I wouldn't attempt some of these with more man power and ample testing time)

- Make it Light...reduce component count, combine components, make everything as light as possible while maintaining reliability... Last Year Mitchell dropped the hint that they managed to create a 200-210kg car without any significant trouble purely through good load paths...it 100% works! we spent very little effort for large amounts of gain in simplifying our chassis and powertrain package managing to achieve a sub 200kg 600-4. Our 2015 car weighed in at 243kg last year at comp comparing to 194kg in 2016. It surprises me that more teams don't move down this route, simple aspects like moving to m4-m6 bolts throughout the car and m6 rod ends.. using only the necessary bars required for the chassis, shortening chain lengths, using the most simple triangulation possible, minimalistic drivelines, simple fuel systems, removing weak links in systems..(every bolt up connection is another place for human error and likely failure). The added bonus of making everything light is that the lighter car means less load on components anyway. (if your design everything much stronger than it needs to be then it becomes heavier which means it needs to be that strong to survive, it you are strict on your weight from the get go and have a target, than you can design stuff lighter and in the end come out overall lighter than desired anyway meaning everything is still amply strong enough...odd theory but its works). We went from a 42kg space frame to 27kg, we lost 10-12kg through our driveline and around 4-5kg through our suspension outboards with minimal effort.

- Low COG, anything on our car that was heavy was placed at the lowest point possible... shocks on the lower chassis, driveline low as allowable, wiring run low, brakes placed centrally and low as possible, calipers on lower side of uprights.. its easy to do in the initial design phase and allowed us to run a narrow track width without fear of picking up inside wheels.

- Have ample power down low....we struggled with our power in 2015 making 58hp and 32ft/lb of torque i believe at around 10,500-11,000rpm with a horrible flat spot making it very hard to drive. we found that amateur drivers will thrive best if you have ample power at the lower rpms to allow forgiveness in wrong gear selection etc. 2016 changed us to an r6 for power and also chassis design purposes. I mentioned early on in the piece that some fiddling of the cams along with the correct exhaust could do us wonders and Bill having some prior knowledge chipped in with some magical cam angles which along with the hard slog on the exhaust and intake managed to produce delightful results. A healthy 72hp and 42ft/lb at 8800rpm. But we quickly learnt that it wasnt the maximum figure that was important but rather the fact we could maintain the 38-42 ft/lb of torque from 4800rpm all the way through to 10000 making a car with enormous drivability in any section of the track but also capable of simply beautiful body slip angles of 20-30 degrees in 2-4th gear :p

Where we lost out this year is places such as ergonomics, making the driver controls so simple...ie no seat and basic rhs un-adjustable pedals for simplicity and reliability..i know some people simply cant drive there best unless they are in the perfect position. our steering wheel was much to low from making such a tiny car but most of the stuff was minor and will only need small updates for 2017. For me personally I find that a lack of visibility to be my main hinderance in driving any vehicle quickly around a track.

Overall though we have taken many things back from competition this year from our own car and experiences as well as from other teams successes and setbacks. The Judges also do a great job at probing your brain about the choices you made on your car and how it can be improved, what was overlooked.

[Kevin Hayward]

Wheel hub "whub" bolt pattern allows air to leak from split rims when the wheel is changed.


Jonny,

Why don't you look at welding your two wheel halves together? Its what ECU does and we haven't had air leaks since.

Kev

[Jonny Rochester]

Good idea. If it's ECU approved, consider it done.

I am cautious of anything with aluminium welds that is under stress. I'm always expecting cracks.

[Wolfsburg]

Jonny,

Why don't you look at welding your two wheel halves together? Its what ECU does and we haven't had air leaks since.

Kev

Interesting approach i would never have thought of, is much warpage present afterards or the tyre is that stiff it straightens out the 3mm ally regardless?

GRT silicone ours like a standard 3 piece in the valley currently, no problems for us either. i noticed Monash make a nice ring plate with orings and grooves to sandwich between so that it can come apart and back together easily.

[L-S]

+1 on welding the wheel bands together. We got sick of dealing with sealant so since we have been running 10" wheels, we had them welded together by a team member who is quite handy with a tig torch. Ours are 4mm thick I believe.

We made up a turntable for the process so it would make his job a lot easier to get a good bead and haven't had any issues (granted we run carbon wheels now but the ali bands are always there as legitimate spares).

Stress cracking was something I was concerned with, but the only issue we have had so far is that one of the tyre valve holes were drilled slightly too big!

[mech5496]

Stress cracking in aluminum is always a concern, but if the company who does it knows its' game (heat treatment) it should not be a problem. And I know at least one very reputable company in (re)building split wheels down-under.. ;)