FSAE-A......The countdown begins

[Jon Oneill]

Hi everyone. Just wondering how preporations for the Australian event are going.

Our car had its first officisl test session under full race trim this weekend past and things are looking up. We did come back with a massive list of things to fix but it'll be nice not to fix these things at the event for once.

How is everyone elses preporations going?

And make sure you all keep an eye out for the Victoria University car & trailer around melbourne. I cant believe someone stole the trailer with the car inside.

Good luck finding it guys.

[Jon Oneill]

Hi everyone. Just wondering how preporations for the Australian event are going.

Our car had its first officisl test session under full race trim this weekend past and things are looking up. We did come back with a massive list of things to fix but it'll be nice not to fix these things at the event for once.

How is everyone elses preporations going?

And make sure you all keep an eye out for the Victoria University car & trailer around melbourne. I cant believe someone stole the trailer with the car inside.

Good luck finding it guys.

[MalcolmG]

We've been doing alright, first run in early September but we've had a decent number of teething issues with the new engine which have limited our testing time (goddamn alternators!), but we're happy with the results so far.

By the sounds of it a number of other teams have done a better job this year of getting cars running early, so hopefully we'll see a lower attrition rate and a more competitive event this year.

Definitely gutted for the Victoria guys, I can't imagine how gutting it would be to have your car stolen before comp, really hope it gets found.

[IUST_Persian]

Hey everybody,
We are a new four member team from Iran, We have started everything just since two month earlier, and have sent our SEF, Design Report, Design Spec Sheet on time! Our Car is almost built but not run yet. It may seem a little very funny but I really have no idea what Cost Report is, please help me. First I need to know the definition for these words:
1) Cost tables
2) software??????
3) electronic copy
4) Hard copy?????

What shall I do? Your sincere guidances are appreciated in advance.

[lozo]

Hamed,

Have a look at www.fsaeonline.com, (http://www.fsaeonline.com,) you should be able to find the required cost information there.

1) Cost table is just a gigantic list of all the possible components in your car and their related costs.

2) Software - www.fsaeonline.com (http://www.fsaeonline.com)

3) Electronic copy, I would think successfully syncing your cost report, otherwise a pdf. (Really depends on whether the software is functional)

4) Hard copy -> Physical Printout posted to an office in Australia.

Richie Wong
Electrical Team
University of Auckland
www.fsae.co.nz (http://www.fsae.co.nz)

[Kirby]

Condolences to VU.

Hopefully the car will turn up unmolested before competition.
Otherwise, I hope they come to competition so I can buy them a beer to help soothe the pain.

[Pete Marsh]

Whats the story with the VU car? Stolen?

Are there any pics of the trailer so we know what to look out for? The combined eyes of all the FSAE comunity and their facebook friends etc would cover a lot of ground.

Pete

[Kirby]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Pete Marsh:
Whats the story with the VU car? Stolen?

Are there any pics of the trailer so we know what to look out for? The combined eyes of all the FSAE comunity and their facebook friends etc would cover a lot of ground.

Pete </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hopefully there isn't an issue with me reposting this..

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally e-mailed by Marissa Mascaro:
The 2009 VU-SAE car was stolen in its trailer some time between last Friday evening and early afternoon on Sunday. The registration number of the trailer is, R54 202 (VIN 6T9 T20 V97 601 ED 087). It is a white four-wheeler with VU-SAE signs on it. Attached is a picture of the car with the trailer in the background, and half the VU team about two weeks ago.

Please contact either the police or the project supervisors (Ozden Turan or Eren Semercigil) with any information.

Thank you. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/9466/vucar.th.jpg (http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/9466/vucar.jpg)

Click for big.

[TimR]

We (Sydney Uni) are doing OK. Not at the track yet but are pretty much done. However we got our engine pretty sorted earlier in the year with the old chassis.

[IUST_Persian]

Hey guys,

I can't open www.fsaeonline.com (http://www.fsaeonline.com) , so I can't get cost tables, cost report example, and the software. Would you mind sending me these? My Email address is: Hamed_nawbakhti@yahoo.com


This is a very great help for me so anyone who does this for me is invited to some bloody brandy while I see him in the competition camp!!! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[plohl]

im not very confident... sigh http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

[Fil]

Just updating the Monash progress, last Thursday night we launched our 2009 car below are some photos. We are not far from driving but exams and final year research projects are holding us up a bit but hopefully next week we will be driving, then break a whole heap of stuff and get the car sorted for comp.

Condolences to the VUT team, we are all keeping our eyes out for your car and trailer and hopefully it will turn up soon.

To everyone else competing at Werribee we look forward to seeing you all in December and good luck getting the cars ready.

http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs279.snc1/10629_174383203487_506798487_3845965_1686757_n.jpg http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs279.snc1/10629_174383243487_506798487_3845967_1095740_n.jpg http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs259.snc1/10629_174383268487_506798487_3845968_7675863_n.jpg http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs249.snc1/9618_155110527890_756182890_2799065_7372556_n.jpg http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs249.snc1/9618_155110532890_756182890_2799066_2286304_n.jpg

[Shashi]

Phil.

What dampers are those? And with the rack mounted in the top wishbone plane, you clear the 350 mm template rule?

[Fil]

the dampers are ohlins st44's. The link you can see isnt the steering its actually one of the unsprung wing mounts, we have a low mounted rack.

[Jon Oneill]

Its excellent to see that everyone is getting everything done earlier than last year. Looks like it will be an event decided upon vehicle and team abilities, not just failure rates.

We hope to have our vehicle launch early next month. We'll be out testing again this weekend and try to isolate some more issues.

We finished and installed our body panels this weekend and had a major sponsor launch ceremony yesterday. Initial responces were positive so things are looking up for us. We're just having major issues with the cost report program atm. so its nice to have a little breathing room in that department.

Any word on the trailer or car from VU.

[guptsur]

We at Melbourne are still waiting for parts !!
GFC almost put us off track. If you gyus don't know, we are running a space-frame this year (which completed like 2 months back), and is sitting in the garage.

Finally some action has started taking place, maybe by 5th to 10th november we will have something to roll on track.

Testing will be during exmas :S


-cheers
Suraj Gupta
Chassis Design and Development 2008 & 2009
MUR Motorsports.

[Moke]

My what big wings you have. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Protaeus]

Looking sweet guys. Nice work http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Jon - Still cleaning up in the workshop at 9 eh?

[Kirby]

carbon fibre makes my arms itchy.

keen to be back to Werribee after missing FSAE-A 2008.

[Protaeus]

itchy arms are ok..... sneezing carbon is a bit more of a concern

[benny41]

wow thats shocking news about VU. we will definatlly keep an eye out down the highway for it.

hope to catch up with everyone when comp rolls around

[TimR]

We started our car today! So exciting. And loud. Our supervisor heard it several floors up and came down. Can't wait to see it at the track next week and get it running well.

[Chris Lane]

Any word from the Curtin and Edith Cowan teams?

[MalcolmG]

thought I'd shift my post from the other thread since this one has more car pictures in it

We had our official launch on Tuesday, there's pictures, video and tech specs on our website

Here's some bonus pictures:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/all4s/2.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/all4s/1.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/all4s/3.jpg

[L B0MB]

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif

Awesome car as always Auckland!

I have some Q's:
1. Was the crank case designed and built in house?
2. Same goes for the transaxle
3. Did you abort the supercharger for 2009?

Good work guys!

Edit: Here's some photos of the CMT09 uprights

&lt;table style="width:auto;"&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href="http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lh/photo/7Tk0CgQr1XgaftBiSne58g?feat=embedwebsite"&gt;&lt;img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_QuJt3mPhKho/SwXs27Vj54I/AAAAAAAAALA/zWDsEcWbnzM/s144/P1000554.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right"&gt;From &lt;a href="http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lewis.kitney/CMT09?feat=embedwebsite"&gt;CMT09&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/table&gt;

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lh/photo/2E_bikQUC1OOm7wd71-hmA?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lh/photo/HOLwJJKKvyLwuAWu3Ui8YA?feat=directlink

[MalcolmG]

Thanks http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

1. Yep, the crankcase were machined by the engineering machine shop here. Thanks to the nature of the single cylinder engine, it's quite a simple design with no complicated internal oil or water passages

2. Same deal with the transaxle, it's made from several plates ranging from 8mm to 30mm thick that all bolt together, rather than a hollowed out chunk of billet. We're working on a composite one that may or may not get into the car before comp that's cheaper and easier to make

3. We'd hoped to get a chance to test a supercharger on the engine (new cost rules are much more favourable than the old ones for superchargers!), but the challenge of getting the single running well in naturally aspirated form was a lot greater than we expected, so we've had to give it a miss for this year

You pictures don't work (don't know if Picasa lets you hot link images?) but I had a look at the album, those are some awesome looking uprights. How's the rest of the car?

[JeffreyH]

The images aren't showing because you put a link to the picasa page in IMG tags rather than the link to the image itself, ie, it needs to be http:// something.com/ image.JPG or similar.

Second the spiffy uprights, looking good there.

[L B0MB]

I tried to fix the links but failed and now its up for review for having a trigger word in it

Anyway here is the album:
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lewis.kitney/CMT09#

The car is a bit behind schedule which is unfortunate but hopefully the guys can get it together before comp! (I'm no longer an active team member, but still interested)

Good work to the Auckland team for getting the single to work, unfortunate the S/C couldn't be set up but that just means you'll come back even stronger at the 2010 comp!

[woodsy96]

How is everyone else progressing? And does anyone have any news about Victoria's car?

[guptsur]

We at Melbourne Uni have had the most FREAK year ever.

With a major sponsor pulling out early in the year meant halfway into the design phase we had to start designing a space frame.

Then the sponsor for machining sold his machines and forgot to tell us and we had to arrange for alternate companies for paid and sponsored machining.

There were many more howlers...

But finally this is what the car looks like.
http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#5408974580311404754
http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#5408974585738401554
http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#5408974586910175058

I will add more pictures in a few days.I know all three pictures are basically same.

We are running hossiers, Avon are just for setting up the car and stuff.


And the body kit is coming back on Monday.

[guptsur]

Here are few picks of MUR[Melbourne uni] F-SAE 09 car.

I wrote a detailed post but it had some trigger word or something, may be it might show up in few hrs.

In the mean time you guys can see the picasa album.

http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#

[ECR '09]

Edith Cowan's car was launched on Thursday, with its first outing up at Jacks Hill on Monday before being packed away and sent on Tuesday.

[Chris Lane]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ECR '09:
Edith Cowan's car was launched on Thursday, with its first outing up at Jacks Hill on Monday before being packed away and sent on Tuesday. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey Luke!

Got the car finished hey? Can u post some pictures please?? Eager to see what you guys came up with.

Hope you can get some sleep now... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Mike Cook]

Malcolm,
Very nice car. Good luck.

[MalcolmG]

cheers http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
We're currently putting the finishing touches on the car and getting ready to pack it, gets picked up to fly to Aus tomorrow afternoon

We've also just about finished our carbon-cased transaxle, which is a nice improvement in weight, CG height and non-leakyness over the first prototype aluminium one, looking very bling too http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Mike Cook]

I'd love to see some pictures of the carbon case...

Your car is a great example of the direction fsae is heading in I think. I think we might build a monocoque in the near future, so I'm quite envious of your car.

[MalcolmG]

I think there could be some more interesting changes in the following years to this concept, this was intended to be the first big step toward the long-term development of what we think to be the best car for FSAE.

It's my last year so I don't have any say on what happens in the future, but my vision would have a CVT, probably a non-double wishbone rear, more work on lowering CoG and reducing weight

Carbon transaxle case:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/all4s/transaxle1.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/all4s/transaxle2.jpg

[MalcolmG]

car has begun its journey to Aus, we're leaving in a couple of days, see you soon dudes

[ECR '09]

Car has now on the road to Werribee, team will soon follow suit.

Just a quick quiery though, where is the easiest place to test the car a few days before competition in melbourne?

[guptsur]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ECR '09:
Car has now on the road to Werribee, team will soon follow suit.

Just a quick quiery though, where is the easiest place to test the car a few days before competition in melbourne? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can try some Go-Karting tracks, they are more than happy to accomodate F-SAE teams. One particular is Silouhet both Melb. and Auckland Uni go there.

[Macros]

Indeed. Silhouette Karts is an awesome place to test.

[Æssahættr]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> One particular is Silouhet both Melb. and Auckland Uni go there. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Swinburne and Monash were there last year as well.

[woodsy96]

Especially at night. Wednesday before comp last year was sick, standing on the side of the track with three teams hooning around under lights. Lots of big backfires, sparks, and dash lights could be seen from the pits. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif Might try and get some video this year...

[Moke]

You fools you don't want to tell them about Silhouette as it will mean there will longer waits between test runs http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif .

Auckland have set up a twitter account which they should be using for updates during the comp at:
twitter,com slash FSAE_Auckland

And if they prove to be slack buggers there is a team of Auckland Alumni attending and we have setup: twitter,com slash moketv however it will be less safe for work.

[Jon Oneill]

Where still mucking around in the basement up here is sydney with an electrical problem I'm afraid.

Apart from that the car is ready to go. It would have been nice to get in a lot more driver training but continual problems stopped that from happening. We'll be down in melbourne on monday night to prep for the comp.

Where is everyone staying? Where at BP caravan park at south werribee. Camping as usual.

It'd be nice to get together with a few other teams before the comp, and as said previously, any opportunity to shake down the car before the event is a welcome one.

See you all in 6 days.

Jon

[JeffreyH]

Bummer. They're one of the worst sorts of problem to have close to competition...

We stay in a motel in Sunshine (same one each year), which makes the first week or so of testing a bit easier - especially when we need to head to fix the car or purchase parts/consumables/etc.

[Burnsie]

Howdy Guys

Some pictures of the 2009 UNSW@ADFA car, ws09.

http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/ac...aevehicle/index.html (http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/acme/studentactivities/saevehicle/index.html)

Looking forward too seeing you all in under a week.

=)

Alex

[oz_olly]

ADFA is about a day away from running our car. It just seems to be fighting us more than previous cars. We are pretty close to running but way behind our schedule.

http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/ac...aevehicle/index.html (http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/acme/studentactivities/saevehicle/index.html)

Looking forward to the comp and finally retiring from FSAE. It's about time I started working on my masters.

Cheers

Olly

[Jon Oneill]

Our engine blew up last night..... what fantastic luck. It seems to be an issue related to our oil system, Spun a bottom end bearing.

There is nothing like opening a sump to find little bits of copper in its base.

We'd already ordered a spare engine for the event so we should be able to swap it out before the event but it sure places a lot of stress on the 4 of us in the workshop this weekend. We'll get there

See you all there.

[Moke]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by JonJon:
There is nothing like opening a sump to find little bits of copper in its base. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh I don't know, gearbox bits are a bad find too.

[Jon Oneill]

We've now got our spare engine in and are about to fire up again. Turns out the oil relief valve blew out so we had no oil going into the engine for 10 sec. Absolutely distroyed the bottom end bearings.

We'll be changing the placement of the relief valve to after the engine next year, thats for sure.

Apart from that, we're getting everything else sorted and putting the finishing touches on the car. We leave on monday morning for werribee.

[guptsur]

Finally!! we at Melbourne uni. had our launch night yesterday, I will be posting pictures in few hrs. or so.

Our chain-tensioner broke yesterday during testing(before the launch night :P). Have had some other minor issues too.

[oz_olly]

Hey,

We at ADFA just had a back fire that blew our rapid prototyped intake manifold into about 20 pieces. Luckily we have a spare as the one in the car was version 2.0. We're now starting to contemplate what we could fabricate out of Al or steel that would fit in the same space and do a reasonable job.

I have gotta say this car is continuing to fight us all the way. We are certainly being punished for letting our schedule blow out so far.

Hopefully intake manifold version 1.0 will do the trick. It looks like version 2.0 was made from a different material and the failure looked very brittle in nature.

How many days to go?

Cheers

Olly

[oz_olly]

Hey again,

Things are looking up. Intake version 1.0 is back on the car and it starts and idles. Just trying to warm it up and then start some tuning on the hub dyno.

I put the steering rack in about an hour ago and only just connected the steering rack. It doesn't isntil much confidence in the drivers when the rack is on back to front and you turn right but the wheels turn left.

Touching wood, crossing fingers and begging the venerable Murphy for reprive.

Cheers

Olly

[guptsur]

Guys,
Here are the pictures from the Melb. uni F-SAE 09 car launch.
Comments are welcome. I will add few more pictures from other angles. Else you all will see the car at the comp :P.
http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#5412077256436609298

http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#5412077262881474674

http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#5412077271964394546

http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#5412077280864847570

Picasa Album link
http://picasaweb.google.com/guptsur/UntitledAlbum#



-cheers

[oz_olly]

We just managed to get our car running under it's own power for the first time. Hopefully video and pics will be up on our site really soon.

We had a bit of a ride height problem but that will be fixed easily enough. Time to inspect the car make sure everything is ok and get ready for some more shake down testing tomorrow.

Cheers

Olly

[Jon Oneill]

We're just putting the finishing touches on the car and packing up. We'll be leaving early tomorrow for melbourne.

New engine is in and running well.

Still got an electrical issue but cant for the life of us solve it. Very annoying. Dont buy generic Looms!!!!

We'll just keep working away at it and see you all down ther on thursday.

Jon

[PProb]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Turns out the oil relief valve blew out so we had no oil going into the engine for 10 sec. Absolutely distroyed the bottom end bearings. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So your car does not have an engine oil pressure warning light?

[MalcolmG]

We've been in Aus since Thursday, bunking down with the Monash boys and girls. We've spent more time in the workshop and less on the track than we would hope. Lots of stupid problems like oil leaks, our new driveshafts being marginally too short and falling out, oil leaks, our exhaust wanting to melt the undertray, oil leaks and the latest one was loose diff bolts damaging a cover on the transaxle (causing an oil leak).

Having a bit of a fix-it night at Monash now, also building up our spare engine and transaxle.

[Brett Neale]

I'm loving your approach to your 2009 car Auckland. No doubt it's still in the "infancy" stage compared to some multi-year drivetrain development projects going on at other universities, but without looking into the details your new drivetrain concept has the potential to be not only good, but great. From the look of how it's all packaged it's obvious that you've met your goals of improving CoG height, compactness and weight... not only that it's a sexy piece of engineering too!

And damn that composite gearbox casing is nice!

As much as I'm rooting for Adelaide to do well, I'm really hoping you guys can have a breakthrough this year after all your troubles in 2008.

[MalcolmG]

Cheers Brett, the package is most definitely in its infancy, I'm really looking forward to seeing the team develop it in the future to be much more refined than what we've got this year, makes it a bit of a shame to be graduating when we have a few years of exciting development ahead!

[guptsur]

Guys,
I know this might sound super lame but what day are we having the static events. The e-mail we got from the SAE has the times for all the event but does not have a date. Few people in the team are of the opinion that its thursday while others think its friday.

Because it takes forever to get a reply from SAE I thought it might be easier to ask here.

On a side note,Who else is testing wets today?


-cheers

[Davo]

Thursday is usually team registration and some teams might get a look in at tech inspection. Cost, design and presentation are usually on the Friday.

As for my team, some of the senior UTS team members are down in Melbourne now with the car. I haven't heard of any disasters yet so hopefully everything's going smoothly.

Good luck to all the teams. From the photos I've seen posted up here, there are some totally awesome looking cars so hopefully it'll be a good event.

[Welfares]

turned a wheel under it's own power for the first time last night. A couple of things looked like they might decided to fall off, so just fixing them and on the truck.

I have a feeling this'll be one of those years we get laughed at.

[oz_olly]

Woohoo,

ADFA just spent about 3 hours doing some pretty decent shake down driving. Rain in Canberra is rare, but it bucketed down this evening. All our drivers got some good seat time with the main feedback being understeer. Not sure if we will have the time to really address that before the comp.

I had plans to put ARBs front and rear but we just ran out of time.

We are just about to inspect the car post drive and check that all is good.

Cheers

Olly

[E-Roller]

well looks like we missed putting up posts on how hard it was to get to comp

we struggled to get people to come in and build the car (as usual)

we made it there though so I guess thats something....even if we had a shit performance again....worse than last year actually even though the car is much better quality.

better luck next year ay....hopefully we can have more than 6 people build the car this time

- Curtin Uni