So what took you out of endurance?

[Eric Wort]

For us, it was a connection to the fan relay that fell off. I was apparently hitting it with my knee everytime I was on or off the gas. We made about 5 laps before we overheated and they pulled us off the track.

Its always the little stuff.

Eric Wort
UIUC Formula SAE (http://dilbert.cen.uiuc.edu/soc/sae/formula/)

[Eric Wort]

For us, it was a connection to the fan relay that fell off. I was apparently hitting it with my knee everytime I was on or off the gas. We made about 5 laps before we overheated and they pulled us off the track.

Its always the little stuff.

Eric Wort
UIUC Formula SAE (http://dilbert.cen.uiuc.edu/soc/sae/formula/)

[Denny Trimble]

University of Washington: 1st driver spun on Lap 8ish, in the fast 45 near the paddock. Hit cones at about 40 with the right sidepod, which broke the mounting tab. Driver restarted, completed his laps with the sidepod loose (flapping a little bit, dragging on the ground sometimes) but retained.

The car went into the driver change, not sure if they inspected it or not, and they sent us back out. 8 more laps later, the meatball was flown and we were pulled into the tech box, ending our run.

Other enduro-enders I've heard:
Ohio State: hit a cone downed by another team, broke a camber-control bolt, continued driving but were black-flagged.

UTA: blew a coolant overflow hose off a fitting.

Texas A&M: broken throttle cable early on

UVic: a very exciting rear spindle failure http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_redface.gif

On a related note, UMC broke a halfshaft at the R&T Challenge! the very next time they ran the car after endurance http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif Good timing!

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03)

[Lyn Labahn UW-Madison]

UW-Madison:

We had a problem with our shifting system that began to manifest in the acceleration runs. So we had to go over some of the wiring before endurance and all seemed well. Pulling up to the line to take off, the driver could no get the car into gear so one of my team mates just reached down on thet engine and threw her in gear. Out on the track the car would not leave 1st gear so we did 6 or 7 laps screaming down the straights at 15k or so before the engine gave up the ghost over at the south end of the track. A big plume of smoke and a fireball gave the crowd quite a thrill. We had punched two holes in the engine block, one the size of a fist. Not the finish that we were hoping for, we really wanted to back up our three previous years of strong finishes. It was a strange year for many schools that usually do so well, Ohio State, Cornell, UTA, Texas A&M come to mind.

2002/2003 Team Leader
Best overall average finish of the new millenium http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Eric Wort]

Since you were in Washington's paddock, I bet you saw us smashing that relay connector with a hammer on Sunday, followed shortly by the meeting with a propane torch. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Edit: took out information about Wisconsin as they posted it while I was typing

Eric Wort
UIUC Formula SAE (http://dilbert.cen.uiuc.edu/soc/sae/formula/)

[Denny Trimble]

Eric, I missed that, but I'll make sure we post video of our upcoming cone damage tolerance testing http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03)

[Markymark]

Eric,

We had a similar problem on our enduro event... The car started missing badly.
Thought it was fuel starvation, but it ended out being.... A loose battery pole, with 3 laps to go.

A big dissapointment and also a good lesson.

Marc Ethier
Polythecnique of Montreal #30

[Chris Maher]

UCF only made it 5 or so laps before the right front shoulder bolt backed itself (shearing the safety wire) out of the upright disconnecting the lower a-arm from the upright.

Chris Maher
Secretary,
University of Central Florida,
Society of Automotive Engineers
info@ucfmotorsports.com
www.ucfmotorsports.com (http://www.ucfmotorsports.com)

[Tony]

Kettering's car did 4 laps before the shift cable broke, leaving us in first gear for the folloinwg 18 laps.. And believe it or not, we finished it (but with no points, and fuel economy was, well, non-existent.)

Solid linkage next year, we're thinking.

[Dan Gurick]

Two laps in and we were black flagged with the left side of our body coming loose.

Dan Gurick
Formula RPI

[Sam Zimmerman]

Two laps left and a radiator hose came off. There must be a number of lessons to be learned here.

Sam Zimmerman
University of Idaho
Vandals Racing

[Charlie]

We ended up changing engines the night before the endurance event, but the event went fantastic for us. We made sure to check everything, but we did miss an oil fill plug that was missing it's o-ring. It leaked a bit during the race, we were lucky the judges did not see it in the driver's change. It was a minimal leak but they can be picky about that.

I would be interested to hear UTA's story. They were often changing engines, or at least working on thier engine.

-Charlie Ping
Auburn University FSAE 1999-present

[HB]

For Akron, the car just shut off with four laps to go. We haven't looked at it yet but are suspecting a wiring issue. The kicker was when we got towed back to the pits, the car started right back up again but the officials wouldn't let us back on the track. Go figure.

Hope to see everyone next year.

[Brigadier General]

Two trailer tires in wyoming hindered our endurance performance

If building a race car were easy, it would be called Your Mom.
UCDformulaSAE
http://mae.ucdavis.edu/~fsae

[leclercjs]

For us, one of the two cable going to the battery went off and all electrical system were down and we had 3 laps remaining before finish line.

Jean Sébastien Leclerc
Formule SAE Poly

[ANDONI]

well......

our car and the bad luck had an appointment las week in pontiac....

Our master cylinders never got to caracas, so we had to take last years out of the car. They never really worked to well. So, we need about 27 tries to pass the brake test. We missed the accel and skid pad because of this. AND, after trying so many times, we had used a bunch of gas, so we ran out of it.

AND,..... for the endurance:

same story I read a few times. On our 3rd lap, one of the battery cables disconected..saying bye bye to detroit 2003.

WE ARE PISSED.....jejeje

Andoni Mazeika
www.formulasaeusb.com (http://www.formulasaeusb.com)

[Richard Lewis]

Oh what a fiasco! Almost 2 days spent troubleshooting a faulty ECU caused us to miss skidpad and acceleration... We managed to be the last car through brake and noise, and the last to enter the autocross on a borrowed computer. (thanks Toledo!) Somehow we were only running on 2 cylinders in the autocross. (hasty wiring job)

Testing before enduro on an engine running on all 4 cylinders showed some issues with our spindle design in the rear. We did our best junkyard wars impression to get it to work... a few iterations of repair. We finally had to give up and just go to endurance.

Nearly 3 laps completed, but man, was our car FLYING. What a sense of accomplishment after such a bitter 3 days of troubleshooting and problems to see our car really flying around the track. On the end of lap 3 (or 2?) we lost a rear wheel. Our hacked together spindle failed as we expected it would... (not sure who won the bet as to how many laps it would last)

Certainly a lot learned anyway, but not quite the way I wanted to finish up my FSAE career. (86th overall)

-------------------------
UVIC Formula SAE Team
http://members.shaw.ca/drax77/Formula%20UVic%20Sig.jpg
http://uvic.fsae.ca

[volvo2f2]

Lower Rear A-Arm snapped at a weld were the toe link clevis was welded to it. Only a lap and a half to go. Would have been our first car to finihs all the dynamic events. The car was as reliable as could be with only requiring a non-charging battery to be changed out and a some spacer put in to stop a sticky throttle. Real minor compared to what some of the other teams experienced. http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid62/pbf9d0d75b821435d8e83f0e0577988b1/fc1e4d79.jpg.orig.jpg

[Angry Joe]

Car stalled on the second lap and would not restart. I think we might have gotten it but the officials made us retire. I still have not determined what the problem is, because I know it is going to be something stupid that will piss me off http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif

Lehigh Formula SAE

www.lehigh.edu/~insae/formula (http://www.lehigh.edu/~insae/formula)

[A Reinke]

well...Carroll Smith could explain it best. we sheared a 5/16" rod end on the lower a-arm/upright. (i'm an engine guy so i dont know the whole story) the bear of this is that we ran the crap out of the car during the skidpad, practice area, and the autocross, and didn't have a problem. three laps into the endurance the rod end let go, bent a steering pushrod when the wheel came down onto the upright. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

we fixed it that night and after 10 minutes of driving around our parking lot at NIU the rod end was about to break. needless to say, i wasn't alone in sharing the pain of this.

maybe next year, eh? 4th year's a charm?

~A. Reinke
NIU Formula SAE

[Brent Howard]

Well, this year we actually sheared a weld on our front right spindle. The upright was run on the 2002 car without any problems, but a crack might have started during one of two crashes in testing of the 2002 car and practice in Detroit. After looking at the weld it was very porous and had very little penetration. Too bad TIG welds can look really good on the outside and still be really shitty. We actually rean a couple of laps with the tire only being held on by the caliper (nearly a U-Vic type problem) with the judges finally pulling us off because they thought that the steering was causing the irregular movement. Oh well, there is always next year. I really enjoyed seeing what all the other teams had come up with. I only wish i had come down before my last year. Anyway, i'd also like to thank team venezuela for lending us so much stuff, it was much appreciated.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[This message was edited by Brent Howard on May 25, 2003 at 06:57 PM.]

[Daves]

Electronic shifting (F4i transmission) disconnected from steering wheel, allowing only use of 1 gear, which we chose to be 1st gear. In turn, the engine overheated and blew some steam.