What is all this talk of cones taking out A-arms?

[Lyn Labahn UW-Madison]

It seems like lots of people bring up the topic of a-arms crumpling from cone hits, what school has had this problem? Is there some infamous event that happened? We run a very thin was ovularized tubing, and have had guys taking out cones like its their job with no troubles....you guys got cement filled cones?

Another thing, is that Bam Bam guy for real, or is he just a troll? What school is he from?

2002/2003 Team Leader

[Moeye]

Very big cones

[Dan B]

In England they called them Balards(sp?)

They were a hard plastic and filled with sand in the bottom. We didn't have problems with the A-arms...we had wings in front to protect them.

[jack]

now, a good trick is to superglue a line of razor blades to the front of the front a-arms, no more pesky cones slowing down lap times! and the sharp front edge does wonders for aerodynamics --just watch out for your budies shins when your comming into the pits...

JACK
www.etec.wwu.edu (http://www.etec.wwu.edu)

[This message was edited by jack on February 13, 2003 at 11:55 PM.]

[formula_geek]

Well, I don't have any A-arm stories, but we did have a freak accident with the sand-filled Formula Student cones in 2000. Last quarter of the endurance, we were running somewhere in the top ten. Our driver picks up a cone on the far side of the course and it doesn't come out, apparently stuck in the car somewhere. Several corners later, he rolls to a stop.

Turns out the cone had wedged itself in between the chain and the rear sprocket, in turn shearing the sprocket mounting bolts that attached it to the diff housing. After the event we discovered a cone cut in half, with chain marks clearly evident along the separation line.

Moral of the story: sometimes there is nothing you can do, and fate is just against you