WWU????

[formula_geek]

Whatever happened to the Western Washington V8 car? It was a beautiful car, just wondered if it ever ran, is it's successor on the way?

[formula_geek]

Whatever happened to the Western Washington V8 car? It was a beautiful car, just wondered if it ever ran, is it's successor on the way?

[James Waltman]

The car has run. You might have missed it running (not competing) in Detroit in 2001. We spent last year working out problems and bugs (it was not really ready at competition). Since there can be no more second year cars Viking XXX and the V8 will never compete in FSAE. We have started the design and construction of our next car. We talked about using the V8 in this car but have decided against it. It turns out that designing and manufacturing (all done in house, by students) your own engine is a massive undertaking. When we decided not to use the V8 we tossed around some other crazy engine ideas that I would like to keep to myself for future use. Our website was missing for a long time but we just started a new one. Check it out: http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/
It is not linked from the SAE page and not easy to find with search engines yet.
We will be upgrading it as we go so check back. Right now it has video of the V8 on our chassis dyno and some info about our past cars. Hopefully the info about the V8 and Viking XXX will help clear up some of the misconceptions/rumors.

Let me know if you have any other questions. Sorry that was so long.
James Waltman
waltmaj@cc.wwu.edu
Formula SAE
Vehicle Research Institute at
Western Washington University

By the way, great job on this website and this board.

[Dr. Bob Woods]

James, any chance that you will finish the car and run it in SCCA, particularly at SCCA Nationals? How about running it and collecting video. That was an impressive car and there was a lot of interest in it and the V8. It would be a pity never to see it run. I think that the press that you could get from it would be worth the effort.

[danW]

The V8 is awesome!

What hade to be done to get both exhausts on the outside of the block?

[MikeWaggoner at UW]

The exhaust was on the outside of the engine because one of the heads was effectively running backwards (this was done to have the timing chain all on one side and the exhaust on the exterior).
We currently have no plans to run the V8 in other competitions. There is only one member from the V8 team remaining, and the V8 was a huge, 3 year effort.
Although it would be great to have it running again, it is a full race engine that needs rebuilds often. To run it competitively would require more man hours that we have. Keep in mind that Honda spends huge amounts of cash and time to get a CBR engine running, and we're a university team with 5-15 members with very limited funding; our time and money right now is being spent on the next car (without a V8).

Western Washington University FSAE
dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae

[ArizonaDave]

I just wanted to say that even if it doesn't run again, it was an amazing display of what is possible at the FSAE competition. This is why Collegiate competitions exist, to push the limits and see what happens. Anyway... Very impressive. Can't wait to see what's next.

-Dave
Arizona FSAE