UWAM Launch

[Dave Riley]

Hi all,

We had our media launch today, and our car is on its way to the shipping company as I write.

Here are a couple of the pictures of the car we hope will do well at FSAE-A in ten days and in Detroit in May:


http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au/body/downloads/together/together40.jpg

http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au/body/downloads/together/together29.jpg

See all the Aussies soon and the rest of you next year!

Cheers
Dave

www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au (http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au)

[Scott Wordley]

Great work boys, the car looks great. The back of the car looks very interesting can't wait to have a good look.

See you in Tailem.

Regards,

Scott Wordley

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

[Denny Trimble]

Looks great, any closeups of those wheels? Good luck!

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03, '04)

[Dave Riley]

Heres a link to the rest of the pictures, taken at a photo shoot last weekend. Got plenty more, just haven't uploaded them yet:

http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au/body/downloads/together.html

Car looks even better in its warpaint with all the stickers on!

Cheers
Dave

www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au (http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au)

[Scott Wordley]

Dave, why are you shipping the car so early?

We also noticed a lot of inspiration taken from a certain hillclimber featured in Racecar Engineering a while back (smart move). And why not... if it works it works.

On that note, this car inspired us....

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae/A_Mods_Rule.gif

Regards,

Scott Wordley

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

[Kevin Hayward]

Scott,

If you are implying that we took inspiration from the Saxon Suzuki then you are 100% correct. But then I don't think being inspired by an ex-F1 engineer is a bad thing. Unfortunately the articles on the car didn't come with an instruction manual.

That being said it was only used as inspiration and just running a hillclimber in a FSAE competition would probably result in a low comp. score.

You may be interested to know that one of the contributing factors to us changing to 8" wide tyres at the rear was a conversation with yourself (I think it was you - it was a Monash guy anyway). Despite claims from some Goodyear technicians that we would not get enough heat into the rears we have had no problems of running in the operating temperature range.

On another note our original discussions in the team were to do a spaceframe car of a similar setup to what we produced. We were able to switch to a monocoque due to a new inhouse curing technique that does not require the expensive autoclaves that cars like the Saxon have access to.

So simple response the car takes inspiration from the Saxon but is not an attempt at a direct copy.

Oh and the early shipping date is required to get our car over in time with our transport carrier. It is something we have had to deal with for the last three years. It would be really great to have an extra few days or even the full week. Guess that's not a problem with Victorian teams http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Cheers,

Kev

Helpless, destroyed husk of an engineer
UWA Motorsport

[Scott Wordley]

Yeah, I wasn't having a go at you at all, hence the smart move comment. Like your selves we love that Saxon car and I would be very surprised if many of its innovative features don't regularly feature in future FSAE cars, yours perhaps being the first. To my mind the current crop of bike engined hillclimbers are the closest thing to an off the shelf FSAE car that there is. Sure there are small differences (slightly bigger unrestricted engines, higher speeds, shorter running time, less cooling requirements etc) but they have the same inherent problems to overcome and at the end of the day, they do the same job.

I'm happy to admit that we have CAD designs of very similar 3 stud wheels and inboard brakes but chose not to go there due to what we call our "heritage dimensions", like 3 sets of custom wheels with a 94.5mm(Whats wrong with 100?) Stud PCD and 21 bolts(!). You get that though.

As you mentioned we totally agree on the big rear rubber and think everyone else is crazy (in Oz at least).

Anyway, how much testing did you guys get with the new car?

Regards,

Scott Wordley

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

[Kevin Hayward]

Scott,

Never thought you were having a go - I was just confirming your suspicions.

I know what you mean about "heritage dimensions". Your 94.5mm PCD sounds like a similar number to our old setup. The changes meant cost increases to rims etc. but we offset that by making our own centres. Now we have just created a new set of "heritage dimensions". In fact virtually every part was redesigned and a hell of a lot of the fundamental parameters.

We didn't get as much track time as we would of hoped - but then who does? However I think we chased out most of the gremlins and had run out of good testing rubber anyway. If anything worries me it is that the car is very different to drive than our last two. As always the deciding factor in performance is the driver.

As for the larger rubber I know of at least one other Oz team that is testing wider rears.

Oh yeah you also mentioned that you have a 3 bolt setup in CAD. I'm also not ashamed to say we have done wing studies with fluent and our LITTLE wind tunnel. Afterall you have to analyse everything you can to find out what you want to try. There is really nothing new on any of the cars I have seen - rather a different application of known technologies.

I think that your team is about to show everyone whether wings are worth it or not. I just hope I'm not on the wrong side of the answer.

Cheers,

Kev

Sleep deprived spanner wielding madman
UWA Motorsport

[Scott Wordley]

Well you've got the raised nose... it would be quite easy to sling a decent front wing under there. Maybe I shouldn't give you ideas hahaha.

Looking forward to a beer or ten with you guys next Sunday night.

Cheers,

Scott

[jack]

Great looking car. I like the three wheel-studs idea. Anyway, i was wondering where you get those rim halves. I am thinking we want to manufacture our own rims down the road, but with our inside-out brakes we are gunna need some rim halves with a whole lot of offset, looking at the pics it looks like yours would do the trick. good luck at FSAE-A.

jack @ WWU
http://www.etec.wwu.edu

[Kevin Hayward]

Jack,

We run Kodiak rims. We ran Kiezer rims in 2001 but have run kodiak since then.

You pretty much just ask what offsets you want.

Cheers,

Kev

Resident fool
UWA Motorsport

[Disco]

Dave,
Just wondering what weight you guys are looking at going to the comp at??
Cheers
Steve
RMIT

[Big Bird]

Kevin, Dave, great looking car gents. Can't wait to see it in the flesh. Don't worry about the lack of testing, we all suffer from that, but given your performance last year I'm sure you've got everything in order.


Cheers, looking forward to Tailem Bend,

Geoff Pearson
RMIT FSAE 2003

Design it. Build it. Drive it into a tree.

[Dave Riley]

Hi Steve & Geoff,

Our car weighed in at about 220kg including fluids (so maybe 210kg dry?). We were aiming a bit lighter but this is nonetheless a huge improvement on our previous efforts.

Looking forward to seeing a lot of the Aussie cars... I think this comp is going to really go off!

Cheers
Dave

www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au (http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au)

[Sam]

Scotty,

what exactly is that car you have pictured there? looks like it is a two stroke.. sweeet

Sam Graham
Engine Group Leader 2003
UQ Racing

[Scott Wordley]

Its an A-Modified from the US.
And yes its a two stroke. Apparently CVTs are popular too.

Check out this link.

http://members.aye.net/~racerx/2001amodifiedphotoindex.html

Regards,

Scott Wordley

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

[Ben Carr]

Hi all,

Denny: Thanks for the wheel comment. The design of those took a fair proportion of my time this year.

jack: Just a follow up to Kev's post. The wheels were purchased from Kodiak however i think i should just let you know to excercise caution when dealing with the company. There is a post somewhere else that deals with this company and associative problems.

The wheel rims we received, although they were very well made and came with an FSAE discount, were thicker and heavier then expected. They also took a lifetime to arrive. The increased mass of the rims reduced the benefits of the significantly lighter wheel centres. Just be careful...

Cheers,
Ben

[vinHonda]

Did anyone notice that the inner 'lip' on the Kodiaks where the tire bead pops was too high? Causing RIDICULOUS PSI to pop the bead?

Vinh

University of Toronto Formula SAE Racing Team
www.fsae.utoronto.ca (http://www.fsae.utoronto.ca)

[Dave Riley]

Yep Vinh,

We recently tried to put some dunlop rubber on those rims, for testing... one rim in particular just would not take a tyre - we had 100psi on it at one stage and it didn't pop!

Other Dunlops went on other rims, but only with similarly high pressures... leaving the guys who do our tyre changes scratching their heads. Our usual Goodyear rubber went on without much trouble though, and much lower pressures...

Dave

www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au (http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au)

[Frank]

were you using a water based lubricant or a paste / wax?

we're getting tyres changed by guys using this stuff, and it seems soo much easier

http://www.dirtbikestore.co.uk/acatalog/TyrePaste.jpg

[Dave Riley]

They were using some sort of lubricant - brushing on what looked like some wax - and when the tyre wouldn't pop they were spraying some WD40 on it...

www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au (http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au)

[Jarrod]

be very careful seating tyres with lightweight two/three piece wheels, 100psi is extremely dangerous. Stuckey race tires here in melbourne recommend no more than 40psi (I think partially due to legal reasons), and I have been very careful since an incident last year. 60 psi is as high as I am willing to go. Also, do you remove the valve core so that the pressure releases straight away? If you have spoken to any old racers about inflating split rims you will most likely get some very grim recollections of permanent injuries, and even deaths due to multi piece rims exploding, that is why they are now illegal in most forms of racing and i believe also for general road use (commercial vehicle split rims are different).
On a somewhat lighter note, be careful using WD40 or similar when inflating tyres, unless you can leave them to dry for at least a day. I have seen sprintcar tyres roll off the beads because of this, can be very nasty. Proper tyre soap dries pretty quickly, just go to the local tyre shop, ask for a little bit, they will usually help out.
Having worked as a tyre fitter for road cars, fitted countless sprintcar tyres and quite a few sets for FSAE, if have tried a few different ways, and would not like any one to have to learn things like this the hard way.

Sorry for the downer, just got very worried when I saw mention of 100psi in a lightweight three piece rim.

love the car, can't wait to see it at tailem.

[Dave Riley]

To be honest, we didn't really know what to do and were relying on our changer's 'expertise' - a local tyre shop.

They would have gone higher if their compressor was up to it http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif

Cheers
Dave

www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au (http://www.motorsport.uwa.edu.au)

[PatClarke]

Just adding my voice to the warnings. Jos Verstappen has a scarred face where a kart wheel came apart whilst the bead was being seated.
Additionally, overinflation can easily ruin a tyre, especially a bias tyre. The cords can be stretched and the tyre shape and diameter changed. Measure the circumference of the inflated tyres and if the overinflated one is significantly bigger, then you might have some setup problems. It is a total waste of time setting corner weights and then using different diameter tyres.
Try to keep the tyre circumferences within 6mm of each other.
PDR

Rudeness is a weak mans imitation of strength