Swinburne's disqualification on the weekend

[Colin]

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the way swinburne was put out of the last endurance on the weekend that cost us the entire event, over a fuel leak that after 20 minutes of searching could not be found http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

Full Boar Racing

[Al]

It sucks!!

We were pulled in ourselves for a suspected coolant (and yes they thought we were cheating and running coolant) leak just prior to the our fateful oil fire (of which the time stationary in the pits no doubt contributed).

No leak was found but rather than admitting the error, the marshals attempted to stop a protest over the lost time by stating they would respond by issuing a penalty on the basis of some poor driving out of the pit area.

It was very hard to contain my anger at this attitude. I fear you suffered the same problem, an inability to accept that they were wrong. If only they realised that they were throwing away your whole year by doing this.

What more can I say, you deserved better.

[PatClarke]

Hey guys, dont let innuendo and rumour spoil what was a fantastic event.

Colin, I too felt sorry for Swinburne, but I SAW the fuel on the ground.I inspected the remaining stain carefully (the gas had evaporated by then..only a minute or so later) but whatever had been spilled damaged the asphalt. If it wasnt fuel, it was some other solvent. That's why I didn't intervene. Fuel has been known to boil off in the heat. Remember there was a total fire ban and we had already had a car destroyed by a fire. Discretion was the better part of valour, and you can never forget that the officials have a duty of care and are in aweful sh*t if someone gets hurt as a result of their actions or lack of action.

Colin, this is NOT the forum to air your grieviences and stir up ill feeling. Do you think Suzanne Royce and Steve Daum have a personal vendetta in place for you? Grow up! When I read this post, most of the sympathy I had for you evaporated.

And Al, your car was leaking something! I never heard any innuendo that any teams were using anything other than water in the cooling system.
And what exactly did your team expect with that pit exit? I know you may have been frustrated, but go back and read the rules of the competition. You too should avoit innuendo on a forum read by many who have no knowledge what happened.
I was there, I was watching, and qualified to watch.
Deal with it in the correct manner. Write to the SAE and cogently and logically state your case.

PDR

Rudeness is a weak mans imitation of strength

[Angry Joe]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>

Colin, I too felt sorry for Swinburne, but I SAW the fuel on the ground.I inspected the remaining stain carefully (the gas had evaporated by then..only a minute or so later) but whatever had been spilled damaged the asphalt. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sounds like this was a trace amount. If a leak could not be identified I really don't think it is grounds for disqualification. Of course, I wasn't there...

While I disagree STRONGLY with the premise of the endurance, I understand the need to keep the event safe. Nevertheless some of the grounds for disqualification are extremely frustrating. For example there was a team who's bodywork was ripped by a cone, and a team that leaked one drop of diff oil in the pits that was so small it was almost missed. When I hear of things like this it makes me wonder weather it was lawyers that wrote the rules for this thing...

Notice I did not mention my team, we failed the endurance fair and square http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif



Lehigh Formula SAE Alumni
Team Captain 2002-2003

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

[Brent Howard]

Just count yourself lucky that you have 2 endurance heats in Australia. In Detroit you get one chance and that's it.

Brent

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

[Al]

Sorry Pat,

I agree I should have kept it to myself, but my frustrations were at boiling point. I had just inspected the car and their appears to be no apparent area of leaking oil, the sump is full and yet somehow the thing caught fire and destroyed everything around the engine bay (including the ecu it looks like). I dont know how we can afford to fix it http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

Yes the pit exit was bad and our driver admits it, but I got extremely annoyed by the accusation of cheating.

Still, not an excuse.



The event was great, run extremely well, and there is no one else to blame but ourselves for what happened. If only we knew what that was http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_redface.gif

[Frank]

People from our team saw stuff coming out of your car too.

We've got pulled in at a previous comp, because someone else lost a wheel nut.

This weekend we got stuck behind a car that failed to pull into the passing lane twice.

"We were pulled in ourselves for a suspected coolant (and yes they thought we were cheating and running coolant) leak just prior to the our fateful oil fire (of which the time stationary in the pits no doubt contributed).".. Al from Monash

You can't be serious, if sitting stationary helps contribute to your car catching fire, then you guys have even more problems than I previously thought.

How many enduro's in 4 years have you finished Monash?

Frank

[imajerk]

The Monash car leaks oil... lots of it. When the engines was on the dyno earlier in the year we kept filling it up every run we did. That was meant to be fixed and by the sounds of it WAS fixed. But the amount of oil around the engine bay – and covering everything in general was a rude shock when I saw it in pre comp preparation. The external sump structure had foam to absorb the oil... and they where soaked.

[Al]

Hey Frank,

- i wish i could remove that first post, but anyway my thinking was.

- Our cooling system was very marginal on the weekend for some reason, not so in 8 weeks of testing including at above race temperatures

- any shutdowns of the cooling system cause huge spikes in water and oil temperature

- the cooling system could only hold temps constant at around 120 degrees, therefore the spike caused by stopping suddenly (heat soak) would push it over the edge which it could not pull back

- hot oil = thin oil

- thin oil would magnify the leak we clearly have

- that was my reasoning

- it happened anyway in the first enduro so sitting stationary was clearly not the problem, it would have gone anyway

- therefore sitting stationary is only a contributing factor when suffering post comp depression

- our car obviously has a leaking problem at high temp and load, no idea where or why, so much so that it didn't happen in testing. We probably need to push harder in testing in future.

- congratulations on your finish, well deserved

imajerk

- please refrain from making comments that only slightly resemble the truth when you have no idea of the real circumstances

[imajerk]

I don't speak for Monash, and don't pretend to. I say what I saw – which IS the truth. If not, why not let everyone know what the truth is? Please, I'm interested too.

I didn't try to extrapolate... and draw conclusions.

[karter]

Could inadiquate crankcase ventalation "force" oil out somewhere? Have you ever "blowen down" the engine to check the ring seal? With the old 2 stroke detroit diesels you could seal up every bolt, nook and cranny and then cranke case pressure would force oil out the dip stick tube.

[Jarrod]

John The reason our engine leaked oil on the dyno earlier this year is because the cam cover gasket was fitted incorrectly when you were running it. Once I got back, saw the engine running, I traced the leak, and quite simply fitted the gasket properly. The leaks in testing were due to using stock gaskets to see if we could get away with it, which we obviously couldn't. Prior to comp, all the covers were put on with silastic, which fixed all leaks from the covers.
How about raisng your concerns with us, rather than making ill informed posts based on assumptions and guesses.

Any one else have trouble with stressing engines and not getting them to seal with standard gaskets? I think they flex quite a bit.

[imajerk]

Thank God someone said something. Jarrod, you are right about the dyno - I was aware of that as well... and if you read my post you would notice I mentioned that the original cause of leaking WAS fixed.

Anyway, there is no doubt in my mind that the leakage is a combination of inadequate engine run in (of the rings)... Causing too much blow-by into the sump and sump flexing while the car is in action. Maybe a proper gasket for the sump might help... although silastic is in general an adequate seal. Maybe poor surface preparation?

You already know what the problems might be... so I don't have any concerns to raise directly with Monash. I can see that Monash's people are competent, sometimes lacking in skill (as with every other human being on Earth) but that's why they ARE in FSAE to learn.

Regardless, people should just read posts more carefully and read them with good intentions.

[woollymoof]

Swinburne has been running a fully stressed engine for a couple of years now and as far as i know we've never had a problem with oil leaks. I could be wrong though, the last couple of years i've been observing from the side lines.

Cheers,

Kirk Veitch
Swinburne University of Technology 2004