UK Vehicle Status - 2013

[Dewi Griffiths]

Hi everyone. Following the "Vehicle Status 2013" post a few months ago, I thought I'd start a new one to see how progress was going for UK based teams.

I'm also interested in what events teams will be attending (or attempting to attend!).

For us in Cardiff, we're in a very good position relative to last year. We are expecting a rolling chassis in late January/early February with dyno work continuing after our looming exams. Again, we're using the ever reliable Aprilia... :/ With a front aly honeycomb 'coq with rear spaceframe on 10" wheels. Photo's on our Facebook and Twitter for anyone interested.

Will be nice to hear from some more teams http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Dunk Mckay]

The ape? Why? Just Why? :P Sorry, just teasing.


We're ahead relative to last year, although unfortunately that's not saying much. Planning to have rolling chassis by end of Feb/early March. No exams until May for us. Slap bang when we want to be finishing up and starting to test, grrr.

Full SF chassis this year, Yamaha R6 as per usual, few other shtings tweaked. Going for reliability and simplicity of design and build above all this year. Trying to setup a good basis for team organization to run through future years, until now knowledge transfer and training replacement team members has been pretty poor.

[JulianH]

Are we going to see some fancy wings on the Brunel car, Dunk?

[Jon Burford]

I have decided to come to FSUK this year, Looking forward now. I hope everybody has a good year. Good luck guys!

[Dunk Mckay]

I'd like to say yes, Julian, but I fear it is unlikely, I could rant and moan about all the political reasons that are stopping us, but this is not the place. We are praying for an undertray though.

[JulianH]

That's pretty sad Dunk...

In the beginning a large part of my team was also "protesting" against the wings but in the end, everybody started to love them... and they do make your car quick http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Dunk Mckay]

It's not team politics, we'd all love to do them. It's with the uni, and what we can can and can't "manufacture safely" in house, it's not directly related to wings but it does affect whether we have the resources to have them made or not.

[JulianH]

That's a strange decision by the university, but what they don't know...

We found out that manufacturing wings is pretty easy, way less complicated than the undertray (our mould broke in 2012)...

If you want to find a way to make them as simple as possible, I would talk to the Prague guys (CTU), they showed up at Zwickau meets Friends with a "10-minute" Aero package and the car was bloody fast...

[Dunk Mckay]

Oh I can think of plenty of ways to make them easily, well, and for not much cost. It's health and safety gone mad that's our killer. But we're straying off topic a little here.