Car completion dates...?

[Homemade WRX]

I was wondering what dates or general time of the winter/spring most teams aim to have there cars done? How much time do you leave for testing and tuning?
Testing time has been an issue with us for the past two years as we never find what breaks until competition http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
thanks, Micah
p.s. I'm not talking 100% competition ready but driving under its own power ready for tweaking.

[Homemade WRX]

I was wondering what dates or general time of the winter/spring most teams aim to have there cars done? How much time do you leave for testing and tuning?
Testing time has been an issue with us for the past two years as we never find what breaks until competition http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
thanks, Micah
p.s. I'm not talking 100% competition ready but driving under its own power ready for tweaking.

[BeaverGuy]

Since '03 our department has mandated that the car drive under its own power by the end of spring break. This has been in order to get sufficient testing time on the car. Usualy this is a barely driveable car that takes another week or so to get ready for testing. This year the deadline was moved up a week to March 26, additionaly the team has set a goal of making it competition ready by that date also.

[Jersey Tom]

Last year's goal was to have the car done by spring break, which was the most aggressive date we had set.

This year we're shooting for mid February. We'll see how how it goes.

[mangel83]

We're aiming for mid february as well, I think we have 70% chance of making it, we're working full throttle here, let's see what happens during the holidays

[Homemade WRX]

ok, in years past we had always left only a few weekends for testing because of last minute funding availability but this year our deadline is very agressive for still having no money...just trying to see what other schools have aimed for...seems cornell is always feb. 1...

[RickyRacer]

Probably 1 week before the west coast event
Ricky

[Fred]

Our departement as also mandated us to have a "Detroit configuration" car by the end of the spring break (March 13th).

That gives us enough time to test, adjust, train drivers and gather some data for design event.