Who else learns what not to do from a mini-baja team?

[BrendonD]

Seriously... They just spent 750 bucks making a 73.5 lb behemoth of a transfer case that takes 3 people to get apart, has only one chain with a tensioner, there are two chains in the case, and the gear that's supposed to be able to handle 1200ft-lbs of torque is held to the shaft with a single woodruff key. This case is actually BETTER than their previous case because is doesn't grind their gears when it spins.

Anyone else have stories?

[BrendonD]

Seriously... They just spent 750 bucks making a 73.5 lb behemoth of a transfer case that takes 3 people to get apart, has only one chain with a tensioner, there are two chains in the case, and the gear that's supposed to be able to handle 1200ft-lbs of torque is held to the shaft with a single woodruff key. This case is actually BETTER than their previous case because is doesn't grind their gears when it spins.

Anyone else have stories?

[KU_Racing]

Our team is famous for building frames without notching the tubes. Hey, thats what a mig is for, right?!? The also dont care if the frames are square or plumb. I also know for a fact that the engine mounting subframe they welded onto the frame for the last car was made from welded up uni strut and triangulated with welded-in threaded rod.

Also, I once read a print for a front upper control arm. The tolerances for the lenghts of both legs and the width at the frame mounting was 1".

Then again, they get their car done on time, beat the living $&!# out of it, and it doesnt break. Hmm....

[Scrappy]

Wouldnt this be better suited for the off topic forums? Seriously, there have been so many Off Topic posts in Open discussion it has been ridiculous.

[afroney]

Ours is using a Harley transmission with a Briggs centrifugal clutch, and for some reason they've set up some monkey-motion linkage system in the rear suspension to to lock both wheels together so they only have to use one coilover. Basically they have double wishbone suspension, but wheel travel for the two wheels is locked together with a dozen or so linkages all connecting to one huge shock. Worst idea ever.

Then there's the 110 lb IVT that no one could manufacture, all the parts they tried to cast themselves (basically the whole suspension), and the rear hubs they tried to cast that used a 1 in. axle with a 3/8 in. through-bolt. And last but not least, their approach to "body work," which means lay out some chicken wire to the approximate shape of the body then drown it in fiberglass and bondo.

Oh, and the hammering and grinding of the Baja team is going to drive me insane!

[rjwoods77]

As a former baja guy I have to chime in. There is waaaayyyy less engineering involved in a baja then there is in a formula for sure. Wastefull engineering, definitely. But i will say a couple things about baja over formula. The rates of cars finishing in baja is alot better than in formula and the courses they have to design for make the formula comp look like a joke. Having to design your car not break in instances such coming off a jump sideways and landing on one suspension corner sideways and other favorites such as not braking bones when you flip or another car rides up one of you wheels and having a tire bounce off you helmet(happened to me) and keep the car moving makes the engineering challenge way worse. Baja guys laugh at things like "i hit a cone and it damaged my car" and "dont step on this or you will break something on the car". You have to admit that planning for only a couple g's worth of forces is much easier that having to plan for making a car survive when you hit something with you supension and decelerate from 20mph to zero in the space of inches.

[Parker]

One thing I learned from Baja: It only takes five days of fabrication to make a complete frame. We started with nothing on Monday of this week, and Friday we had a complete frame ready for components to be bolted in. It's amazing how fast it is when you only have to TIG the Roll hoop members


oh, and our tubes are notched http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Drew Price]

As another former Baja guy who has rolled our 550 lb. car coming off a double too hard and nosediving into the next one, I know I wouldn't ever want to do that in the Formula car, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. Thing is indestructible. Except for that little transfer case in the back. The one with the case parting line crossing through all four shaft bearings. Which are tapered roller bearings on shafts with only torsional loads.

And they decided that Tig-ing takes waaaay too long this year, they are Mig welding their a-arms (with welded inserts for threaded 7/8th inch rod ends inboard and outboard) and frame.

I guess they burned too many holes in the toe box with the Tig (which has exactly zero tube intersections at nodes [too hard to cope]) and found out how easy it is to fill them in with the Mig (that's what it's for). I also saw the guy welding it up (from 1.25" 4130) think it was too hot to pick up and move, so he cooled it off in the nearby sink first.

Ok, I'm done.

Best,
Drew

[Azim]

Ignoring the advice of not rattling the cage one is in, I shall describe some of the more interesting screwups our Baja team (of which I still very much a part of) has done over the past few years:

1. One day, after we had spent the better part of a day relocating the steering rack and completely reworking the steering system of one of our older cars, a more experienced team member insisted on testing out the changes. As we rolled the car out, we noticed something interesting - we had reverse steering!! Maybe turning the rack upside down wasn't such a good idea after all... Nevertheless, said member still insisted on driving the car and promptly struck a concrete post at a pretty good clip. Result: Two destroyed A-Arms and bent suspension tabs on the left front.

2. Last year, in the weekend before leaving for Portland (West), we built the drive axles for the car...and managed to cut both of them about an inch too short. Now you have to understand that we had been working at a furious pace for the past month, and the mistake was discovered at about 2am; sleep deprivation had made everyone grumpy and a few rough calculations made by one member suggested that we'd be just fine even with the axles short. We weren't. It's funny now to talk about it, but it didn't seem so funny to us to have the drive axles pop out of the CV joints every half lap in the endurance race...

3. (This one's a screwup I made) Having trawled through numerous bearing catalogues and, of course, McMaster for a suitable bearing to use in the output shaft of our new gearcase, we managed to find a needle roller bearing that fit our size constraints and load requirements perfectly. We threw it in our newly machined case and ran it at two competitions last year where it performed brilliantly. On returning home, someone pointed out that there sure was a lot of play in the output shafts of the gearcase... On taking it apart, the mistake became readily apparent - we never used an inner race for the bearing, and we were running the rollers right on a non-hardened shaft. Oops.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

hehe:
Baja cant make steering arms worth a damn:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b309/duwem/SANY0143.jpg
They are slow:
http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b309/duwem/?action=view&current=VCLP0155.flv
and tires do smoke:
http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b309/duwem/?action=view&current=VCLP0156.flv

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

one cool thing about our(baja that is) car is that it has the bottom end of a dirtbike engine as part of the drivetrain so it does have 5 speeds to play around with...too bad the 10hp briggs is a pig.

[rjwoods77]

Hey Mike I have some vids of a 18hp twin in our schools baja if youll post them. They are pretty cool. I have some other cool ones like Stouts crzay 30 foot in the air jump too. Pm me.

[Drew Price]

I think I saw that twin at the Michigan Tech invitational a month or so ago, the three remaining experienced baja members invited anyone from Solar Car or Formula to go with and drive the car and hang at the race. Thing was wicked.

Stout's cars are always pretty awesome.

Best,
Drew

[rjwoods77]

Yeah it is pretty neat. It was on the car withthe five link. We had an old shitty early model 18hp briggs twin we got donated for mock up and such and they took it and got it running. Top speed isnt really much higher but the thing just doesnt bog down for anything. Just trucks right on through. Again give me a place to post some vids and youll a couple funny things.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

www.photobucket.com (http://www.photobucket.com) its free and used by many. Just click on the videos tab when addding pictures.

[BrendonD]

A friendly reminder that Baja is a legitimate competition which takes skill and there are teams out there that do an excellent job. This is not about those teams, lol.

[BeaverGuy]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BrendonD:
A friendly reminder that Baja is a legitimate competition which takes skill and there are teams out there that do an excellent job. This is not about those teams, lol. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I know that quite well. The Oregon State Baja team has 3 first place finishes in the last 3-4 years along with a couple second place and some top 10 finishes as well. While there isn't too much engineering design that crosses over, though last year there was a lot of work between the suspension members of Baja and a formula guy, the presentations and testing documentation are really quite similar. Which at the core shows they aren't really all that different.

The marketing presentations are essentially identical and were started from the presentation that the Baja team did at west in '04. Likewise, the design boards and notebooks contain pretty much the same information but with baja parts in one set and formula parts in the other.

[Cody the Genius]

I am somewhat of a crosover going from F-SAE to Baja and the thing that drives me insane is the lack of any design judges that know what the hell they are talking about. Be thankful that even the "dumb" F-SAE judges are smarter than the Baja guys. We had to spend time during our design presentation to explain to one judge what camber gain was because he didn't know you could do that. If you have numerous shiny things, such as a reverse gear (WTF!), no matter how retarded you are, you do well in design and it is infuriating.


Though I guess it is not that big a deal as most of the teams seem unsure of basic engineering concepts as well. Baja is a million times more "slap it together and run it into a tree" than the formula "design it as perfect as possible and then go build it" mentality.

[js10coastr]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cody the Genius:
I am somewhat of a crosover going from F-SAE to Baja and the thing that drives me insane is the lack of any design judges that know what the hell they are talking about. Be thankful that even the "dumb" F-SAE judges are smarter than the Baja guys. We had to spend time during our design presentation to explain to one judge what camber gain was because he didn't know you could do that. If you have numerous shiny things, such as a reverse gear (WTF!), no matter how retarded you are, you do well in design and it is infuriating.


Though I guess it is not that big a deal as most of the teams seem unsure of basic engineering concepts as well. Baja is a million times more "slap it together and run it into a tree" than the formula "design it as perfect as possible and then go build it" mentality. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

A favorite story of mine involves the baja team in the design portion. One of the "judges" didn't like the fact that there wasn't a shield or anything covering the brake rotor. He made the comment of "what if someone were to touch it and burn themselves?" To which one of our team members replied "well, then you'd be an idiot."

There are some pretty good baja teams out there... it's amazing what some teams can pull off with what they're limited to.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

[QUOTE

A favorite story of mine involves the baja team in the design portion. One of the "judges" didn't like the fact that there wasn't a shield or anything covering the brake rotor. He made the comment of "what if someone were to touch it and burn themselves?" To which one of our team members replied "well, then you'd be an idiot."

QUOTE]

[Test Driver]

My fondest funny memory of our Baja guys is of one of them using two hands to mig a node. One hand had the mig gun and the other was feeding additional filler rod into the weld puddle. I never asked how big the gap was when he began but the welds were telling. The guy who welded had a funny saying every time he was particularly pleased with something. "That ______ is tits man!"�, he'd say. So every time I see a particularly inept weld, it reminds me of this and makes me grin.

My least fond memory is continually walking into our shared shop to find a solid film of grinding dust covering absolutely everything while they were putting their frame together.

I still have respect for them though. They put their entire car together in a few weeks with only two people (one of them a business or education or some other facile major) on the team. On the other hand, we were pretty much a duo on our FSAE team as well.

Ramon

[Kenny T Cornett]

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

I'm single handedly doing both...

I'm the team leader for FSAE (started it up here) and the only one on Baja who knows anything about anything (went to highschool with the team leader... he's pre-med http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif )



I've learned many a thing from this...

1. Use a freakin jig... 1/2 gaps on joints is bad, so it twisted and un-level tube members

2. Oxygen is not a shielding gas (I say this because it was attempted by one of the Baja frame team members)

3. No need to clean metal before welding... especially with all that cutting oil and crap on there... it's be fine... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_redface.gif



Many many more are out there... but we all know it's the same everywhere

[Parker]

here's one.

T-minus 24 hours till "completion deadline" for Baja UCF, the suspension team realizes that they never took into account the fact that when designing rear trailing arms, you have to factor in clearance for tires in order to have a rolling car. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

Project manager Parker needs a six pack

[BrendonD]

We just got our frame off the welding table with the motor in it... The new baja frame monkeys aren't bad, I have hope for them, they were able to make two identical pieces of bent tubing. I was surprised to say the least.

[Grant Mahler]

So we have a saying (that our Baja team finds hilarious and totally true) that whenever something is inexact (weight, length, etc), it is +/- 1 baja. If it is super inexact...it may be up to +/- 4 baja. i.e. we don't have a clue...

[Corey H]

sorry to bring up the dead topic, but this one was too good to pass up.

Our baja team ran out of CO2 for their MIG the other day and for some reason their ARC welder wasnt working, so I came in to our shared shop to find one of their guys using OUR TIG welder. He had the setup as follows:

-Welding Steel
-on AC
-Amperage maxed out at 240
-Argon gas off
-Using a ARC welding rod as filler!!!

Needless to say it killed the tungsten and clogged the gas lens, neither of which they replaced.

They rolled their car last week and bent one of the main roll hoops, so what do you do?? Cut it out, weld in another piece and cover it with "protective foam"!!!

I wonder sometimes, their car this year came in at over 650 pounds...with only 10 horsepower.

I think the competition would be much more exciting if they had the same engine rules that we do. I grew up off road and I know how much fun it is, but seeing the actual engineering involved in each lead me straight to Formula.

[MacGyver27]

Indeed, great topic.

Our baja team doesn't really teach us stuff not to do but is somewhat useful in showing new members of our team how the basic faux-pas.

Needless to say, their welding is terrible, suspension is full of rod ends in bending, and even plastic bushings in single shear. Ergonomics are about as good as Iron Maiden. Their car barely works but they try and undertake absurd projects like a composite gear box and composite half shafts when they can't even make a seat. Their half shafts were attempted by wrapping prepreg around a silicone shaft and curing it with a heat gun. Despite not being able to successfully fabricate a single composite part, their self proclaimed composites "expert" still finds the need to tell us what we're doing wrong.

On top of their technical woes, their driving is appalling too. Last year, they rolled their new car on its first outing. On one occasion, they requested to use our auto-x course so we obliged. Their best driver did a couple dozen laps and was timed. After, they let one of our drivers jump in and give it a go. Despite never driving a baja car before, he bested the baja driver on his second lap. He also said it was the worst handling car he ever drove. 'Nuff said.

[A Richards]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MacGyver27:

Ergonomics are about as good as Iron Maiden.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

They must be some pretty dam good ergonomics than. Perhaps you don't fully appreciate quality. LOL

[cwojcik]

Our Mini Baja team did awesome...Basically a first year team, I believe they took 30/140 overall and got rookie of the year.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y2rQVY8yw5U

Some of the members of the Mini Baja team will be with us on FSAE, and I'm sure they'll bring plenty to the table in terms of experience fabricating, engineering, and "getting shit done."

[kapps]

Our guys did pretty good as well. Our Baja team leader is a good guy and knows what he's doing in the machine shop. He's a certified welder and can lay some serious rod (he's helped up out numerous times). Unfortunately, he only had a couple other young guys to help him out and nobody was there to ask why there's a keyway in a hollow tube... Needless to say, the axle broke over a jump.

[MacGyver27]

Sorry for the crappy grammar. In case anyone is confused, I meant iron maiden the torture device (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_maiden_%28torture_device%29), not the band (which kicks ass, unlike my school's baja team).

[exbaja]

Sad for me to see that the level of competition in Baja is so low. There are 10 schools that are consistently good, and the rest are terrible. With only 10hp, weight is the most important performance advantage IMO, and almost no one cares about it. The team I was on should have a car that is around 300 lbs ready to race this year (it was 360 in full floating form for the last race in Tennessee).

Baja is ghetto, but not all teams are. By the way, I believe our formula counterparts used a baja style machined upright this year, and our baja team went to a formula style welded steel upright, so I guess all is not like you guys think.

[ZRubenson]

For last year's competition, our Baja team somehow managed to overlook some very crucial lines in the rule book about mandatory minimum tube sizes. The solution? The night before the competition, with the help of another team, they welded a second "frame" around their existing frame, and wrapped the whole thing in foam and padding.

The year before that, the axles fell off. They had never heard of a 4 (or 6) bar linkage.

[RiNaZ]

that's not very uncommon either. I remember seeing that from a couple of teams from my 2 years in baja. Our women baja had to do just that, welding a 'second' frame to the existing frame. I think if they didnt have Mr. Royce as the tech inspector, they could probably breeze right through http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[JaredC]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BeaverGuy:

I know that quite well. The Oregon State Baja team has 3 first place finishes in the last 3-4 years along with a couple second place and some top 10 finishes as well. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So how many times did they finish in the past 3-4 years? 6 or 7 times? Thats a pretty good effort! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[BeaverGuy]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by JaredC:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BeaverGuy:

I know that quite well. The Oregon State Baja team has 3 first place finishes in the last 3-4 years along with a couple second place and some top 10 finishes as well. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So how many times did they finish in the past 3-4 years? 6 or 7 times? Thats a pretty good effort! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

They have been partcicipating in 2 events a year for the last several years,since '03 or '04. With one car entered in 1 event and 2 in the other. Their success actually got the Formula team going in the right direction as far as team organization and funded half of the trailer(the other half came from the ME department) that both teams share.

[JaredC]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BeaverGuy:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by JaredC:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BeaverGuy:

I know that quite well. The Oregon State Baja team has 3 first place finishes in the last 3-4 years along with a couple second place and some top 10 finishes as well. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So how many times did they finish in the past 3-4 years? 6 or 7 times? Thats a pretty good effort! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

They have been partcicipating in 2 events a year for the last several years,since '03 or '04. With one car entered in 1 event and 2 in the other. Their success actually got the Formula team going in the right direction as far as team organization and funded half of the trailer(the other half came from the ME department) that both teams share. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I sure look like a dickhead then. Those sound like some decent results then. I was under the impression it was once a year. 'Scuse my total ignorance and sarcastic remarks.

[BeaverGuy]

I didn't notice any sarcasm, so I hope my reply didn't come off harsh.

[JaredC]

Nope, just correcting a "funny guy" from the other side of the world where baja doesn't exist. Carry on with the meaningful discussion. Aussie sarcasm can be dry http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[BrendonD]

Our old car was one of those "second-frame" cars too.

Since a bunch of the Formula guys are going to be around this summer we are thinking about building our own baja car that seats two and uses a bigger engine. How fun would that be?

[exbaja]

I am sure there is plenty of total crap at FSAE too. You guys need to see a Baja competition before you judge it. Try to make a car that lasts 4 hours in extremely rough terrain. Sure it can be done with a very heavy car, but with 10hp, using minimal material is key to going fast.

There are a TON of cars at the 3 yearly north american competitions. There is a lot of crap, but there is also a lot of well built cars that pass tech first try and don't miss a beat the entire season of racing.

I think the crap cars are pretty damn funny myself. Half of the fun of a baja competition is going and wondering to yourself "what the heck were they thinking" as you laugh and walk away.