New ATV ==> Easy First Year FSAE Car?

[Lacy Lodmell]

Has anyone else seen this?

Polaris Outlaw (http://www.atvfan.com/news/viewnews.php?n=38)

First sport quad with IRS. I saw it in a magazine and thought, "500cc single, 5 speed trans (with reverse!), spool with sprocket and disc, rear caliper (and fronts?), CV's and axles, uprights (if you went with 10" wheels and could accept the awful geometry) and more!"

The quad weights 430 lbs. If I were in a first year team with limited shop accessibility but excellent schmoozing skills, I would seriously consider dropping $7k to ensure I had a sorted out drivetrain for my first car and to speed construction to maximize testing time.

Am I crazy, or would this be an option? Although it does take away all the fun in trying to make a $%@*ing homebuilt Torsen-based diff and then shearing off your sprocket bolts and constantly cleaning up gear oil leaks...

[Lacy Lodmell]

Has anyone else seen this?

Polaris Outlaw (http://www.atvfan.com/news/viewnews.php?n=38)

First sport quad with IRS. I saw it in a magazine and thought, "500cc single, 5 speed trans (with reverse!), spool with sprocket and disc, rear caliper (and fronts?), CV's and axles, uprights (if you went with 10" wheels and could accept the awful geometry) and more!"

The quad weights 430 lbs. If I were in a first year team with limited shop accessibility but excellent schmoozing skills, I would seriously consider dropping $7k to ensure I had a sorted out drivetrain for my first car and to speed construction to maximize testing time.

Am I crazy, or would this be an option? Although it does take away all the fun in trying to make a $%@*ing homebuilt Torsen-based diff and then shearing off your sprocket bolts and constantly cleaning up gear oil leaks...

[Travis Garrison]

Lacy,

You were doing the diff last time I talked to you guys weren't you? Don't tell me you're shearing sprocket bolts http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Yah, I would say that could make an excellent starting point. You might not be able to sit down after the design event...but then again that seems to happen anyways...

[Lacy Lodmell]

Travis,

We were examining a longitudinal engine/transaxle when I visited you guys. The team has since moved towards a more standard engine placement with a geardrive. The shearing bolts bit was from the first car that UI built that we did a lot of driver training on... and went through several sprockets. Sigh.

I agree, design judging would be painful at best if you ripped off your entire drivetrain from an ATV. I just read the latest issue of Race Tech with the FSAE articles and again saw how the judges thought the average level of design quality went down (ouch!). Sometimes I wonder if the judges remember that the knowledge base in many cases is not 20 years old and that most teams don't have some graduate-student version of Adrian Newey or Rory Byrne as their head designer. Sheesh.

[Pat D'Rat]

Quote Lacy
"Sometimes I wonder if the judges remember that the knowledge base in many cases is not 20 years old and that most teams don't have some graduate-student version of Adrian Newey or Rory Byrne as their head designer."

Lacy, the judges DO expect you to have a 20 year + knowledge base...In this day and age of Google, all that knowledge is easily obtained, yet the judges see the same lame design solutions year after year.
Yet, every event we see bright, innovative, well thought out and engineered solutions, and thats what keeps our enthusiasm high.

We don't expect to see Neweys or Byrnes, but we would like to imagine the next generation of Neweys or Byrnes. What we really like to see is a budding Chapman, someone who looks outside the square and uses his imagination and artistic sense to come up with a sweet design.

I would hate FSAE to end up like Formula 1, where if they werent painted, you couldn't tell the difference between them and where results are based on the biggest budget and the most anal engineers/developers.

FSAE Isn't a Motor Racing competition, its a Design Competition. The driving bit is only about qualifying your design.

Pat

[mtg]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Pat D'Rat:
FSAE Isn't a Motor Racing competition, its a Design Competition. The driving bit is only about qualifying your design.

Pat </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one, Pat.

Max points available from Design: 150

Max points available from on track driving: 675

I think the motor racing part drives most of the results. You can get much better payoff from training fast drivers, having reliability that you can drive to the limit through all the events, and a well sorted car that you know how to tune.

Look at RMIT from the 2005 US competition: 3rd in autocross with Rotor driving. Their other autocross driver was about 4 seconds slower, which would have put them around 37th in autocross. That's about a 50 point difference in the score. They did very well in design, but it comes down to motor racing to really put a team at the top.

[RiNaZ]

Just getting sidetrack here a lil bit ... you cant tell the difference between Williams and a Mclaren if they werent painted? I didnt really get into F1 till 5-6 years ago, but i could definitely tell the difference between a Jordan and a BAR.

That's besides the point, but i thought i'd point that out ...

[rjwoods77]

Lacy,

I dont see a problem with it. Its no different than taking a motorcycle engine out of a motorcyle and using it. If it had a transverse differential attached already then people would still use it. I also think the judges would dig it because you are using commonly available parts that a consumer could get anywhere in the country. The uprights and a arms would be unusable for practical reasons which you would find out but there would be nothing wrong with using the complete predator driveline in you car. If you are smart you will contact polaris and see if you could get that stuff for free. They give tremendous help to baja teams already. If you pitched them a "break into formula sae" idea, I bet you they would bite. Also save you all the money buying a stock quad then ripping it apart.