James Waltman
05-28-2004, 11:07 AM
This is going to be long for a few reasons.
1. I know that some of you might be a little interested
2. Some of you have asked for pictures
3. This is what I have spent the last 2 years of my life doing and I'm proud of it.
Sam,
Kudos to you and the rest the University of Idaho team. You guys were great to us all the way from Montana.
To list some things:
Sunday:
We met up with Sam in Missoula, Montana and were going to drive the rest of the way with them. We had an open trailer and they had a nice enclosed trailer. They had an old car along for spare parts and Sam said that he could pull the engine and lay the car on its side to make room in their trailer for our car. We figured that it wasn't worth the effort but he was willing.
Wednesday:
I realized that I hadn't printed out our Safety Structure Equivalency Form Approval. Denny from UW let me use their printer.
Thursday:
We were going through tech on Thursday morning and I couldn't find the SSEF approval that I had printed out. We had three laptops with us and a printer. One laptop didn't have the right ports to connect to the printer, one wouldn't read CDs, and one wouldn't turn on. I borrowed Sam's digital camera and used it as an external drive. I shuffled some stuff around and ran back to Tech inspection to show the judge our approval on a laptop screen.
When we got to Detroit our projector wasn't working for the presentation event. Sam let us use the one they brought and gave us a heads up about some of the questions they had been asked. We would have been sunk without it.
Friday:
We got our car all sorted out in the morning and took some time in the practice area on our rain tires. The track was dry when the acceleration event opened so we moved out of the dynamic area and swapped to slicks. I pushed our first driver into the staging area for our acceleration run. I told the judge that we were ready to make our first acceleration run. She told us to pull on up and we could go. I told our driver to start the car. He hit the starter button and there was a pop. It sounded like a backfire. We couldn't get it to start. We pushed it back to the pits and began the investigation.
We had modified our F2's side cover over the charging system to belt drive our dry sump scavenge pump. Part of that cover supports the starter idler gear. That support in the cover broke because of our modifications and then the idler gear shaft ripped out of the block. It had worked a few hundred times before this. Not something that we could fix. We were screwed. Then Sam came to the rescue. The old car they brought along for spare parts had an F3. Sam told us we could use the engine but it needed a head gasket. They helped us pull the engine out of their car and gave us the head gasket. We knew that we would now miss the acceleration and skidpad but we were going to try to swap engines before the autocross.
Then we got the severe storm warning. The announcement was basically A severe storm warning has been issued and we expect the storm to hit in about 15 minutes. Pack up your stuff and get in that building.' We covered everything up. Then we loaded the engine and a couple of tool boxes and headed for the hotel. During the storm we rebuilt Idaho's engine in our hotel room. Someone asked us how we got everything into the hotel without anyone noticing. It was a first floor room so we just handed stuff through the window.
Now we knew that we wouldn't get it back together in time for the autocross. So we figured: "What the hell, we don't have anything else to do tonight and it's not like we ever sleep anyway." So the engine swap continued into the night (much more rain). We were running a dry sump with a very minimalist oil pan. To fit the new engine sans dry sump we cut a big hole in the tub so the pan could hang through. It was painful to watch but kind of fun at the same time.
Craig Taylor and Scott Young stopped by from Taylor Race engineering (http://www.taylor-race.com/)
Those guys are awesome. Craig helped Travis with some CV joint stuff. He was very impressed by all of our drivetrain stuff. We built everything around his tripod bearings (but made it lighter). Scott had extra snap rings in his pocket (and more parts in his car). I know that they were a big help to some other schools too.
Saturday:
Claude Rouelle stopped by on Saturday as we were putting the finishing touches on. He gave us some encouragement and said something to the effect of:
In five years you won't remember what your roll center was but you'll remember that Idaho lent you an engine and you worked this hard.' That's the important stuff.
We got everything done in time to run the endurance. Our driver got a few laps in and then spun out and couldn't restart the engine. Our battery was crap and we knew it going in. Oh well
Overall it was a lot of fun and a ton of hard work.
5595 miles on the school's van by the way as you load passengers you shift the CG up and to the rear (from the training course we had to take before we could drive the van).
Now some pictures.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Side%20view%20of%20car.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/body%20work%20mounted.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/front%2034%20view.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/high%20front.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/low%20car.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/rear%20view%20of%20car.jpg
Once the idler gear let go the cover blew off. See the gap
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Blown%20Cover.jpg
Engine rebuild in the pits
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/engine%20rebuild%20in%20the%20pits.jpg
Engine Rebuild in the hotel room
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Rebuild%20in%20the%20hotel%20room.jpg
Cutting a hole in the tub
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Modify%20the%20tub.jpg
We finally got out on the endurance track.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/On%20the%20endurance%20track.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Pushing%20Travis%20before%20endurance.jpg
Travis with the car.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Travis%20with%20the%20car.jpg
Our second steering wheel. Custom made.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Gold%20Chain.jpg
Some of you may be familiar with our sponsors:
Team Student Loans Racing is the money you got on loan for tuition and bought race car parts with instead.
Rev-Hone that is when you are having clearance issues and they work themselves out by Revolution (or running the engine or driving the car). Sometimes called self-machining.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Student%20loan%20racing.jpg
The Corn Palace in Mitchell South Dakota. We stopped by on our way back. The entire front of the building is corn. All of the pictures and words are different colored ears of corn.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/The%20Corn%20Palace.jpg
1. I know that some of you might be a little interested
2. Some of you have asked for pictures
3. This is what I have spent the last 2 years of my life doing and I'm proud of it.
Sam,
Kudos to you and the rest the University of Idaho team. You guys were great to us all the way from Montana.
To list some things:
Sunday:
We met up with Sam in Missoula, Montana and were going to drive the rest of the way with them. We had an open trailer and they had a nice enclosed trailer. They had an old car along for spare parts and Sam said that he could pull the engine and lay the car on its side to make room in their trailer for our car. We figured that it wasn't worth the effort but he was willing.
Wednesday:
I realized that I hadn't printed out our Safety Structure Equivalency Form Approval. Denny from UW let me use their printer.
Thursday:
We were going through tech on Thursday morning and I couldn't find the SSEF approval that I had printed out. We had three laptops with us and a printer. One laptop didn't have the right ports to connect to the printer, one wouldn't read CDs, and one wouldn't turn on. I borrowed Sam's digital camera and used it as an external drive. I shuffled some stuff around and ran back to Tech inspection to show the judge our approval on a laptop screen.
When we got to Detroit our projector wasn't working for the presentation event. Sam let us use the one they brought and gave us a heads up about some of the questions they had been asked. We would have been sunk without it.
Friday:
We got our car all sorted out in the morning and took some time in the practice area on our rain tires. The track was dry when the acceleration event opened so we moved out of the dynamic area and swapped to slicks. I pushed our first driver into the staging area for our acceleration run. I told the judge that we were ready to make our first acceleration run. She told us to pull on up and we could go. I told our driver to start the car. He hit the starter button and there was a pop. It sounded like a backfire. We couldn't get it to start. We pushed it back to the pits and began the investigation.
We had modified our F2's side cover over the charging system to belt drive our dry sump scavenge pump. Part of that cover supports the starter idler gear. That support in the cover broke because of our modifications and then the idler gear shaft ripped out of the block. It had worked a few hundred times before this. Not something that we could fix. We were screwed. Then Sam came to the rescue. The old car they brought along for spare parts had an F3. Sam told us we could use the engine but it needed a head gasket. They helped us pull the engine out of their car and gave us the head gasket. We knew that we would now miss the acceleration and skidpad but we were going to try to swap engines before the autocross.
Then we got the severe storm warning. The announcement was basically A severe storm warning has been issued and we expect the storm to hit in about 15 minutes. Pack up your stuff and get in that building.' We covered everything up. Then we loaded the engine and a couple of tool boxes and headed for the hotel. During the storm we rebuilt Idaho's engine in our hotel room. Someone asked us how we got everything into the hotel without anyone noticing. It was a first floor room so we just handed stuff through the window.
Now we knew that we wouldn't get it back together in time for the autocross. So we figured: "What the hell, we don't have anything else to do tonight and it's not like we ever sleep anyway." So the engine swap continued into the night (much more rain). We were running a dry sump with a very minimalist oil pan. To fit the new engine sans dry sump we cut a big hole in the tub so the pan could hang through. It was painful to watch but kind of fun at the same time.
Craig Taylor and Scott Young stopped by from Taylor Race engineering (http://www.taylor-race.com/)
Those guys are awesome. Craig helped Travis with some CV joint stuff. He was very impressed by all of our drivetrain stuff. We built everything around his tripod bearings (but made it lighter). Scott had extra snap rings in his pocket (and more parts in his car). I know that they were a big help to some other schools too.
Saturday:
Claude Rouelle stopped by on Saturday as we were putting the finishing touches on. He gave us some encouragement and said something to the effect of:
In five years you won't remember what your roll center was but you'll remember that Idaho lent you an engine and you worked this hard.' That's the important stuff.
We got everything done in time to run the endurance. Our driver got a few laps in and then spun out and couldn't restart the engine. Our battery was crap and we knew it going in. Oh well
Overall it was a lot of fun and a ton of hard work.
5595 miles on the school's van by the way as you load passengers you shift the CG up and to the rear (from the training course we had to take before we could drive the van).
Now some pictures.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Side%20view%20of%20car.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/body%20work%20mounted.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/front%2034%20view.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/high%20front.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/low%20car.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/rear%20view%20of%20car.jpg
Once the idler gear let go the cover blew off. See the gap
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Blown%20Cover.jpg
Engine rebuild in the pits
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/engine%20rebuild%20in%20the%20pits.jpg
Engine Rebuild in the hotel room
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Rebuild%20in%20the%20hotel%20room.jpg
Cutting a hole in the tub
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Modify%20the%20tub.jpg
We finally got out on the endurance track.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/On%20the%20endurance%20track.jpg
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Pushing%20Travis%20before%20endurance.jpg
Travis with the car.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Travis%20with%20the%20car.jpg
Our second steering wheel. Custom made.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Gold%20Chain.jpg
Some of you may be familiar with our sponsors:
Team Student Loans Racing is the money you got on loan for tuition and bought race car parts with instead.
Rev-Hone that is when you are having clearance issues and they work themselves out by Revolution (or running the engine or driving the car). Sometimes called self-machining.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/Student%20loan%20racing.jpg
The Corn Palace in Mitchell South Dakota. We stopped by on our way back. The entire front of the building is corn. All of the pictures and words are different colored ears of corn.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/James/Detroit%202004/The%20Corn%20Palace.jpg