when do you know which way to go?

[nimdekvan]

i know this may sound stupid for many of you..
but i just really cant help.
the problem is that i dont know whether to be
an engine or a suspension guy...
i like them both, but as you can see
you cannot be the best by taking the two at the same time...

i know there must be some of you that have face
the same problem as i, so please let me know how you go thru this problem ...

thanks alot

[Fyhr]

Ask yourself the following:

Are you planning a carreer in either field, if yes, it would be very wise to get some experience in that field.

Are you taking more courses within one of those fields, if yes, why not make good use of your theoretical knowledge in practise.

If your answer is no to both of the above or you simply haven't decided yet, it may be wise to take a look at both, do some work in both areas, maybe take a look at the (for us in Lund undermanned) transmission area, which will give you a little bit of both and keep you well in touch with both engine and suspension.

Or perhaps you can make your team captain very happy by picking the group with the least resources people wise. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[exFSAE]

Good question. Tough call! Depends on a lot.. usually it sorts itself out. I was in a similar position. Started working a bit on engine group since suspension design as far as I was concerned was black magic.

I had been working a lot on wheel assembly design, since mechanical design and DFM was my thing, but got into pressure wave tuning and restrictor thermo and aerodynamics.. looking at cam profiles, etc. But then out of necessity when I was lead design engineer as a senior, we needed more people on suspension. Worked with tire data, knew some geometry from having done wheel assembly so much, and everything kinda fell into place.

So I wound up getting a good amount of exposure to both areas. I'd say give both a shot, tag along with both groups, see where you fit in or where you pick up the most knowledge.

[rjwoods77]

This is an easy question. There are waaaaaayyyyyyy more people who understand engine/powertrain than there are people who understand tres/suspension theory. A car that isnt so up on power vs its competition is closer to their competition than the same being said for tires/suspension. I would get into tire/suspension since it is a harder field to understand and since there arent many people who fully inderstand it. Also racecar design is driven by the suspension geometry, not hp requirements. Understanding tires/suspension will mean you will hopefully end up understandin the integration of it into a chassis, braking systems, steering systems, etc.

[D J Yates]

If you choose to study/design FSAE suspension, you'll be choosing to study vehicle dynamics and tyres too. They're all part of the same puzzle. If you apply yourself to this you'll learn a fantastic amount about cars as a whole. It's definately the choice if you want to become the next Patrick Head or Adrien Newey.

FSAE suspension is definately an accademic subject and mentally challenging. There's more scope for pratical work and 'traditional' engineering with engines.

If your still not sure. Don't worry. If you work hard and do well at either, you WILL be able to find a job that may provide access to the other. I was a suspension designer, got sucked into the world of vehicle dynamics simulation, landed a job where i learned about engines and wrote an engine simulation. Now i design transmissions.

[nimdekvan]

now i know that may be i ended up with transmission if i dont pick one of them soon.
btw engine is still new to me if compare with
suspension or vehicle dynamics.
...
i guess may be i know which way to go
thanks for all the comment.

[Peter7307]

I have to agree with the above comments about being both a good and tough question for which to post a suitable answer.

In racing in general engine power is used most of the time whereas suspension capacity is used all the time - or at least it should be.

Many car makers (The early efforts by Lotus being the most obvious example) built truly class winning cars around fairly mundane engines and transmissions.

In my opinion at least small improvements in suspension tuning can yield result far above similarly small improvements in engine power ; given a competent drive to utilise the advantage.

The above is of course only one person's opinion and treat it as you think best.

Cheers , Pete.

[Michael Royce]

Nimdekvan,
While i have a great deal resect and admiration for all the great ride & handling and chassis engineers with whom I have worked over the years, many of whom are now FSAE judges, if you are planning to get a job in the auto industry rather than in motorsport, I would suggest you look hard at working on the engine.

For the past 20+ years, the industry has been short of good engine engineers, especially calibration engineers. 20 years ago, Ford had a recruiting campaign for calibration engineers in Norwich, England, and the only automotive company around was Lotus! At about the same time, Bob Lutz, who was at Chrysler at the time, had to contact his opposite number at Ford, to ask him to stop pirating Chrysler's talent.
With the new fuel economy rules and upcoming emissions regulations, the auto industry is really going to need talent in this area. With 4-5 good years under your belt, (and it will take that sort of time to learn the complexities of today's emissions and control systems), the world should be your oyster.

[Biggy72]

Also look at how many teams can't finish endurance because of something going wrong with their engine or a system related to it. I personally can drive an ill handling car, but if it won't run not much can help.

Something else to look at is who's currently on the team. What areas are other people working on. If there is someone that's a senior that could pass something on to you that would help get as much out of it as you can. On the other hand if there's a particular system that needs improvement and nobody else is working on it then maybe that's where your emphasis should be.

[rjwoods77]

Nimdekvan,

I have to echo the point Micheal Royce made. My previous comment was geared more toward racing and not OEM. I am currently working as an EMS Application Engineer (engine management systems) at Delphi here in Rochester NY and my first 5 months here has been an eye opener. In our EMS units there are about 7000 different engine calibrations that work in concert with each other to meet the laws of the US. There are about 50 or 60 alone to make an ETC(electronic throttle control) work. For FSAE it is simple because you just deal with a couple maps and simple beginning cals and off you go. In the OEM world there are thousands of maps and cals that you MUST go through in order to get a car tuned to meet govt regs. The real hard part is the diagnostics. This is the time consumer because your EMS must be able to communicate failures of software and hardware in terms of OBD2 codes on you dashboard. The failure criteria to get those to work correctly in some cases can be mind boggling. I was hired and went right into PVET testing two cars to get govt. certification on those cars. A TON of effort to get them to fail and even more to set them up. You also have to deal with communication problems between various control units for the transmission, body control systems to name a couple. Also to note the industry is hard up for people who understand this or can come to understand this all especially since 4 days ago it was new CAFE regulations were introduced. Good for me because that is job security for the next 20 years if I stay in this side of the business which I probably will. So Micheal Royce was absolutely correct on his statement. Anyway OEM suspension engineering deals more with NVH(how to make a car ride like a couch) than it does with anything else. I have seen the undersides of a lot of new cars and I cant tell you how much shoulder shrugging I do because of the performance trade-offs that are made in order to make a car handle and sound like a couch. That is unless you are doing a high performance car but there aren't many of those. Then again there is only so much you can do with the junk quality tires that OEM cars are engineered to work with.