T. Neff
08-23-2010, 11:30 PM
First off, sorry for the long winded post, but our team is calling for other teams participation in a comparison of power-train setups.
Here at Colorado State, we have been running a longitudinal engine with a
driveshaft for over a decade. Many of you come visit our tent at West and ask
about the setup. The judges ask about the setup. The fact is, we really
don't know much about it other than we execute it well and we get unique
points for it. We like that it is reliable because we don't throw any
chains or tensioners etc, but one could argue that a well developed chain
drive system would do the same thing.
We are not building a new car this year and developing the current car
instead. One of the projects our team has started is acquiring solid information about running a
longitudinal vs transverse setup, especially since this is a "sensitive question" in
design judging. Specifically, we are looking for a quantifiable difference in weight, yaw MOI, roll MOI, and anything else.
We are building our own rig to test the difference in yaw and roll MOI
with lateral and longitudinal engine, and formula vs go kart driving
positions. Common sense will tell you what to expect, but we are looking
for NUMBERS. So we can say to the judges, the yaw inertia is about X
percent different, but the roll inertia is Y percent different. What we
don't have is any legacy cars with a lateral setup and chain drive to
compare weights.
Some of you may have been thinking about making the switch. Or maybe you
like your chain drive and want to know how much lighter it is than our
setup.
We are looking for a team who runs a transversely mounted 600, who would be
willing to compare component weights and inertias with us. A car using an R6 engine and 4130 frame is preferred since thats what we run, but if not we can defiantly make exceptions.
For example,we are looking for things like:
-Differential, cv carrier, halfshaft weights
-Chain & sprocket weight and inertia vs our driveshaft
-The extra steel tubes needed to hang our diff vs your mounting system
-Exhaust weight
-Weight of engine mounting tubes vs your system
-Anything else that might need to change to switch from one setup to the
other.
If you are interested, get in touch. We will work something out and send you spreadsheet with the information we have that we are looking to compare. The information we exchange would be exclusive between the teams participating.
Yes, we could draw this all up in CAD, but there are many different ways it is done. In a fraction of the time spent doing CAD we just weighed our parts last time we had the car apart and figured other teams do too. Besides what happens in CAD doesn't always come out that way in real life!
Here at Colorado State, we have been running a longitudinal engine with a
driveshaft for over a decade. Many of you come visit our tent at West and ask
about the setup. The judges ask about the setup. The fact is, we really
don't know much about it other than we execute it well and we get unique
points for it. We like that it is reliable because we don't throw any
chains or tensioners etc, but one could argue that a well developed chain
drive system would do the same thing.
We are not building a new car this year and developing the current car
instead. One of the projects our team has started is acquiring solid information about running a
longitudinal vs transverse setup, especially since this is a "sensitive question" in
design judging. Specifically, we are looking for a quantifiable difference in weight, yaw MOI, roll MOI, and anything else.
We are building our own rig to test the difference in yaw and roll MOI
with lateral and longitudinal engine, and formula vs go kart driving
positions. Common sense will tell you what to expect, but we are looking
for NUMBERS. So we can say to the judges, the yaw inertia is about X
percent different, but the roll inertia is Y percent different. What we
don't have is any legacy cars with a lateral setup and chain drive to
compare weights.
Some of you may have been thinking about making the switch. Or maybe you
like your chain drive and want to know how much lighter it is than our
setup.
We are looking for a team who runs a transversely mounted 600, who would be
willing to compare component weights and inertias with us. A car using an R6 engine and 4130 frame is preferred since thats what we run, but if not we can defiantly make exceptions.
For example,we are looking for things like:
-Differential, cv carrier, halfshaft weights
-Chain & sprocket weight and inertia vs our driveshaft
-The extra steel tubes needed to hang our diff vs your mounting system
-Exhaust weight
-Weight of engine mounting tubes vs your system
-Anything else that might need to change to switch from one setup to the
other.
If you are interested, get in touch. We will work something out and send you spreadsheet with the information we have that we are looking to compare. The information we exchange would be exclusive between the teams participating.
Yes, we could draw this all up in CAD, but there are many different ways it is done. In a fraction of the time spent doing CAD we just weighed our parts last time we had the car apart and figured other teams do too. Besides what happens in CAD doesn't always come out that way in real life!