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Thanks for the picture John. I agree that in this particular situation another member is needed, but what about the case where that forward roll hoop brace does not exist? As far as I can tell (and I may be reading/interpreting incorrectly), the side impact structure is now illegal?Quote:
Originally Posted by John_Burford
This confuses me as well. The reasoning behind the throttle moving behind the compressor that I heard was to make the turbo system more relevant to production cars which are becoming more and more turbocharged, yet you aren't allowed to use a recirculation valve? Which is an integral component of every single production gasoline turbo system? Without a recirc valve you put the compressor into surge every time you close the throttle, which will destroy the thrust bearing in short order. The only solutions I see are:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jan_Dressler
1. Replace the turbo every 5 hours of driving
2. Design a custom ball bearing center section to take the thrust load (no you can't buy a ball bearing turbo in the size you need for FSAE)
3. Switch to a diesel engine
4. Never let the throttle close further than 20% or so to keep the turbo from surging, maybe you could use some engine calibration magic to get this to work?
Were the rules makers trying to find a way to make implementation of the turbo more difficult so it isn't as much of an easy button? If so, I can think of way better options that don't drive such ridiculous workarounds/ rapid hardware destruction. It's like requiring teams that run carbon suspension to mount sharp pieces of steel that gouge the a-arms each time they move up or down.
The new ETC rules specifically prohibit a throttle position >10% under 'hard braking', without any sort of reasoning or logic other than the EV cars can't run positive current in the same scenario. So, even though there's no technical reason to prevent this solution (and it's seriously a great thing to do, for all kinds of efficiency reasons as well) you can't.Quote:
Originally Posted by GXP_Matt
Yeah, but who in their right mind would run an electronic throttle with all those rules limiting what you can do with it? Tons of extra work for no reward.
With an MTC throttle, you can't pull enough spark to idle at 20% throttle (which you would have to set the mechanical stop to to achieve this) and still meet the new 100 dBC idle noise limit.Quote:
Originally Posted by GXP_Matt
Aren't these new rules fun?
Kevin,
I personally think that you don't have to "track" or "decide" if new rules are successful. If you still plan to do that, it can only be "How many incidents due to X happened the year before we changed the rule and how many occured afterwards?".
I'm way too young to debate you on this - in my period of FSAE, we had the introduction of Electric rules -> Did not change to much for us because they are based on the German rules and we participated at every German event, so the car was always built to their set of rules. And of course a lot of safety related changes caused by burning electric cars / battery packs and so on.
AF Rules are not really important - if you don't build your car that way, just skip them. I really don't care that the rules are 22 pages longer if I can skip those 22 pages.
EV Rules in the "regular rulebook" are the same - just skip them if you build an IC car.
In my opinion, the rules should guarantee safety and some major guidelines to have all cars in a small but exsisting variety. Minimal wheelbase is such a point, the restrictor for IC cars and the power limit for EV cars, but that's about it.
I like the idea of old FSAE guys re-writting the rules to kill all unnecessary stuff, but I will not participate in such a "committee" unless I know that the RC will listen to those guys.
If that will work, I'm part of it and I think it can help a lot... But I don't think it will ever happen.
As noted in another recent thread, I don't have any connection with the Rules Committee.
From my perspective as a design judge, a shorter and more concise rule book would certainly be welcome.
One convenient method for group editing is a wiki. For example, a new section could be added to the existing rules section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_SAE -- paste in an ascii copy of the current rules and let everyone have at. If there are page limits on Wikipedia, then perhaps only the "currently contentious" sections of the rule book could be posted for editing & streamlining. Probably a good idea to keep backups in case Wikipedia decides they don't like this use of their servers...
Doug, a wiki is not difficult to setup, with many teams I know of running their own private wikis for documentation, etc. I will shortly have my own server with a wiki to do my own development on, and it would be little effort to host one for something like a FSAE rules discussion, likely many other teams would have this ability too. It would be very useful tool as it tracks changes and they do revision history well in a colaborative environment.
Although as mentioned, there appears to be little regard for accepting involvement from anyone outside of the rules committee.
Julian, I believe that the rules require a defined set of goals and a method to track their effectivness. Otherwise how do know what are you actually trying to achieve and it is actually improving. They purely become personal opinion and lack basis or direction. As I have mentioned earlier (or in the other thread), all competitions should be recording incidents, cause, severity or something along these lines to try and improve the safety of the competition (which is the greatest intent of the rules in my opinion). These facts can be used to determine the probability/ consequence involved and how to mitigate them.
Rules T3.5.5, does the note make any sense to anyone?
Uhmmm.....NO! The wiki idea is great, I was also thinking taking a knife on the rules on a collaborative basis, so count me in!Quote:
Originally Posted by Westly
I have started another thread to this end. Please start making comments, and/or volunteer to be an editor. We can start on the forums to build on an already active community. Having a good look through in the last couple of days and the task is pretty big. A lot of small contradictions and unnecessary cross references have crept in.Quote:
Originally Posted by mech5496
For example, here's one I haven't seen mentioned yet:
Penalties for Rule S4.16, S6.8, T3.22.7, T3.9.5, A5, are contradictory with A8.4.1.
Kev