So I figured ited be cool to update the progress of pitt's fsae car here!

Today we got the cbr600 rr engine, it looks sick as a bare long block (the porting and the air resistance is so much better than the miata head haha). We are lazer scanning it into the 3d cad program (solidworks), which is something im new to and is also really cool. Ill get some pics up asap!

Some pics of last years car :

 

Any aero work being done? Target weight? Space frame or monocoque? Any carbon work? I'm on Cal Poly's team.

 

Modern 600cc bike engines are things of beauty. 200 HP/Liter naturally aspirated, nuff said.

I would like to see those solid model scans. Can you export them as STL or some other similar format?

 

why go to the trouble of scanning it when its all available here:

http://www.wwufsae.com/Shared_FSAE_C..._Models/Honda/

 

space frame, and we use some carbon for body work. Weight.. well last years was high 400s if I remember right, trying to do lighter this year.

I guess ill see ya at the competition =)

 

That looks like an older one, some parts look different than the one we have (a brand new 08 engine)

 

Sweet man!

We have one of our meetings today at 7:30, and this is my first year working on the UCF FSAE car. Unfortunately Baja is bigger down here, but I we have a dedicated little bunch to the FSAE car.

Last year was the schools first time competing, and their goal was to just finish, which they did. This year our goals are a little higher, but for some reason the guys can't be talked into going FI. Odd seeing how through Greddy we can get a free brand new turbo, but yet they say it would be too complicated. Maybe next year when I have some input on the senior design...

 

Thats what the upperclassmen are like on my team. I could get a aerocharger for cheap, no oil or water lines, ited be pretty simple, and their responce is "we never go over 40 mph most of the time anyway."

When im an upperclassman ill try again, but sometimes these people can be too damn stubborn lol

But free track days almost every weekend with lastyears car is awesome so Im not complaining lolol

 

Interestingly some of the top teams are going away from the 600cc sportbike engines and going to 450cc motors.

I was on Iowa States FSAE team for a couple years but never got as involved as I wanted to. Too many things to split my time between. We did finish 7th a couple years ago though.

I've always wanted to own one just to autocross and screw around in. They are nasty w/o the restrictor.

 

same!!

 

Om im going to be one of the tuners for the engine, the performance electronics ecu we use is quite similar to MS

 

Even though i'm not in the College of Engineering, I've been wanting to check out FSU/FAMU's FSAE car for a while.

I wonder if I'm allowed to just come over and hang out.

 

I know Pitt doesent care who you are, go for it.

 

Yeah, we are using a Motec M4, and a Honda F4i motor. Unfortunately last years car is being converted to Formula Hybrid status, or I'd be all over driving that.

I brought up the Garrett sponsorship again, but most of the guys think everything is too complicated (). We are going to try and have the car together by Feb/Mar so we can make it to a few autocrosses and a track day or two at Sebring. I also found out that we have an in house dyno, but none of the software to use it for tuning. I'm going to try and find the parts we need whether in storage or through donation. Also today we got our shipment from Lockeed Martin in the form of a buch of tooling bits, a new (heavily used) CNC machine, and a huge roll of carbon fiber (should last us through 2015).

 

pictures of last years car =)

 

I was interested not so much in the engine itself, but the quality of the scan. We look into those tools from time to time where I work.

^ We did the same thing on our intake BTW, built it myself out of fiberglass. We had long tapers from the throttle body to the restrictor and then to the collector to reduce head loss. It works well but they look strange

FSAE is a crapload of work. It really was for us since my team was the first from our school to take a car to competition (UTSA). So more power to you guys for getting involved. It is good preparation for the 'real world' of R&D and project management regardless of whether you go into automotive engineering.

I had heard teams were switching to smaller motors. Someone the year I was there ran a single cylinder Rotax. It might have been one of the Canadian teams.

 

**** that stupid piece of ****. Absolutely no useful datalogging feature, no on-the-fly tuning (aside from this really shitty potentiometer-based thing), serious vibration-related reliability issues, blah blah blah. The only reason to use a PE is if you are using a 600cc, in which case PE will supply maps to get you started. Poly's team has been using a Yamaha WR450 for a few years now. I'm supposed to be tuning the motor this year and I've heard rumors of the electronics guys wanting to switch over to an ECU that will support a direct hookup with a Stack datalogger. Mabye a Motec is in the future?

Also, I had a couple conversations about a turbo with a few of the head guys, and I got a couple of them to go in-depth with me on exactly why it's so complicated. Basically, the issue is that the NA motors run through a 20mm restrictor, and the FI cars run through a 13mm restrictor. With a turbo, you must put the restrictor before the turbo inlet, so you are sucking through it. Once the turbo cranks up into its efficiency range, it quickly out drags the capability of that restrictor, and you end up with a vacuum in the compressor housing which draws oil past the seals and straight into the motor. No bueno.

 

Damn, that makes a lot of sense.

I never realized that you had to step down to a 13mm restrictor, but I had thought of the vacuum issue (not in depth with the oil seals in consideration). Hopefully though we will get the funding we need this year and bump up the compression to 13.5:1 and get some lower RPM cams so we can get more torque out if it.

 

Yeah it sounds like the rules are still the same. IIRC the order has to be throttle, restrictor, compressor, motor, which is not ideal. Even with the nozzle-diffuser approach, the flow speed in the restrictor gets to be very fast, like Mach 0.5 or higher, so head loss is a problem.

SAE is basically trying to keep the students from building a ridiculous engine and as a result killing themselves or someone else. But, just imagine what one could do with a 600cc I4, no restrictor, a turbo, and M85, in a less-than 400 lb car

 

Yup, it would be awesome.