So, three weeks ago (or so) I finally went to the competition that is the reason we've been building this car for the past year or so.
Started off with a midnight packing and loading session to get our Bus-turned-RV and trailer loaded up, then we started driving around noon.
Along the way, much work is done, as well as much sleep.
We got to our campsite next to Michigan International Speedway around... shit, 26? 30 hours later? Then we spent hours working on making sure the car was ready (setting basic toe, camber, and other suspension settings, inspecting to make sure everything passes tech inspection, etc), around 2AM we loaded the trailer back up and got maybe 5 or 6 hours sleeping before we headed over to the speedway.
Got over there, waited in line for a couple hours to get the trailer and bus into the paddock, then started working again. Mostly finalizing the stuff we weren't able to finish the night before. Then we got over to tech inspection, driver inspection, and passed through fairly easily.
From there we fueled and did the tilt test to make sure that there were no leaks, and the car couldn't roll when it experienced something like 2 or 3 G forces.
First test is taken up to 45 degrees, then the second is 60 degrees. These are done with the tallest driver to make sure the Center of Gravity is at it's highest. Our tallest driver was about 5'6" or so?
After that was exhaust testing, they make sure you don't exceed 110dBA at 19.5" from the exhaust exit while your engine is running at some certain RPM (our engine's speed is 7500RPM, the speed is determined by a certain piston speed I believe)
Then we did brake check, there they make sure that after accelerating for a certain distance you can lock up all 4 tires. We had a little trouble here for a variety of reasons. Finally were able to get them to lock up after resetting the weight bias of the car, changing the front/rear aero setup, and a couple other things (front were biting much much earlier than the rear)
Here's some pics of us setting up the car for that
Finally we passed tech completely, then we got to the Design competition. Here you have your design leads get grilled by all sorts of judges from all sorts of places. One of our electrical system judges was from Tesla, had a guy from Ford I think, etc.
After that we got ready for fueling, basically sat in a long line and waited to get fuel for the next couple of events, while you're there you get to see some of the other cars (or if your team has had a bunch of testing done and you have your shit together properly, you get to wander around the paddock, but it's rare to find any team that doesn't have anything to do to prep)
These guys had a CVT, thus the wing-motto
Auburn had a well put together car this year. I liked Univ of Florida's better as they are sponsored by Gulf, so they had the traditional Gulf colors on it and it really evoked thoughts of the Ford GT40 from the 60s with the Gulf livery. Was nice, unfortunately I didn't get any pics of it.
University of Hamburg had a glorious looking car, but I guess that's what you get when Audi sponsors you. Sounded so awesome. Unfortunately on the endurance section of the competition it ended up having a failure of the front left suspension A-arm and slid a good 75 yards or so. It's pretty damned scary seeing the speeds the better teams get up to, and seeing them fail.
It was cold as god damn. Wet as shit. Fuck Michigan
Not sure who this goober was with. Other than Jeebus
Finally we were ready to go hit up the practice pad and see if we were setup properly
So we got out there and raced. Auto-cross went rather well, and set us up for a start in the top half of the cars for the endurance race. Unfortunately in trying to stiffen the rear-wing we went a little git'r'done and put a rod-end in buckling. About two laps in and the rod end snapped, so we lost downforce in the rear. Combined with the fact that someone in the first half of the day puked oil across half the track and the workers didn't clean it well, and we slid into the wall at about 5-10MPH.
The end-plates broke, the elements were fine, our steering clevis broke, and when the rod-end in the back broke the rear wing element slammed into the roll bar breaking that wing element. Additionally our muffler was slightly restrictive so the front end-cap blew out
Front wings
Clevis
Rear wing
Rod-end that broke
Some blown out muff
Thus ended our performance in Michigan
So, we packed up, went to the awards ceremonies, etc. Afterwards we went and drank with a college that we've been friends with for several years (they are in Montreal, so they need testing space in early spring, we've hosted them a couple times.) They were drinking with the college that won first or second place overall
The trophy made a nice mug. It's too bad the beer they filled it with was shit.
So, we had a bad time with the accident during endurance. But at least we weren't R.I.T.
Aerodynamics were a big thing this year, however Uni of Michigan, Ann Arbor went a little overboard.
So, we got back on the road, went to stop at Kettering Uni in Flint and use their shop to rebuild some. I got fairly jealous of them while we were there. Huge shop that included a 4-post lift, CNC machine, dyno, etc. To top that off they use a trimester system, and every other trimester they spend taking no classes and working for Ford or Chevy, or some other large company working and getting paid as engineers. By the time they graduate they have 2.5 years of actual work experience.
While we were waiting for them to get out of class, we did some work in the parking lot
We started to try and fix the aero package. This involved a trip to Home Depot and a bandsaw.
Ultimately we realized we didn't have time to completely rebuild everything (rear wing was giving us fits,) so we stripped the wings, mounts, and changed the spring rates to accommodate running without them.
Then we went to Kitchener where we spent a day or two with Miltera, the makers of our steering rack. Great sponsors, they turned out replacement steering clevii for each corner of the car, all made out of Titanium as opposed to the 6061 we had used originally. They do amazing work, I'd love to have pictures and give more info, but they were working on stuff that they asked us not to take pics of. They've turned out stuff for LMP cars in the past though. http://www.miltera.com/what-weve-done.html
Then we went to Barrie, On for the Formula North competition. Very fun. Smaller, more intimate.
I'll finish this in a bit. I'm tired now.
Started off with a midnight packing and loading session to get our Bus-turned-RV and trailer loaded up, then we started driving around noon.
Along the way, much work is done, as well as much sleep.
We got to our campsite next to Michigan International Speedway around... shit, 26? 30 hours later? Then we spent hours working on making sure the car was ready (setting basic toe, camber, and other suspension settings, inspecting to make sure everything passes tech inspection, etc), around 2AM we loaded the trailer back up and got maybe 5 or 6 hours sleeping before we headed over to the speedway.
Got over there, waited in line for a couple hours to get the trailer and bus into the paddock, then started working again. Mostly finalizing the stuff we weren't able to finish the night before. Then we got over to tech inspection, driver inspection, and passed through fairly easily.
From there we fueled and did the tilt test to make sure that there were no leaks, and the car couldn't roll when it experienced something like 2 or 3 G forces.
First test is taken up to 45 degrees, then the second is 60 degrees. These are done with the tallest driver to make sure the Center of Gravity is at it's highest. Our tallest driver was about 5'6" or so?
After that was exhaust testing, they make sure you don't exceed 110dBA at 19.5" from the exhaust exit while your engine is running at some certain RPM (our engine's speed is 7500RPM, the speed is determined by a certain piston speed I believe)
Then we did brake check, there they make sure that after accelerating for a certain distance you can lock up all 4 tires. We had a little trouble here for a variety of reasons. Finally were able to get them to lock up after resetting the weight bias of the car, changing the front/rear aero setup, and a couple other things (front were biting much much earlier than the rear)
Here's some pics of us setting up the car for that
Finally we passed tech completely, then we got to the Design competition. Here you have your design leads get grilled by all sorts of judges from all sorts of places. One of our electrical system judges was from Tesla, had a guy from Ford I think, etc.
After that we got ready for fueling, basically sat in a long line and waited to get fuel for the next couple of events, while you're there you get to see some of the other cars (or if your team has had a bunch of testing done and you have your shit together properly, you get to wander around the paddock, but it's rare to find any team that doesn't have anything to do to prep)
These guys had a CVT, thus the wing-motto
Auburn had a well put together car this year. I liked Univ of Florida's better as they are sponsored by Gulf, so they had the traditional Gulf colors on it and it really evoked thoughts of the Ford GT40 from the 60s with the Gulf livery. Was nice, unfortunately I didn't get any pics of it.
University of Hamburg had a glorious looking car, but I guess that's what you get when Audi sponsors you. Sounded so awesome. Unfortunately on the endurance section of the competition it ended up having a failure of the front left suspension A-arm and slid a good 75 yards or so. It's pretty damned scary seeing the speeds the better teams get up to, and seeing them fail.
It was cold as god damn. Wet as shit. Fuck Michigan
Not sure who this goober was with. Other than Jeebus
Finally we were ready to go hit up the practice pad and see if we were setup properly
So we got out there and raced. Auto-cross went rather well, and set us up for a start in the top half of the cars for the endurance race. Unfortunately in trying to stiffen the rear-wing we went a little git'r'done and put a rod-end in buckling. About two laps in and the rod end snapped, so we lost downforce in the rear. Combined with the fact that someone in the first half of the day puked oil across half the track and the workers didn't clean it well, and we slid into the wall at about 5-10MPH.
The end-plates broke, the elements were fine, our steering clevis broke, and when the rod-end in the back broke the rear wing element slammed into the roll bar breaking that wing element. Additionally our muffler was slightly restrictive so the front end-cap blew out
Front wings
Clevis
Rear wing
Rod-end that broke
Some blown out muff
Thus ended our performance in Michigan
So, we packed up, went to the awards ceremonies, etc. Afterwards we went and drank with a college that we've been friends with for several years (they are in Montreal, so they need testing space in early spring, we've hosted them a couple times.) They were drinking with the college that won first or second place overall
The trophy made a nice mug. It's too bad the beer they filled it with was shit.
So, we had a bad time with the accident during endurance. But at least we weren't R.I.T.
Aerodynamics were a big thing this year, however Uni of Michigan, Ann Arbor went a little overboard.
So, we got back on the road, went to stop at Kettering Uni in Flint and use their shop to rebuild some. I got fairly jealous of them while we were there. Huge shop that included a 4-post lift, CNC machine, dyno, etc. To top that off they use a trimester system, and every other trimester they spend taking no classes and working for Ford or Chevy, or some other large company working and getting paid as engineers. By the time they graduate they have 2.5 years of actual work experience.
While we were waiting for them to get out of class, we did some work in the parking lot
We started to try and fix the aero package. This involved a trip to Home Depot and a bandsaw.
Ultimately we realized we didn't have time to completely rebuild everything (rear wing was giving us fits,) so we stripped the wings, mounts, and changed the spring rates to accommodate running without them.
Then we went to Kitchener where we spent a day or two with Miltera, the makers of our steering rack. Great sponsors, they turned out replacement steering clevii for each corner of the car, all made out of Titanium as opposed to the 6061 we had used originally. They do amazing work, I'd love to have pictures and give more info, but they were working on stuff that they asked us not to take pics of. They've turned out stuff for LMP cars in the past though. http://www.miltera.com/what-weve-done.html
Then we went to Barrie, On for the Formula North competition. Very fun. Smaller, more intimate.
I'll finish this in a bit. I'm tired now.
