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97'Scort
10-10-2010, 01:40 PM
I'm trying to track down any books that have good information on open wheel and autocross style racing, car design, and aerodynamics theory. It would be helpful if one of them discussed apexing.

I'm potentially one of the drivers for our FSAE team this year and I won't have much open wheel time before the event (probably) so anything is a big help for me. Any suggestions?

Edit: I should add that I have the following on backorder:

Going Faster! (Skip Barber)
Speed Secrets 1
Engineering to Win

H4LFY2nR
10-10-2010, 03:07 PM
Here's some more reading.

For car design and vehicle dynamics:
Race Car Vehicle Dynamics (Milliken&Milliken)
An Introduction to Race Car Engineering Vol1 (Rowley)

For aero:
Competition Car Aerodynamics (McBeath)
Race Car Aerodynamics (Katz)

For driving:
Bob Durant on High Performance Driving

Most importantly, build the car early and get out on the track. Set up a competition style course (aka. lots of 90deg bus stops) and learn the limits and heat management of the car. Also, see if you can find a large enough venue to set up a skid pad to practice and tune on.

Good luck

97'Scort
10-10-2010, 03:22 PM
We don't have the budget/facilities that you guys do, unfortunately. We're on track to have the car done earlier than we have in the past for sure, but how much cockpit time we get is still up in the air. It would be nice to get one of the old cars running again as well.

UVic has also brought forth some issues about us testing on campus, so suffice to say we have no testing venue for the time being. The local track is too expensive for us to book on a regular basis.

Toma
10-10-2010, 07:59 PM
Yeah, the Carrol Smith stuff is all good...

I dunno how much aero you guys have to worry about, when I tuned the car, the powerband was so flat, I think the guy said they could almost do the whole course in second.

As I see it from my limited expereince with the car... it has power, it's biggest downfall is you guys lousy budget, and the weight of the car.

Plus the hot restart problem, I think they mentioned something about when the Crank sensor was getting hot, it phsyciall touched the wheel....

I have the Miliken book, but its heavy on theory and probably some others I could lend you U of C tinkerers....

Maybe "Drive to Win" and "Prepare to Win" would be worthwhile....

I'll have a look see what I have.

97'Scort
10-11-2010, 12:17 AM
I'm in Victoria :) We've also dealt with the crank sensor issue, hopefully that won't be a problem. Also hoping MS3 helps some of our injection problems too.

Alpine Autowerks
10-11-2010, 05:34 AM
Get every book that Carrol Smith has. even the one on fasteners.

97'Scort
10-11-2010, 11:09 AM
I'll keep that in mind. The Engineering to Win one looks interesting.

Toma
10-11-2010, 12:53 PM
Originally posted by 97'Scort
I'm in Victoria :) We've also dealt with the crank sensor issue, hopefully that won't be a problem. Also hoping MS3 helps some of our injection problems too.

Megasquirt!?!?!?!?!

NOOOOOOOO!!! lol

97'Scort
10-11-2010, 01:26 PM
Hey, I just make the engine go. I'll let the sparkies decide what computer to use.

Graham_A_M
10-11-2010, 09:38 PM
Originally posted by Toma


Megasquirt!?!?!?!?!

NOOOOOOOO!!! lol
Whats your take on Megasquirt that makes it so bad?

Toma
10-11-2010, 11:09 PM
Originally posted by Graham_A_M

Whats your take on Megasquirt that makes it so bad?

Man, its like a crap shoot. Even electronic geniuses cant get it running right sometimes.

The system is incredibly sensitive to noise, and having it control your ignition is like Russian roulette... lots of scatter, if it works at all.

The MEgasquirt comminities typical answer to ignition problems is "convert to edis"... lol...

Well for fuck sakes lol.

I have NEVER seen one run right right out of the proverbial box.... worse, you'll do a tune, it will run right one day, then something goes funky the next. If I wanted that, I'd go back to a Edelbrock carburetor.

Plus... its not $150 anymore. Easy to spend $500.

Ye7 for ~$700 you can get a new haltech Sprint series, or depending what you are doing, there are tones of used systems on Ebay for cheap.

I got a 2JZ Aem for $900 the other day.... why on gods green earth would I want a megasquirt?

Unless you like to endlessly tinker.

Some very bright guys I know that were die hard megasquirters eventually just ran it fuel only mode, and then upgraded later to BigStuff 3 or the like.

97'Scort
10-11-2010, 11:44 PM
Our electronics guru says MS3 is a huge improvement and has an "auto-tune" mode that's supposed to take care of the basic mapping for you. The rest is just tinkering.

H4LFY2nR
10-14-2010, 01:01 PM
Originally posted by 97'Scort
We don't have the budget/facilities that you guys do, unfortunately. We're on track to have the car done earlier than we have in the past for sure, but how much cockpit time we get is still up in the air. It would be nice to get one of the old cars running again as well.

UVic has also brought forth some issues about us testing on campus, so suffice to say we have no testing venue for the time being. The local track is too expensive for us to book on a regular basis.

I wouldn't accept that as a valid excuse. Every endeavor for the rest of your life will have a perceived lack of resources and time. There will always be teams better off, and worse off than you, and the UofC team is definitely not at the top of the food chain in that respect.

To get a venue, you need to go to every mall parking lot authority, municipal airport, and kart track, within a couple hours drive of you, with the proper approach. Put together a sponsorship package that shows you have a written procedure for how you will protect your team, public bystanders, and their facilities from damage. Contact your university's risk management department to find out what insurance coverage the university has for its lab property (aka your team's property). It should also, include how you will compensate the venue with car, shirt, trailer, poster advertisements, event appearances etc. And be clear that your team will be responsible while representing their company. I would also re-approach your university and prove to them that your team is responsible enough not to be a liability if they let you test on campus.

We had 3 airports, 2 malls, and a kart track offer us testing time, so much that we never even needed to use all of them.

And don't tell me that it will be impossible to do that because your team is too small or the university hates you. Toma and RevHard can vouch for the number of people we had, and we got it done.

I hope to see you succeed,

Richard

Xtrema
10-14-2010, 01:17 PM
I learn everything I need to know from:

http://i.yai.bz/assets/36/550/l_p1014355036.jpg

:D

Toma
10-15-2010, 06:31 PM
I just flipped through my copy of Drive to Win....

Definitely looks worthwhile as a read.

And no lending stuff out to competition for my Alma Mater team. :poosie:

97'Scort
10-15-2010, 08:01 PM
^ Aww.

Richard, we've sent sponsor letters to every mall and airport (or business with a big enough lot) in Victoria all the way up to Duncan. We had almost zero response, and those that did respond denied us because they thought their liability was too high and couldn't be convinced otherwise. Believe me, I wouldn't be bitching about it if we weren't at a dead end.

I'm sure there's somewhere out there we could track down, but as it sits we are out of options. Gotta keep in mind that there isn't the kind of industry and development out here that you guys have back home. Big paved lots just don't exist, and other than the Vic airport, there isn't another one within an hour and a half drive.

BerserkerCatSplat
10-15-2010, 08:12 PM
If liability is a concern, talk to your University about their liability insurance arrangements. Depending on how often you need to do it, you can likely get "event" insurance for free that should be enough to cover anything you do. For instance, when I organized Western Shootout this year, all I had to do was talk to a University rep and ask for $6,000,000 worth of liability insurance, and it was ready to go for whenever I needed it, no questions asked. If you can go back to the mall, etc and say, look, we'll sign forms that remove all your liability and can prove we're totally covered, they'll likely be much more willing to work with you.

97'Scort
10-15-2010, 09:05 PM
Originally posted by BerserkerCatSplat
If liability is a concern, talk to your University about their liability insurance arrangements. Depending on how often you need to do it, you can likely get "event" insurance for free that should be enough to cover anything you do. For instance, when I organized Western Shootout this year, all I had to do was talk to a University rep and ask for $6,000,000 worth of liability insurance, and it was ready to go for whenever I needed it, no questions asked. If you can go back to the mall, etc and say, look, we'll sign forms that remove all your liability and can prove we're totally covered, they'll likely be much more willing to work with you.

UVic is denying us coverage, as far as I can tell. I can't go into the full reasons why because it's still being debated but we're covered for what we do at the shop only.

This is a university that won't let you have a beer gardens for a fundraiser. I bet we could literally get them on the floor laughing if we asked for $6 mil in liability.

CPat
10-17-2010, 10:38 AM
The books are fine for explaining the theory.
My personal experience (your's may differ) is that you have to learn to feel what the car wants to do. Reading the books will steepen the learning curve, but only purposeful driving will improve your skill.
I'm pretty sure the Vic porsche club and Victoria Motorsports club have events during the winter - participate. The ASN/FIA has a category for FSAE cars.
http://www.victoriamotorsports.ca/calendar.htm

Maybe you can also pool resources and attend some of the big early season US events down in San Diego and El Toro. VCMC and several Calgary members go down every year.

One of the local guys here in Calgary is involved with the SoloPro school. He's always (not to put words in his mouth) amazed at how much time, money, and energy gets put into the FSAE cars and not into their driving. Some US schools apparently are out every weekend in driving competitions (ie this could be a big competitive advantage). What about trying to coordinate a school with one of the local clubs?

EDIT: competitive advantage

H4LFY2nR
10-18-2010, 12:45 PM
Originally posted by 97'Scort

Richard, we've sent sponsor letters to every mall and airport (or business with a big enough lot) in Victoria all the way up to Duncan. We had almost zero response, and those that did respond denied us because they thought their liability was too high and couldn't be convinced otherwise. Believe me, I wouldn't be bitching about it if we weren't at a dead end.

I'm sure there's somewhere out there we could track down, but as it sits we are out of options. Gotta keep in mind that there isn't the kind of industry and development out here that you guys have back home. Big paved lots just don't exist, and other than the Vic airport, there isn't another one within an hour and a half drive.

Try getting in touch with the police dept or RCMP, as they will have driver training facilities too. If possible make some follow up calls and push for an in-person sponsorship presentation. Make sure to represent yourselves as a University Design Team, not a race car team, as that will help prevent people from throwing up the liability flags too quickly. Letters and emails are too easy for people to ignore.

It doesn't take a big parking lot to do installation laps on. The first 100km's on our car were done in a tiny 150mx50m parking lot to work out drivetrain, electrical, and reliability issues. Push on your university to back you. Our university wanted to scrap the whole team at one point, but by forcing the department heads to sit down with us to discuss the changes our team would implement to become a club that would reflect positively on the university's image rather than be a liability, we were able to convince them to put their support behind the team (which happened to include being allowed to test in a tiny parking lot on campus).

But like CPat is suggesting, your best bet is to make friends with ALL of the local car clubs and join in their events. Having a testing schedule planned now will help push your team to complete the car on time.

Finally, get in touch with other teams located close to the competition venue and ask if you can come down early to use their testing facilities. We spent 3 days testing at Cal Poly Ponoma before the compteition in 2009, doing everything from noise testing and accel launches to skid pads and auto-x practice.

But to answer the orignial question, don't make reading driving technique books a big priority. Finishing the car early to get ample seat time. The single most important thing will be to learn the braking limit of the car. The auto-x/endurance course at competition won't allow you to choose a racing line anyways, so focus on good braking and turn in for the minimum radius 90deg turn as listed in the rule book.


Also, try silent auction fundraisers at a local pub (so it can still involve beer). For a few hundred dollar investment, you will make 10X the money back. It's also easier for most businesses to donate in-kind sponsorship and swag than to give you straight cash.