Thought I’d post up here to get the team some exposure/interest. We are a group of students (mostly engineering) at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and compete in the Formula SAE west division. It’s an international engineering competition between Universities that allows us to apply what we’ve learned in the class room into a practical environment. FSAE has a number of set rules (mainly for safety reasons). The basic formula is 4 wheels, open wheel, less than 610cc and a 20mm restrictor plate. This leaves a lot of room for development in kinematics, aerodynamics and powertrain (cars can be forced induction, NA, 4 cyl, twin, single cyle, etc). There’s also no minimum weight so building with weight in mind is critical. Actual competition consists of dynamic and static events. Static events include design judging, cost report, tech inspection and a marketing presentation. Dynamic events include acceleration runs, skidpad, autocross, brake test, and an endurance event. For more info on the team, check out:
http://uoitmotorsports.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
UOIT is a very new school and the team has only been around since 2007. We consider ourselves as kind of an under dog with a pretty small budget (6th cheapest car this year!). Other schools have been competeing since the 90’s and budgets range anywhere from 10’s of thousands to 100’s of thousands of dollars. Here’s a time line of our cars:
F2007:
-very overbuilt
-13" wheels
-stock gixxer 600
-rookie of the year winner
-steel tube frame
F2008:
-similar to 2007
-much lighter
-improved geometry
F2010:
-carbon fiber/aluminum honeycomb hybrid front monocoque
-steel tube rear frame section
-gixxer 600
-full aerodynamic package
-13" wheels
-the chassis/aero package on this car won OCE last year
Most of our senior members graduated last year so it was like starting fresh all over again. The team decided to do yet another complete redesign, but this time to keep it much simpler. The idea was to design a simple, smaller, cost effective chassis that we could use as a “base car” for the upcoming years. Each year we will keep a similar format but make slight improvements in kinematics, aero, remove weight, engine tuning, etc… For F11, we decided on:
F11:
-single cyclinder Kawasaki KFX450R
-steel tube frame
-10" wheels
-pull rod suspension (bottom mount)
-inboard rear brakes
-composite half shafts (student final design project)
-aluminum rear subframe
-multilink rear suspension
-sheet steel uprights
-light weight and cost effective
Huge thanks to all our sponsors, particularly our title sponsor, Durmach Tooling
Next post, the build process…
