The formula car I'm working on

[Rubber]

As many of you may have remembered, back in August I resigned from being moderator. This was primarily due to the fact that I was extremely busy working on my senior project (college).

My project is to design suspension and steering systems for a formula 1 car. This car is roughly 2/3 the size of a real formula 1 car. It will be powered by a 500cc 2 cylinder, 4-stroke engine.

As of right now, the frame is completely welded, the body is mostly done, and suspension and steering parts are almost ready to bolt on. Even though I am supposed to be doing suspension things, I worked a lot on the frame and body. We got the frame complete in 6 days. Over those 6 days, I worked 116 hours.

Here are some updated pictures of the project so far. The frame weighs 62 pounds (28kg). The body weighs approximately 2 pounds (0.9kg). It's light...

The frame pieces arranged in the jig we built to hold it while welding:



Frame being welded:



Part of the team with the welded frame (I'm second from right):



About how it will look:



Laying carbon fiber on the body mold:



Finished body (the black thing) next to mold used to create it:

[Terrorista310]

I no engineer but that head bar protection (in case of flip) its a bit higher..
It will affect the aerodynamics of the F1...

[Rubber]

I no engineer but that head bar protection (in case of flip) its a bit higher..
It will affect the aerodynamics of the F1...

We have a 161 page book of rules we must follow....The rollbar is that high to meet the rules. Another reason is due to scaling laws. You can scale a car, but you can't scale the driver...so his head sticks up the same amount either way, hence the high rollbar.

[Bruno_2MLG4CT]

When i was reading and watching this pictures, i realized just one.
I am

[DeHavilland]

Good work, would be nice to see a video!

One of the drivers from our club (KrsSUA) is driving this one in FINRACE Formula Ford cup

[Rubber]

Good work, would be nice to see a video!

One of the drivers from our club (KrsSUA) is driving this one in FINRACE Formula Ford cup

Formula Ford is awesome. I wish we could do that. The one we are doing is similar, but just has more rules. The car is more designed for autocross events, which means lots of acceleration and deceleration and tight turns. Here is a good video of what it looks like. In the video you can see him racing against other cars, but he is really just doing a time-trial against himself.

[Vinny]

What is your budget for this project ?

[Rubber]

What is your budget for this project ?

$10,000 USD

[TheShetlandSheepdog]

Goodluck,looks nice.
I"m not a big fan of such races.
I wanted to like races on circuits with streetversions of cars.
Than you see who is the real best.

[Rubber]

Goodluck,looks nice.
I"m not a big fan of such races.
I wanted to like races on circuits with streetversions of cars.
Than you see who is the real best.

The whole point of this is to determine which school is the best at designing a race car. Keep in mind we design and build every aspect of this car ourselves (except the engine). We make our own brake rotors, uprights, a-arms, pushrods, tie-rods, seat, firewall, body, frame, axles, differential, sprockets, pedals, steering wheel...you name it, we make it. This is a competition between approximately 150 colleges from around the world. Competition is on May 8th.

[TheShetlandSheepdog]

Nice .
Lets hope your school wins.
You are all good started .

[Vinny]

Good luck with this Rubber

[DeHavilland]

Good work, would be nice to see a video!

One of the drivers from our club (KrsSUA) is driving this one in FINRACE Formula Ford cup
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Formula Ford is awesome. I wish we could do that. The one we are doing is similar, but just has more rules. The car is more designed for autocross events, which means lots of acceleration and deceleration and tight turns. Here is a good video of what it looks like. In the video you can see him racing against other cars, but he is really just doing a time-trial against himself.

Very nice one! When I heard the Autocross, is it like crosscarts then? Like we have here in Finland? My step father builded a big cart in late 60's in the highschool with his class, he still got it but not working, so I when I go to him next time I could take a picture of it.

[Rubber]

Sorry for the late reply, but I haven't had time to post in a while due to my big project. Shown below are some updates to it. Feel free to ask questions.

Color combo is lime green and black.

All the black in the first few pictures is a lightweight polyester aircraft grade fabric covering. They are air ducts for the radiator.

[MexicanGangster6840]

It's look great!

Keep up the good work!

[GeneralLee]

It looks very good! .. I like it :X

[sardarji]

It's look great!

Keep up the good work!

[Marccc]

Very very nice work man, cant wait to see a video when youre driving it.
I'm doing a study Mechanical Engineering, but i have a shit project :S

[Terrorista310]

nice bumping   

[Ethan]

nice bumping

um its Rubbers topic so he can update when he feels like it

[Terrorista310]

nice bumping

um its Rubbers topic so he can update when he feels like it

I thought there was a rule about bumping topics older than 30 days...

[Rubber]

nice bumping

um its Rubbers topic so he can update when he feels like it

I thought there was a rule about bumping topics older than 30 days...

I don't come on here much anymore because all my time is taken up by this car so I haven't had time to update it in a while. Instead of starting a new topic I figured I would continue an old one. I'm pretty sure I can add to my own existing topic. A few people wanted to see some pictures of the car...now chill already.

[Terrorista310]

I'm not against you rubber, i personaly thing that bumping topics rule is a joke, that's why we have +100 k posts in the forum, i dont see why players sometimes bump 3 or more old topics and nothing happen, but some guys bump one and get 15% warn on forum, this justice is out of control.

[Rubber]

I'm not against you rubber, i personaly thing that bumping topics rule is a joke, that's why we have +100 k posts in the forum, i dont see why players sometimes bump 3 or more old topics and nothing happen, but some guys bump one and get 15% warn on forum, this justice is out of control.

I think bumping has its place. If I thought I went out of bounds here I wouldn't have done it. I just figured it was my topic so I could do whatever with it. I thought the bumping rule was in place to keep people from bumping year-old topics just to say "nice mod" or something like that. But thanks for understanding.

[Terrorista310]

 

[Rubber]

Here is the car on its wheels as of 2 days ago. We hope to have it driving in a couple of days. Competition is a month away and we are still having engine problems. Right now it looks like I'm going to be one of the drivers.

For those that are curious, drive train is a CVT (continuously variable transmission), same as a snowmobile. The CVT is hooked to a chain which drives a sprocket. Wheels are 21.5 inch Hoosier slicks.

The only thing we haven't designed/made on this car are: the engine, bearings, wheels, tires, steering wheel, and chain.

Some of you may have noticed I haven't been on the server so much lately. That's because this is taking 120+ hours a week of my time.

[RaceRX]

are you having the camber tuned to average turn body roll? Or is your frame super rigit and not need much camber?

[Rockey]

This looks boss! 

[Nate]

What's the average speed these things travel at? The driver in the video you posted seemed to be really hauling ass on some parts.

[Rubber]

are you having the camber tuned to average turn body roll? Or is your frame super rigit and not need much camber?

We have roughly 1.5 degrees of camber change over 3 degrees of body roll. We aren't expecting to get more than 2.5 degrees of body roll around a 1.5G turn (can't get more than 1.5G with the tires we have). Caster is about -6 degrees. Toe hasn't been adjusted yet. We only have 1 inch of jounce and 1 inch of rebound in suspension travel.

Nate, the average speed is about 50mph on the course. It is a lot of accelerating and decelerating. The fastest he achieved on the track was probably 80mph. As one of the requirements of the competition, all the engine air must be restricted through a 20mm restrictor plate. This basically dummies down the engine by 40%. Without the restrictor, our car would go 140mph+.

[RaceRX]

are you having the camber tuned to average turn body roll? Or is your frame super rigit and not need much camber?

We have roughly 1.5 degrees of camber change over 3 degrees of body roll. We aren't expecting to get more than 2.5 degrees of body roll around a 1.5G turn (can't get more than 1.5G with the tires we have). Caster is about -6 degrees. Toe hasn't been adjusted yet. We only have 1 inch of jounce and 1 inch of rebound in suspension travel.

Nate, the average speed is about 50mph on the course. It is a lot of accelerating and decelerating. The fastest he achieved on the track was probably 80mph. As one of the requirements of the competition, all the engine air must be restricted through a 20mm restrictor plate. This basically dummies down the engine by 40%. Without the restrictor, our car would go 140mph+.

i hate restictions.

[Rubber]

Finally got the car driving for the first time. Here is a video of me driving it (click on the image to view). This isn't the full performance of the car because we have the throttle restricted to only open 1/2 way during testing. The slicks were also really wet so they didn't grip real well. Body removed for testing to make it easier to tune suspension/steering. It's pretty fun.

[Dynamo]

lol engine was so loud it set off a car alarm


Nice testing can't wait to see it on the track.

[Rubber]

lol engine was so loud it set off a car alarm


Nice testing can't wait to see it on the track.

Yeah, the video shows the engine with no muffler packing/baffles, so it's just a little loud (124 decibels to be exact, which is louder than front row at a concert).

[TheSandman]

Photobucket for videos is sooooooo god damn slow

But that looks freaking epic mate

[Rubber]

Photobucket for videos is sooooooo god damn slow

But that looks freaking epic mate

I know sorry, I wanted to keep all the images/videos in one place. And thanks for the compliment! 

[Rockey]

that sound is so crazy!