The only time I see a FSAE car is at the Old Devens Air Strip for a Solo II.
I have been doing this since approximately 1964 and I would never consider
using one of those cars for a track, but they are great little Solo II cars
for people who want to race what I think could be a low bucks formula car.
They run in their own class and they seem to have a lot of fun driving them.
If I had the money I would think about having one built! But I don't so
that is why I am pushing for people to look to the future with and I will
say it very clearly "4 (FOUR) STROKE CVT SNOWMOBILE ENGINES", NOT BIKE
ENGINES WHICH REQUIRE SHIFTING. I got a F440 now F500 to get a way from a
Solo V I could not afford to update and build an engine and proper Solo II
gearbox. Yes very very very different than a Long or Short box for Road
Racing FV. Read the Solo V rules and you will see!!!
BobbyJ
#15 Fmod NER SCCA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve K. Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 2:54 PM
Subject: RE: [F500] Fsae cars as alternative
FSAE cars are completely different vehicles and should never be
considered track worthy. The best among them weighs about 420lbs and
puts out around 100hp. The frames are very lightweight and generally
fabricated by students with little experience in fabrication much less
welding or proper material selection. Most of the time the students have
little to no racing or vehicle design background (because they're
students so how would they?) and no real vehicle data or history to work
with, save for the generally applicable works of Milliken, VanValkenberg
and Carroll Smith.
It is a great design competition which allows students a chance to build
a real product complete with budgeting, lead times, late suppliers,
people who don't show up etc.. And some teams come up with some very
fast cars and very advanced/innovative designs. I wouldn't say any of
them were worthy of wheel to wheel competition from a structural
standpoint. It's not what they're meant to do.
My 0.02.
Steve Thompson
Clarkson FSAE 1997
Altair Engineering FSAE Award Judge 2000-2004
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:f500-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Les Francisco
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 2:14 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [F500] Fsae cars as alternative
The FSAE cars are engineering exercises, some are quite spectacular
and I
think it's a great experience for the students involved. I often work
the
international FSAE competition in the Detroit area and the Saginaw
Valley
region runs a limited (8 teams or so) competition a right afterward.
The
endurance competition is about 20 laps, if 1/3 of the teams finish
that
is a pretty good showing, this year the SVSU team went through 6
gearboxes, many of the teams don't make it to the dynamic tests at
all
because of design/build problems or inability to get the thing
running.
Formula SAE is nothing like F500.
Les
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