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UTAS have made a lot of ambitious design changes and purchases this year. I feel the work I did last year to pull it all together has now led to second year overconfidence, some over stretching in designs, possible sacrifice in reliability etc. Where my emphasis is on using existing techniques, familiar parts, low cost, lowish weight, simplicity, improving everything by 10%, using less of my energy (this being the most important for me), finishing early etc... I feel our team leader is for high cost, new unknown techniques, higher weight (for stiffness), expensive parts $$, wings... (just cause), paddle shift, launch control (sounds cool) and anything carbon/shiny that the other teams are using without necessarily understanding what it is. So right there you can see the tension, added to that a FA that hasn't been able to verify or check our designs... and I had been on the edge of mental breakdown.
We had spent all of first semester (February to June) thinking about our concepts, calculations, keeping a wiki, designing in CAD. Lots of new members, some team leaders not having done FSAE before. Since July we have been building.
While our head team leader does an enormous amount of work, and I stomp on his designs to bring it back to reality, I can say we are meeting a balance and there are alot of positives right now.
- Honda CBR600RR - I like this - I am the tuner - engine is running
- rear track is narrower
- driver pos slightly lower
- Chassis is 4130 - added cost - but good I guess
- Chassis maybe heavier, stiffer, and we have a CNC alloy plate - I have again been doing the final TIG welding on chassis and wishbones.
- we have found more money and more free materials, much more organised with this
- we will have new tyres this time!
- fresh uprights again, also all new hubs and axles and wheel centers etc. (Staff are quicker on CNC)
- using aluminium honeycomb floor bandaged with carbon, steering rack bolted to this (was nervous, did tests...)
- the drivers and myself are all going to the gym with a trainer!
- Tilton 77's
- new rack
- weight loss in some parts, other students give you heavier parts... what can you do?
- 13" wheels
- 3D print plenum
- very very simple Motec M400 setup, no paddle shift or anything yet
- undertray, wings...]
So if it works, it will be awesome. If not heavy.