Custom power train?

[dazz]

Hi,

I'm trying to track down info on teams that have attempted significant modification of their power train. So far I have found the WWU Viking XXX V8, & Will Attards 430 turbo twin. I have found mentions of teams removing the gearbox in favour of a CVT, but can't seem to find any detail or links.

Reason I am asking is that I'm planning to design something along the lines of what the WWU team did, though sacrificing a little weight minimisation for low cost and ease of manufacture.

The goal is to design a kit that converts a specified donor engine to an integrated power train more suited to a formula style car. Things like cost, availability of parts, chassis and suspension integration and packaging, and reliability rank highly, while still shooting for acceptable balance of performance 'vs' weight. Of course it would be great to have access to a fully kitted out engineering company and the pick of donor parts from the most exotic motors on the planet, but I'm hoping to come up with something that would be within reach of most FSAE teams both in terms of cost and resources.

Thoughts and/or sources of info welcomed!

Darren,

Deakin - Aust.

[dazz]

Hi,

I'm trying to track down info on teams that have attempted significant modification of their power train. So far I have found the WWU Viking XXX V8, & Will Attards 430 turbo twin. I have found mentions of teams removing the gearbox in favour of a CVT, but can't seem to find any detail or links.

Reason I am asking is that I'm planning to design something along the lines of what the WWU team did, though sacrificing a little weight minimisation for low cost and ease of manufacture.

The goal is to design a kit that converts a specified donor engine to an integrated power train more suited to a formula style car. Things like cost, availability of parts, chassis and suspension integration and packaging, and reliability rank highly, while still shooting for acceptable balance of performance 'vs' weight. Of course it would be great to have access to a fully kitted out engineering company and the pick of donor parts from the most exotic motors on the planet, but I'm hoping to come up with something that would be within reach of most FSAE teams both in terms of cost and resources.

Thoughts and/or sources of info welcomed!

Darren,

Deakin - Aust.

[jrickert]

Weight is a killer in these setups. Even the WWU car was very heavy.

[Charlie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by jrickert:
Weight is a killer in these setups. Even the WWU car was very heavy. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Very heavy? I don't recall that, especially for the time period. How heavy was it?

[dazz]

Just looking at the photo's, the WWU car appears a little larger than your average FSAE, especially by todays standards. So comparing weight with the single cylinder weight weenies that is becoming common place is unfair. There must have been some final year projects/ thesis' written on the V8, I'd love to get a copy if anyone is still in contact with some of the guys from that era.

P.S.
I'm looking at designing a boxer twin, transaxle using the Suzuki SV650 as a donor. De-stroked, the bore/stroke ratio doesn't get crazy, and although the heads aren't the lightest design, they are pretty good little performers and there are plenty of them around. An Aprilia 550 would be interesting as a starting point, but I wanted something a little less 'on the edge'. I've purchased a repairable write-off from the auctions and plan to start modelling engine parts as soon as exams are over. (which is very soon, thanks to Deakin's stupid trimester system)

Hopefully more later...

Darren.

[MalcolmG]

boxer twin sounds awesome, infact my mental idea of the perfect FSAE car uses one of them (I'd probably go smaller though, don't really need the power of a 600, i'd probably be aiming somewhere between 400-500cc)

[Adambomb]

Don't forget Kettering's '07 car, with its custom Mahle inline longitudinal 3 cyl. 600 with transaxle. Don't have any info about it other than a couple spy pics I took at competition, although in honesty it looks like their innovation was paid for in that pretty much the entire rest of the car looked like a compromise. That's pretty much to be expected though...just like WWU not passing tech...a cool concept, just not competitive in the end. Just checked out Kettering's website, and what did they run in 2009? One of those "weeny singles."

But even if those cars weren't wildly successful, they certainly were feats of engineering...how many other cars gained that level of notoriety? Certainly makes for some interesting conversation in a job interview as well.

Although there is one wildly successful heavily custom engine I can think of off-hand, UAS Graz's single in their '08 car. Student designed F1-quality (according to the design judges) piston, Eaton blower, I believe it had Rotax head, some sort of custom variation of a bottom end from another make, and it made 86 hp. The rest of the car was also very good, and they placed top 10 in several events with it.

As for another alternative for a boxer twin, I stumbled across a late-model Honda 600 boxer twin...although it comes in a Silver Wing and makes something like 37 hp. It would take a lot of work to turn it into a screamer, but I imagine a lot of it is fairly overbuilt from the factory.

[Thomas MuWe]

@adambomb:

Thx for the compliments! :-) Actually we were 3 out of 4 in the top 10 and finished 3 out of 4 endurance.

The basic engine is a Rotax 450 cc from a ATV. It had a self designed supercharger drive with a RSV 1000 cylinder head. It made 193 hp per litre on the FSG 2008 Dyno, one of the highest rates I ever heard of in FSAE. Due to fact that our engine guys won the Powertrain Award 2008 at FSG, there was an article about our engine in ATZ, which is also available in English. Maybe you look for that. There are several informations in there.

This is a picture of the engine on the dyno!

This engine has been used since 2008 in the jr car's. It was also successful in 2009 with a second place overall at Formula Student Austria. Before 2008 it was a 650 cc with adapted crankshaft and supercharger (Eaton and Lysholm).

Best regards,

Thomas

suspension jr08 / jr08evo
joanneum racing graz

[Kirby]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Adambomb:
Although there is one wildly successful heavily custom engine I can think of off-hand, UAS Graz's single in their '08 car. Student designed F1-quality (according to the design judges) piston, Eaton blower, I believe it had Rotax head, some sort of custom variation of a bottom end from another make, and it made 86 hp. The rest of the car was also very good, and they placed top 10 in several events with it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is until they split the engine block (MIS '08) IIRC...yep (found a picture).

I really like the idea of a parallel twin...500cc or so.
Something like the Maxsym engines I think would be on the money.

[AxelRipper]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Adambomb:
Don't forget Kettering's '07 car, with its custom Mahle inline longitudinal 3 cyl. 600 with transaxle. Don't have any info about it other than a couple spy pics I took at competition, although in honesty it looks like their innovation was paid for in that pretty much the entire rest of the car looked like a compromise. That's pretty much to be expected though...just like WWU not passing tech...a cool concept, just not competitive in the end. Just checked out Kettering's website, and what did they run in 2009? One of those "weeny singles."
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

yea... our currently underpowered, carbureted "weeny single" (honda 450x) is what we are planning to run for at least the next car.

as for the 07 mahle car... legend has it that the car was forced to be made as light as possible due to the extensive weight of the engine and drive train... i never got to see it in the competition glory, as it was redone shortly after it got back into a "show car"...

the story goes that we got the engine less than a week before comp, were finishing installing it as we loaded it on to the trailer, then blew some bearings instantly when we first tested it which happened to be at comp... if we would've gotten the engine sooner it probably would have gone better and we may still have that car running.

the current status of said car (as i understand it) was that mahle sent us the parts needed to fix what broke, then proceeded to pull the sponsorship and ECU, and forced all pictures of the car to be taken down... so we were apparently going to megasquirt it at one point in time, then realized that the engine has to be rebuilt every 20 hours and we couldn't get the parts to complete said rebuild... so it now sits in our shop taking up space and giving us a rack to mount our rain tires to... and a seat for playing forza.

im sure if someone wanted the engine a deal could be worked out... but im not in charge of anything so who am i to say