What it takes to build a groundbreaking car

[Angry Joe]

What does it take to build a really kickass car? A lot of determination. I present to you what I hope will be a Pulitzer-winning photo documentary of Lehigh FSAE at their finest.



Demonstrating that dedication is our own John Janick, putting his considerible blowing experience to good use in locating an intake leak.


Next, we have a highly sensitive evaluation of our front impact structure.


The test subject...


The applied load...


Team Alpha is ready to go!


Ouch! Glad that wasn't my car!


Test concluded. Conclusion: Welding paper-thin waterjetted aluminum into a complex lattice structure without jigging or heat treating is, in fact, an excellent way for making squishable crush zones. However, in a frontal impact with an MSC catalog our car would he hurting.

Thanks for watching! Our car may not run and we may have just trashed our only engine, but don't play chicken with us in the pits, or we will knock you the fuck out...

[Angry Joe]

What does it take to build a really kickass car? A lot of determination. I present to you what I hope will be a Pulitzer-winning photo documentary of Lehigh FSAE at their finest.



Demonstrating that dedication is our own John Janick, putting his considerible blowing experience to good use in locating an intake leak.


Next, we have a highly sensitive evaluation of our front impact structure.


The test subject...


The applied load...


Team Alpha is ready to go!


Ouch! Glad that wasn't my car!


Test concluded. Conclusion: Welding paper-thin waterjetted aluminum into a complex lattice structure without jigging or heat treating is, in fact, an excellent way for making squishable crush zones. However, in a frontal impact with an MSC catalog our car would he hurting.

Thanks for watching! Our car may not run and we may have just trashed our only engine, but don't play chicken with us in the pits, or we will knock you the fuck out...

[B Lewis @ PE Engine Management]

Thanks Angry Joe!!

I appreciated your photo documentary. Your subtle use of sarcasm was well received. I laughed out load.

How did the engine get trashed?

[James Waltman]

Angry Joe,

I think that we can give you a run for your money. We started a tradition around here last year that we call "The Wall of Fame"�. You get your picture on the wall if you˜ve been photographed doing something noteworthy. In general, the inductees have displayed the type of thinking that can be recognized as innovative. We are trying to set up a traveling art exhibit to go on tour next month. Maybe our works will appear at a gallery near you.

I present exhibit #1:
We had recently completed our carbon fiber intake manifold. The designer was confident that the flow to all cylinders would be equal. It wasn't worth the hassle to hook up to our unreliable flow bench. The idea was to use a visual flow medium to gauge the flow patterns through the manifold. The obvious choice was cigarette smoke. One of our team members with iron lungs took one hell of a toke and blew the smoke in. The results were very encouraging. Flow appeared to be even to all cylinders.

I should mention that most of the events that we honor have taken place after long stretches without sleep.

More pictures of us at our finest will follow.

What engine are you guys running? We will have some spare F3 stuff with us in Detroit.

(edit was to fix link to picture)

[Andy K]

Thanks. Made me spit milk all over my monitor...

So what is the total energy absorbed by the crush zone? And now that you've crushed it, are you going to use the book instead?

As for the visual flow testing... that is classic. Took off a few years of his life, but well worth it

[ethanL007]

Joe,

funniest thing I have seen in a while.

[1975BMW2002]

Here I sit wondering if we will have a running car at competition. This is the post that I needed to see. Now I know that there are others like us, and I had a damn good laugh.

see you at copetition, even if our car isn't running
Bill

[Angry Joe]

Thanks for the engine offer. We are running a single though...yamaha 426...its doing battle (and losing) with an aftermarket electric starter. On the bright side...if we can get the engine back up we'll be the only guys running under 300 lbs.

[Michael Jones]

Brilliant crush testing. We did something very similar, but with a slightly bigger load.

It's amazing that a few loops of .040" safety wire can suspend 320lb. of weight plates.

I'll have to see if there's a pic of that floating around. It's amusing, and proved incontrovertibly that the aluminum box thing I designed three years ago, well, sucks. But we already knew that.

And James - best bong ever. I must make one.

[A Reinke]

Joe, your pictures aren't loading...i wanna see!