Fantasy Car

[Owen Thomas]

I was actually just thinking about this the other day..

Regarding the flat twin and aero, I think the concept lends itself quite well to undertray packaging. Presumably the engine can be tucked further forward than a similar V or parallel engine, which should allow for some aggressive early rising tunnels. The longitudinal or vertical crank would probably be a necessity for this.

A V twin with a longitudinal crank would also suit this concept very well (in fact probably better), but it sits farther back and doesn't provide as much space in the rear of the car. Space for something like a gnarly Maryland style wing, and more expansion area for the undertray. I don't have a lot of experience working with aero though, and agree with Rob that it's all just heresay until someone goes and does it/models it.

On a similar, more fantastical note, if someone were clever enough they could take the exhaust from each flat cylinder and use it to boost the undertray. That would raise a whole host of other potential issues, but hey it's worth thinking about.

Edit: John beat me to mentioning the exhaust blown aero, damn. As far as I know, it is completely legal.

[JulianH]

There is a paper of blown diffusers in FSAE published.. I'm not sure but I think it's from Auckland. They did test runs, but I don't know if the system was ever used.

I don't know if the effect is there.

Concerning F-Ducts and stuff: Sure they are legal, but we don't need such fancy things because everything is allowed.

A DRS system like the Monash guys invented is far better than an F-Duct when it comes to decreasing drag.

We also developed a DRS system for the 2012 car but didn't use it because it was too heavy and the performances gains / amount of energy saved was not that big.

Electric cars (with regenerative braking) need about 7kWh of battery capacity to drive Endurance in the same speed as the combustion cars.

Last year we saw that two completely different cars (4WD ultra-lightweight Delft and our 2WD Aero car) were faster than all combustion cars in the German AutoX. This year, the Electric cars will slightly heavier due to new rules and more battery capacity but still, I think those cars will edge out the combustion cars again, if everything goes properly.

A car like SoonerJack proposed should be quiet suited (and possible to do, ask Delft...) to be the fastest car in every discipline.

And in the end, that's what you want...

[rjwoods77]

To also note the valve cover to valve cover width on that engine model I produced in the "Fantasy Engine" topic is 21.5" from valve cover to valve cover on a 75.5x66mm 591cc engine which is barely wider than a typical FSAE tub. If you were to go 75.5x50mm 447.7cc, with direct scaling that would put you at 20.25". The packaging would be pretty nice (better than anything else in my opinion) with in a longitudinal crank and port setup, with the engine pushed up against the vertical roll hoop plane, with exhaust (turbo or N/A) in the "Firewall Triangle", intakes headed toward the rear of the car. Again having dealt with a 90 degree v twin I think it is superior to it in every respect as mentioned also in the "Fantasy Engine" topic. You could also use the engine cooling fan to exhaust warm air from the cooling fins, then to your exhaust pipe outlet, then into your aero if you found advantage to use it as well as being rules compliant. The fan on our B&S V twin was moving a HUGE volume of air at 650cfm at 3600rpm so says the engine data sheets. I wonder if you could use the "cooling fan" excuse like the...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46

...since it is the legitimate use of the fan to cool the engine. How awesome would that be if people purposely went to an air cooled engine in order to benefit from powered aero advantages if it were effective and legal???

[Yannick]

Originally posted by SoonerJack:
I think Steven has a point

Carbon Monocoque
Carbon Rims (10 inch)
Carbon A-Arms

4 * 35kW

About 6-7kWh of energy

Pretty nice big wings

Around 170kg, should be able to pull 2.5g and drive Accel in 3.5s...

It's not the sound of a V8 and not ultra-lightweight but that thing would fly!

you may want to check out our february newsletter. should be published in a week or so.

[mech5496]

You guys going 4WD?! I did not see that coming...

[JulianH]

Yannick had his final exam for this week today, you should not take him seriously

[Z]

..... brown go-kart, with aero-undertray .....

Z

[Ben K]

Sucker Car will get you that 3G pretty easily....

Ben

[JulianH]

Gladly, sucker cars are forbidden in FSAE.

Sure you can easily pull 3G lateral, but I think it's really dangerous.


Z, I like your brown go-kart idea (at least those sketches) but even if the car is super light and has an amazing working undertray, I think you will never be able to pull 3G's without wings. We worked on similar aero devices like you proposed for quiet a long time and they are super-efficient and nice, but don't offer enough downforce to do the job.

Put some cute little wings on it, and then it's maybe a fantasy car if one likes fuel-to-noise converter cars

[mech5496]

Things to make your car faster: Aero, weight and CoG height, yaw control/vectoring. All the above from most to less important. But probably the MOST important aspect if you want to win is reliability, so a simple as possible car for me please, while adressing all the above issues...

P.S. For a dream car I would like awesome build quality for everything on it. As I like to say to new team members, be proud for every single bolt put in the car!