Race Data Power

[Conor]

Our team recently acquired a copy of Race Data Power from Precision Auto Research. The software is essentially a collection of excel worksheets that has formulas and functions for race vehicle design, testing, tuning, etc... The entire package is completely streamlined(being all in excel) and amazingly easy to use. It puts almost everything you need to build a race car in one place. Has anybody else had experience using this? Our team can't get enough of it.

http://www.precisionautoresearch.com/page7.html

[Ian M]

Is the "engine tuning" spreadsheet worthwhile? I have been reading some books and going to put one together but it is going to be pretty basic and I just haven't had time with this bitch of a thing called classes.
I may give them a call because it says they provide a demo or something on their website. Roughly how much is it and do you have to buy all of them or can you order specific areas? Maybe I should just call them tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up!

[VFR750R]

If your using it for fun or for simply picking direction for testing its fine but sims by themselves can't design a car. Sims are only as good as your understanding of them. If you use simulations down the road you'll find that not knowing what assumptions are being made or what variables are left out can haunt you.

That being said they can be incredible tools to learn from as you disect them to find out how 'they' did it. Most of the general trends can be directionally accurate and only when your getting into the last 10% or less do the assumptions become significant factors in the results.

[Conor]

Originally posted by VFR750R:
If your using it for fun or for simply picking direction for testing its fine but sims by themselves can't design a car. Sims are only as good as your understanding of them. If you use simulations down the road you'll find that not knowing what assumptions are being made or what variables are left out can haunt you.

That being said they can be incredible tools to learn from as you disect them to find out how 'they' did it. Most of the general trends can be directionally accurate and only when your getting into the last 10% or less do the assumptions become significant factors in the results.

I agree with you completely. Designing an amazing car can't be accomplished in just one shot with a couple programs and simulations. It takes years of experience, data logging, and analyzing to do so. This software is a great tool for strengthening all aspects of a race vehicle project and can be used time after time to keep improving designs.

Ian,
The engine spreadsheet is insanely cool. It allows you to record different atmospheric variables such as temperature, pressure, humidity, etc.. that are used during the tuning process of your engine. Then, it allows you to enter new variables for when you get to the track and it can tell you a new fuel enrichment that can be used based on the new paramaters. I'm really not an engine guy and don't know the most about it, so definetely get a hold of the guys at Precision Auto Research. I'm sure what they can tell you will spark your interest.

[Mike Flitcraft]

How much did it set you guys back price wise?

[Charlie]

I don't have the software so I'm only forming my opinons based on what is on the website.

But, to me it just looks like nicely made Excel documents similar to what our team would do on our own. While they were a bit time consuming, so is trying to understand someone else's work. And depending on the protection on the documents you may not be able to get into the calcs and discover what they are all about.

So personally, I think that students are better off making their own spreadsheets and basic sim programs. It helps you understand the concepts and tradeoffs involved, and gives you the flexibility of improving and customizing these tools to suit.

[Conor]

Originally posted by Charlie:
I don't have the software so I'm only forming my opinons based on what is on the website.

But, to me it just looks like nicely made Excel documents similar to what our team would do on our own. While they were a bit time consuming, so is trying to understand someone else's work. And depending on the protection on the documents you may not be able to get into the calcs and discover what they are all about.

So personally, I think that students are better off making their own spreadsheets and basic sim programs. It helps you understand the concepts and tradeoffs involved, and gives you the flexibility of improving and customizing these tools to suit.

Charlie,

I very much agree with you. But something you have to consider is that Auburn has been running a successful program for how many years? A lot of teams would love to spend the time and resources doing this, but just can't. We're a second year team and Race Data Power has been a God send. Also, a great majority of our ranks is comprised of freshman and sophmores. Race Data Power is a great way to expose them early on to material they'll be getting in the lecture hall, but they can also see the value of its applications. I am not saying we sit them down in front of the software and let them go crazy and throw their design on the car, I'm saying its a great tool to enhance their learning experience and expose them to real world applications. Also, Race Data Power has a very vast array of spreadsheets that must have taken years to compile. Matching it would be a pretty enormous endeavour to say the least.

Michael,

Give the guys at Race Data Power a call. They'll be able to tell you the specifics that I'm not familiar with.

[Charlie]

Originally posted by Conor:
Charlie,

I very much agree with you. But something you have to consider is that Auburn has been running a successful program for how many years? A lot of teams would love to spend the time and resources doing this, but just can't.

Well with all due respect, our program was in rough shape when I joined and we didn't even have a shop computer, let alone a database. And we certainly had no money to spend on anything we could make ourselves ($3500 cash spent in 2000). So I am not sure what you are trying to say. It doesn't take years of hard work to come up with some decent excel spreadsheets. It takes a few hours/day at most, and then you refine them over the course of the year.

I'm sure the answer is somewhere in-between. Perhaps these can give people ideas on analysis and spark their creativity for their own analysis tools.

It just makes me nervous to see someone buying programs advertising that you don't have to worry about 'complex engineering calculations'. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_redface.gif

Um, aren't you guys supposed to be doing these? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif While they may be helpful I can easily see people taking results from tools like these and applying them with NO understanding why.

[GSpeedR]

Race Data Power isn't a sim, it's a set of workbooks to calculate parameters similar to Rouelle's worksheet from his seminars. The chassis stuff has all the basic calculations you should be doing anyway. Nothing crazy. It was something like $500.