Auburn University FSAE Race Report Formula SAE, 19-23 May 2004, Pontiac, Michigan The Auburn University Formula SAE team built a fantastic new car that delivered a 3 rd place overall finish in the Formula SAE Competition in Pontiac, Michigan. Building on last year s precedent-setting 5 th place finish, the 2004 team redesigned and optimized every aspect of the new car for this year s podium finish. Auburn performed well in all areas of competition attributing to its high overall performance. This accomplishment establishes Auburn as one of the top teams to watch in future competitions. Almost every major North American engineering college fields a Formula SAE (FSAE) team. Due to its popularity, the field is capped at 140 entries and this year, registration was closed within eight days. The 2004 Competition included entries from the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Singapore, and Venezuela. Each college starts the year with a blank sheet of paper with the intent to design and build a single-seat, open-wheel road racing car, the best ones weighing less than 480 pounds (ready to race but unfueled). The teams are subject only to a 610 cc displacement limit, a 20 mm diameter air intake restrictor, and a thick set of structural safety rules. The goal of the competition is to design and build a prototype for the weekend autocross enthusiast and in so doing, the teams must demonstrate their prototype s cost and manufacturability. Teams must then sell their design on its merits, before proving their machine s abilities on the racetrack. Designs are judged by prominent engineering professionals with strong support from top engineers at Ford, GM, and DaimlerChrysler. Formula SAE has been in existence since 1981, and Auburn has competed since 1996. A majority of team members are mechanical engineers. However, to compete effectively, work in areas of business, composition, and all of the engineering disciplines must be performed. Team alumni are widely sought after, with the automotive industry working hard to attract as many FSAE grads as possible. 8-time-champion Cornell returned to first place in 2004, leading by a wide margin over a tight grouping of Texas A&M, Auburn, Missouri/Rolla, and Washington in the next four slots. The top ten were rounded out by Penn State, Akron, Dartmouth, Wisconsin, and Ohio State. The standards at Formula SAE improve every year, and past success is little guarantee for present fortunes. Only two of the 2003 top ten finishers (Cornell and Auburn) returned to that same status in 2004. Many of Auburn s key team members built their third FSAE car this year, and two of them (Charlie Ping and Matt Zorn) built their fifth. Along with an excellent crop of new recruits, this gave the team the depth of knowledge necessary to assemble a mature, sophisticated design. Captain Jim Ray and Chief Engineer Brian Freeman, assisted by Group Leaders Brian Audenaert (Drivetrain), Jeff Duncan (Frame & Braking), Eric Henderson (Frame, Body, & Ergonomics), Charlie Ping (Powertrain), Spencer Rendall (Electronics & Cooling), and Matt Zorn (Suspension & Steering), produced a superb example of integrated design and automotive craftsmanship. An
excellent crop of new recruits rose to the occasion in the last, desperate weeks of fabrication, and came through in a magnificent manner to complete the car. Almost every aspect of the 2004 car improves upon features of the 2003 car, the key elements being a lower center of gravity and reduction in the yaw moment of inertia (through excellent mechanical design integration and powerplant development). The car was released for testing, development, and driver training a scant 2 weeks before the opening of competition, and it is a credit to the team that the car ran smoothly right out of the box. Eager to start the long awaited competition, the team arrived in Detroit several hours before the site opened (the tight development schedule meant we had to purchase tires on site, and the extra hours were allotted for this purpose). Many other teams were just as anxious, and a happy crowd of teams from around the world had gathered by the time the gates opened. Just before entering the gates, our trailer was opened for a brief inspection, with the unhappy surprise. Both of the rear suspension rockers (fabricated sheet steel) had been damaged during shipping. The rest of the evening was spent cutting, welding (off-site) and machining (at GM Powertrain, graciously opened for FSAE support) a redesigned, stronger pair. The car was therefore unavailable for early technical inspection, and for the first time in recent memory, Auburn failed to take advantage of this traditional jump on the schedule. The car was completed, however, and arrived at the regularly scheduled technical inspection the next day. Day One dawned early (no one goes to Formula to sleep) for final preparation of the car, driver s meetings for the day s running, weigh-in, and design judging. Ready to race but minus fuel and driver, the car weighed in at 476 pounds, an Auburn best, and roughly in line with our top competitors (the lightest car at the Competition was Lehigh at 301 pounds, though that car was a bit lacking in power and robustness Penn State s 380 pounds gives more food for thought). Design judging is intense. Supported by carefully prepared design boards, the team presents technical arguments for why the car is constructed as it is and why the design is better than others to some of the most experienced racecar engineers in the world. The team has the opportunity to state its case in advance with a written design review (which tends to stimulate questions from the judges), and has the opportunity to leave photos with the judges to jog their memories as the long day winds through all the entries. After design, the car went to tech inspection, and passed after a few minor problems were solved (a complete set of tools and raw materials kept the minor items minor). The next static event was cost. Cost analysis is viewed through both an advance written report and on-site questioning based on report accuracy and production techniques. Points are given for the prototype cost itself (more points for lower cost), report completeness, presentation, and a verbal test of manufacturing knowledge. A team of Auburn sophomores studied the production issues, and held up magnificently under questioning. Unfortunately, our standard report format has slipped below the ever-rising par. Also, built to race well, the car costs were high (though we continue to be puzzled by the cars that carry similar equipment, and yet achieve very handsome cost scores). Adding it up, Auburn made 66.494 points out of 100 in Cost to rank 81 st (Concordia won the Event with 90.100).
That afternoon, the team took the car through the dynamic safety checks, tilt, noise, and braking. Tilt features a fully loaded car (and driver) strapped to a lift table, rotated to 45º, and held there to check for leaks. Then the static roll is increased to 63º to see if the car will fall off. Auburn scored its lowest decibel recording in the noise event by only reaching 108.2 db, 1.8 db lower than the limit. In the brake event, the car must lock its wheels after a short acceleration. This has to be done without stalling the engine, which issue made two tries necessary. With the second try, safety was finally passed. During these activities, Charlie Ping slipped off to the DaimlerChrysler Technical Center for the presentation event. In the rush to complete the car, little attention was available to prepare this, and the team made the decision to modify and enhance the wellreceived 2003 presentation, instead of devoting unavailable manpower to a fresh start. Again, the rising tide of FSAE standards caught us, washing up a result of 53.7 points out of 75 for 45 th place. Michigan State finished the event with top honors, the full 75 points. By the end of the day, design judging was complete, and the design semi-finalists were announced. For the second time in a row, and the third time ever, Auburn was so honored. The design semifinals involve getting all the semi-finalists (twenty teams, in this case) together in one tent, and allowing all thirteen Design judges to circulate around them, questioning the teams, until their minds are made up who the top teams are. This procedure took five hours with some deserved sleep soon following. Day two started with the acceleration event. Jeff Duncan and Brian Freeman each took two runs, with a best time of 4.193 s for 75 m (that s roughly 0 to 60 in 3.14 s, or 0.87 g s of acceleration), which was good enough for 71.61 points out of 75 and 4 th place. The winner, Cornell, ran 4.136 s with their awesomely powerful turbocharged and electronically wastegated powerplant. Traction control, automatic up shift, and a flat torque curve kept Auburn on the top of the charts. The next even was skid pad; a figure eight track measuring cornering ability. The better the car corners, the faster it can get through the figure eight. Finding the precise combination of steer angle and throttle setting for the best speed, and then adjusting it ever so slightly as track conditions vary from practice to race, demands steel nerves and infinite attention. Brian Freeman and Eric Henderson drove two passes each, and came as close to the ideal as Auburn ever has. Their best time of 5.371 s was good for 40.51 points out of 50 and 15 th place. Wisconsin won the event for the second year in a row with a time of 5.213 s. Autocross opened up in the afternoon, with a band of storms threatening. The team took care to get in line early, angling to beat the rain. Charlie Ping started out in the seat, looking at a much more open one kilometer course than has been FSAE s practice. Charlie s driving style was as exciting as ever, but he managed to keep the rear end behind him and slapped down a fine best time of 48.375 s. Jim Ray took over to try two runs, but only completed one of them before the storms got too close, and the entire gathering was ordered to shut down and seek shelter. The next hour and a half brought
heavy rains (94 mph winds and golf ball-sized hail were recorded a few miles away in Ann Arbor), but the time passed easily with the help of music from the Puerto Rican teams. As soon as things slackened, SAE s running-in-the-rain procedures took over, and the Event was back on. Of course, it was a tremendous advantage to have been one of the 20 or 30 teams that got to run on a dry track with slick tires. Rain tires, slow times, and clouds of spray from the field of puddles were features of the next several dozen cars runs. To accommodate the delay and the long line of waiting cars, SAE allowed for only one driver with two runs. This nullified Jim Ray s superb driving. Charlie s excellent time was good enough for 3 rd place, with 132.89 points out of 150. The University of Missouri at Rolla, with a well developed aerodynamic package, won the event. The day closed with the announcement of the design finalists. Cornell, University of Texas at Arlington and Western Australia were the three finalists. Auburn was in the top rank of those semi-finalists not chosen, however, and finished the design event with 120 points out of 150 in an eight-way tie for 4 th. After design finals, the rear uprights had to be rebuilt and the car double-checked and set-up for the endurance event the next day. Day three s endurance race started in accordance with the autocross finishing times, with the fast run group running in the tire-friendly heat of the afternoon. Our autocross finish put us in the first seed, allowing the morning to make final adjustments at leisure. The one-kilometer course was wider and less winding than it has been in years past, tracking a trend towards opening the course up as FSAE cars and drivers steadily become more capable. In the endurance race, eleven laps are run by one driver, then a driver change and car inspection, and then eleven more laps. Cars are individually timed, and slower cars are waved into a passing lane if they appear to hold up a car behind. Charlie Ping started the race in the initial grouping of six cars, making no mistakes, and putting on a great race. The top group all pitted for driver change at once, leaving silence on the track before the second drivers came out, ours being Jim Ray. Jim took a couple of laps to familiarize himself, and then started flying. He ran the fastest endurance lap of the competition at 59.5 s. Auburn s total time for 22 km was 1411.500 s, magnificently in second place by just a hair behind event winner Cornell s 1408.544. Auburn made 343.67 points out of 350 for the event. Only forty cars actually completed the entire endurance race; broken suspensions and ominous smoke from engines was the most common cause of black flags. Fuel economy is measured over the endurance race, and is worth 50 points. Auburn used 1.226 gallons to collect 9.96 of those points. The Kanagawa Institute of Technology used only 0.698 gallons, and won the event with the full points. Looking more closely at cars in our performance class, Cornell used 1.062 gallons for 18.12 points, while Penn State, fourth in combined endurance/economy behind Cornell, Washington, and Auburn, used 0.885 gallons for 30.35 points. The next morning saw a first time honor for Auburn. The top five cars in combined score for Acceleration, Skid Pad, and Autocross were invited by Road & Track magazine to take part in a special event. The cars are run through an evaluation course,
similar to what the magazine would use to rate a newly released sports car model. The scores and descriptions of the cars will be published in Road & Track s November issue. Overall, Auburn scored a school record 838.834 points out of 1000.000 for 3 rd place. Cornell gathered 926.597 points to win, followed by 845.342 for Texas A&M. There is always something better, but achieving 3 rd is a solid advance, and together with 2003 s 5 th place, establishes Auburn as one of the top teams in Formula SAE competition. The Team wishes its best to Brian Audenaert, Jeff Duncan, Brian Freeman, Eric Henderson, Charlie Ping, Jim Ray, and Spencer Rendall on the occasion of their graduation and is already starting to rev up for 2005. Complete 2004 Formula SAE competition results may be seen at www.sae.org/students/fsaeresu.htm. Pictures from the competition will soon be viewable at www.eng.auburn.edu/organizations/sae/aufsae. Thank you for another great year and we look forward to your continued support for another great year in Auburn Racing in 2005.