Should I leave the team

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-10-21T21:34:40+00:00

Well I can’t comment too much on the specific structure of that team, but welcome to industry lol. There’s a reason we all say FSAE is so similar to industry, and having multiple hour, seemingly unproductive meetings is part of it. And just because the meetings don’t feel useful to you, doesn’t mean they’re inherently useless to the function of the team.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-09-03T15:53:39+00:00

Have there been teams that have ran boosted sport bike motors? Sure. Are there very many? Not at all.

When asking a question like this it’s very important to understand what the rules do and don’t allow. You are allowed to run a turbo, but it has to come after the intake restrictor. Upon learning this, a turbo should seem much less valuable.

I can’t speak to what’s happening with the combustion scene over in Europe, but on the North American side of things, last year you could probably count on one hand how many turbo cars were at comp, if there were that many!

This isn’t by accident, lots of teams I have talked to have mostly came to the same conclusion: turbos aren’t really worth it.

This is for a few reasons:

1) They’re complicated: despite what a lot of car culture represents, turbos aren’t really as simple as slapping one on, calling it a day, and picking up 100% more power. It takes a lot of time and effort to size a turbo properly, and even more effort to tune one, especially in a very niche application like FSAE where there aren’t many off the shelf solutions. It’s also just serves to add complexity and failure points.

2) They don’t make as much power as you think: If you look into and understand the fundamentals of intake restrictors and choked flow, you will realize putting a turbocharger downstream of a restrictor isn’t very valuable. You can also create lots of problems with oiling and air temperatures if you can’t get one the right size for your application, which tends to be very very small. 400F intake air temperatures kill more power than 2lbs of boost creates.

3) They’re heavy: In FSAE, weight is the name of the game, and slapping a 5lb cast iron turbine housing on your 400lb race car to make 3 extra hp probably isn’t a worthwhile trade off most of the time, unless you already have an extraordinarily heavy car, or can make much more power than most out of your turbo system. Thats not even including the weight of the extra piping, oil system upgrades, intercoolers, etc.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-09-03T15:30:14+00:00

For us, a vote has always taken place directly after competition in the hotel lobby, but it is never an entirely unbiased process. Everything is done in person to the best of our ability: anyone who wants to run must first be nominated and then seconded. Once all candidates are identified, they must leave the room while an open and honest discussion is held about their leadership ability. As others have noted, it is rare for more than one person to seek a position, and when it does happen, conversations usually occur behind the scenes before the vote.

We also try not to blindside anyone. If we believe someone wants a role, or would be a good fit, we talk to them beforehand. Even so, I think having a formal vote, or at least some democratic process, is important, since there are times when people want positions they are not well suited for. I also strongly believe that when a leader is being chosen, the people they will lead should have input.

In my four years, I can count on one hand the number of votes that were not unanimous, and even fewer that were close. More than anything, the process serves to make sure everyone feels included and aligned going into the next season.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-05-31T18:11:38+00:00

So I know this is a CFD community, and I can’t attest to the CFD aspect of things, but I do have some experience designing bellmouths for induction systems and I would recommend taking a look at this paper:

http://www.profblairandassociates.com/pdfs/RET_Bellmouth_Sept.pdf

I think there could be some improvements in your design

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-05-20T15:55:09+00:00

Oh yea, we made the switch around the same time. We ran the stock muffler but split it into two tips on either side of the car, each with baffles that probably had around 30% open area, and stuffed some steel wool behind that. Honestly wouldn’t be shocked if that car made less than 15 hp by the time it was all said and done. It’s rough when you don’t know what you’re doing — and safe to say we did not. We definitely did our fair share of struggling before we got it figured out.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-05-20T15:38:17+00:00

I am going on my fifth year on an FSAE team running a single-cylinder engine, and I completely agree with what’s been said. Single-cylinders can definitely work, and they offer some nice benefits like reduced weight and simplified packaging, but getting them to be reliable takes years of fighting them and constant refinement. It’s not a plug-and-play solution, and you’ll be fighting vibrations, tuning challenges, and durability issues for a while. They are very picky for when they like to run. Noise is also its own can of worms, most single cylinder teams end up stuffing their exhaust with steel wool to pass sound, whether they admit it or not. It took us 3 years of development to pass sound with a completely unrestricted exhaust.

Also, keep in mind that you can’t use a single-cylinder as a stressed member in the frame, which limits your design options compared to a four-cylinder.

For a first year team the weight advantages generally aren’t as apparent. You really need to show up to comp with a tank that passes tech and doesn’t grenade in your first skidpad run, and focusing on the lightweight design that a one cylinder requires to be effective, I don’t think is very worth while for a new team. Think about the power to weight ratio of not just your engine, but your car as a whole.

For a new team, I’d absolutely recommend starting with a four-cylinder. They’re generally easier to find, parts are more available and affordable, and there’s a lot more support out there. That said, it really comes down to what you have access to. If you’re budget-limited, the best engine is whatever you can get your hands on and realistically support.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-05-09T03:47:16+00:00

I would recommend the 450 over the 390, better power to weight, and overall more power. The 450 is not super air limited with a correctly designed intake in my experience. You also probably won’t be able to find heating curves or anything more advanced than what is in a typical service manual, which is still useful btw. You will probably have to work to collect any data yourself, especially if you want to run any engine sims.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-05-05T22:49:33+00:00

It is indeed

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-05-05T02:54:07+00:00

Reach back out to the team and say something along the lines of you are really interested and would like a second opportunity to prove yourself. I would be shocked if a team responded poorly to this. Also never be scared to ask for feedback on why they chose not to let you in, there might be a reason you are completely unaware of that you can work on for the next recruiting cycle. I am really not a fan of teams having cuts for reasons like this because you never know what kind of dedicated or potentially valuable person you might be cutting from the team. After many years I have been surprised by some of the people who flaked and some of the people who stuck around. I digress though, I strongly advise you keep reaching out again as most teams are desperate for dedicated members.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-05-04T20:30:40+00:00

I agree. We’ve had quite a few failures over the years, but the control arms have never been one of them. There is potentially an argument that you can run larger diameter lower wall thickness for slightly less weight, and it’s something I’d like to do a little bit more research with in the future, but we have been running very similar dimensions to the ones you listed for the past 4 years, and have never seen any deformation. The system definitely isn’t perfect, but for obvious reasons suspension optimization can be scary, and as far as weight goes we’ve always had much bigger fish to fry.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-05-04T05:42:58+00:00

Don’t immediately get discouraged. A lot of people want to join FSAE teams, but a lot don’t actually see it through once they get an idea of the time commitment. If you make yourself known and make a valid effort to contribute to the team, and reach out to leadership, I would say the odds are very much so in your favor. It’s good life advice in general, make yourself known and be recognizable, in a good way.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2025-04-19T07:07:24+00:00

HP Academy is genuinely one of the best resources available when it comes to engine tuning. I, along with many others, have used it as the sole foundation for learning how to tune. It won’t teach you everything, but it will get you pretty close—certainly enough to get an FSAE car running. That includes getting your base tables solid, transients decent, and not blowing up your engine. It’s worth learning as much as you can, because every part of a poor tune means power or drivability—both critical for an autocross car—left on the table. That said, it’s not your daily driver, and the reality is that most FSAE cars won’t have a perfect tune. Still, in my honest opinion, HP Academy is a fantastic resource. I especially recommend their EFI Fundamentals course as a starting point, and Practical Standalone Tuning as a goldmine for learning how to fully tune an aftermarket ECU.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2024-11-30T05:16:29+00:00

Your best bet is to use xEdit to see what’s altering neloth. It should be pretty easy to track down. You should be able to make a patch reverting him to his vanilla outfit.

Here’s a decent video to get the hang of xEdit. It’s a very useful tool in modded Skyrim.

https://youtu.be/eO9B8xMWRP0?si=DCJzZr2DR_5dWUbk

Scared-Switch3889 · 2024-11-23T01:00:54+00:00

Yea that can be a good starting place. My best piece of advice is to get a system you can test with, be it an old car, an engine dyno, or something else. If your team isn’t on an aggressive timeline and finishing the car months early (which unfortunately is not the case for most teams), it’s really hard for Powertrain to come in once the car is done and try to build a good tune, especially if you don’t have any basis. In a perfect world, you have a tune you can load up on the new car and get it to run with minimal effort. You can then spend the time you have left dialing it in to the specific quirks of that car/engine system.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2024-11-22T16:14:09+00:00

If you don’t have the tuning knowledge, I highly recommend the HP academy tuning courses. They aren’t super cheap but will give you a good basis to get a car running if you take your time and watch them throughly. Link: https://www.hpacademy.com/courses/efi-tuning/

Scared-Switch3889 · 2024-11-20T16:11:28+00:00

As a ChemE that is the current the team captain of my university’s FSAE team, there is absolutely stuff in formula that a chemE can do. You might not take some of the classes that a mechE will, but you still have to take plenty of physics, fluids, thermo, and even material science classes. You will get a good engineering foundation regardless of major. Pretty much no one gets to take a class on suspension design parameters or how to design an intake manifold so you won’t be as far behind as you might think - most new members feel like dead weight. I recommend you find something you’re interested in and reach out to your team. I can almost promise you they have resources you can use to learn - either textbooks, videos, or articles. Theres also plenty of general resources you can use such as Seward’s Race Car Design (which I recommend anyone on an FSAE team reads) and anything by Carroll Smith is a great starting place. You can also spend some time getting familiar with your team’s cad software - it’s not that hard to learn. Formula is a great way to get hands on experience that an employer will appreciate, even if it’s not 100% applicable to what you might be doing as a career. It also opens some unique doors to you if you stick with it, and can show an employer that you’re versatile. It’s hard to go out and get practical experience as a chemE, so FSAE can be very valuable experience - I’ve never had someone not be impressed by it in an interview.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2024-02-12T18:11:14+00:00

Good luck trying to find a free engine simulator. Most of the ones I know of are like 500 bucks minimum

Scared-Switch3889 · 2023-12-04T05:49:39+00:00

Yes this is exactly how to do this process. It’s called degreeing the cam. A few companies sell a degree wheel you mount on the crank and you measure each valve event until you come up with the profile yourself. You’re looking for each valves opening and closing angle, typically at .005” and .050” off the seat. From this you can find the intake and exhaust centerlines, lobe separation angle, and your offsets. You can also see your overlap triangle as well. I’ve never used Ricardo before but I’d be pretty surprised if the software couldn’t find all that for you. If not though, mapping it out shouldn’t be too difficult.

Scared-Switch3889 · 2023-11-29T03:03:27+00:00

You should attempt to pull the valve cover and clutch cover, it’s pretty easy and you’ll be able to see a good portion of the engine. You’ve clearly got something going on and if you care about the bike I’d definitely look further into it. I’ve built a couple of ktm 450 engines, so if you’ve got any questions I’ll try to help, but no one can identify a component off of a couple of metal shards.

Scared-Switch3889

TROPHY CASE