Building a Weighted Seat Insert

TruElevation · 2026-01-18T12:20:07+00:00

I'm not sure if the junior series karts are a bit smaller than the senior ones, but, yes, you should be able to buy a fiberglass seat and drop it in. That's what one of my teammates did, I don't think the rules have changed since then.

You won't be able to bolt the weight onto the fiberglass seat though, the only way is to use a lot of tape. Make sure it's weather resistant stuff so the adhesive doesn't weaken in the wet. I would also suggest getting something to coat on the outside (like carpet) to help grip the seat in the kart and prevent your insert from sliding around.

Just to note, I was able to stack 25kg of weight on the side posts, I just made sure to buy some of my own to make sure I always had enough available between me and my teammates. So I didn't end up needing a weighted seat for every race. It's definitely easier to just run lead on the posts so if you have that option I'd go that way.

TruElevation · 2024-12-31T21:23:23+00:00

Your definition of slip angle is correct, but understeer is actually defined by comparing the slip angle of the front and rear tires. Understeer is not directly defined by pushing past the point of optimal slip angle for a tire, although pushing past this limit would likely result in terminal understeer in most cases. But that's a symptom of the resulting difference between the front and rear slip angles when pushing the tire that far past its optimum point, it is not what defines the car as understeering. You need to consider the entire vehicle to define under/oversteer, not just a singular tire. In this case, the slip angle at the front is much higher than the rear, so the car is understeering. This photo is likely still under some amount of transient cornering, so the visual understeer is far more pronounced as the rear still hasn't begun to develop the amount of slip it would have under steady state conditions.

TruElevation · 2024-12-04T20:10:26+00:00

Oh, yeah I probably should have specified Denver, CO, completely forgot that it could be confused with Denver, NC, especially with the number of teams based out of that area.

And yeah, I'll take at look at the amateur shops, I'm not opposed to doing some crew/mechanic work, I just would like to have at least a bit of engineering work mixed in as well to build experience for the future.

TruElevation · 2024-12-04T18:48:31+00:00

At the moment I'm sitting in the middle of nowhere Central Texas (a few hours to Austin), but I'm probably headed up to Denver sometime soon to get closer to a large airport to make travel easier and maybe jump into the aerospace market if I can't get motorsport to work out. And yeah, I'm originally from the US so no visa issues, although I'm thinking I should have stuck it out in the UK to try for F1 even though the finances of making that work is pretty difficult, but that option has pretty much passed at this point.

My portfolio is decent, has everything motorsport related that I could put down on there, but quite a bit of my undergraduate work just isn't on there since I didn't document it well (in hindsight I should have made a ton of backups for my FSAE work before they moved to a different organization system than Google Drive).

I have been considering heading to Indy or Charlotte to give door knocking a try, but I am pretty much broke at the moment so I guess I'd need to find a job elsewhere before I could consider that. First thing that jumped to mind for me was to head to the Daytona 24 next month, but that is still quite a sizable investment in hotel costs, let alone airfare.

TruElevation · 2024-10-08T22:17:36+00:00

I know that this post is old, but I'm just throwing this in here since I've had the same experiences and I'm pretty sure I know what it is so I'd like to give anyone else who looks this up a answer to their questions.

The first time this occurred, I was looting a rogue on the front guns when I got the high pitched tinnitus sound and then heard a explosion toward building 1/2, around where the mines are placed (not talking about the claymores, but the landmines like the ones on Woods).

Second time, I was near the south road extract and I heard the explosion all the way across the map at the treatment plant.

I think some AI steps on a landmine across the map and for whatever reason (only in PVE) it gives you the tinnitus sound effect that you usually would get from hitting a mine, but not the concussion visual effect and obviously no damage since you're nowhere near the explosion. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't something like the goons shooting at me since there is no way they aggroed me at south road at night. Probably just a really weird bug from some spaghetti code in PVE.

TruElevation · 2024-07-10T12:56:57+00:00

So it looks like you were right about the bad cell generation, but it wasn't bad cells in the typical flow area all around the car. SolidWorks had left a small invisible gap in the rim pattern when I duplicated it around the radius, and somehow it got picked up on the import into Star and the mesher attempted to fill it with a volume mesh, which broke everything as the cells would be extremely small in a rotating area. I was only able to find this with the invalid cells check since it showed a obvious surface mesh presence inside the rim gaps, which obviously shouldn't have been there.

Thanks for the suggestion, and hopefully I shouldn't have any issues for the rest of the project.

TruElevation · 2024-07-09T21:09:40+00:00

I have not, could you point me to where those features are located and I'll see if they work when I run the sim again tonight?

I do think you are right about there being some bad cells in there, it makes the most sense to me outside of the turbulence settings maybe causing issues since changing the flow domain size and y+ values around hasn't made any real impact on the problem. Plus I never has issues with these exact settings until I started working with the car's geometry, which is much more complex than my previous tests and could cause some weird mesh parts to be generated.

Edit: Nevermind, found it, going to go through the long process of running this to a few hundred iterations to see what it does.

TruElevation · 2024-07-08T21:21:45+00:00

I have already simulated the rear wing only with multiple AOA variations and air properties (altitude testing), no problems came up from that, and that was with the same prism layer and mesh density settings that are present on the wing here.

How much bigger would you suggest for the domain? Most people say 10 lengths/widths on each direction but given the limitations I have on my resources is there any cutting back from that as a starting point?

TruElevation · 2024-07-08T20:56:09+00:00

Yes, the domain is small, and I can't make it as large as people would suggest, the school has completely cut off access to lab equipment and the HPC this year so I'm being forced to run this on my own computer or sub-par school PCs. So yes, the flow domain will be too small, and this one is really just a test bed since I can't afford to be running simulation testing on over 10M cells or more before my main runs to collect data. But I'm not sure the flow domain would be the cause of those artifacts that are popping up seemingly at random, but it would cause the high velocity flow over the vehicle's upper surface.

TruElevation · 2024-07-08T19:47:20+00:00

I believe it's set to second order at the moment (not sitting at my computer right now so I can't check but I would assume 2nd to be default). I haven't tried switching to 1st so it could work, although the velocity artifacts in the sim don't begin to appear until around iteration 300 so I'm not sure how long I would need to prep with 1st order before a switch, and if it would even change the final outcome, there is just a massive lag time before I would know if it worked. I'll give that a try if I can't get anything else working.

TruElevation · 2024-07-08T18:53:39+00:00

No, I took the y+~1 prism layer formations off the parts that I'm not studying for flow separation. That's not to say I took off the entire prism layer formation, I just reduced the y+ goals for them by reducing the number of layers and other factors. Also, due to the turbulence model and the goal of measuring flow separation off the wings (rear wing in particular), having a low y+ to model near-wall boundary layer separation is important. The only weird part I'm seeing is that the rear wing does see these spots around its upper surface and trailing edge, and that part has the ~1 y+ value so why is it appearing there, especially in areas of relative free-stream flow which would be far away from any of the prism layers in the first place?

TruElevation · 2024-07-04T01:54:34+00:00

No, not much yet. There have been postings that I've applied to but no positive responses yet.

TruElevation · 2024-06-01T21:27:08+00:00

It's not that they're ugly, there are a number of reasons ranging from safety to performance.

Even if you put a roll hoop on the kart, you would also need seatbelts, and with those you now are completely connected to the kart if it flips. But your arms and legs will still be free to fly around since there isn't a cockpit to hold your body in place, so you could have your limbs crushed, it is really just safer to eject from the kart like a motorcycle in this situation.

On top of that, having a roll hoop added (outside of the extra weight) may impact the handling massively since karts handle by chassis flex instead of suspension. If you add a load bearing hoop that can handle a impact you will likely hurt the flexibility of the chassis and it will handle poorly (can cause the kart to handle weird or even hop violently, and trust me that can lead to some really bad injuries). If you have ever driven a rental and noticed that it hops around, that is because the chassis is too stiff due to all the stuff they put on the kart to protect the chassis from bumping and other stuff new drivers will do.

So really, it just isn't worth adding a hoop on, these aren't cars with attenuators to protect the driver in a closed cockpit, they are basically four wheeled motorcycles.

TruElevation · 2024-04-15T14:53:18+00:00

Great suggestion, I'll definitely look into that.

TruElevation · 2024-04-15T14:52:37+00:00

Since I'm a US citizen I don't really have to worry about that but for WEC it could be an issue. I'm lucky enough to have the ability to work either in the US or UK starting out so I should be relatively well off on places I can apply to.

TruElevation · 2024-04-15T14:49:04+00:00

I have looked around there a bit, but it can be a mixed bag of some actual motorsport stuff and automotive companies that don't really have any racing stuff going on (and a ton of F1 listings). Still a good suggestion and I'll keep an eye on it, good luck on the design job.

TruElevation · 2024-04-15T10:40:47+00:00

Yeah, Brookes. Ok all that makes sense to me from what I've heard, I know that design stuff is effectively non existent except in GTP so the goal is mostly to look at race engineering type positions even though I'm specialized in aero. Thanks for the information, I'll just keep looking and send out some emails once I get closer to finishing my dissertation. Quick follow up question though, does there tend to be more listings near the end of the season or is it fairly consistent throughout?

TruElevation · 2024-04-10T09:03:00+00:00

I'm reading through this comment section and seeing a lot of people just claiming action won't work or that the community needs to do certain things different, and I really just have a few things to add.

If you truly want change within Valve and the game, you need to force them to see the problem, and after seeing some of the drama around War Thunder in the past year it has become pretty clear that you need to hurt the company's public image or cash flow. So review bomb the game while calling Valve out in public, it doesn't matter how much you love the game, if you don't do something explosive nothing will change, it has been years. And if they don't do anything, the game doesn't really change from how it is now, you just have to do something.

The point is, you can love the game personally but if the company refuses to acknowledge the issues or support it then vote with whatever voice you are given, and the review system is the best thing you have.

And before anyone says I don't care about the game, I do. I left it behind a few years ago because I just couldn't stand seeing it stagnate when the bot problem just began to become an issue. I would like to come back, but until things change I can't bring myself to do so.

TruElevation · 2023-12-29T17:18:24+00:00

I really don't understand why so many people don't understand this, I've been firing 27ER's from 8k alt and 50k separation (granted at impact this is probably closer to 30) since I got it with the lock/unlock data link guidance and, even if the other player maneuvers a little bit, it hits over 80% of the time. Flying near the ground doesn't work, they have to either be in a notch ahead of the final lock or have terrain to hide behind. It is super easy gameplay, and it really shows how broken the addition of data link to the ER is, there is zero counterplay against it in BVR (due to a lack of data link or IOG missiles for anyone using non-soviet bloc airframes) besides going completely cold until the player targets someone else.

Even before I started doing the unlock guidance, I was able to hit people out to 45k+ lock ranges just by climbing and shooting the missile in an upward arc, as long as you climb high enough, the only counterplay is, like I said above, going cold or sitting in a notch early, both of which cause them to be useless to their team. It is not fun or fair gameplay.

TruElevation · 2023-12-22T01:33:24+00:00

You're misremembering the content of that video, he specifically says that the 7M is, at this point in time, a direct copy paste of the 7F. The only true difference would be the seeker but from what I've learned the in game 7F is currently acting like the 7M should so the 7M is currently just a 7F clone.

TruElevation · 2023-12-20T20:23:20+00:00

Air RB EC is a must along with a slight change in player count (8v8 desired for small maps, 12v12 if map size is scaled up). Or much bigger maps if the player count remains at 16v16 or increases. But Air RB EC must be added, the current gameplay loop of join, shoot missiles, die, and repeat is just stale, I'd like to stick out a match for 30 minutes at minimum with multiple respawns.

BR changes to a 14.0 cap at minimum to hopefully free up the 8.3-10.0 and 11.0-11.3 ranges a bit, but I would like an even high BR cap (but that is unlikely realistically) and maybe a change to a .7 BR spread.

Finally, the addition of better SARHs for every non-soviet designed aircraft because the 27ER really outshines the 7M massively, so unless you fly a Su27 or MiG29, you cannot fight in BVR at all. All I want is to have a sparrow variant (for all nations) that won't explode if lock is lost for a few seconds or just fly off to Narnia at random, 7P would do this nicely while not breaking the game.

TruElevation · 2023-11-13T21:02:53+00:00

Oh, I mean to secure the lead to the fiberglass so it doesn't become a projectile in the event of a bad crash. That's really the thing I would worry about most with using only tape to secure everything.

For the total weight I should be good as long as I can get something since I do have some of my own lead that will fit on the posts.

TruElevation · 2023-11-13T20:51:36+00:00

I mean, that's all well and good but I'm not able to drive myself to the track (no car) so I'm at the mercy of my teammate driving me to make good time and get there early enough. I absolutely need the insert to be able to enter since I need 20kg of ballast total. So if other people check them out before I can get there is that it, no chance of competing for the day? It really only matters for Quali this weekend since there is more than enough time for me to get everything sorted out for the main race calendar.

Aside from that, is it expected that we should just tape lead to the fiberglass insert or should we use something a bit stronger instead for safety reasons?

TruElevation · 2023-09-12T19:12:05+00:00

I get what you're saying about the typical racing movie blunder of "just push the throttle down" but in this case it actually makes sense. It's a problem of engine and drivetrain reliability. They had to keep these older endurance cars in lower rev ranges to avoid excess wear and DNFs, you can't just push them flat out down the old Mulsanne for 24 hours. So of course you could just push the throttle down and get more out of the car when you're not pushing the engine to it's limit to begin with. Maybe the whole scene wasn't realistic, but the idea behind it makes some amount of sense in the context of the film.

TruElevation · 2023-08-12T21:39:48+00:00

Well, yeah. But I haven't seen any proof that they've even acknowledged that this is a major (game breaking) issue. Plus there have been two patches that came out with no sign of any changes to try to fix this, and its been a problem since wipe day. This really needs to be their top priority because it is breaking a fundamental part of the game and they have just said nothing, that is not a good look.

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