June 8, 2008

Building a Better Race Car
Auto engineering students head to Dallesport for trial runs

By KATHY GRAY
of The Dalles Chronicle

     Newly torn and mangled metal gleams from the differential on Western Washington University’s Viking 43 — not something a competition-bound automotive engineering team wants to see, but there it is.
     That unwelcome tear took the team’s pride and joy from 14,400 revolutions per minute to zero in a blink.
     “We blew up the differential,” said Eric Urness, grimly assessing the damage along with his teammates before philosophically adding, “That’s the reason why we test.”
     When Urness heads home for a visit from Western Washington University, he doesn’t just bring his laundry and an appetite for home cooking, he brings an entire automotive engineering team.
     Members of the Bellingham, Wash., university’s Formula SAE team rolled into Dallesport en masse about 3 a.m. on a Friday in May, hauling the Viking 43 tow.
     The object of their affection is a petite formula-style race car, which they plan to put through its paces on June 25 at Fontana, Calif., at the FSAE West Competition put on by the Society of Automotive Engineers.
     “We’re doing driver selection and training, chassis setup and suspension tune-up,” Urness explained. Meanwhile, another potential driver wedged himself into the tiny car and prepared to navigate the orange cones set up on the decommissioned runway at Columbia Gorge Regional Airport.
     The success of today’s and other testing will tell in the upcoming competition, where these young engineers will test the product of their skills against about 120 other vehicles from colleges and universities throughout the world. The SAE student members conceive, design, fabricate and compete with the small formula-style racing cars.
     When they get to Fontana, the Viking 43 will be put through its paces in four events: skidpad, acceleration (drag racing), autocross and endurance.
     “Most cars fail during endurance,” Urness said, which involves a 13-mile run. “That’s why we’re going to do extra testing on the car.”
     The cars take about a year to design and fabricate in anticipation of the competition. Restrictions on the car frame and engine are designed to challenge the team’s knowledge, creativity and imagination.
     The name of the vehicle comes from the school’s mascot, and the number of cars that have been produced over the years by college students.
     “We’ve been through lots and lots and lots of iterations,” notes Matt Nucci of this year’s effort alone. Urness’ teammate describes the project as a “3D puzzle.”
     The Viking 43 uses a 600-cubic-centimeter Honda F4i motorcycle engine with a 20-millimeter restrictor, in accordance with competition rules. It generates 85 horsepower.
     The car is seven inches shorter than last year’s model in response to performance issues and weighs just 443 pounds wet (with all its fluids).
     Even with the design restrictions, this little car zips through the obstacle course on this overcast day with a quickness that combines speed and agility.
Most of the parts on this vehicle issued from the skills and hands of these guys.
     “Our school is very well known in the formula industry for fabricating most of its parts,” Urness said. A visit to the group’s website (http://www.wwufsae.com/index.html) offers information about the process of designing and fabricating the carbon fiber moncoque chassis, as well as other aspects of the vehicle’s makeup.
     The car is the center of a design process led by students inside Western Washington University’s Vehicle Research Institute.
     At the upcoming competition, they’ll defend their creation in some ways similar to the way a graduate student defends a master’s thesis.
     Not only will they put their car through its paces on the track, they’ll also have to explain the cost of the car and justify their design decisions in a detailed presentation.
     “The people who judge this event are mostly industry professionals in auto companies, motor sports and other things that deal with cars,” Urness said.
Which is another reason the Formula SAE team is testing, testing and testing again.
     This group is expected back at Dallesport for hot-weather testing the week before the competition, hopefully, with a solution to their differential problem.
For this day’s tests, though, all that’s left is a moment of brief mourning over the disabled car and to pack up and go home.