It's been a long month, but I'm proud to announce via the internets that the car does run and it move under it's own power!!! We still have a good bit of work to do, but most of that will be concentrated now on tuning and scrutineering the car to make sure we pass the Tech inspection no problem.

We also got new cabinets and finished our autobay reconstruction, so the Formula team, the Baja Team and the Solar Car team now have more room than ever to work. Included in the project were all new cabinets for storage, and they really make the autobay look like a real shop. Big thanks to Hercke for stepping up and providing us top quality equipment at an excellent price. We're very happy to have a workspace we can be proud of!

Video 1



Video 2

And... we're back... from Spring Break of course. A few hands stayed around and put in some hours during the vacation, getting a few odds and ends done so we can get the car moving under its own power once the engine cranks. Grant (and I to a limited extent) worked on turning the engine over before break, but alas, we couldn't get spark. The fact that the motor did crank when we pushed the starter button means that a lot of what we did is correct the first time, which is always nice. Zhefei and Drew have been making seats out of two-part expanding marine foam in trash bags, and it has been working out rather well, despite being an ugly yellow color(we can fix that...)

Not having done this sort of project before it's difficult to predict when things are going to happen, and as such it's been a bit frustrating to unknowingly set goals that are just not possible to meet. Having an extra year to work on the car was easily the best thing we could have asked for heading into our first competition. We've done several design iterations on a lot of components, and now I feel like we've made a very solid entry for a first year team.

-Brendon

Greetings all, the car looks like a car now, and not some sort of airframe. Check out the pictures in the media section.



-Brendon

Good News all around this time! Many exciting things going on here

Northwestern Motorsports is proud to have been selected as the host for the SAE Chicago January Section meeting. The meeting is tentatively set for January 24th and will be hosted in the Ford Motor Company Engineering and Design Center. This is a great opportunity to show off our program and all we have accomplished up to this point. This gives us great faith that the SAE program at Northwestern is here to stay.

In other news, the chassis is officially complete and painted, and we are ready to start the assembly process. The frame looks absolutely menacing in flat black. Our goal is to have the car on the wheels before we leave for Christmas break. Stay tuned for a photo update.

We were also able to run the engine in the autobay to verify everything still worked and to just get some exhaust notes in our ears. Now comes the task of splicing wires and extending harnesses to fit its new home in our awesome frame.

Stay Tuned... I know I will.

-Brendon

Northwestern Motorsports is proud to receive a grant from the Murphy Foundation for tools, a shock dyno, and an engine dyno. These are valuable instruments that will help us fine tune our car.

We are ecstatic to receive another donation from Ford, making them our clear primary sponsor. Their support has been key in our team's success.

Also joining the Northwestern Motorsports family is Caterpillar. We are glad to have them on board as well.

The car is this (-><-) close to getting on the wheels. We are remanufacturing our suspension mounts and making a jacking point as I type this. The suspension is ready to bolt on and it will be a great motivator to finally have a car to roll around the shop (and over the freshmen...)

-Brendon

Progress was made on the rear suspension and the driveline.

The correct length half-shafts arrived, thanks to Scotty at Chassis Shop. The tolerances weren't quite right between the shaft and the CV Joints, so Drew and Kyle had some work in store cleaning up the splines and mocking up the rear suspension.

Fortunately it looks like everything will fit - almost the entire rear suspension was installed, with the exception of tie rods. The brakes all line up, everything spins correctly, parts that are supposed to move are able to do so and do not interfere with anything else.

There are two possible sticking points. The differential needs to be lowered a small amount, the car hasn't much droop before the CV joints run out of misalignment and lock up. Also, the wheel bearing currently has too much free play, and could possibly allow the brake caliper body to come into contact with the rotor. This may not even be a problem though Ð we will not know until we try a final assembly with the finished parts. Spacing is tight.

The CAMing of the upper bearing carriers for the rear uprights are almost done. Zhefei and Grant spent the afternoon on the PACE computer, working with UG. Another couple hours to verify tool paths and we should be good to start machining.

Next week Eaton, Ford, GM, Honeywell and other companies start showing up, so we will be meeting up with them to give updates on our progress.

See you in the shop.

-grant

Notes from the meeting:

Thanks to all who came to the meeting tonight, it was good to see a lot of new faces show up on such short notice! But if you weren't there, here's what you missed:

• Basic info about FSAE and what exactly it is (and why exactly it's going to mean a lot for some of you)
• Why we are going to Detroit (It costs less to travel to and it's the big show!)
• To-do lists will be going up this week or next week pending a re-do of THE LIST
• The car is 90% complete! (90% to go?) Let's keep up our momentum!
• Shenanigans and enjoying each other's company as promised

If you want to get caught up please do yourself a favor and check out sae.org and fsae.com to see what is going on in the wonderful world of collegiate racing. Also get started at looking at some of the Carroll Smith books, although they may be dull at times, they cover a lot of important racecar engineering.

Again, if you couldn't make it don't worry as you'll be bound to pick up any info you need if you hang out with us enough.


See you around!
Brendon DiVincenzo

It's official, Northwestern Motorsports is registered as car #101 for Formula SAE in Michigan in the 2008 Competition Series! Get Pumped!

As you may have heard by now, the Northwestern FSAE team was unable to finish the vehicle in time to compete at California Speedway last June. While the team was not able to participate directly, many team members chose to attend FSAE West to watch, learn and gather as much information about the competition as possible. And we did gather information - thousands of pictures, pages and pages of notes. From these and many discussions on other team's designs, we have filled our minds with ideas for this up coming year. We are all excited and looking forward to this upcoming year.

We do have a phenomenal platform with which to start the new school year. The car is very close to being finished. The frame just needs painted. The suspension (including uprights and A-arms) are completed and need final assembly. The motor is in, plumbed and looking to get tuned. The body work is completed, and just needs stickers. People are arriving mid September to finish what is left. We plan on significant testing of as many systems as possible before the weather hits, so that we can do analysis and design iteration throughout the winter. Anyone interested in viewing the vehicle testing (and it should be entertaining) should let us know and we will keep you up to date on when and where we will be. We are shooting to take a revised version of this car to next year's competition.

We have some extensive plans for the year, mostly focused on team building. We are in discussions with the University to expand our space in the Ford Building, allowing us to grow our testing facilities. We have plans for both an engine dynamometer and a shock dynamometer, and a flow bench. If you have access to any of these tools (or know anyone who does) we would be most appreciative if you could contact us. These are important tools for suspension and drive-train development - and our car (and our education) will benefit greatly by some experience. With a soon-to-be-completed vehicle, we look forward to recruiting some new members.

Several team members have had jobs in industry this summer, honing their engineering and networking skills at places like S&C Electric, IDEO, CAT, and Spectre Performance. Most of us are looking forwards to getting back to campus and seeing friendly faces. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come by the Ford Engineering Building to check out the vehicle. If you let us know ahead of time, we can ensure that someone will be on hand to show you around the facilities, see the car and the current projects. If you decide to drop by, odds are extremely high one of us will be there anyways -s we spend nearly 24 hours a day there. Please - come out and visit us. We would benefit from some industry experience, and I think you would have some fun and be a little impressed with how far we have come in such a short time.


-NUMO Vroom
Northwestern FSAE

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