fSAE Team Places in Competition

The competition is over, the results are in. CETA’s fSAE car did well; the team, Erick Rickert, Jonathan Scales, Brett Tuffano, Zach Frank, George Bongart (who did outstanding machining work for the team throughout the year), Nick Gervasi, Jacob Roehl ( who did the molding for the body work), and captain Steve Osuch, learned a lot; and they will apply the lessons learned on next year’s car.

As reported in an earlier post, the team who went to California consisted of Steve Osuch, Jonathan Scales, Eric Rickert, Nick Gervasi, and Brett Tufano, accompanied by their advisor Dr. Frank Lahey and last year’s captain, Ben Young. Brett, Steve, and Ben went to California early so they could go to the facility the car had been shipped to in Riverside, California and get it prepped for the track before the rest of the team got there.

When they got to the car, they found footprints on the top of the crate that lead to a gaping hole in it. Something had been stacked or stood on the crate and had fallen through onto the car. However, the team didn’t find any damage and set about getting everything ready to head to the track.

The first day of the competition was spent registering and getting the car prepped for technical inspection.

The second day also involved some waiting, this time for technical inspection, while a couple of the team members went to various static events such as the marketing presentation, the design presentation, and the cost report discussion and presentation. Some members also had to go to drivers’ meetings to make sure everyone understood all the track rules.

The only issue found during the technical inspection was the car’s shoulder harness bar; the team had to replace it with different material. That task was done in about 30 minutes, and they received their first technical inspection sticker to show that the car complied with the rules.

The third day, Friday, was difficult and, Steve reports, “seemingly impossible for us.” Because they had had to wait in line the day before for auto tech inspection, they had to finish all the other tech inspections the morning of the third day. But the inspection station didn't open until 8 a.m., and skidpad and acceleration runs had to be performed between 8 a.m. and 1130 a.m. The team arrived at the inspection stations at 7 on the dot (when the track opened up), got the car all set to go for the tilt table, brake test, and noise test, and sat first in line to fill up with fuel before going to the tilt table.

The tilt table consists of a hydraulic table on which the car is placed with the tallest driver (Steve) sitting inside . Then the table is tilted up to 60 degrees from horizontal (very steep!) to determine whether the car will roll over or spill any fluids. The 60-degree tilt simulates a 2-G lateral acceleration on the car as it corners. Steve says, “I can verify that it was quite a rush being in our car with a simulated 2 G's as they let me sit there for a minute while they checked the car for leaks.”

From the tilt table, the car was pushed over to the noise test, which consists of a check to make sure the car’s muffler attenuates the noise of the engine below 110dB. CETA’s custom-made muffler, created by Brett Tufano and Zach Frank, tested at 109.6dB. That result arises from excellent engineering; it means that the team got the maximum amount of flow possible out of the muffler while complying with the rules.

Next, the car was pushed forward onto the brake test track where the team watched the car accelerate and come to a controlled stop, locking up all 4 wheels on the first try. The team was nervous because just before the car was shipped out to California, a brake line cracked and they had to bleed the brakes and set up the bias without actually being able to have the car on the ground, so all of the settings were an educated guess. If all four tires hadn't locked up during the test, they would have been allowed to adjust the brakes and try again; however, as mentioned before, time was of the essence.

At this point the car was having engine troubles that the team had not been able to address before because they were not allowed to run the engine until after passing the tech inspection. They weren’t even sure the car would be able to run well enough to get up to speed.

Despite the problems, the car received all three tech stickers and it was only 9:30 in the morning, meaning they had 2 hours to quickly tune up the engine and hit the acceleration and skidpad tracks. They were able to tune the car a little bit but were still having problems. Still, they were running out of time and had to head to the track. Brett Tufano drove and managed a 5.6-second run on the acceleration track, an 82-yard straightaway. The car was capable of doing much better than that, but the engine was still having problems that the team could not pinpoint, and it was time to go to the skidpad.

That is a figure-8 track on which the driver has to go as fast as possible without losing control. Brett drove again and made an impressive 5.48-second run, putting CETA in 19th place for skidpad. The team was very happy with that result since the engine was still running poorly.

After the skidpad, the team worked on the engine to prepare for the autocross run later in the evening and tested their changes on the practice track. While Steve was driving, he reported that it felt like the throttle stuck. Upon inspection, the team discovered a large hole in the intake manifold. Apparently, a tiny crack had formed next to one of the mounts. The crack caused an air leak that wreaked havoc on the tuning of the engine. Eventually, the crack got worse, blew off the mount completely, and formed a large hole. The team was able to fix the problem by welding a patch, and they knew immediately that they had identified the problem because the engine ran better, but they were out of time to tune it up for the autocross run.

The autocross track is a very curvy and hard-to-navigate track the purpose of which is to measure overall vehicle performance. When driving on the track, Steve could tell that the motor was running better, but it wasn't quite up to the power it should have had. The car was handling "fantastically," but it wasn't going as fast as it should have been going, giving CETA a 61-second run compared to the best 49-second run. As the driver of this event, Steve says, “I know that if the car was running the way it was in testing, we could have gotten much closer to this best time, if not even better.”

After the autocross event, there was only one more event to prepare for: the endurance run. Since the team didn't have to run it until the following afternoon, they finally had some time to tune the car up and get it running really well. In fact, they got the car running “very fast.”

The endurance run is basically a display of both performance and engineering. The corners are not quite as demanding on the car as in the autocross but the car has to run for almost 14 miles straight to see whether anything breaks. If the track workers see anything break on a car that poses a risk to anyone or renders a car noncompliant with the rules, they black-flag the car and pull it off the track and that team is done. Even if the problem is simple to fix, teams are not allowed to fix it. With Steve driving again, the car was running even with Honda Technical University. On the third lap, just as the tires were getting warm and the car was starting to handle well, a critical bracket failed, causing CETA’s muffler to shift back slightly. Although the muffler was still attached to the car, it became extremely loud and therefore not up to spec anymore. The car was pulled out of the endurance race by the officials.

The team members were very disappointed; they had fixed all the problems they faced during the week, and the car was running very well. But as Steve says, “we pulled it together and held our chins up high because for the first time in four years, the University of Hartford made it to a competition . . . in California, 2900 miles away nonetheless . . . and showed up and competed in every single event. Instead of getting a forfeit next to our name, we got placed.”

CETA placed 33rd in cost, 17th in design, 19th in skidpad, and 30th in acceleration. Overall, with the rest of the static events factored in and our DNF (Did Not Finish) in the endurance, CETA placed 43rd out of the 65 schools that competed (of the 82 registered). “We did not win, but we did place and we are happy about that. It was bittersweet, though, knowing that our car was definitely capable of running with the top ten cars out there had we only found our problem sooner.”

The team has gained a vast amount of experience from actually making it to an event and now know what has to be done to design and make a winning car. The members are confident that next year they will go to the competition in Michigan and turn a lot of heads when everyone sees University of Hartford on the leader board. The University of Maryland impressed everyone this year going from 99th to a first-place finish in just four years; the team is determined to impress all the participants by going from no car to 43 to first in only three seasons.

Next year, the captain of the team will be Jon Scales, with Steve Osuch remaining as president of the fSAE program.

The team would like to thank the University of Hartford Student Government Association this year for their very generous budget of close to $11,000 this past season and another $11000 for the upcoming season. With travel and shipping expenses at an all-time high, it would not have been possible to build the car and compete without every single sponsor's donation this year.

For a photo gallery showing the team and the car in California, please go to uhaweb.hartford.edu/fsae/california.

[This article was written by Natalie Segal with input from Steve Osuch.]