In the time it takes to read this sentence, design finalists are capable of presenting data from the same day’s Autocross, along with analysis of which assumptions the data validates or invalidates, how it fits with all their other testing, and what the next steps are to continue improving the car and drivers. They do this for everything, all year.

• Energy consumption * time

• (Throttle history, rpm history) * (BSFC -or- cumulative EV efficiency maps)

• Add up fuel injector duration

Doing research, reverse engineering, setting design targets. Additional insight for teams thinking about making the EV transition.

They made a whole host of small changes that were almost imperceptible to the eye but aerodynamically significant. They also gave the car a nose-down rake by lowering the front suspension and raising the rear, both ever-so-slightly. All of the changes made the car significantly safer to drive at high speed. But the Ford Indigo was never going to be driven at high speeds as a show concept car – right?

• Standard Honeycomb IA

• FH Angle and Head Restraint Protection

• Tougher Monocoque Modulus and Harness

• Max 2 Accumulator Attachments Per Tube

• And more…

To manage priorities, ask four questions about every design decision, in this order: 1. Is it legal or illegal? 2. How does the change affect reliability or repeatability? 3. How does the change affect overall vehicle performance over a lap? 4. What are the drivability effects?

The most common barrier between your team and your performance goals is reliability. These design best practices are intended to help you create strong, stiff, and light mechanical designs. Every design requires tradeoffs, and this list is not intended to be a set of absolute rules; but it will help you identify common design strategies to follow, pitfalls to avoid, and will inform your design decision making.

There was one closely held secret design condition. It was secret because management would not want us to ‘overdesign’ the V12. The truth is, with clever engineering, planning for significant power increases adds very little weight and cost if you know what you are doing and if it is done up front.

Engineering is about finding the Goldilocks Solution. Cost is not separate from engineering; indeed it must go hand in hand with it. Good engineering practice goes beyond the merely technical, and encompasses knowledge of customers, supply chain, society, environmental impact etc. 

There is amazing variability in human bodies. Generally, vehicles are designed to reach from the 5th to 95th percentile, including any gender differences. But determining the measurements to use is complicated. Different countries or regions may have different ranges, and the gene interactions for any individual result in many different percentiles depending on the measurement.

The restrictor limits the amount of air an engine can use. The intake plenum smooths out the intake pulses, and makes it possible for other engines to compete with 4-cylinders. Asides on turbocharging.

Chris Warren provides some tips for what to expect and how to approach the design event.

Instead of thinking that you have to fill up X number of pages for the design report, the mentality should be “how can we fit all of our knowledge and work into these pages?”

The approach to understand what makes an engine run well is to look at the opening and closing of each valve. But whatever you want the valves to do, they’re actually doing something else, because you always have: Deflection, Inertia, and Vibration.

The very best drivers can go up to but not over the maximum lateral capability during braking and corner entry. As they smoothly come off the brakes, the lateral limit increases due to both the friction circle, and more balanced loads front/rear.

Stopwatches, garage beams, thermometers, cameras, chalk, zip ties, yarn, and smartphones.

How robust do driver controls really need to be? Never underestimate the strength of a scared driver.

Crash safety considerations beyond the frame and impact attenuator.

Ryan Kraft, former member of the #1 world ranked University of Michigan FSAE team, discusses how to set priorities for how your team defines winning and ways to pursue them.

Simply finding the combination that gives the fastest laptime is missing the point. The point is to understand the size of each effect, and how to engineer each effect to achieve the fastest laptime.