Formula UH News
12/5/2013
As we are approaching the end of the semester, we have nearly completed our project. All we have left is to trouble shoot some issues and we should be driving the car by this weekend. Wish us luck as we strive for the final push .
Our friend John Russell helped us fabricate the custom exhaust for our car.
It came out looking really nice and he used parts from the stock exhaust and some new parts that he brought!
Shaun gave it a nice coat of high heat paint.
The exhaust came out looking amazing.
We finally got our dampers in and Alex quickly got to work to get them installed. This is a picture of the front suspension.
This is a picture of the rear suspension. The car supports its own weight now with 2 1/8" of ground clearance.
This is the drive-train fully assembled.
These are the custom CV shafts that were fabricated. We had to cut the CV shafts from a Miata and then shorten them to the length that we needed. They were re-welded and stress relieved.
The drive's view.
This is a gas tank that we found in the shop that we modified to fit into our car. Our friend Matt Walsh helped us weld it and John help finish the rest. They did a great job!
The front hub and brake assembly. We needed to incorporate spacer so that we could have enough room to have the brake rotor inside the wheel.
Shaun is currently working on finishing the brake lines. It is able to stop the car, but we still have some bugs to fix.
11/21/2013
Shaun has nearly completed the electrical work for the car, needing only to finish a portion of the mounting. This is quite an accomplishment as prior to this project he had no significant experience wiring electrical systems. Below you can see some of the work he has done.
This system includes:
This system includes:
- Emergency shut-off switch in the cockpit
- External emergency shut-off switch
- Neutral indicator light
- Fuel pump switch
- Ignition switch
- Push-button start
- Clutch switch (the car will not start without full depression of the clutch pedal)
- Brake pedal/brake light switch
We've also begun putting together the remainder of the driveline, as can be seen below. With the brake mounted, and the aluminum spacers completed, we need only to shorten and heat treat the CV axles. We expect the driveline to be completed Thanksgiving weekend.
That's it for this update. As we are expecting our dampers to arrive any day now, expect to see the car up on all fours very shortly.
11/05/2013
We've been hard at work these past few weeks, so we've got a big update for you today.
The shifter and pedal assemblies have been fully built and installed.
The shifter and pedal assemblies have been fully built and installed.
The pedal assembly is fully modular, with customizable brake bias. To allow for brake bias adjustment, the pedal base is slotted.
The shifter is directly-actuated and makes use of an aluminum bicycle crank arm. A spherical rod end is used to counter-act buckling.
The steering wheel, column, and rack have been installed.
The steering wheel, column, and rack have been installed.
Uprights have been completed.
The radiator has been installed.
And here is the car in its current state:
Frame Progress
As of 10/16/2013, Alex has weld on the rear engine mount brackets and is currently welding the front brackets. He has also welded the suspension tabs that will connect the wheels to the frame.
Suspension Progress
Thanks to TX/RX Labs we had the sheet metal cut out for our uprights. This saved us a lot of hours since we were planning to cut them out with a jig saw.
José has been working on the HAAS CNC lathe to mill the metal pipes that were donated by Morris Scrap Metal. The pipes will be the bearing housing for our uprights. This is the progress as of 10/16/2013. The next step is to make the groove for the bearing retaining snap ring.
Thanks to our underclassmen Mark we were able to build a jig to accurately weld the A-arms.
Chris (our other underclassmen) then TIG welded everything together.
DriveTrain Progress
After hours of machining on the school's HAAS CNC machine, Shaun has finished the mount for the hub portion of the swingarm which made using the aluminum block that was donated by Morris Scrap Metal. It came out looking great! It looks identical to the part that he designed in the CAD software. Our next challenge is figuring out how to mount it to our frame.
NEw Sponsor: Houston bearing & supply Co., Inc.
Team Formula UH would like to thank Houston Bearing Supply for their generous donation! They donated the wheel bearings and spherical rod end bearings that will be used for our suspension.
From the Houston Bearing & Supply website:
From the Houston Bearing & Supply website:
For more information about Houston Bearing & Supply, including product catalogs and contact information, visit their website by clicking here.
New Sponsor: TX/RX Labs
We'd like to thank TX/RX Labs for plasma cutting the material for our uprights. With their help, we'll cut the build time of the uprights to an estimated 1.5 weeks, down from 3 weeks.
From the TX/RX Labs website:
From the TX/RX Labs website:
For more info about TX/RX Labs, including information about how to participate, visit their website by clicking here.
New Sponsor: Morris Scrap Metal Co.
This weekend, we secured a new sponsor: Morris Scrap Metal Co. We knew their prices would be fair, so we headed over there with the intent of purchasing the material we needed. But, after talking with Marco (a fellow racing enthusiast), he was more than happy to donate the material we needed. If you're in the Houston area and are shopping around scrap yards, make sure you stop by Morris Scrap Metal. You'll get great service from some of the nicest people you'll meet, guaranteed.
09/20/2013
Things are going well for Formula UH. As of last night, our frame is 95% complete! Things left to do: engine mounting, harness mounting bar, and main roll hoop supports. Completion is expected by the end of Wednesday, 9/25/2013.
In other news, we've begun construction of our suspension, beginning with the uprights. In the video that follows, Shaun explains some of the tools being used to machine our wheel bearing housings.
That's it for now! Thanks for following us, and stay tuned for more updates!
Frame Update
(9/9/2013)
We've made great progress on the frame, thanks in part to the arrival of our PipeMaster Contour Gauge (http://www.pipemastertools.com/), and are right on schedule to meet our deadline for completion of the frame. Our next order of business is to complete the cockpit, followed by the engine compartment and rear suspension box. Stay tuned!
We got a new sponsor!
(9/5/2013)
Team Formula UH would like to thank our new sponsor, Trail Tech! They will provide us with a customized Vapor Gauge set. Thank you Lyzz at Trail Tech for all your help!
Frame progress
(9/2/2013)
We have been hard at work over the summer. We spent a lot of time learning to weld and bend our tubes. We even had to make a tool for the bender (saved us some $$ too!). As of today, we have approximately 15% of the frame completed.
Engine progress
We purchased a used CBR600RR engine for quite a bargain. We tirelessly spent about a week trying to get it started. After hours of diagnosing and part swapping (All borrowed from Melvin, including all ignition related sensors, ECU, wiring harness, fuel tank/w pump, gauge cluster, starter relay) we finally found the missing piece to our puzzle, a $0.30 diode. The manuals fail to mention the need of this diode for security purposes but fellow FSAE competitors helped out via forums.
The engine fired up friday night ( 8/30/2013) at 11:30 PM. We would like to extend a special thanks to Quan Ta and Nha Vu for their time and support to help us get this engine running. We would also like to thank Melvin for letting us borrow half of his engine essentials.
The engine fired up friday night ( 8/30/2013) at 11:30 PM. We would like to extend a special thanks to Quan Ta and Nha Vu for their time and support to help us get this engine running. We would also like to thank Melvin for letting us borrow half of his engine essentials.
Drivetrain Progess
After speaking with a seasoned motorcycle racer and racecar fabricator Wil Kitchens of iDB Racing (one of our awesome sponsors by the way) we decided to take a simple approach to engineering our driveline. Wil suggested the use of a swingarm from a Honda Hawk (or something similar), so that's what we did. We found a complete swingarm at Houston Cycle Salvage. These guys treated us great! They stayed open late so we could remove the part from the bike and even let us use their tools! Please check them out if you have any used motorcycle part needs.
We plan on fabricating a mount for the hub portion of the swingarm and selling the aluminum swingarm to raise funds.
We plan on fabricating a mount for the hub portion of the swingarm and selling the aluminum swingarm to raise funds.