JamesHigdon Posted November 18, 2004 Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 If any one (college students in the area) are in insterested in finding out how to become involved in a program where you design, manufacutre, and race a 500 lb. 70hp formula car that pulls over 1.5 lateral g's and does 0-60 in under 3.5 and 60-0 even quicker give me a call or drop me an email, also any business looking for a decent education/engineering/racing/charitable organization to helpout feel free to call or emial me, we are always looking for those who are interested in any way. Thanks everyone James Higdon 2004-2005 SAE@UTSA Cheif Tech. Director Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted November 18, 2004 Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 You should move that program down to Texas A&M Kingsville. lol Damn I wish I went to UTSA. I would jump at that in a heartbeat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bar2248 Posted November 18, 2004 Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 yall don't need those tires to test??get the car dield in?? how good is your program going to be next year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHigdon Posted November 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 Jason, funny you should mention A&M kingsville, a good friend of mine is working on a ME there right now and is trying to start an FSAE program, if you wish i can give his contact info to you. A&M K. would be a great place for an FSAE program because of the good composties program already in place and the engineering programs history there. BAR2248, the tires we gave away where about 1/4" to wide to fit on any of our cars even in the best, static situations so while we are despiratly in need of tires (any racing tire retailers or wholesalers reading?) for testing these were simply taking up much needed space. SAE@UTSA has, until this year, competed sporadically and as such has not had the needed continuity to form a strong competiting team. We did have a revolutionary aluminum spaceframe/structural carbon fiber bodied car in 2002 and last year we had what would have been a very competitive car but could never pass tech-inspection at competition. Our 2005 car will be 80 lighter, have more power, and be much more legal then our 2004 car and is looking to be a top quarter car if we can make it reliable. We are also looking to become an annual team and raise some much needed funding to be more succesful in the future. Thank you for you interest and anyone interested please feel free to emial or call us anytime. James Higdon 2004-2005 SAE@UTSA Cheif Tech. Director Email - utsa_sae@yahoo.com Shop Phone _ 210-458-5584 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted November 18, 2004 Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 I would be interested in joining a program like this although I am not an engineering major. I am a Sophmore Biology major with plans on attending the new Pharmacy school that is currently being built. I doubt the school will put forward the amount of money to support a program like this as they are spending a ton of money on the new Pharmacy building. Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHigdon Posted November 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 Well, being an engineering major is by no means a requisite for being in an FSAE program as some of our most active members are bio or business majors. A university with no money is also not a problem as almost all money for beginning teams is raised through outside sources, although I must add that the past two years UTSA has been very generous with us providing us with money when we were really in a bind. It also just occurred to me that tomorrow I’m coming down to Kingsville to visit the aforementioned friend and if your interested ill grab one of our disks with some pictures and video of the car running to give you a little better idea of what these things are like and what we do. Once again thank you to everyone for the interest and if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please feel free to contact us. James Higdon 2004-2005 SAE@UTSA Chief Tech. Director Email –utsa_sae@yahoo.com Shop Phone – 210-458-5584 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin35251 Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 at the last compettion, i was told that the cars were having trouble getting grip off the corners... how much horse power do yall make? (80 pounds lighter, thats a ton on one of those cars) what did yall get to do since yall couldn't pass tech...long way to travel not to be able to race Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHigdon Posted November 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 Kevin, as far as traction we have the exact opposite problem most forms of racing have. FSAE cars are so light that even with the skinniest, softest tires we can get they take a long time to get up to temp and the cars slide around a lot. Our 2002 car made 68 hp on South West Research Institutes Chassis Dyno and our 2004 engine package is almost exactly the same. As far as 80 pounds lighter, most FSAE cars weigh in between 450 and 500lbs so were simply getting our car down to 470 where is should be. The tech problems we had were primarily due to the fact that most of the car was designed and built by 3 people in 5 months, we missed a lot of details like safety wiring C.V. joints and all steel braided high pressure fuel lines and the biggest problem (and the only one we still have) is the rule that all student built cars will leak out fluids almost as quick as their put in. We finished 113 out of 138 cars based just on our static events (cost-reports and design judging) and yes, 29 hours straight through is a very long time to travel for a race to never even start the race car. James Higdon 2004-2005 SAE@UTSA Chief Tech. Director Email-utsa_sae@yahoo.com Shop Phone 210-458-5584 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin35251 Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 did yall learn anything while yall were up there? like look at the other cars, get some ideas? who else in Tx has this program... UT? A&M? UTSA. "is the rule that all student built cars will leak out fluids almost as quick as their put in"???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHigdon Posted November 21, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 Kevin, we learned a ton by being at Detroit this year and through talking with other teams and looking at other cars we have come up with better ways to do some things. FSAE Teams spend an absurd amount of time engineering and building these cars and it’s almost impossible to look one over without seeing something done a way that’s never been though of before but is better then any other way. We also leaned a good deal walking through the secretive halls of GM’s design and test buildings! To the best of my knowledge UTSA, UT, A&M, UTA, and (I don’t know if this is a school in Texas but was told it is?) Le Tourney (?). I know there have been other schools in previous years and there are probably others I don’t know of now. The thing about the rule of all student cars leaking was a joke due to the fact that our car leaks out of every place we put fluid in it and (among many other instances) this year UTA lost a potential top three spot due to leaky differential seals. James Higdon 2004-2005 SAE@UTSA Cheif Tech. Director Email-utsa_sae@yahoo.com Shop Phone-210-458-5584 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickHolt Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 Thought I would move this thread over from the Classified section since it really belongs in the Discussions section. Nick Holt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supertx Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 This sounds pretty cool do you have any pictures of these cars ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bar2248 Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 Heres the A&M website... http://sae.tamu.edu/ Its pretty cool, we started working on the car December 28... We have the chassis built, working on the body,mounting A arms and the rest of the suspension on, Motors just came in, Driver training is taking place... the cool thing about it is everything is made in house... spindles, we are starting on making our own shocks , A arms. The motors and the restrictor are pretty much the only thing that get shipped off to be made, and of course the brake calipers we order, everything else we make. Our car should weigh around 460 and make around 70 hp with the restrictor, without the restrictor it should make around 125. (yamaha 600 - Fuel injected) ONLY ONE PROBLEM THEY HAVE THE SHIFTER ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE CAR?????? Its pretty cool though. Last year we finished second to CORNELL University who has won like 7 championships now, this year it should be different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supertx Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 Very intresting keep us posted on your progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smokin' Armadillo Posted February 19, 2005 Report Share Posted February 19, 2005 Jason, I'm an Ag. Science major at A&M Kingsville, and I can tell you that we barely had enough money to put new doors on our engine lab behind the Ag. Mechanics building. That does sound like a pretty slick program though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHigdon Posted February 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 Thanks Mr. Holt for moving this to where some people would see it. I would have responded earlier and posted some pictures but between midterms and the flu I haven’t been able to. Id like to put a picture or two up so people can see what these cars are but I don’t know exactly how, would someone mind sending me a P.M. detailing how? I know I’ve said this before but anyone thinking about attending college and even remotely interested in engineering or racing should look into FSAE. FSAE started in Texas and we have the largest number of FSAE teams of any state. UTSA FSAE is always looking for interested students and is currently searching for sponsorship of any kind from interested businesses. James Higdon 2004-2005 Chief Tech. Dir. FSAE@UTSA utsa_sae@yahoo.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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