KDSS Anti-roll Suspension

Winning FSAE != having the fastest car on the track. UWA did reasonably well in the high scoring Design sections, but they weren't the best, from memory (I was a judge back then).

UWA team members often referred to the Werribee track (FSAE Australia venue for many years) as an example of the need for a suspension with low warp stiffness. In many sections this track had a convex "ridge" profile which had to be traversed obliquely - placing much of the load on diagonal corners of the car ie warp mode.

Circuit racing around the world typically does not place such a demand on the suspension and this is perhaps one reason soft warp suspensions are not more popular (apart from the obvious added complexity, cost and weight).

A portion of FSAE is in fact "racing" and UWA were one of the fastest - ie "racing success".

C'mon, Grunt, who are you talking to here? It's not like I just showed up.

FSAE are great student projects, but there's damn little racing. Let's say there are 100 total car. 40 of them will finish the endurance event. 20 of those are hopelessly off pace. Of the 20 that are left, 10 will be cars that were not impressive in any form during the engineering competition. So maybe 10% of the cars will have good engineering and acceptable reliability. Of those, 1-3 will have a driver with experience outside of FSAE. Very few will have so much as a driving school. None will be pros.

It sounds like I'm trying to talk FSAE down. I'm not. I'm actually a big fan. I came through it myself and I've been a design judge many times(~5?). I even worked a little bit with a team as recently as last spring. It is a great experience for engineering students, but it's not racing. You'll find more racing on a random Saturday afternoon at your local karting track than you will in 5 years of FSAE.

I'm sure UWA had a car that was fast (let's say it was the fastest), but with respect to whom? What were the resources UWA used compared to it's competition? Because of the very nature of FSAE, we really have no idea how good the car was in an absolute sense.

As far as the notion that a soft car in the warp mode is an advantage, but racing *circuits* don't reward it? Well, I'm skeptical.

I agree with your views on FSAE with a couple of exceptions:

 - Almost every driver I have encountered had experience outside FSAE - maybe its different here in Aus.

 - I have attended a couple of hill climb events with a mid-field FSAE car - very competitive against serious club racers (actually won a national class championship).

The first FSAE event I attended in 2007 was won by this car https://www.youtube....h?v=O8ti5G4jFSo by the barest of margins from UWA (with Kinetic suspension of course)

I agree with your views on FSAE with a couple of exceptions:

 - Almost every driver I have encountered had experience outside FSAE - maybe its different here in Aus.

 - I have attended a couple of hill climb events with a mid-field FSAE car - very competitive against serious club racers (actually won a national class championship).

 

The first FSAE event I attended in 2007 was won by this car https://www.youtube....h?v=O8ti5G4jFSo by the barest of margins from UWA (with Kinetic suspension of course)

I can't really speak to the level of driving in Oz. I haven't found this to be the case in the US. As far as the hill-climb comparison, I think that's about the same level of racing as a FSAE car. It doesn't surprise me they're similar speeds. What an enthusiast comes up with in his garage compares with that of ~a dozen inexperienced engineering students (often with serious $$$ behind them). That sounds about right.

For the record, the car in that video is _way_ faster than what it showed there. The gearing was short and the driver was timid. If a professional was running that same car, they'd have been >5 seconds faster.