FormulaSAE.2007

Videos
16 November 2008

UARC Heads to Collingrove
14 July 2008

Today marked a very special day for UARC, with the successful completion of our first hill climb at Collingrove SA, hosted by the Sporting Car Club of South Australia. The morning was an early start, with Collingrove 80km from the city. Blustery yet fine weather made the day perfect for our first run. Much to our surprise, we were scheduled to run first out of the field of 91 entries for the day. After a short practice run up the hill, Asher Johnston laid down a 42 second first run. A respectable time for an initial run. After a few minor tuning adjustments were made to the suspension in an effort to counteract the poor grip as a result from running with cold tyres and brakes. Even an attempt to warm the tyres up on the warm up track did not yield any results, as the track was too heavily caked in rubber. We laid down 3 more fast times 36, 37 and 35 seconds respectively.

On the 5th and final run for the day, the wet tyres were put on the car in an effort to improve grip as they heat up faster than the slick Goodyear Eagles used in the other runs. The resulting time was 34.39 seconds which is the one of the fastest times to date in the class the FSAE car falls into (Formula Libre <1300cc). Not only was UARC07 fast in our own class, but the car was one of the fastest out there today, with only a few other cars able to post comparable times (including the likes of a Porsche GT2, Customs and Evo Lancers).

For the in car footage from the fastest time of the day head to http://www.uarc.com.au/media and click on “hillclimb” in the media section or follow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUk66DH1Z8.

There was significant interest from other competitors in UARC07 due to its aggressive looks, innovative custom design and impressive times. A lot of time and effort has been put in to keep UARC07 running and is tested regularly to improve our knowledge of tuning the suspension. Having a running vehicle throughout the year is essential to improving UARC08 once manufacture is complete.

UARC08 is over halfway through manufacture, with the finish in sight. Check out the Gallery called “new parts” in the media section of uarc.com.au for the latest pictures of manufactured components. More to come as we progress with manufacture…

Regards, Luke Betros

Manufacture Has Begun!
02 May 2008

It has been a very busy few weeks here at UARC with design complete, the mad rush to get drawings done for manufacture occupies many hours of the day.

The steel for the chassis has arrived and the long wait for the specialty roll hoop material Performance Metals Sydney continues…. The chassis manufacture has begun with the Mechanical Engineering Workshop beginning work on the front section. The 2008 chassis is lighter and stiffer than its 2007 counterpart, which aids in our mission to strip weight from our new vehicle.

UARC07 is still in use and the 2008 team have had the opportunity to drive the car to get a feel for the machine they spend so many hours designing. We have also been collecting data from our suspension thanks to our Linear Potentiometers from IDM Instruments which have allowed us to fine tune the 2007 vehicle and understand how to optimise our tuning. This data will be invaluable as we prepare for our first hill climb at Collingrove.

We have been experiencing a few problems with our website over the last few weeks after the site was transfered to a new high speed server at Netfox. The site should be back to full functionality next week when complete photo sets will be posted.

The trailer is complete, thanks to the Mechanical Engineering Workshop we now have the trailer fully enclosed and is now awaiting paint and vinyls.

We are also pleased to announce that SAWater are a Silver sponsor for 2008 and Tenneco have signed on as a Bronze Sponsor.

Out of Uni hours, our Paintballing trip promoted team building but also allowed the team members to vent frustrations after a long design process. The bruises from the day have only just recently faded. It was the black team, undermanned by one player that triumphed on the day with a convincing 7-1 game walkover.

Coming up next week are photos of our new components we have, including quick release, steering rack and MC’s and if we are lucky…a video of the new Aprilia RXV550 on the dyno.

UARC08 Begins...
13 March 2008

Today UARC took delivery of their brand new engines. The Aprilia RXV550. With the assistance of John Sample Automotive, Importers of Aprilia to Australia, we will be running this new engine in 2008. As shown in the pictures below, they are a very small, light and compact engine. The new engine opens new rear end packaging benefits as well as significant weight reductions.

Over the past few weeks, UARC has displayed the 2007 car at the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercars and also The University of Adelaide O-Week. It generated large amounts of interest at both events, with first second and third year engineering students keen to join in the FSAE program. The continuation of knowledge between years is paramount in a successful FSAE team.

We would like to welcome some of our new and repeat sponsors for 2008 to date including Bethune Manufacturing, John Sample Automotive, GPA Engineering, SME Manufacturing, Combined Resource Engineering, Netfox, G. G. Betros & Associates, Spitwater SA, Celesco and ADRAD. Without sponsors generous support UARC would not be able to create our 8th FSAE vehicle. We will be continuing our sponsorship drive over the next month, if you know of anyone who might be interested in supporting the future of engineering, please check out our Sponsorship Invitation on the Sponsors Page of the website.

Be sure to download one our UARC desktop wallpapers from the links below

Widescreen 1 – CLICK HERE

LCD 1 – CLICK HERE

Widescreen 2 – CLICK HERE

LCD 2 – CLICK HERE

Stay tuned for some sneak peaks of the tech specs of UARC2008!