Reddit reviews Hands-On Race Car Engineer
We found 1 Reddit comments about Hands-On Race Car Engineer. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
We found 1 Reddit comments about Hands-On Race Car Engineer. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Hi OP, here are some links to answer your questions. First of all, don't open Miliken and Miliken yet; with all due respect, it's probably not something you are able to digest yet and it's not going to have the answers in the way that you need it to tackle this project. What you should do first is ask for clarification; I assume he doesn't want you to design suspension components, but look into ways to effectively adjust toe and camber. Caster is usually a designed element that isn't often adjusted.
If I'm understanding correctly, he'd want you to evaluate your current setup that you have to do alignment and then improve it. Perhaps you don't have a method right now, and he'd want you to create one. These improvements can manifest in changes to the design of the suspension to allow for adjustment or changes to your rig that you use to align the car.
The basic elements of an alignment, or a static setup, are:
Here is a link about corner weights: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/understanding-corner-weights/
You can go relatively low tech (measuring string and using plates) to high tech (digital read outs, etc) based on your budget. You probably have scales to put under each tire, so you'll need to see what kind of scales you have, if you have a way to level them, and what he would like to improve. All these adjustments listed above are done when the car is on scales. Here are a couple of links to online stores where you can see categories of products. Bare minimum, I'd get scales, toe plates, a tape measure, and a camber gauge.
https://www.racerpartswholesale.com/category/Chassis_Setup_Tools
http://eastcoastspeed.com/c-701015-pit-tools-equipment-chassis-set-up-tools.html
When I joined the FSAE team I read "Hands-On Race Car Engineer" to understand this topic in particular. We have a copy that floats in the shop. It's written in plain language and it has a lot of great diagrams for this setup. It also goes into other topics like effective testing. Our copy is well worn with sticky notes and scribbles all through it. I sincerely recommend shelling out the money for it out of your team's budget. http://books.sae.org/r-323/
https://www.amazon.com/Hands-Race-Engineer-Premiere-Books/dp/0768008980
I hope others chime in and add on to my comment. I imagine I'm missing things.
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/FSAE/comments/5g7rsg/how_does_your_team_do_setup_cambertoealignment/
Here is another thread discussing this \^