Curtin Motorsport Team

2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 8

2011-12-18T21:15:00.000-08:00

Day 7 which is technically day 4 of competition, is endurance day where the cars are tested to there maximum with two heats of two drivers completing 16 laps each as well as a drivers change. The endurance event is the highest scoring event with 300 pts on offer. Fuel economy is also run at the same time which is worth 125pts so all up there are 425pts on offer.

6:15am Wake Up

Today is the big day for a number of reasons, firstly for the second year in a row we are aiming to complete all events at competition. Secondly we are aiming to finish top ten this year which means that we need to finish enduro and actually score points this time. As last year while we finished the endurance event, due to the number of cones we hit plus going off track quite a few times meant that we had nearly 4 minutes in time penalties added onto our time which put us over time.

The team got up and the drivers were the first out the door and on there way to the track for drivers briefing and last minute checks of the car.

9:30am Practice Track

Wes and Dave are our first drivers in as they are generally quicker and hit less cones, we had a quick shake down of the car in the practice track. Unfortunately it had begun to rain, so fingers were crossed that the weather wasn't going to get any worse. We then went and fueled up with a bit of confusion over whether the driver needed to be fully suited up or not meant that we were bumped back down the queue. UWA, Monash and ECU had just finished there first endurance, as our drivers were off watching the endurance we had to borrow ECU's driver to fuel up.

After we fuel up we quickly moved to join the queue, for endurance the run order is set by the order of finish in autocross so those that finished first start first etc, and if you miss your spot than you have to go to the back of the queue and you also get a two minute time penalty. In the mean time the weather had gotten worse and they had declared a damp track and then very quickly a wet track and then back to damp so we had to do a very quick wheel change from slicks to wets. Under the rules if the track is declared damp by the clerk of course then you have the choice of running either wet tyres or slicks, if the track is declared wet then you have to run with wet tyres. Due to the extremely wet conditions we decided to change to wets.

While waiting in the queue the weather had cleared up, and the track was starting to dry up from looking at the weather there was a 45 minute window until the next lot of rain was due to come in so we made the decision to switch to slicks, which turned out to be a very good decision.

11:00am Endurance Heat 1

Wes was the first driver and took off in a hurry due to it still being wet was a little slow, however he started to reduce lap times very quickly while only hitting a few cones to produce the fastest lap on lap 13 of 58secs which was very quick especially considering the conditions. We were over taking the guys out on the track, and overall the commentators were very impressed with our car.

Driver change over went very smoothly, with Stockton helping Wes out of the car and Dave into the car, and Dave was ready to start his stint. Dave took off and started off little bit hesitantly however he was very quickly settled into a routine and was driving very quick for the conditions. Luckily the rain held off and Dave successfully completed all of his laps, meaning that for the second year in a row we have finished all events at competition, which is a huge achievement. As well they hit very few cones so in theory we stand a good chance of getting some good points, however this year there are so many teams that are competing in endurance event its going to be very difficult to get a good placing.

After we finished the race, we headed over to refuel when Dan went off to get lunch today which is subway. After we got back to the pits we got the car up on the stand and conducted a quick spanner check and fluid system check to ensure that the car is still safe to drive while our drivers go off to analyse Go Pro footage and DL1 data.

In the meantime design results were released and we had come 13th with 105pts, while ECU won the event well done guys! and with UWA a couple of places below us.

2:00pm Endurance Heat 2

Endurance heat 2 started with Stockton and Penna our drivers, the track had dried out a far bit so the drivers should have a good shot of getting some good times. Penna started off and was a bit slow but had also never driven on the track, as he drove further he got more familiar with the track and got faster.

After a quick driver change over with Stockton getting in the car and started off quite well very aggressively.

Once stockton had finished we refueled and then set about cleaning up the pit bay and getting all the equipment back to our accomodation.

Once we had gotten all the equipment back to our accomodation we had our team photo as well as the Western Australian team photo.

6:00pm Award Ceremony

After which we headed off back to the accommodation and to get ready for the after party which this year has been once again organised by RMIT at the Colonial Hotel.

9:00pm Results

At 9:00pm when the team was at the Colonial Hotel the results were released, we had gotten 8th place overall with 477 pts, achieving a goal of finishing top ten.

A huge thankyou to everyone who has helped us this year as well as our sponsors and supporters it has been truely appreciated.

2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 7 Update

2011-12-17T13:10:00.000-08:00

Day 6 is technically day 3 of competition and consists of dynamic events skidpan, acceleration and autocross as well as cost and design finals.

6:30am Wake Up

Today the plan was to get to Victoria University as soon as the gates opened to start work on preparing our car for the dynamic events. The first car left at 7:15am and got there with plenty of time to conduct quick spanner checks etc, I arrived just after 8:00am and set about fixing up the brake bias. While the electrical guys set about checking over our electrical system.

We lined up in the Que for the practice track to scrub in our brand new set of comp slicks just after 9:30am and Penna was the driver delegated with this honourable task. Penna mainly did some circle work however he did have some issues with following directions.

After that we headed off to the skidpan track, this year has been an awesome year for FSAE-Australasia with on Friday a record 18 teams got through all components of technical inspection. This has meant that there are a lot more cars running in the event than in previous years and subsequently there are lines for this event. The two drivers for skidpan are Penna and Apples, these drivers were chosen based upon driver training conducted. The skidpan event tests consists of a track in the shape of a figure 8 and involves the drivers doing two right hand circles and two left hand circles. At the same time that skidpan is running acceleration is also running which has also seen people queuing up for.

We lined up for skidpan, with in the back of our mind knowing there may be either and engine or electrical issue as we have kept getting low oil pressure readings, however we decided to chance it by filling the oil tank up with a bit more oil. Penna was the first driver through and conducted two laps of the right hand circle before pulling in as the car was not driving that well.

Luckily we are allowed two attempts at skidpan, so we rejoined the back of the Que and took out the program that was causing the engine to cut out. Penna rolled up to the start line and took off in a hurry, he was a little slow however unfortunately he got a bit confused and ran off track, luckily the track Marshall's were nice to us and allowed us to rerun it. His second attempt went well while he was going slower he got through both circles with a time of 5.4seconds unfortunately he exited through the wrong gate and as such we had an off course and the run didn't count.

We quickly raced back to the pits and had a once over on the car and then headed straight for the acceleration track, Apples and Stockton are our two drivers, with Apples suited up and in the drivers seat he pulled two very respectable times of 4.8s and 4.5 sec especially considering the shifter was not working at 100%. The we pulled in for a quick driver change and Stockton hoped into the drivers seat and had an awesome first run pulling and acceptable 4.5secs, however it was his second run that blew everyone one away with a 4.203second run, which put us first in the acceleration event however there was plenty of time for other cars to get in a run at acceleration.

W then headed back for the skidpan run with apples hoping in the drivers seat, he got off to a hesitant start and unfortunately got confused with the track, luckily they allowed us to have another go. Apples was very hesitant however got around both circles and exited correctly with a time of 6.2seconds this wasn't as fast as we would have like to have gone however we have still competed in both events and scored points in both events.

While the skidpan event was on the results for the presentation event were announced with CMT coming at 17th place 39.75 pts which while we would have liked to place higher overall very happy with the amount of points that we scored.

Then we headed back to the pits to do a once over of the car, and fix the brake bias as well and do a general systems check. At the same time Matt Aldous from Altair Hyperworks stopped in for a quick chat, with tony gray on how we are going etc.

Then we headed over to autocross this year they are allowing teams to conduct 4 runs of two laps each for autocross with two sessions running one from 1:00pm to 2:30pm and from 2:30pm to 4:30pm, the line for the first session was already 12 cars deep by the time we got there. Our two drivers were Dave and Wes who after two of our best drivers. We quickly progressed towards the start line, however just as we were about to start the fuel pump wouldn't prime. Some quick fault finding by Ben and we had isolated the fault to the fuel pump itself.

16:00pm Autocross

We quickly got the car reassembled and lined up for autocross, our drivers each had two laps and were pulling quite respectable times of 65 to 62 second laps, meanwhile Pete Marsh over at UWA motorsport team was pulling 52 second laps well done guys!

After we finished we headed back to the pits and the results for Acceleration had been released we had come second with 4.2 secs and scored 49.2 pts out of 50 with UWA beating us by 0.02second to come first and ECU came third making it a one two three finish for Western Australian Teams well done ECU and UWA.

Cost in the mean time had also been released and while we originally had a very low score of 24.8 pts to finish 21st after some enquiries it was discovered that the cost report mark had not been added on and we finished with a 17th place and 57.4 pts with 38 out of 40 for the report itself well done guys for putting in such a huge effort.

Skidpan, we ended up 18th with 3.5 pts. and autocross we ended up 13th with 19.64 pts.

Once again we left the car on site as the team left to get some well deserved shut eye!

2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 6

2011-12-17T03:30:00.000-08:00

Day 5 which is technically day 2 of the competition has all the static events (cost, presentation, and design) as well as technical inspection (Scrutineering, Tilt Test, and Noise and Brake test), so it is a very full on day.

5:30am Wake Up

A large number of the team were up til very early in the morning getting the car ready to take to comp and such they were given a bit of a sleep in while the rest of the team got up and was rushing around trying to pack the rest of the equipment. Since our scrutineerring time was 8:30am we were aiming to be at the competition by 7:30am when the gates open to ensure that we have enough time to give the car a once over and to set up our pit bay. Since there we think there are some issues with the left rear wheel on the trailer we decided to play on the safe side and not take the trailer in, so all of our gear will be transported in the back of hire cars. Luckily our technicians Dave and Derek have a hire car, as well as Chris Ford having a hire car so we had plenty of space to transport all of our equipment and spares to competition.

The rest of the team was woken up around 6:30am to ensure that they had enough time to have a shower and get to the car etc. Unfortunately we had under estimated the amount of time it takes to get everyone showered fed, and out the door and we didn't leave our accommodation til 7:30am which has left us with little time to unpack the hire cars, set up our pit bay and have a final quick check of the car.

8:30am Scrutineering

We made it to scrutinneering with seconds to spare, with the team having one of the first spots of scrutineering. After an hour and 15 minutes and a couple of small things that we immediately fixed, there was only one thing that the scrutineers could pick us up on which was not having the chain guard forward enough. This was an easy fix, for the egress test (egress refers to the drivers getting out of the car within 5 seconds, this is to ensure that the driver can quickly exit the car in an emergency situation) this year instead of getting all of our drivers (Apples, Stockton, Dave, Penna and Wes) to do the test only 1 driver was randomly chosen. This year it was Dave, who quickly exited the car in 4.8 seconds.

We quickly rushed back to the pits to fix up the chain guard, a huge thank you to Monash Motorsport Team for giving us some 3mm Chromoly to fix up the chain guard.

11:00am Presentation Event

Presentation event, Geisler has spent the last couple of days researching and compiling the presentation. The presentation event is based upon the idea that we are trying to sell our prototype car to a company and that we need to present our business case for why they should invest there money into us. To help Geisler out Apples went along to provide any technical support required.

According to Dan, Geisler blew the judges out of the water providing an excellent presentation

11:30am Tilt Test

We refueled the car and wheeled it around to the tilt test line, there were a couple of other teams ahead of us in the Que, tilt test is used to see if there are any leaks by tilting the car up to 45 degrees, then to see if the car is going to be stable i.e. not roll over at high speeds they tilt to car up to 60 degrees which is to illustrate a 1.6g cornering in which the car is allowed to lift one wheel all while there is a . When we got onto the tilt test, we were asked to remove our floor so that they can see if there are any leaks, however since we were already on the tilt table they allowed us to take the car up 60 degrees, which we performed excellently in no wheels lifting at all a first for us. Then we got off the tilt table and dropped the floor and rejoined the Que, however there were already a Que for the tilt test and lunch was rapidly approaching, so we left the Que and went back to the pits to put the floor on and prepare for the cost event

1:00pm Cost Event

We rolled the car around to the cost event and waited in line to start our cost event, Geisler and Mitchell Brown. Geisler and Mitchell dazzled the cost event judges with feedback consisting of that we had a very well presented report.

After Cost event we quickly rolled the car back to the Que at Tilt Test, we passed through tilt test thanks to some clarification on the rules, and headed straight over to the noise and brake test. We had tested the noise previously and on our noise tester we were under noise, so we started the engine up with Dave in the driver seat we took the engine up for a full sweep from 0 to 11,000 rpm with the noise test coming in at 104.5dB, a huge thank you to Penna for sorting out the exhaust for us.

Brake test was next Dave, took off fast and braked hard, unfortunately the brakes didn't lock up. After a quick chat to the driver, Dave took off again and stomped on the brakes and locked the wheels up.

So at 2:30pm on day two of competition we had the third and final sticker to form part of the SAE sticker, and we had hence completed technical inspection the fastest we have ever completed technical inspection ever. Next time for design event!

3:20pm Design Event

Design event, is traditionally an event that we don't do that well in it however we went in there with an optimistic mind, before design event started we weighed the car unfortunately we came in at 261kg which is very heavy.

After design event finished, we headed back to the pit bay and started to spanner check the car in preparation for tomorrow's events, we also checked the front brakes as there had been comments from drivers that the car was pulling towards the right, after a quick investigation it was discovered that two of the bolts were binding so we took off the brake rotor and filed down the rotor bobbin slots, in the mean time the majority of the team went back to the accommodation and slept.

7:30pm Home Time

For the first time ever CMT is leaving our car on site, as there is no real work we can complete on our car only tuning work and everyone is really tired. So we left Victoria University and picked up some food on the way back and most of the team went to bed straight away.

2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 5

2011-12-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

Technically this is the first day of the actual competition however since we arrived on Sunday I technically count that as day one.

6:30 pm Wake Up

Woke up, and had a quick chat to Ben about what was happening with the car and what had happened after I went to bed. So the guys had run the car for a bit after I had gone to bed to determine if the fuel problem had been fixed it hadn't. The oil pressure issue still hadn't been fully resolved so it was decided that to see if there was any actual damage to the engine we would need to drop the sump. To see if there is any copper etc in the oil.
Today is the first day of competition, with the tasks today to register the team, get our drivers CAMS licence's and to attend both the team and driver briefing. As well as finish setting up the car and getting it rules compliant.

After a quick phone call to Glenn Campbell to discuss our current engine problems it was determined that the best way to figure out what is actually happening is to buy a fuel pressure sensor. While Kara and Ben hurriedly found a place that sold us a fuel pressure sensor that will fit into our system. Geisler and Mitchell hurriedly finished the Cost Addendum, which we only discovered was due at registration a little while ago. Meanwhile I am racing around getting everyone to sign the disclosure forms for competition.

12:00 pm Team Registration
Geisler, Kara and myself set off first to drop me off at Victoria University to register the team, while they carried on there merry ways. After which Derek and Dave, Dept of Mechanical Engineering Technicians, dropped me back off at our accommodation. The sump was just being put back on the car, as I arrived and Apples and Dave were in the process of doing a suspension set up. Chris Ford made an appearance at our accommodation, to check on how we were going.

3:00pm Team Briefing

Chris Ford kindly drove me in for the team briefing, and when we got to Victoria University there were already a couple of cars going through scrutineering. Scrutineering is the first component of technical inspection, and involves a team of qualified scrutineers inspecting the car to ensure that the car is safe to drive and complies with all the rules.

4:00pm Driver Briefing

Our drivers made it into Victoria University just in time for drivers briefing, and after drivers briefing was finished everyone except Kev and Apples headed back to our accommodation. Kev and Apples stayed behind to walk and video the autocross / enduro track.

Once we got back to accommodation the suspension set up that had been started before was finished and Ben and Kara had installed the fuel pressure sensor. With the rest of the team concentrating on cleaning up the workshop and packing everything up ready to take to comp tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately the fuel issue still hadn't seemed to go away, so Ben decided to check the MAP sensor and that's when it was discovered that the pins in the plug weren't quite connecting. After the pins were fixed up the car ran beautifully.

The car had one last spanner check completed on it, before the team went to bed.

2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 4

2011-12-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

7:00am Wake Up

I had a sleep in this morning due to being in the workshop til 2:30am, the majority of the team is still in bed as they had been up til 4am.

Kara was up so I had a chat about what went wrong with the car last night as we had issues starting the car last night. When the car was stripped to paint the chassis and reassembled some how an earth wire snapped, so the electrical guys had to fix this, in fixing this they had to strip the MAP sensor connector. Unfortunately when they reconnected the MAP sensor they had the wires around the wrong way, and MAP sensors don't appreciate having voltage following through them in the opposite direction. So unfortunately we had killed our MAP sensor, therefore once Dan woke up he set off with Kara to find another MAP sensor. The MAP sensor we use is off of a commodore, however this was not the original part from a commodore and the part we purchased was, which in theory shouldn't be a problem however for some random reason the plugs for the two MAP sensors were not quite the same.

10:00am Packing ready to go to Silhouette Karts
I rang Silhouette Karts, to see if we could come over today to do some testing. Silhouette Karts is one of only a handful of karting places that allows FSAE teams to drive there cars on there go kart track. The track was booked for a private function until 11:00am, and after that we were free to use the track until 5:00pm. I quickly woke everyone up and set about packing up tools etc to get ready to go to Silhouette Karts.

Luckily Kara and Dan had returned by now and unfortunately had no luck with finding the exact MAP sensor at the electrical store they went to, however luck was on our side. As Kara had found a place that sells the MAP sensor that we want is one our wayish to Silhouette Karts, therefore to save ourselves time, Kara, Dan and Ben set off to pick up the MAP sensor while the rest of the team packed up our tools and loaded the ute onto the back of the trailer and headed straight for Silhouette Karts.

1:00pm - Silhouette Karts

We arrive at Silhouette Karts at approximately 1:00pm and set about unpacking the hire cars, and setting up our pit bay. Jono and Kevin headed off to get the team some lunch, and returned a little while later with Hungry Jacks. Kara, Dan and Ben arrived a short time later with a new MAP sensor in hand.

Kara and Ben quickly set about installing the new MAP sensor with the help of a drill bit from ECU Racing. Once the MAP sensor was installed some checks were made, we fired up the engine and after some initial concerns we determined that the engine was safe to run.

3:00pm - On the track

AT 3:00pm Wes suited up and jumped into the drivers seat ready to test out our 2011 car, the team as well as a couple of the guys from QUT and ECU helped to be track Marshall's, Wes started off hesitantly however are a couple of laps his confidence in the car was growing and he was starting to drive the car more aggressively. However this was also when we started to have throttle response issues, with the car lagging quite badly when the throttle was applied to the point where the car was stalling. (On a side note ECU were looking very good driving around the track will definitely be a top five contender this year)

Wes limped the car back to the pit lane entry and Ben quickly got his laptop out and with the help of Penna and Stockton tried to diagnose to problem. After refueling Dave suited up and headed out on the track, with the car for the first couple of laps holding up okay however the car then started to have lag problems with the throttle so the car was pushed back to our pit bay and after some quick thinking it was decided that the fuel system was the cause of the throttle lag and we pulled the seat out and started to fault find with the initial thoughts that the terminals on the fuel pump had come loose. Unfortunately they hadn't come loose, after running the car with the seat out it was noticed that bubbles were streaming from the fuel tank. After conducting some fault finding on the fuel rail, and conversing with the guys from ECU Racing as to some possible causes of the problem we decided that the pressure regulator on the fuel rail was not working correctly and we about trying to locate another pressure regulator.

Stockton managed to find another pressure regulator and a set of injectors at a local motorcycle wreckers Victorian Motorcycle Wrecker, Dan Stockton and James set off at 4:45pm to get there by closing time of 5:30pm. While the rest of the team packed everything up and set off back to our accommodation to finish off rules compliance checks and trying to determine what is the cause of our throttle response issues.

6:30pm - Fuel System Checking

Stockton, Dan, James and Ben returned from the wreckers they had managed to get their with 15 minutes to spare and then proceeded to spend the next half an hour searching through the store for various spare parts. While Dan, James, Stockton and Ben had been away Penna had found a spare pressure regulator and had bolted it onto the car, so by the time they got back we could test out the fuel system to determine if the pressure regulator had failed.

Since we couldn't find the problem we decided to reassemble to fuel system and test again to see if the ECU is throwing up any fault that we should be concerned about. In doing so the engine turned itself off, which was later found to be the low oil pressure cut off, which means that we have oil pressure issues.

2:30am Bed time

Stockton, James, Ben, Kara, Dan, Dave and Wes stayed up into the wee hours of the morning trying ton determine the cause of the oil pressure issues with the area, with the guys thinking they have fund the fault the shim holding the pressure relief valve in place may have come loose. This has occurred before so we are hoping this is what has occurred.

Tomorrow is registration and briefing day, and fingers crossed if we can get the car fixed in time we will be going to silhouette karts for some last minute testing and driver training.

2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 3 Updates Cont.

2011-12-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

Okay so I went to bed last night at 2:30am so I missed the fun fault finding mission, so when we disconnected the electrical system to paint the car and then reassembled the system it appears that some how managed to wire up the map sensor backwards which is referred to as doing a Callum.

The map sensor didnt appreciate this that much and susequently we now need to purchase a new map sensor. Oh well it happens

2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 3

2011-12-13T13:20:00.000-08:00

Day 3: Tuesday 13th December 2011 - 2 days till Comp starts

Well the day started out with such high hopes with the aim to get the car into a state to go to Silhouette Karts to do some testing, however we encountered a few technical difficulties and as such we are not really in that position anyways the following is a recap of the day.

6:00am Wake Up,

Apples, Kev and Kara have been up since 4:00am taking over work on the car from the guys who had worked through til 4:00am. The car has been reassembled and the electrical guys are slowly working through the electrical system to ensure that the system has been reconnected properly and that the earthing is good.

The guys have been cleaning up the workshop, and torquing up the bolts on the wheels, as well as working through the gigantic list on the board.

9:00am

After a quick chat to Stockton (Technical Director) the plan for the day is determined, the plan is to get the car into a state where we are happy to take it to Silhouette Karts to conduct some last minute driver training and verification of suspension set up. The main reason why we need to be 100% sure that the car is fine before we go to Silhouette Kart, is that Silhouette Karts is a good hour drive from where we are staying and by the time you include packing an unpacking etc it is a good 4 - 6 hour adventure.

With the plan of attack for the day sorted out, the team split up and set about both getting the car into a state to go to Silhouette Karts as well as continuing getting the car into a rules complaint state.

The day was overall uneventful, which is always a good day with the team really starting to focus on preparing for technical inspection as we were lucky enough to secure an 8:30am time slot for technical inspection on Friday morning and we want to get through technical inspection as quickly as last year to maximise our ability to further refine the car set up and obviously to maximise our points.

1:00pm

Suspension Set up time, Dave and Apples completed the suspension set up with Wes in the drivers seat. Maximise our time, at the same time as the suspension set up was being completed Stockton made the seat inserts for Wes, and then our five drivers, Apples, Wes, Stockton, Penna and Dave Taylor quickly got into the car to test the ride heights.

5:00pm

After the suspension set up we conducted a thorough spanner check to ensure that everything was bolted on, we also conducted a quick brake light check to double check that everything was functioning correctly.

A quick brake test to ensure that the brake light was plugged in correctly.

12:00am

After the spanner checks were completed and the brake test was completed the car was given a once over to ensure we hadn't missed anything. Then a final check of the car to ensure that it is in working order, which unfortunately it wasn't, a connector had managed to break and the car sounded to be running very rich and running only on three cylinders.

After some investigation from Ben and Kara, it was discovered that the MAP sensor may not be working correctly, as well as the team has sooted up a set of spark plugs.

3:00am

Unfortunately it appears that Silhouette Karts may not be happening tomorrow well really today but oh well better to have these problems now than at comp.

2011 FSAE-A Competition Day 1 and 2 Updates

2011-12-12T18:30:00.000-08:00

2011 Formula SAE - Australasia competition is rapidly approaching with 3 days until the competition begins on Thursday the 15th December. The following is a recap of what the Curtin Motorsport Team have been up to for the past two days.

Day 1: Sunday 11th December 2011

To maximise our time in Melbourne and to save costs we caught the early departing at a fresh 5:30am in the morning on board Virgin. ECU an UWA appeared to have the same idea as a fair few of there team members where also on the same flight.

We arrived in Melbourne just after midday and set out picking up our hire cars, a huge thank you to the guys down at budget for giving us a good deal on the hire cars. This year we got three Hyundai Getz's and a Ute to help transport both us and the car around from our accommodation to competition etc.

Once we picked up the hire cars, we had a quick lunch break at the local MacDonald's and then straight to our accommodation. Once there we unpacked the cars, and had a quick brief on the ground rules and what to expect at competition.

After the debrief we headed off into Hooper's Crossing to pick up all the items that team members had forgotten to bring, including towels, pillows etc as well as food for the next week.

After we had finished shopping, and made dinner we then went through the things to do list for the car, as well as some static event preparation.

The majority of the team headed off to bed early, as this is last time for at least the next week were we are able to get 8 hrs sleep.

Day 2: Monday 12th December 2011

We woke up around 7ish, had breakfast and Dan and Jono set off to pick up the trailer from the depot. A huge thank you to the guys down at Watson's Transport for once again transporting our car and trailer from Perth to Melbourne return.

Geisler set out not long after Jono and Dan left, with Kara and Ben to get the welding gas bottle and some electrical supplies. The trailer and car arrived at our accommodation just after 9:30am, and the team rapidly set about unpacking the trailer and changing the upright assemblies on the 2011 car over from the 2010 set to the 2011 set.

The workshop was set up in very quick fashion thanks to some prior thought being put into packing, once the car was reassembled, we moved the car out of the workshop to conduct noise test. According to the noise tester, we need to be at 107dB or below to be under the noise requirements for competition. Unfortunately we are at 108bB and 110dB which means we are more than likely to not pass the noise test. However Penna, the team member responsible for the intake and exhaust systems, has a few different ideas for reducing the noise of the car.

Once the car was back in the workshop, work recommenced on the car with the brake system being properly bled and Penna modifying the exhaust in an attempt to reduce the noise of the car. Once Penna had finished modifying the exhaust we moved the car outside again for another noise test, this time we were 105dB and 107.2dB which means we will be very close to noise however fingers crossed we pass.

The car was then taken back to the workshop, where the majority of the team had dinner very kindly made by Kev. After dinner, we set to work stripping off suspension and taping up the car so that we can paint the chassis. The chassis was painted in relatively quick fashion, and was reassembled.

The list of jobs to do on the 2011 car hasn't decreased as fast as we would have liked however tomorrow we should be able to get a good run at it.

FSAE-A huge off track moment

2010-12-13T01:43:00.000-08:00

During the second endurance event Errol Hassett had a huge off track moment, getting a little carried away with throttle coming out of a hair pin to a short straight section just before a slalom the car kicked the back out and went off track.

There was a uge puddle of water at that point of the circuit and it made for a slightly amusing photo. The wet track from the rain and the slick tyres was a bit of a handful to drive.

CMT brings the power

2010-12-13T00:49:00.000-08:00

CMT had some brilliant help from Glenn Campbell and Justin from BYE Performance tuning the Twenty10 race car.

We got the best tune we have ever had in one of our race cars and it is a very pleasing result. We think one of the most powerful cars in Australia.

Car launch 2010

2010-11-12T22:53:00.000-08:00

Friday 12th November

Design boards: These are prints taken from our 2010 design report that is a submission required for the FSAE competition. They detail the design and manufacture processes that create our race car.

High Tech: The highly technical support method for our design board display, I think it worked well to create that motorsports feel.

Above: Drinks and nibbles supplied by the team, we enjoy giving back to those that give so much support to us.

What could it be? : Tim Keely from Science and Engineering marketing at Curtin University plays for the camera just before the event started. Tim is a great help to the team and just a great fan of our work. We often work together at events such as Open Day and Careers fair in Perth to really spread the word about the opportunities that exist with engineering at Curtin University.

Talk the talk: Nathan Staats (project manager), gives a short speech about the Twenty10 race car build and our hopes for FSAE-A this year in December.

Snap shot of the short video we played, it was a collection of photo's and time lapse film taken over the year during the build of our 2010 race car. Thanks goes to Greg Miller (mechatronic engineer on the team) for putting it together for us. We will upload the video to our website and YouTube page soon.

Marketing stands by management: Errol Hassett (left), marketing, and Nathan Staats (right), project manager. They have so far proved to be a great team for CMT in 2010, marketing and team direction have continued to progress towards continued improvement, great work guys.

Words from above: Tilak Chandratileke (Head of Department for Mechanical Engineering at Curtin University) gives his thoughts on CMT and this years car. Tilak and the department of mechanical engineering at Curtin university are a great support to have in our corner as we do our very best to show that Curtin really is producing some of the most innovative hard working engineers around.

CMT Twenty10

Thanks to all our sponsors and supporters this year, wish us the best of luck for FSAE-A this year.

Head needs a place to rest

2010-11-10T22:48:00.000-08:00

As a part of the rules for the FSAE competition, the rest or head restraint of the race seat must be able to take a load of 80kg during an impact.

This is not really checked in any technical way, just a visual "will it work" type of check. We have had ours questioned before and s now we just put something in there that is meaty enough to look the business.

Having tried to cut down fabrication time by limiting on the fly designing, this part was modeled on computer along with the rest of the car in solidworks. Once we started to fabricate it up we noticed small problems still begin to pop up.

The design is basically a piece of 3mm thick steel plate that has been bent and cut to have an open trapezoidal shape, in which the head rest portion of the sit will sit an the most reward face of the seat should sit flush on the support.

First problem was being able to accurately make the bends. To get the desired radius the idea was to hit the plate around a tube of adequate diameter. Couldn't find a piece the right size so went slightly oversize to the closest I could find.

Next problem was insuring the bent was in the right location, I measured from the model and marked on the plate the end point of the bend arc and attempted to line this up in the vice. I used a spirit level to try and get the part and the temporary bending die at 90 degress to each other.

So the part seemed all set, and bending with the biggest hammer we had was quite quick and didn't take much force. I used an angle gauge to check the part as I bent it after every few strikes with the hammer, again attempting to keep a level datum I used the spirit level across the top of the bending die. It worked ok for what I thought the required accuracey was at this point, really it's just an eye ball check plus or minus 2 to 3 degrees, seemed ok to me.

Then we test fit the part in the car with the race seat in. At this point the race seat is still not mounted correctly because I would need to be able to use the chassis to fibreglass around the bars and we can't take the chassis anyway from the rest of the team for a whole day at this point so we're trying to do the best we can (this is dangerous because you basically can't get the seat to sit right at all unless you're just plain lucky and if you do get it in the right spot you definately won't get it in the right spot twice)

So we take a guess, trying to line the part up using a make shift plumbob to get the centre point, again not very accurate but we figured it was good enough for this particular part. Line it up on the bars and make a mark with a paint pen to show where we need to cut the excess length back for it to fit flush with the roll hoop.

Mistakes all over the place on this stage, not really centrlly placed and to fit it in there without it being cut means shifting the seat slightly out of place to be able to get the plate in there, this changes where the part fits also so is basically a total waste of time as I wold later find out.

Also a mistake made here due to rushing was that the plate was lined up on the front face of the roll hoop bar and not the rear face. The design in solidworks shows the part being almost a flush tagent fit with the rear face, a really basic error made there that does change the fit of the part quite drastically.

The cuts were made and the test fit then immediately showed a major error, the seat sat quite noticably out of position to get it to fit and then once the part was in the correct place there was a very large gap. Some adjustements to the bend angles were made by hand and then some other slight bends at the ends of the part were exerimented with to attempt a retro fit to use what we had now incorrectly fabricated.

This didn't work and at this point the part was looking like a total throw away and start again, it has fundemental failures in it and it will not mount correctly to the seat or the frame and if it is positioned to fit it then moves the seat so far out of position it risks making the drivers seating position not rules compliant.

Another leason learned again about trying to complete work in a rush. The model is so well done that it should have bee trusted and the length of the part made to match it as accurate as we could physically make it. If this was done it would have been picked up that the part was being mounted on the wrong face of the bar and perhaps the subsequent mistakes could have been avoided.

Really not an accpectable turn of events and I wish that it had ot happened, we are planning to salvage what we can of the part but it may be a full re-fabricaton job, there are some attempts being made now to solve the problem but it was a large motivation kiler for the morning.

A few points to myself for next time

Rule number 1: check the design before positioning
Rule number 2: check the design before you cut
Rule number 3: trust the design
Rule number 4: check the positioning of everything around the part that ineracts with it
Rule number 5: cut it, make it fit, if it doesn't fit, check the design, if it still doesn't fit.....make it fit.

I'm confident we will over come this small problem and still maintain a good quality level of work.

Seat update....needs lots of adjustment

2010-11-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

The seat is again proving to be a more challenging project than anticipated.

It has many rules governing it's position and size and so getting the belts to go through into the driver compartment is a tricky process. Also because we don't want to destroy the seat and cut holes where we don't need them it's hard to start to make cuts and holes when you really need the seat fully mounted in the chassis with a driver sitting in it to know exactly where these all go.

With the chassis unable to be soley used to mock this up at this late stage it is a bit of a guessing game, the solid works design used a model of a driver but there really is nothing liek the real thing so you can't trust this 100%.

Also makig life a little harder is the fact that the harness mounts are 30mm out of position due to a manufacturing error, it is too late to re-make these so we are using what we got but the seconday problems are just becoming a little be-motivating and slowing progress down.

I have decided that we are jst going to have t cut holes as best we can and keep cutting and shaping them till the seat sits right, we still have the mould so if need be we can add some patching to the composite lay-up later down the track once we know the belts will go where we want and comply with the rules.

Here is a few pics of the progress over the weekend...slow but now we have a pretty good game plan written down with a list of priorities to get done by our car launch this Friday, we just need it to be sitting in the car with belts through it so it looks the business, we can finalise the hard mounting points later.

Oh did I mention we all have exams over the next 3 weeks and the car goe on a truck to melbourne on the last day of exams ? This is the most fun you will have in you're engineering degree.

Above I use a drill bit that has the milling type teeth on it's shank so that I can easily cut complex curves. I start with lots of holes around the perimeter on the inside of where I want the final cut. I then mill between the holes joining them all up using the sideways cutting ability of the drill bit. Then I get a nice sharp half-round file and try to neaten up the edge. It works fairly well and is the most effective method I have found to do this type of work, I have been involved in the seat making in '08, '09 and this year so I'll building a knowledge of what NOT to do by making mistakes.....some would call it learning. Still got a lot to learn and still making mistakes but thats life, we do what we can.

Above test fitting the belt holes in the seat to see what will work and where we need adjustment. The lap belt holes (on the sides) should be ok I have marked where they need to be enlarged for the haress clips to fit through. The submarine (crotch) strap does fit through the opening but the belts will slightly rub on the seat at the moment which is no good, either have to cut the holes more to taper a slot towards the mount to enable a good angle of wrap around the drivers thighs or add a steel tube bar that just touches the underside of the seat, the belts would wrap around this so that they have a nice smooth radius transition up towards the driver, just have to ensure a good wrap around the drivers legs again though.

Design Blunders

2010-11-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

Just a short on to remind everyone we are human and we are all still learning.

We make mistakes.

With a miscommunication / understanding of how a particular laser cutter programed their CNC input in the machine we ended up with a double size part. With tight deadlines and long leadtimes associated with this type of work we opted to have the re-make plasma cut to save time.

The second generation part is not as accurate and has been slightly welded incorrected we now have a snow-ball effect with the harness mounts not sitting in the designed location withing the chassis.

This actually has strict rules within the technical criteria of the FSAE competition and it had to be double / triple checked that our car would still be compliant. LUCKY the design had inplace a few backups for suck errors with multiple locations for the harness eye-bolts to mount, this accomodated for the new further back position in the chassis.

The part on the left is the marginall under-sized plasma cut part (fully tig welded up here) and on the right is the double size part that was incorrectly laser cut due to an error on our end. (the part on the right is only roughly welded together as a gimic to ourselves to show the error that was made)

Just a reminder to us to be extra cautious even in times when we are pushed to make the car ready on time rushing small things can create much more hassel.

Even the marginally uder-size plasma cut part means that it now sits 30mm further back in the chassis even though the difference from design size to manufactured part is minimal it can create a big impact.

Body work and Cockpt liner update....we're almost there

2010-11-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe we have the car launch at the end of the week, Friday 12th Nov BUT we are quietly confident that with some huge efforts by the 'dirty dozen' within our team, everything should be sorted out without too many headaches.

In the good news we are really making good progress with composites.

We'll start with the nose section of the cockpit liner, that was laid up today and test fitted in the chassis. It needs more work but is looking the goods (although it's a mongrel of a lay up using all kinds of scraps we had left in the workshop.....fingers crossed the final part is half decent)

Above you can see the assortment of fabrics used, some carbon, some fibreglass and some other cloth which I have forgotten the name just now.

Below you see what the mould looked like after we wrestled the part off it. We had to break the surface coating in places because it just would not budge, also have to run a split down the top of it to help spread it and peel it off. I will have to go back and splice this small section at the top front end of the liner later, we had half planed to do that because we anticipated it to be really hard to remove from the mould.

Below you will see or make shift heater / oven. The part came off slightly under-done so we had to try and cook it some more. We are pushing tight deadlines now so we didn't really have time to wait for it to fully sure. We took it off the mould while it was slightly still flexible, helped a little in removing it but we tried to stiffen it up a bit soon as we had test fitted it. We just draped it back over the mould and heated it with the heat gun under a plastic drop seat on one of our race car rolling stands.

Below The liner and the body are test fitted on the chassis.

Test fit view, if you are familiar with the FSAE competition you may know about the chassis sizing templates that must be passed through the interior of the car, the white / cream shape you can see above in the nose of the car is one of them being test fitted with the interior cockpit liner in place. So far we think we pass.....we'll see.

Below The body work on the male mould as Tim Stockton makes some cut aways of excess laminate. We hope to send it off to the painter tomorrow so it was a mad rush to try and get as much of the small fitting work done today.

Above Tim Stockton all gumbied up in PPE, looking like an extra from an early James Bond film or some kind of nuclear technician, Tim attacks the body work with a grinder to get the right shapes where needed.

Above MC (Michael Connaughton) our technical director for the last 2 years, takes a happy snap for his personal collection. Can you blame him, things are starting to look pretty tops.

Here's what he was looking at, haha just something to lighten the mood.

Above Our black beauty, too bad this will almost all be painted over.

Below seat section of the liner has some marking on it made for holes to be cut for belts and gear shifter etc. Drill and an angle grinder do an OK job of cutting the shapes, final work is done with sand paper and then a rubber lip will be glued on to create a nice edge.

Below Tim Stockton can carry the male mould from the body work single handed. Apparently it is not that heavy. Looks great and he has done a stirling job over many months to create the male plug and then female moulds to finally produce the bodywork part. We think it's amazing he still smiles about being in the workshop after mid-night everytime he comes in to work on the car build......then again we're not really the average engineering students are we, you definately need a little something extra to stick at it.

Great surface finish has really made releasing the part much easier than in past years attempts at composite work. CMT helping the next generation of engineers to grow and develop their skills.....who'd have ever thought.

Still to come.......a list too big to bore you all to death with but the cockpit liner and ergonomics side of things (which is my baby.....Errol's) is as follows.

Finalise the holes in the seat for the gear shifter, harness straps, sort out mounting points for the liner, finish the lay-up of the liner, possibly paint and coat the liner again, get the mirrors on the car, get the dash lay-up finished and sort out mounting it and try get the mechatronic guys to wire up the dash.

Bunch of welding for all the mounts, still need head restraint finalised (design is done just need some small fabrication work done in-house)

The list goes on.....but we'll make it.

Keep your eyes open and stay 'In Tune' with team progress.

Intake pictures

2010-10-30T23:46:00.000-07:00

The intake is already fabricated and on the test engine waiting to be fully tuned but here are some pictures from manufacturing that you may not have seen.

The intake base-plate with the custom made trumpets.

These are to hold the injectors in the manifold.

Intake base-plate with the runners being postioned and taped ready for welding.

As an update to the latest progress.......

The engine side of the 2010 Curtin Motorsport Team car has been slowly but steadily progressing throughout the year. The manufacture of the exhaust is set to be completed in the coming week once the engine is mounted in the chassis and the newly purchased TIG welder arrives.

The intake is undergoing the final modifications for completion such as vacuum line barbs and fuel delivery system mounts.

The most exciting progress occurred this month when Glenn Campbell came in to help a few of the team members to start the engine with the newly acquired Vi-PEC engine management system implemented this year. After many hours of trial and error that ended in the early hours of the morning, the engine finally started.

A big thank you too Glenn Campbell for his time and knowledge.

The next step, once both the intake and exhaust are completed is to have the car dyno tuned which Glenn is once again doing for the team.

Race seat progress

2010-10-30T23:41:00.000-07:00

Today, Tim Stockton and Errol Hassett started to lay the fibreglass and carbon onto the seat mould with help from Candice Woodhams.

Went well mostly and we are very impressed with how it is looking, we waxed the mould last night and applied PVA release agent this morning so it should come off with less effort on our part.

Above: Tim Stockton appliess layers of carbon to the mould

A days work: This is what we produced for the day, not quite finished with some sandwich material to be added and then more glass but looking the goods.

Roughly 1 layer glass, then 1 layer carbon and around 2 layers of glass on top of that at the moment. Probably put one more layer of glass on maybe 2 around the sandwich material areas. Should be ready to pull of the mould to test fit next weekend...........with a few days to spare before the car launch November 12th.

UPDATE

And here it is.......

Race Seat: The finished part (almost) in the chassis. Looks fairly good, not perfect but a marked improvement on previous years work.

Mould damage: Getting the part off the mould proved to be quite the effort and fair bit of damage was done but it should still be able to be used next year.

Hope: We hope that this years good work in design and manufacture will not go to waste next year. This mould can be repaiered and re-used to ensure the quality of CMT racecars remains to be of a high standard.

Happy as Errol ?: Errol Hassett looks happy as Larry in the new race seat. The first test fit in the chassis has been a proving of the concept (for now). The design idea and manufacture methods seem to be a success.

Steering column mount

2010-10-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

Also along with all the other parts that have been coming along in the last few weeks is the steering column mount.

This came in with a whole mix of parts we had on a laser cutting order that we waited 2 months for.

Once it finally came we got a small sigh of relief and everyone has enjoyed been able to sink their teeth into some good fabrication work.

This part was again designed with solidworks, based on dimensions from laster year car. This was a slight over-sight, there was last minute changed on the fly last year to ensure that the car would pass the technical inspection at the FSAE-A competition and one of the parts that changed was the steering column mount.

As with many of the changes the CAD model didn't really get around to being acurately updated and so the laser cut part came back over size. It was not Until Errol Hassett had bent the part up that he realise his slight mistake BUT we were able to over come this.

To fix it we simply milled a portion out of the centre of the bracket to shrink it inward but maintain it other geometry, this means it will pass the rules set by SAE for the technical insepection, Errol also thought ahead and has updated the CAD model to try and limit the possibility that this will happen again.

The probelm only set us back about 30 mins, live and learn.

Hold tight: Steering column mounting bracket, showing the fabricated and bent part vs the laser cut blank that we ordered. We often order 2 copies of parts that are bent up encase there are errors in our fabrication we have a backup.

You can see the slight differences between what it would have loked like and what it does look like after it's been bent up on the magna-bender and then milled and welded and grinded flush again. The milled section where there is a pocket for the steering column to run through the centre did have a nice semi circle end cut but for some reason the technician when he milled it change that to a squared off end with fillets, despite there being instrution to maintain the same single radius end on the modified finished part.

These things happen, the part is still within our "GOOD" good standards so it will be used. It is currently mocked up on the chassis and waiting to be welded this coming Monday.

We can up with a marking scheme for our work. We realise that nothing will ever be perfect or that it can take too much time to achieve this but we need things to be better than just satisfactory. So we invented the "GOOD" criteria, if it's not quite perfect but it is better than just satisfactory for the intended good then its good and can go on the car.

Dress to Impress

2010-10-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

The CMT 2010 FSAE team should look quite charming in this year team shirt.

Thanks, again goes to the highly skilled and helpful staff at Ace Promotions, we should be sporting this flash new tops in coming weeks. A slight chnage from last years colours but still pleasing and keeping with our cars scheme we should still remain our proffessional look as we hope to continue looking as great as we feel our engineering work is.

Thanks again to all the staff at Ace Promotions for their continued help and support, with special thanks going to Michelle Pullella for providing such friendly help both in 2009 and this year.

In House Services including Embroidery, Screenprinting, Pad Printing, Large Format Printing & Direct to Garment Printing.
http://www.acepromotions.com.au/

9 Century Road, Malaga, Perth WA 6090

(08) 9248 3300

Open Weekdays 8am-5

Cockpit liner mounting bracket

2010-10-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

With laser cutters taking a long time just to get quotes back to us some of us have started to do things the old fashioned way.

Errol needed a bracket for the cockpit liner to mount to so this is how he has gone about producing it.

Model it in solidworks
Print it out on paper (very high tech)
Cut it to shape
Glue it to appropriate sheet steel (a glue-stick can be a handy thing to have in the workshop at times)
Gut to size with angle grinder (used a cutting disc, worked a treated, rough shaped first then neaten)
Clean edges with bench grinder and sand paper (just to get rid of burrs and sharp bits)
Centre punch marks for holes
Drill holes (all the holes were basically the same diameter, made life very easy)
Bend edges with Magna-bender (often can't bend certain edges because not enough materail exposed to the magnetic strip for a great enough force to resist the bending motion, will often just lift off the bed, can become a hge pain in the butt)
Bend other edges in vice with hammer and large amount of skill slash luck
Test fit in chassis
Hammer the bends some more
Test fit again
Mark position for welding

That all may seem a little silly but it got the job done and we don't have to wait weeks for the part, all in all only took 3 hours from thought "....I should make that bracket " to " I just made that bracket " so that's not so bad.

Cut and paste: The paper template glued to the sheet steel for cutting, cut the shaped pretty close 1st go but not too close then I went back and tidied up the tricky bits and fish mouthing on the ends all with the cutting disc. About 15 - 20 mins work

Bending my way around a problem: The magna-bender wasn't being friendly so I resorted to alternate methods, not pretty way to do it I know but it got the job done in the end, only had to go back and forth twice after my initial gues at the bends. Surprisingly the end product fits almost as designed, definately close enough to be deemed in the " GOOD " range of work.

The part is now mocked up in the chassis ready to be welded in place on Monday, I will upload a picture later of the final product, I seemed to have forgotten to take a happy snap of it at the time.

Making of the 2010 race seat / cockpit liner

2010-10-26T21:36:00.001-07:00

• Day one – Thursday 6th Oct

Picked up the foam profile cuts from Foam Sales in Myaree this afternoon, will also have to get some more tomorrow. Time to glue the printed out templates to the MDF guide sections we cut last night.

Getting a bit Sticky: Nathan Staats spreads PVA glue on 6mm MDF board to stick printed template guides for the seat mould.

I need a chop: All the MDF section glued and ready to be jigsaw cut out.

• Day two – Friday 7th Oct

With all the MDF cut we can now assemble the seat mould pieces. Using a 4mm grouting tool we spread the PVA glue as evenly as possible on each of the 14 sections for the seat (in two halves), also used a sauce bottle to help spread the glue.

We weighted the moulds to help them have a nice strong bond and left them to dry over night.

• Day Three - Sat 8th Oct

With the mould all glued we could start the seat shaping, basically sanding back the polystyrene to the mdf guides and then in a fee spots.

Used a sheet sander, with 60 grit sandpaper, to take most of the polystyrene off, quite quickly. After approximately 3 hours of shaping the seat was done.

Took a little extra time to cut and shape the pieces for the arm pockets and head rest recess. The section of the cock-pit liner in the nose of the race car was shaped the day before which also only took approximately 2 and a half hours.

Above: race seat and nose section together to make the full cock-pit liner mould.

Above: The headrest recess added and one of the arm pockets being plastered on.

White out: Errol Hassett getting overed head to toe with polystyrene dust during the shaping of the seat. The black shirt and trousers looking a combination of grey and white with all the dust. (It got even worse than this after more shaping)

• Day Four - Weds 13th Oct

With the shaping all complete we now put the plastering cement on. It’s easy to use because you just add water. We don’t really pay any attention to the correct ratios just adding water till the desired consistency is achieved.

The plaster just makes a nice surface to sand, filling small holes etc. We then coat this again to get an even smoother surface to fibreglass onto, hopefully it releases from the mould pretty easy.

• Day Five - Thurs 14th Oct

With the seat section of the cockpit liner plastered it was time to plaster the nose section. First we had to finish the prep work. Added some polystyrene to the top, just to give a lip for laying the fibreglass onto (the finished part has a cut out there so just trying to plan ahead and make life easier) also added some MDF board cut into two strips to created small shoe heel pockets added bonus is the slight increase in rigidity of that section of the liner.

We also added a piece of round poly rod to the back of the seat. We cut it in half and taped it in position by eye; the idea is partly stolen from a go-kart seat. They have a small recess to stop your spine touching the rear of the seat, instead the weight is supposedly spread along the muscles either side of the spine, it also will increase the rigidity of this section to some degree so that’s a bonus.

A little extra plaster was added t create a nice fillet edge around the spine recess and else where just to make sure the curves flowed nicely into each other, this makes it more visually pleasing and should help when trying to release the part off the mould.

• Day Six - Sat 16th Oct

With Errol Hassett looking like he was dressed for battle, we commenced sanding the plaster to a smooth finish. Using the sheet sander and 160 and 180 grit sandpaper, it’s pretty quick to achieve a nice finish.

Caution must be used sanding at this stage, it’s easy to put a gouge in the plaster with the edge of the paper, anything like that will just create problems with the final lay-up of the fibreglass so avoiding that is best, if there are any we try to take them out by hand or apply more plaster and repeat the process.

First thing that went wrong was the rolling table collapsed as Errol was taking the mould outside to sand. It was partly broken already but we were doing what we could with what we had. A disappointing start, luckily the damage to the mould was not so bad, just needed more plaster, will do that at a later date.

• Day Seven - Fri 22nd Oct

Time to do the small repairs to the rear section, which fell when the table collapsed, and sand the nose section.

• Day Eight - Sun 24th Oct

Now with all the sanding done, we apply a coat of talc and epoxy resin in a kind of slurry paste, almost like a gel coat but the cheap version. This is done to fill any small holes etc and to give a nice smooth surface for the release agent wax to be applied. After that we can start to lay the glass, finally. The final product will be shown later, we have the car launch November 12th so it must be ready before then.

UPDATE

Tim Stockton waxing the mould Friday night before we planned to lay the glass.

Adding the realease agent coating

The PVA release agent film is a blue colour which makes is easy to see where you are up to. This film will dry to a thin plastic like layer that we then lay onto. It will stick to the part and then we wash it off as it is water soluable.

Curtin 'Mo'torsport Team

2010-10-11T23:19:00.001-07:00

The face of CMT is about to change.

It's son to be Movember time.

We like to do our bit to generate more awareness of men's health issues so we're gettin' hairy.

Feel free to donate to us and help this great cause http://au.movember.com/mospace/88719/

See things from CMT's perspective

2010-10-04T05:38:00.001-07:00

Here is the latest from our solidworks model of the 2010 racecare.

A drivers eye perspective view from within the helmet. Looks cool right ? We like to think so.

We should be putting up some images of the intake and exhaust next week and possibly even some body work progress pictures.

Things are moving alog but we'd definately like to have more completed, we are still keeping our hopes up for the Novemeber deadline we set ourselves.

Driver Rosco McGlashan Visits the CMT Workshop

2010-09-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

On the 5th of August, CMT was lucky enough to have a visit from a famous driver, Rosco McGlashan.

Mr McGlashan, and his car, Aussie Invader, broke the Australian land speed record of 500 miles per hour in 1994. While our feats are nowhere near as amazing, Mr McGlashan seemed genuinely interested in our project which shares some aspects with his own such as sponsorship and designing for speed, albeit at a much lower level. It was fascinating to have an insight from one of Australia's best known drivers on cars, speed and engineering design. We thank Mr McGlashan for his time—it was certainly a pleasure having him in the workshop with us and getting the opportunity to show him what we do.

For more details on Rosco McGlashan and the Aussie Invader see http://www.aussieinvader.com/

CMT Twenty10 - coming soon

2010-09-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

Below is a sneak peek at the CMT Twenty10 FSAE racecar.

CMT Twenty10 Solidworks render of the FSAE racecar.

we'd like to say thanks to those who make our project possible...

Targa West 2010

2010-08-29T04:07:00.001-07:00

Well thanks to the organisation of John Hurney, Curtin Motorsport was invited to put on a static display of the '09 FSAE race car today.

Was a great day, the sun came out for everyone to get an amazing up close view of the racing.

UWA motorsport and Edith Cowan Racing (the other two FSAE teams from WA), put on a dynamic demonstration prior to the targa west cars arriving in Perth.

UWA's Pete Marsh was setting a cracking pace through the course but came slightly unstuck as he tried to flick the rear of the car around the hair-pin on Riverside Drive (Swan Bells end).

They damaged the sidepod of their cars body work but simply removed it and took to the course once again to really hightlight the performance of the FSAE racecars.

Unfortunately CMT have been troubled with a low oil pressure problem and having blow an engine earlier in the year at the Colie motorplex from the same problem we opted to not risk driving our car on the day. We have had moderate success trying to solve the problem during the year, moving towards a dry sump oil system but this has now showing signs having it's own problems.

Shortly the '09 race car will be dismantled to re-use suspension components for the Twenty10 racecar. This saves on cost and manufacturing time which are both of short supply.

After having a team shake up to stir engineers into being more productive we are making good head way towards a rolling car. We have set a team deadline of the 8th of November to have a fully running and operation racecar. It's a push but it's by no means unachievable.

Our computer model is looking great and we believe this year we are going to produce our most well engineered car yet.

Keep your eyes glued to this page to keep 'In Tune' with team progress over the next two months, big things are set to happen.

Above: The CMT display (inbetween UWA Motorsport and Edith Cowan Racing)

A picture of the switch that manually switches on our electronic water pump (a small joke to keep up team spirits)

Hiding inside the side pod is our muffler, might I am that it's fairly loud (it will have to be quieter this year)

A view of beautiful Perth, the weather was nice for the day.

CMT merchandise

2010-08-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

CMT would like to remind it's members and supporters of our merchandise outlet.

http://www.cafepress.com.au/CURTINMSPORT

You can purchase shirts, jumpers, caps, mugs, stickers and more.

CMT 'In Tune' mid year newsletter

2010-08-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest edition of 'In Tune', June July mid year special edition.

Membership Drive

2010-08-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

CMT is currently looking for new members.

Each year we require more and more students to join our project to enable us to create our amazing race cars.

Want to get more out of your time at uni and be apart of the FSAE competition ?

Follow the link below and you can know more about what to expect.

http://mech.eng.curtin.edu.au/local/docs/miscellaneous/looking%20for%20new%20members%20in%202010%20v2.pdf

also don't forget to visit our official website.

http://motorsport.curtin.edu.au/

CMT Twenty10 Chassis build taking shape

2010-07-12T08:22:00.001-07:00

The CMT Twenty10 chassis is soon to take it's shape and bound to create a buzz amoungst the team.

The fabrication of the chassis always marks the real begining of the build for us and sets in motion a few months of intense manufacture.

With the jig being assembled this week, we are soon to start piecing together all the bars that have been bent and cut to size.

The jig is mostly new but because the chassis design is still very similar to the CMT 09 car we are able to re-use some of the old jig components.

Unfortunately one of our designers made a mistake ordering the laser cut jig sections and some and cut from thinner plate steel than required, it's an easy mistake to make and we are all in the team to learn so we'll let that one slide for now. Let's hope there's not many other mistakes.

In terms of design quality and the amount of design work going into the Twenty 10 car, we are in front. This year has seen a good step in the right direction with more students doing more designs early in the year. With as much of the car modelled on the computer software as possible we can eliminate assembly problems, like packaging of components. The only thing is it takes a little extra time to plan the build correctly so we tend to seem a little behind where we would like to be.

With any volunteer project you always have to compete with the rest of 'life', everything from our own study, to part time jobs and just plain old boring house work takes time away from the design and the away from the build so we are always juggling with our members to try and fit in what we can when we can. It's hard to put in the time you want when you are doing it just out of shear passion.

Keep your eyes on this space there are bound to be plenty of team pics coming soon.

We must apologise for the lack of visual stimulation for our followers, we have just finished exams so the admin side of the team has taken a backward position while most of us try to get as much of the design work done before the uni semester starts up again.

This time of year always has a funny feel to it, almost like the calm before the storm.....although it's never really all that calm at CMT.... always something that needs to be done......I guess that's FSAE for you.

Curtin Motorsport Team on Youtube.

2010-05-16T21:53:00.001-07:00

CMT now have there own Youtube Channel.

Soon we will upload a bunch of our videos, incar footage and other promo material we have from over the years.

Keep a watch out for more from CMT !!

http://www.youtube.com/user/CurtinMotorsport

Curtin Motorsport Team moves toward the Twenty 10 race car

2010-05-05T22:41:00.001-07:00

CMT is now putting all of it's focus into the design and manufactre of the Twenty 10 race car.

Looking for a hot date? View photos of singles in your area!

CMT and CMC go-kart day

2010-04-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

Curtin Motorsport Team recently joined it's sister club, Curtin Motorsport Club for a go-kart day at COCKBURN INTERNATIONAL KARTWAY.

The day was an informal meet and greet for the CMC members and a chance for the CMT guys to say Hi also and let their hair down a little.

Above: The gang gets told the do's and don'ts

Above: The karts awaiting the ace drivers to race them around the track

Below: Drivers ready to hit the track for the 1st time

Above: Drivers grid up for the 1st start (positions were random for the 1st race)

Below: The first spin, Kara Symes

Above: Tim and another driver collide as a result of Kara's spin

Below: Getting back on track, except Tim now has a flat tyre, and we go one kart down for the day.

Above: Kara gets herself back on the circuit

Above: Nathan Staats (CMT project manager) wins heat 1

Below: We put one kart out of action and another died itself at the start of the 2nd heat so we had to break the 10 people into too groups from race 2 onwards.

Below: The gang after all the races

Above: Jordon Malatesta the overall winner on the day

CMT MEASURES UP !

2010-04-20T22:04:00.000-07:00

From Joel Cummuskey (the 2010 chassis engineer)

With so much of the car designed on 3D software it is integral that the team has accurate models of essential parts of the car. With the team moving to a brand new engine for 2010 it was essential that an accurate model of the engine could be generated so design on the intake, exhaust, oil systems and chassis could continue.

So, on Wednesday the 24th of March a number of team members went to EL ES DE Engineering in Welshpool to use their FARO arm. The arm allows points in 3D space to be measured to an accuracy of 0.02mm. With the use of the arm and the generous support offered from Dusko Mackoski the team was able to create an extremely accurate model of the engine in a very short space of time.

With the new engine model chassis arrangement, engine mounting and general packaging has now been able to be finalised and the design of the 2010 car can progress towards manufacture.

Thanks to EL ES DE Engineering and Dusko Mackoski for their time and support.

CMT takes a 3d model of the new CBR 600RR engines

2010-04-14T01:43:00.001-07:00

Joel Cummuskey recently went to our good friends at EL ES DE Engineering to use their Faro-Arm.

This device takes points from a surface and inputs them into a 3d computer model.

Joel will be using this accurate model of the engine to help design the mounts for the engine in his chassis design for 2010.

See below for some interesting snap shots taken during the day.

Find it on Domain.com.au Need a new place to live?

This is where CMT designs the amazing race cars...

2010-03-31T04:41:00.000-07:00

This is a small portion of our workshop, the design office is just partitioned separate from the workshop area.

and from this comes.....

Impressed yet...?

see the office team website

http://motorsport.curtin.edu.au/

Designs are underway

2010-03-29T02:24:00.000-07:00

We are really starting to pick up the pace with designs now and we just thought we'd share a humorous picture from our design office.

Hopefully we will have some solid models to share in coming weeks.

Curtin Motorsport Team - Interview with team members jan 2010

2010-03-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

Small video that gives an insight into the team from a few of our members.

Also has some in-car footage.

CMT Karaoke

2010-03-24T00:41:00.000-07:00

Way back in February, after the team launch, the CMT gang went down to the Waterford Tavern for a little team building.

To celebrate a successful night and to give the guys a little bit of fun and let their hair down we decided to do some karaoke.

The team had just been really busy preparing the race car for the CAMS Festival of Motorsport for the 14th and then our 2010 team launch on the 17th so it was a well deserved laugh for the team.

The tavern wasn't very busy and the way we were singing that was not such a bad thing. We gave it our best and definitely had lots of enthusiasm but lacked a little bit of talent.

We will definitely be sure we still to engineering and leave the signing to the professionals but it was a good fun night and we look forward to having a similar night out to welcome in all our new members this year.

Just another reminder that we are not 100% serious all the time, even engineers need to hang loose occasionally.

CMT 'Stimulates' Frederick Irwin Anglican School

2010-03-24T00:11:00.000-07:00

CMT today attended Frederick Irwin Anglican School in Mandurah to help Curtin Marketing give an insight into whats is available to students who decide to further their education at Curtin University of Technology.

Nathan Staats (Project Manager) and Errol Hassett (Exposure Manager)took down the teams new driving simulator, also know as our 'Stimulator'.

As some of our readers might know from team newsletters, the 'Stimulator' was created from our 2006 race car, we have made some small modifications to install a computer with steering wheel and sound system.

We generally use the 'Stimulator' as a bit of fun and it is proving to be a great marketing tool and talking point for the team. It promotes discussion on the race cars in general and the changing designs as the competition and our team evolve as the years go by. Most people find it a tight squeeze to get in and out of the 'Stimulator' but it is a realistic representation of the old race car designs because it is one of our old race cars.

We enjoyed the day, we always jump at the opportunity to talk about the team with people because we have such a passion for what we do. Hopefully the students walked away with a better understanding of what is available for them at Curtin University and are inspired to enter into engineering and hopefully even Curtin Motorsport Team.

We look forward to the next chance to share our passion for motorsport and the team.

CMT in the Community News - FEB 2010

2010-03-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

Curtin Motorsport Team Steps Into Top Gear

The following is extracted from the artilce published on the Community News Groups website on the 23/Feb/2010

" The Curtin Motorsport Team showed off its student-designed and built racing cars from the past two years at its recent 2010 launch.

The cars were the centrepiece of the evening, during which team members gave presentations about their experiences and where the team was headed this year.

Curtin’s head of mechanical engineering Professor Tony Lucey spoke about the team’s history in front of about 50 sponsors and suppliers from the automotive, manufacturing and engineering industries.

Guests also got to inspect the team’s 2008 and 2009 race cars and speak to the student design engineers and fabrication team.

Team project manager Nathan Staats said having a team set-up helped mechanical and mechatronic engineering students learn by hands-on projects designing and building the cars.

The team’s major focus is competing in the international Formula Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia competition in December, where entrants’ cars are judged on static inspection and engineering design, solo performance trials and high performance track endurance. "

CMT on Facebook

2010-03-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

CMT has been on facebook for some time now but we thought we'd share the love.

CMT on Facebook

Want to show the rest of the world how much you support the team.....grab some CMT apparel

CMT Apparel at Cafepress

Collie Supersprint

2010-03-01T22:19:00.000-08:00

CMT just came back from Collie after competing in the Super Sprint event at the Collie Motorplex Feb 28th. This was round 3 of the 2010 LF Performance Speed Event Series www.speedeventseries.com of which CMT is attempting to compete in as many rounds as possible this year in Class 1A - Outright under 2000cc Open Cars.

The event was run by Motoring South West www.motoringsouthwest.org.au/ The team headed down Saturday afternoon after preparing our race car. We arrived late afternoon and had a chance to mingle with some of the competitors, staying over night at the track.

Sunday started with high hopes to get out on the track. After a small warm up of the engine and a double check that the car was ready to go, we had some problems with the plugs being fouled by too much fuel.

With a quick swap of plugs during the drivers briefing, the car got out on the track for the practice with Errol Hassett behind the wheel. The car wasn't quite getting full throttle so the practice didn't go as well as hoped.

The sprint event sees multiple cars run at the same time and with our car running the competition compliant 20mm air intake restrictor, we knew we would have to keep a watch out for some of the fastest cars, as there were a bunch of GTR Skylines and even a supercharged Hayabusa open wheeler. To try and stay out of their way, we pulled the rear view mirror out of Errol's Magna wagon and fixed it to the side pod of our race car, so that we could keep a look out.

A few changes were made after practice to give the car full throttle and Micheal Holland, one of our university technicians, jumped in and set out to make an impression on the eager on-lookers. We looked good out on the track, rounding up a Mini and setting a 55 second lap time before the engine blew up due to oil starvation. (Supersprint course lap record is 46.3494 seconds)2009 Lap Records Collie Supersprint

We have always battled with this problem, as we still run a modified wet sump, and we have experimented with baffling and gates in the sump to try and limit the problem, but at the high speeds seen on the track we really had no hope of finishing a full sprint.

We will get the engine out and try to re-build it for use in the 2008 race car as a driver training and race day prep tool.

We have just received two new Honda 600 RR engines so we now hope to move into development of these into our new designs for the 2010 and 2011 race cars.

Also don't forget to see the official CMT website Curtin Motorsport Team Official Site

FSAE-WA

2010-02-23T04:31:00.000-08:00

At the recent CAMS Festival of Motorsport, held at the Quit Motorplex in Kwinana, CMT was joined by UWA and ECU to put on a demonstration FSAE-A competition.

Please see the results below
(note results reflect the point scoring system used in the FSAE-A competition)

The event was a good chance for the there teams to practice race day preparation and get in some good driver training. UWAM had a little inter team competitiveness happening with the 2010 team trying to out do the team from 2009 running the 2005 car and the 2009 car respectively.

ECU-R performed well in the autocross event but us at CMT had the good on them in the acceleration event on the day.

Considering we only got our car running at 5.00am the morning of the event(thanks to some help from UWA and plenty of hard work by a hand full of our more dedicated team members)we are reasonably pleased with the day.

There was a decent turn out of spectators given that it was on Valentines days and 37 degrees. We must make a note of our many thanks for CAMS inviting us to have a demonstration at the festival and we very much look forward to next years.

Team	Skid Pan	Acceleration (0-75m)	Autocross	Total
UWAM 2010 team	50	72.2	150	272.2
UWAM Germany team	47.3	75	133.5	255.8
ECU-R	27.8	44	135.8	207.6
CMT	24.9	47.4	69.5	141.8

We were also lucky enough to have the kind bunch at Launch Helmet Cams lend us a camera for the day and we managed to get some pretty impressive footage.

The Launch Helmet Cams gang has some top quality gear and there site is definately worth a look. Keep an eye out for some of our videos to be uploaded soon.

www.launchhelmetcams.com.au

New web page is up..

2010-01-27T04:28:00.000-08:00

Please see our new web page..

http://motorsport.curtin.edu.au/

CMT into 2010

2010-01-25T02:35:00.000-08:00

Well we have had our ups and downs through the history of the team and it seems we've hit another down.

Our race engine have decided to give up after years of use. It seems pistons and valves have been getting to friendly with each other and as such we are currently (desperately) looking for replacements and or alternatives.

We had hoped to enter a few hill climb events early this year before the university semester starts. A few members visited Jack Hill in Wanneroo just for a look over the weekend even though we were unable to compete.

In good news, we are looking for new members and have our 2010 team launch coming up, Febuary 17th, 6pm till 7pm at Curtin Univeristies new Chemistry building we will display the 2009 race car for our sponsers and supporters.

Invites will come out soon so keep a watch on your mail.

For those following from university, please email 'motorsport@curtin.edu.au' for a flyer on how to join us in 2010.

Fingers crossed we have a new motor within the next month or so, finances are the only restraint at the moment, we are looking into a possible swap from the 4 cylinder honda to a smaller 4 cyl turbo or single cyl option.

FSAE-A 2009 wrap up

2010-01-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

FSAE-A wind down

2009-12-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

Well it was hell.

We had too much to fabricate in Meblourne and too little time. As such our performance was not very good but we stil ended up with a decent car.

18th overall out of I think 21 so not much to say there.

The ar only passed tech inspection sunday arvo and so we only made it out for the last enduro. Managed the 1st run and then had driver change and only got in 3 laps beofre the car oveheated and the throttle cable also snapped.

The fan had been unplugged by someone, not sure who but it has most likely done a fair bit of damage to the engine.

Pretty sad considering the hope of a top ten showing, initial testing before comp in Melb at an outdoor kart track had showed very promising, with the car really amazing to drive.

Better luck next year I spose.

Now departing....CMT

2009-12-05T23:53:00.000-08:00

Tonight the team jumps on the plane at midnight ready for battle ahead.

Pretty much everyone in the team is taking only carry on luggage with the check in baggage used for the boxes of parts that are needed for the car.

Engine was sent off to the airport this morning after some last minute tuning yesterday.

Race seat was just finished this morning after we had some delamination in the original.

Everyone that has been before is excited but slightly apprehensive and everyone that hasn't been has been briefed slash warned of the possibility of long nights again to fix problems.

Most of the team has been in the workshop past midnight everyday for the last 3 to 4 weeks but we are still in moderately high spirits and eager to show that we have come along way since last year....we hope.

We will be updating daily once comp comences December 13 so keep a watch out for how we go, should be interesting to get a look at all the other teams.

The Mo Bros

2009-12-03T08:39:00.001-08:00

Now that we have a spare few minutes (not too mnay because it's still all go here) we thought we'd share a happy snap of two of our Mo Bros from our Movember team (Curtin Mo Team).

Errol Hassett on the left and Danilo Kitanovich on the right.

We had only limited members in the Mo team but we still raised a little money for mens health issues.

Thanks goes to those that supproted us.

We made it......

2009-12-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

Well, if you ever thought we wouldn't make it NA NA NI NA NA.

WE DID IT !!

CMT '09 is now on it's way to Melbourne after a huge effort by some of our more dedicated team members. Spending almost 3 days straight in the workshop with only a few naps here and there for some of the team in a hamock we set up in the corner, it's done.

We had to time to give the car a shake done and with a few hours of running done it's looking like a good package.

Some minor teething problems but we are glad that the bulk of it is out of the way.

We have sent the car off minus engine this morning so that we can spend some more time on the dyno getting a good tune and will fly the motor over air freight later this week.

We are now focusing on the admin side of the comp namely the designa dn presentation events where we explain the concept and approach behind our race car and try put on a sales pitch.

We are all pretty excited to get there and get this thing fully race ready. For those that were there last year all these sleepless nights are nothing out of the ordinary and for the newer guys it's a bit of a shock.

The only way to explain all this is, this is FSAE.

PROGRESS PROGRESS PROGRESS...!!!

2009-11-26T03:01:00.001-08:00

You would almost never believe it BUT we almost have a driving, functioning race car !!

About the only thing left to do is swap in our replacement ECU.

Side pods are being mounted as I type, one or two internal floor panels being mounted, some fule line pumping to do but beyond that it's ever so close to being the real deal.

Fingers crossed that tomorrow it should be tip top and ready to shake down.

I think it's great time to say thanks to all the boys who have been killing themselves to make this all happen.........won't get too carried away as we're still not quite there yet BUT damn good effort guys.

They all know who they are so we won't name the A-Team just yet but there's a solid group of about 5 guys who have really stood up and got this happening. Working upto 18 or 20 hours a day.......YES thats right running on shear will power almost.

............fingers and toes crossed things keep looking up we shall share news over the next few days before the car heads over to Melbourne on Tuesday.

Unfortunate News

2009-11-25T02:27:00.000-08:00

Due to our build being well behind schedule we have unfortunately had to cancel our car launch before the comp.

With our car still being finished off and it having to go on the truck over to Melbourne on Tuesday next week we just didn't have enough time (or finshed car) to have the launch.

I'm sure if you are familiar with the comp, you will understand the enormous effort it is to prepare these cars over the year, with delays on parts and struggle for available labour it is an uphill battle for many teams, with Curtin definately not exempt.

In good news the chassis is painted and the majority of parts are being fitted to the car.

Point to note is our driveline this year looking like it will function remarkedly better than last year, now that we don't have an interferance fit between the drive shafts and the suspension mounts.

The deisgn of the race car is often undertaken by new team members each year and so information and past expereience is often lost, this means design problems can be re-occuring but we are lucky this year to have a solid team core that attended the comp last year and we are making the appropriate modifications to our design approach based on what we learned last year.

We are still very hopeful for a good performance at the comp this year, so don't lose faith in us yet.

It's still full steam ahead in the workshop day and night. The painted body turned up today and should be all mounted up by tomorrow.

Brake lines were complete yesterday thanks to some help from Perth Brake Parts.

Keep you eyes on this page as we are set to have lots of progress over the next few days.....we simply just have to enable us to compete in Melbourne this year. Short on days for work but we have plenty of determination.

Team Banner

2009-11-23T01:41:00.000-08:00

We have just come out with this years new banner to advertise our hyperthetical product.

ie: our race car.

Scope of the project for thsoe that aren't familar with the FSAE-A competition the purpose of the competition is, teams are to assume that they work for a design firm that is designing, fabricating, testing and demonstrating a prototype vehicle for the nonprofessional, weekend, competition market.

Build progress and car launch

2009-11-22T17:21:00.001-08:00

Well as you can guess, we are all feeling a little worn out but the fight continues.

CMT vs the clock. We wish we could stop time and complete the car in a day but we are that fortunate. We have made steady progress and the car is looking very close to completion but just not quite there.

With more late design changes being made we are awaiting the re-work on a few of our machined parts (namely diff half shaft bearing seals amoungst others).

Most of the welding required on the chassis to accomodate all the auxillary gear in the car has be done, with special thanks going to a past team member (Rob Lipowiec) for coming in and generously lending a hand with his tig welder.

Also our favourtie technician Mike 'Spud' Holland for putting in hundreds of hours of welding and machine time, particularly because his wife is about to give birth at almost any moment now.

It must be said that CMT could not function if it weren't for the extra special efforts of the uni technical staff each year and it seems we always have one or two past team members coming in the lend a hand when it gets the the pointy end of the build.

Unfortunately it looks like car launch may be pushed back to Friday this week as we await the boday work (fingers crossed finished Wednesday) but we will keep you updated on that as we learn more.

For now it's back to the build and keeping the faith that we can get there........I think I can I think I can....

5 Days till Car launch

2009-11-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

With the days left to finish the car rapidaly declining we are in need of longer days.

With some team members really knuckling down and spending LOOOOOONG nights working on the car, we should be right to finish in time.

Body went to paint yesterday eta for final mount to car is set for Monday /Tuesday. (we know a day before car launch is cutting it fine but figners crossed)

Pedal box should be finalised today, oil tank should be mounted this afternoon, harness mounts and seat mounts will be getting final welding tonight.

A few small things still need some brackets fabricated and mounted but we have made solid progress over the last few days.

Some members have shown allegeric reactions to the expoxy used for fibreglassing so that has been a minor set back but we are pleased that more than the 4 or 5 usual members are getting in and doing their part.

I'm sure it's the same with most teams but it is always hard to get people available or willing to do fabrication work on the car but we've had some good efforts put in.

Keep a watch for pics over the weekend and car launch Wednesday next week.

Progress Photo's

2009-11-17T21:27:00.000-08:00

These were taken Sunday, just a few of the parts we've recently had come in.

front upright

suspension rockers

rear upright

rear upright again from different angle

the new shockies

We should have more pictures to show soon, just need to upload them......

8 days to go till launch

2009-11-17T04:03:00.000-08:00

After working on car till 4.30am yesterday good progress on the body has been made, side pods are now being mock mounted to the car.

Bunch of brackets been made for components to mount to chassis.

Dry sump oil system is currently having some parts machined for it but getting very close.

Fingers crossed body goes to paint tomorrow afternoon if not it absolutely must by Thursday.

Wheels are finished machining just some test fitting before we put the finishing touches on them but looking good.

Still lots to do and less time to do it but we are pushing hard to get there.

9 Days till car launch

2009-11-16T06:06:00.001-08:00

With 9 days to go and a blown ECU we are awaiting a replacement from Sydney. Should be here before the end of the week.

Body still needs painting and pretty much everything still needs to be mounted to the car.

There are a number of parts that have been mounted but approx. only 15% of the whole car if I was to be generous.

We are cutting it fine and trying very hard to get back to any form of realistic chance of a finished car before the end of November.

So many parts are very close but many things have required re-working post design and manufacture to get them to fit right.

We will keep you posted as the days roll by we are hoping for some large improvements in coming days.

Movember Newsletter 2009

2009-11-13T03:04:00.001-08:00

Curtin Motorsport - 1st blog

2009-11-12T23:49:00.000-08:00

Well if you know FSAE you know that it's crunch time.

With about 2 weeks of time left before we have to send our transporter over to Melbourne we are burning the midnight oil in an attempt to arrive in better shape than last year.

I'm sure we are not the only team that seems pushed for time but it always seems as if you are soo alone in the world when you are behind schedule and doing your best to get the car running in time to find faults BEFORE you get to the comp.

Currently we are doing ok in terms of parts, just need to mount them all in and check packaging of the car as a whole.

Having some ECU troubles currently, we have swapped from Autronic to Adaptronic this year. because this is unfamiliar software we are still getting used to and taking baby steps at the moment (at this stage in the game we should probably be taking leaps but thats how it goes)

Keep an eye on this blog in coming days to see some build progress snaps and here more from the CMT workshop.

See you all at FSAE-A Melbourne 2009 !!!