This is Part 10 of a series written by guest writer Ricky Nietubicz on his experience on the Formula SAE team at the University of Delaware. FSAE is a competition where students design, build, and compete with small formula-style racing cars. Ricky was President of his FSAE club, and his team went to the Nationals in Detroit during the 2006-2007 season.

So now you have a team, and you’ve put together a car, submitted the reports and other forms, and you’re getting the final testing and tuning done, and you’re all set to go to competition. Not so fast there, buddy, lets make sure your car is usable in competition. Ideally you won’t need to change anything, but nothing ever works out ideally. So, hope for as few changes, and changes that are as small in nature, as possible.

Like any racing series, FSAE has rules. Pages and pages of wonderful rules. The 2008 Rules document is a 118-page .pdf, available here. Thankfully, SAE is kind enough to also provide a 1-page “Rules Change Summary” that points you toward the rules that have changed in big and important ways, and it is available here. Now, one shouldn’t have to say this, but remember to read the rules. Carefully, and more than once. As an added safety measure, more than one person on the team should be sure to read the document, as the same series of words can be interpreted very different ways in many circumstances.

Rule changes can have great impacts on what you can do. Since most teams don’t start building a car in September and finish it in April, most likely there will be rule changes in mid-stream, that could have major or minor impacts on your design. Our team was behind the 8-ball more than once due to rule changes, because our car took several years to get to the Detroit competition. Lots of things changed over the years, requiring extensive retrofitting to the car.

A major rules change came in this year, a change in the fuels allowed. In the past, such as the 2007 competition, fuels allowed included 94 and 100 octane as well as E85. For 2008, the only fuel allowed is 93 octane. All that knowledge and experience building high-compression engines with massive spark advances, all the tuning experience, take it and throw it right out the window. And if you were banking on power to get you through, go straight back to the drawing board.

Rules changes like this help to keep everyone on a level playing field. Other rules changes are created to improve safety. Of course my team has a good story on one of these rules, too, related to the fuel tank. Sometime between when our fuel tank was designed and when we arrived at competition, a rule was instituted, in an effort to reduce fuel spills and fire hazards, stating that the filler neck on the fuel tank could not be angled more than 45 degrees from the vertical. Our filler neck came straight out of the top of the tank, and bent, smoothly, 90 degrees to where the filler was on the side of the car. Unfortunately this was not pointed out until the tech inspection in Detroit, which required filling the tank with water, cutting off the filler neck, and welding on a new filler neck that more or less got the job done and conformed to the rules. This and other delays passing the tech inspection cost us the acceleration run and the skidpad test, hurting our points greatly.

The biggest and most important lesson to take away from this is, perhaps, the most simple of all. Self-tech your car before you go to competition. I know, I know, you followed all the rules when you built everything, so it is all fine, right? Wrong. The tech guys will find things that you didn’t.

Get two or three people on the team who are the most familiar with the rules. Freshman, Seniors, alumni, advisors, whatever. Doesn’t matter. These individuals don’t have to know anything about FSAE beyond the rules and the tech form. Tech forms are available on the FSAE website, right next to the rules. Do this at least a few weeks before the competition itself, as soon after getting the car finalized as possible, so that you have plenty of time to fix whatever was done incorrectly. Be sure to put the car through all the safety checks, too- make sure it passes the brake test (basically just slam on the brakes at the top of first, all four tires must lock- you may want to do this with a set of tires that are already on their way out, but they have to be as sticky as whatever ones you will use in competition for the test, so they can’t be too far gone) the infamous tilt test (tip the car on it’s side to the specified angle and make sure nothing leaks, not the battery, the fuel tank, the lines, the brakes, the radiator- nothing) and make sure your biggest driver can get out of the car, from fully belted in, in the specified time.

All of these things take about an afternoon to do right. That’s it. If you are sure your car will pass everything, all you stand to lose is a few hours. But your car will not pass everything, and you will have to redesign, reconfigure or otherwise re-think at least one thing on the car. It is far better to be able to think these things through in your shop than have to cut and fit at the competition itself.

This process should be ongoing, but there should be a few major points where you stop everything and check. The first of these points comes with the finalization of the design, prior to construction. This is the easiest time to make changes, as it’s all on paper. The next time is when everything is in working order, and the car is moving handily under its own power, and in relatively final form. A final check should be made when all foreseeable changes have been made. These checks may seem meaningless, and indeed, if you do everything right the first time, they largely will be. However, you are almost certain to overlook something.