Anyone else here doing SAE Baja this year? I haven't read about anyone building a car on here so I figured I should be the first to throw up some pictures of our build this year.

If you don't know what SAE Baja is here is a little background I took from our website:
Last semester was spent solely on designing the car (mostly in SolidEdge) and figuring out what transmission we wanted to use. Most teams seem to use CVTs, but we have always liked manual gear boxes. Last year was a semi-manual and we had a problem with burning up the centripetal clutches, so this year we went with a fully manual out of a honda dirt bike (I can't remember off the top of my head which one).

At the start of this semester (January) we started building the frame and components. I was recruited to come back early from winter break to start the frame work , but it turned out to be a lot of fun!

We finally got our car on all fours and drivable last week so yesterday we took her our to see how she would do compared to last year's car. Man, what a difference! This car is so much faster (well, as fast as a 10hp briggs can be) and it handles like a dream. We didn't get to drive too much as our shifter linkage broke about 30 minutes in, but we expected to break things. That's what testing is all for, right? I left my camera at home, so I don't have any pictures from yesterday


I know I am skipping a lot of critical stuff, so I will update this later with more info. It's just too exciting to see something that you built with your own hands race around a track to keep to yourself!

We are testing the car all day on Saturday so I should have a lot of pictures and hopefully some videos I can post up.

On to the good stuff... PICTURES














^First time on all fours! ^






^Me in the car ^







And just for reference, here is last year's car:







^Me driving at Midnight Mayhem in KY^


Like I said earlier, I'll post up more pictures if people want to see them.

Mods, move this thread if you feel it should. I thought it fit here since it is technically a "build up". We also throw the baja in the back of the shop teacher's Taco sometimes!

 

Cool. Why is it so tall?

 

Our ride height was great last year at the Illinois competition so we kept that the same. We were bottoming out in the rear do to the huge shocks at another competition so we had to find different shocks for this car (Fox Floats).

There is going to be some pretty crazy terrain at competition, so we'll see how this ride height fairs. Some people on the team think it's too short right now

 

No I mean why is the roll bar so tall?

 

Oh, there are a ton of rules regarding the roll cage (as well as the whole car) and the roll bar had to be that tall for a 6'3'' person, in a helmet, to pass tech inspection.

I wish it could be shorter, but rules are rules...

 

Ah I see. Looks like fun though. Idk if id wanna race it but itd be fun to mess around in.

 

It's a lot of fun to race. The only scary part is no one has side view mirrors and you can easily get hit from behind 'cause you can't see the other drivers.

 

Have a good time..

We raced last year in Montreal!

 

Ridiculously underpowered IMHO. The gocarts and minibikes that I worked on in highschool were more potent than the rules allow. I really wish they would allow for at the very least some engine modding.

 

 

As long as you gear it right.. its a crap load of fun

 

How'd you guys do last year? We went to Illinois last year and I heard it was a ton of fun being able to check out the other cars and chat with other Baja people about the different cars.


The place we went to test our car was at a farm one of our alumni owns. He's a retired doctor who now raises cows. He has over 150 acres that were dedicated to trails for his son's ATV's and dirt bikes. I didn't take as many pictures as I had planned because it was too rainy and muddy to take my camera out. I only took two pictures and they are when we took the transmission apart because the clutch packs were slipping like crazy. We ordered a new clutch pack and it should be in this week.

We ran into another small problem when our team captain ran the car into a tree... The only thing that broke was the front a-arm tho, so it wasn't too bad. We were able to weld it back together just so we could keep driving.





We threw the fiberglass panels on that I made just so the drivers would be more protected in the woods. I'm making new panels this week which we're going to paint black or graphite. We're "murderin-out" this Baja!

 

That is so true. Gearing is what can make or break a baja car.

That's a nice car you got there! What kind of trans is it running? Got any good advice for me? I'll be a senior next year and it'll be my team's turn to design the car. We're looking at going to a rear trailing arm setup and it looks like your car might have that.

 

yea we did rear trailing arms..

Our gearing came from a CVT connected to a Honda ATV transmission..

advice...
Well.. make it light and strong, lots of seat time, no bump steer, polish your presentation..

Get all your settings ready for each test..

 

oh yeah don't use roll bar padding that is a pain to get on and off


cause we flopped ours a few times..

 

Are you guys going to Alabama? We'll be there with last year’s car, decided against building a new one. I'd post pictures if I had any.

 

Yeah, we're going to be at the AL comp. Which school are you at? I'll see you there!

I'm driving my yota there too

 

We're going for light and strong this year and that is working out to be the best route for sure. Thanks for the advice.

How does the CVT to AVT trans work? A car my school built 4 years ago used a CVT, but I think that was the only "transmission" the car had.


Btw, whats the stick next on the right side of the driver? (I saw it on your team's site)

 

U of Iowa. I’ll be looking for your truck. Just noticed you’re from Crystal Lake, ever been to the Cliffs?

 

I haven't been to the Cliffs yet, but I really want to check that place out. Let me know if you want to go!