backwoodsboy
New member
Not diesel, or truck related for that matter, but figured I'd start up a thread on what I've been doing fabrication wise as of late.
I'm assuming some of you guys that went to schools for mechanical engineering might already know what Baja SAE is, but if not here goes.
It's basically a student based off-road racing series. All of the cars are student designed, built, and raced. We are given a 10hp B&S generator engine, which is the only design constraint. Basically we are responsible for designing a transmission, gearbox, chassis and suspension around a given hp engine. Once the vehicle are completed, they are raced in a variety of terrain including rock-crawl, acceleration, hill-climb, maneuverability and a 4-hour wheel to wheel endurance race. The hp of the engine in limited partially to keep things safe on a course with somewhere between 70 and 100 other vehicles on it, and amateur drivers, but mainly to force us to optimize other aspects of the vehicle. When you have so little power to play with, suspension and drive train efficiency really comes into play.
This year we were forced to do a complete redesign as a result of finishing top-10 at competition last year. We're using a CVT, paired to a final reduction gearbox with both forward and reverse to power the vehicle. Vehicle is 2wd, so CV's put the power down outback. Suspension travel is A-arm in front and modified trailing arm out back. Travel is 14" front and rear.
We're a relatively small program, so the entire vehicle is designed and built in house by a group of roughly 15 people. Every cut, weld, and machine operation is done by a student...we even cut our own gears this year.
Enough rambling...here go some pictures
I'm assuming some of you guys that went to schools for mechanical engineering might already know what Baja SAE is, but if not here goes.
It's basically a student based off-road racing series. All of the cars are student designed, built, and raced. We are given a 10hp B&S generator engine, which is the only design constraint. Basically we are responsible for designing a transmission, gearbox, chassis and suspension around a given hp engine. Once the vehicle are completed, they are raced in a variety of terrain including rock-crawl, acceleration, hill-climb, maneuverability and a 4-hour wheel to wheel endurance race. The hp of the engine in limited partially to keep things safe on a course with somewhere between 70 and 100 other vehicles on it, and amateur drivers, but mainly to force us to optimize other aspects of the vehicle. When you have so little power to play with, suspension and drive train efficiency really comes into play.
This year we were forced to do a complete redesign as a result of finishing top-10 at competition last year. We're using a CVT, paired to a final reduction gearbox with both forward and reverse to power the vehicle. Vehicle is 2wd, so CV's put the power down outback. Suspension travel is A-arm in front and modified trailing arm out back. Travel is 14" front and rear.
We're a relatively small program, so the entire vehicle is designed and built in house by a group of roughly 15 people. Every cut, weld, and machine operation is done by a student...we even cut our own gears this year.
Enough rambling...here go some pictures
