Race car project combines learning and adventure

By Chris Denina
Staff Writer

You would never guess it from walking outside Parking Structure A, but on the west side of the building, in a tiny fenced-off garage, the Society of Automotive Engineers is building a car -- a Formula race car -- from the ground up, in a space that looks like it's intended for parking cars and not building them.
Outside the building, the shrill noise of drills and other metal shop devices sounds more like a full construction crew than a dozen engineering students standing around a table, hammering out the details for a tubular chromoly space frame -- tech-speak for a chassis, explains Chris Speights, president and co-founder of the club last year. The other founder, Yerko Dekovic, has since graduated.
Three times a week the group meets in its makeshift garage -- Tuesday (two hours), Fridays (five hours) and Sundays (at various times). Bicycles propped up by kickstands wait outside for hours. It's an average of four hours a week per member, said Speights, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering. While most members are in that major, it's not required, he said.
Though the design is handled by the engineering majors, anyone can help in the nuts-and-bolts, hands-on construction. The team welcomes anyone with an interest in cars. "There's a lot of gear-heads in the club. People who are just into cars. People who soup up their cars. Racing fans," Speights said.
Their makeshift garage previously was a gated space used by the Department of Public Safety. But since SAE took over, with the help of their faculty advisers, they've turned it into a working garage. New lights were installed, in addition to three-pronged power outlets for their equipment, which includes welding torches and drills. Red tool cabinets line one wall. From another hangs a whiteboard with lists entitled "Things we need," "Chassis," "Suspension" and "Power Train." Another whiteboard shows member attendance. Little car drawings mark off each day a member is present. A couple of Pepsi and Carl's Jr. soda cups fill garbage cans along with empty car-part boxes. And at another wall, old frames are lined up, standing vertically.
But the garage's centerpiece is last year's completed Formula car. The group raced it last year at the Formula SAE competition in Michigan, which draws about 80 competitors from schools all over North America. College students from each school labor through the school year to design and build a working vehicle to race. But the main objective of the competition is for students to plan and produce a prototype car that can be feasibly mass-produced at a cost below $8,500.
Each team submits a cost analysis. During the three-day event, the car will be judged in three categories: static inspection, solo performance trials and high-performance track performance.
The competition sponsors include Chrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. Teams can win a variety of prizes from these and other sponsors, like parts or monetary awards up to $3,000. Last year's USC chapter of SAE won top rookie design. The next SAE Formula race will be in May.
Last year's car took two full semesters to build.
"But this year, we're two months ahead of schedule. We should have a running car by February or March," said Stephen King, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering. And the chassis they they're currently working on, he expects, will be completed by the end of finals.
The competition does not allow previously entered cars to be reused. And since it is unwise to reuse parts, Speights said, last year's car sits in the club's garage, waiting to be wheeled out and displayed for all to see.
"The engineering school has given us a lot more recognition and more support in funding," King said. "They're asking us to come to a lot of the engineering days when high school kids come to school."
The car is also a promotional tool when it comes to the club's sponsors, which include C & D Aerospace.
"Last year we received $20,000 in monetary donations and about $10,000 in parts sponsorship," Speights said. "This year, we've received about $30,000 in monetary and we're starting to get parts. We expect about $10,000 again."
Speights estimated the value of last year's car at about $20,000, only accounting for parts and not the two semester's worth of hours put in by the crew.
The Formula car has 10-inch Goodyear tires and a turbocharged, 600-CC, rear-mounted Yamaha motorcycle engine running about 100 horsepower. The car weighs about 540 pounds, "roughly a sixth of the weight but about the same horsepower of a street car. The zero-to-60 (acceleration) is under four seconds," Speights said. "It definitely gives you a kick in the butt when you step on the pedal. It hauls."
Everyone who works on the project gets a chance to drive the car, Speights said. But because it is a race car, safety precautions are a priority.
"First off, you've got to wear a fireproof suit, which includes a full-body suit, gloves and shoes. You wear a five-point harness and arm restraints because in an open-wheeled car, you can see the driver. If the car tumbles over, hopefully the roll hoops keep your head protected and the arm restraints keep your arms from getting crushed."
Driver safety is a must at the competition. The car goes through so many technical inspections that one of the club's advisors, Larry Lim, who himself is an amateur race car driver, insists there's little threat of danger to the driver in the event of an accident. The car, he explained, is designed to break apart when it crashes so the driver doesn't absorb any of the crash energy.
"There's far more danger driving on the freeway going to the competition than driving there itself," said Lim, director of pre-college programs for the School of Engineering.
Though the team members put as much faith in their design and construction as their advisers, they share the same instinctive fear when racing the car.
"I don't know how to describe it. I'll get this huge smile but am scared. I think I'm gonna die, but it's awesome," Speights said.
"I don't know how to describe it. It's fast enough that you're almost scared. It's pretty fast when you're that close to the ground. It's like you're sitting on the ground, just about," said Ron Wiggins, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering.
But beyond the need for speed -- and the noisy drilling -- there's an academic side to the fun.
"You get to apply a lot of the coursework in engineering. You're not just learning these theories and equations. You get to apply them," said Rick Hill, a senior majoring in technical engineering. "Companies look highly on it."