Really cool project!!!

MrSled

MrSled

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This is Pete and his buddy Toms SAE mini baja buggy project at Northern Michigan. Pete you can post who you are and tell us more about your site and project.
:WayCool:
 

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We are building this thing to compete in a mini-baja competition against other schools from all over the Midwest. The goal is to build a well engineered vehicle to compete in competition which has several sections, one is handling, which is a course laid out on pavement, and the driver must weave through cones. One is an all out speed test. The next thing is either a hill climb, or a horse pulling type event. The next area is where judges will rate the engineering and budget of the car (the goal is to make a car which could be mass produced and sold for under $3000). And the final area of the competition is the endurance test, where all teams will race on a motocross type track for about 3~4 hours. The team with the most combined points from all areas will be the winner.

Most teams build a car which uses a CVT like a snowmobile uses, to transmit power from the required 10hp Briggs and Stratton engine, but our team has taken a completely different approach. Our 10hp motor will be coupled to a hydraulic pump, which in turn will deliver pressure to 2 hydraulic motors mounted at the rear wheels. This system will use very high pressure, and based on our calculations, we should be able to get ~46mph out of it, and it will produce a ton of torque.

Since the chapter of SAE at out school, Northern Michigan University, is brand new, we are working on a very tight budget, so progress is going somewhat slow as we have experienced several times where work was halted due to lack of funding, but now that we have several senior level engineering classes doing work on the project, much progress has been made. We have the entire car modeled in SolidWorks, which is a 3-d modeling program similar to ProEngineer and several others.

We currently have several sponsors who have provided us with either parts or funds, and also individuals who have really cut us some really good deals on parts that we needed (Thanks Tom), but we are still currently looking for ways to raise more money, as we want to have the car completed for a March competition at Michigan Tech in Houghton which will be on a snow course (I believe it is held at the same time as the clean snowmobile competition, which should be really cool to check out). If anybody has suggestions on the car or would be willing to help out in any other way, it would be greatly appreciated.

If anybody has any further comments or inquiries, please feel free to post here or e-mail me at pecarlso@nmu.edu.


Here is a link to our Website and the SAE mini baja site:

http://myweb.nmu.edu/~sae/
http://students.sae.org/competitions/minibaja/



BETHEVIPER: They certainly are Viper shocks. Wish we could use a viper motor.
 
Thanks Tom.

I know Im slow to get things done. It almost seems like everything I do is on at least a 3-4 day delay. But, the car is really progressing nicely, for the resources we have available to us, as it needs to be a rolling chassis for the end of the semester (dec 16). At the beginning of next semester, we plan to clean up everything, paint it, and have all of the details worked out for the Winter Baja at Michigan Tech. I guess we will see how that works out.
 
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Nice. I graduated in 2000, and was the Asst. Proj Manager in 1999, and Project Manager in 2000 of our (NJIT - New Jersey Institute of Technology) Mini Formula car. So I know what you are going through with the budget. We shared a room with the Mini Baja guys, and even though I never got involved with their project (besides helping them with some suspension stuff) it always looked like fun.

First thing it to make a "Press Kit" before you go trying to collect money. Make it nice. Take lots of pictures of your project and include any files from Pro-E and SW that will help identify that you have put some time and thoughts into it. Take pictues of the current car and print them out (P.S> When you take pics of the car, include the team members in some, and make sure the shop and members are CLEAN before you start taking pics. You want to look "professional" and not like a bunch of slobs.)

Take a team photo with all the members around the car, and get a cheap frame. Explain to any potential contribuitors that you will provide them with this photo and letter of appreciation, as well as a performance report after the race/event (embellish this if you don't do so well), with any donation. Also tell them that you will have their business name/logo made into a sticker (unless they have stickers already) and displayed on the car (THIS is when you find a local sign company sponsor YOU by cutting all the stickers of sponsors for free... :rockon: )

Best bet as far as getting money is to first talk with the parents of team members, and see if their employer's can help, as well as the employers of any team members, themselves. Then go to local businesses - It's a tedious process, but provided you get a person with a good sales pitch as your lead man, you should be able to get $500 - $1,000 per day. Also speak with the school, and get the tax forms for anyone that donates to consider it a tax write off. (P.S> This is a good time of the year to hunt for money with many companies looking to distribute some profit instead of getting taxed on it.)

Good luck. Have fun..

MJB
 
Nice looking Baja. I'm at UW Madison right now, mechanical engineer, and our baja's are coming together quite nicely...hopefully they perform on a level similar to our clean snowmobile last year ;)! :WayCool:
 
I like the design, looks very well thought out. I personally wouldn't have used 2 seperate hydralic motors though as they will fight each other when it comes to turns and such. The motors might be identical but still act slightly different but it should still work for you very well. Are you running both motors off the same circut of the pump or are they on different circuts. running off the same circut of the pump will cause it to act like a "one wheel wonder" as the wheel with less traction will need less pressure to spin and will recieve most of the fluid flow from the pump which would work well for the pavement course where you only need one wheel driving at any given time. On the hill climb/ dirt bike course each wheel motor with its own circut of the pump would give equal power to both wheels and allow both of them to put the power to the ground. Maybe set it up with a few valves so you can do it both ways for an advantage on different courses. I may not be a engineer but I have worked with hydraulics for the last 5-6 years.
 
I worked on the FSAE team at LTU a few years back. I'm currently designing a 6x6 hydrostatic vehicle. I was think the same thing as blueironranger. If you us a flow divider to make the motors act like a live axle you are going to lose half your speed but have twice the torque. If you have them in parallel with out the flow divider its going to be the one wheel wonder, and have half the torque but twice the speed. The other problems with a series circuit is cavitating the motors, and the second motor will be slower due to the loss in the first.
What puumps are you using. I have two BPD-21L that I have been desinging around. With these pumps and a target speed of 25 mph and other load condition my calculation came up 40+hp required.
 
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Another thing, if you are using s variable displacement pump your not going to need the rear barkes. You have plenty of hydraulic resistance to stop it. Unless the rules require them!
 
We are using a variable displacement pump. Im not sure on the specs on the hydro motors, but we are working with engineers from Hydrogear, and from that they told us, there is something built into our motor system (they will be in series) that will allow semi independant motion of the rear wheels, it should not act like a locked rear end. The rules do require a brake on the rear wheels, but the hydraulic motor assemblies have drum breaks built in, so that wont be much of a problem.

The engine and pump are installed, and teams are currently working on the rest of the hydraulic system, so things should be rolling soon. Our next problem will be controlling flow to the motors and engine rpm with one accelerator pedal. Ill try to get some more pictures soon.

Thanks for all of your advise and questions.
 
Hydrogear should know what they are doing! I'm not a hydraulic expert by any means. I've never had any training in that field. All I know is from teh research that I have been doing for the machine I want to build. They are the manufactures of the pumps I have also. Keep us posted on how it works its definetly interesting.
 
Nice buggy. My buddy made one a few years back. Very similar to what you have there. He ran a 750 Honda in it. Only thing was the reverse gear that did not exist. The thing would cruise the trails with ease at 60MPH. Then he lost the lower end. I think he is still running it after a rebuild. Rizzo built one too. His is still in the design stage to determine what motor to run. Its cool to see the travel from those things. :WayCool:
 
2ooosrx said:
those rear a-arms look a lot like the rx 1 a-arms, are they?
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2ooosrx: all a-arms were completely engineered and built by members of our group. There were several clearance and binding issues that had to be designed around, and also the a-arms had to be designed to mount up directly to the adapter plate that we built for each of the rear drive motors. I dont think that any existing a-arm design was copied.

jwiedmayer: are you using hydrogear hydraulic motors or pumps. If you are using their motors, which model are you using? Is it cast iron or aluminum? The motors that we are using currently are cast iron and weigh alot.

Sparta: we are using a 10hp b&s engine, It sure would be fun to put a 750cc engine in there and try to get ~100hp. I cant wait to get this car out and do some testing and tuning, hopefully we can get the ~45mph that our system is capable of, along with some really hard pull up to that speed. :rockon:
 
With what I see in the photos I am a little disapointed in a 10 HP motor. I think you will have the 45 mph but the hole shot and the corner to corner will be sluggish. May I suggest a GP 292 single lunger ?? Now that will turn heads !!! At any rate, what you have and are doing is great. Good luck and be careful on that thing. Ours was a blast until that corner jumped out and tickled Kenny. Took some weird angles to straighten that frame back out. ;)!
 
SpartaSXr said:
With what I see in the photos I am a little disapointed in a 10 HP motor. I think you will have the 45 mph but the hole shot and the corner to corner will be sluggish. May I suggest a GP 292 single lunger ?? Now that will turn heads !!! At any rate, what you have and are doing is great. Good luck and be careful on that thing. Ours was a blast until that corner jumped out and tickled Kenny. Took some weird angles to straighten that frame back out. ;)!
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Yeah...we got alot of rules to follow. :o|
 
can you modify the 10hp engine in any way? :D a cam, straight pipe, and up the govener a bit will bring up the HP :D
 
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