Technical Tips for New FB Teams

Technical Advice
For new
Formula Bharat Teams
Technical Advice for New Formula Bharat Teams
Chapter 1: Introduction
Whilst this book is aimed squarely at those students about to enter the exciting world of FB for the
first time it is possible that some established ‘old hands’ will find a hidden gem or two as well. Equally
it may make good reading for University Faculty Advisors and Heads of Departments.
The aim of this book is to run through the basic things you need to be aware of before embarking
upon any plan, design or construction. I will try to present them in chronological order where
possible to match your own project progression. Depending upon spare time available we may even
have some debate over some of the content just to demonstrate that there is rarely a single correct
answer to the design challenges generated by FB: rather you need to determine the best compromise
solution that suits you.
What is Formula Bharat and why should you enter it?
FB is an educational engineering challenge that is popular because the engineering product to be

designed, built, tested and evaluated against other universities from around the world just happens
to be a race car.
But don’t think of this as a traditional motorsports event because it isn’t. Rather it is a full sized, real
engineering project that will fast track your learning experience in all the key life skills of a
professional engineer:
 Teamwork and people relationships
 Practical real manufacturing skills to reinforce your theoretical knowledge
 Project management
 Technical writing
 Planning
 Financial budgeting and cost controls
 Timekeeping and resource management
 Marketing and presentation skills
All the above are highly valued by prospective employers. Successful involvement in FB will improve
your chances of getting your dream job sooner. Trust me on this one, it is a proven benefit.
How will this book help me?
The purpose behind this series of short articles is not or us to design your car or to give you ‘magic
answers’, nor is it for us to show we are better than you. What they will (hopefully) do is steer you
away from the common pitfalls that novice teams appear hypnotically drawn into! That in turn will
make it easier for you to get a finished and legal car to the event on time
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What format will this book take?
Please appreciate that this is written in the limited spare time available in between the challenges of
having a ‘real life’.
The chapters will be short to avoid boredom and so will only be able highlight things that you then
need to further research. They are anticipated to assist mainly in doing things in the right order and
to emphasis a holistic approach.
The intended structure is shown below and is intended to be chronological. Not all relate solely to the
Design Event but also to the construction, preparation and setup of the car.
Firstly, the 3R’s of FB.

1. Rules
2. Resources
3. Realism
Then, how and how not to do it.

 The basic initiation of the FS project
 Objectives
 Research and Benchmarking
 Defined Performance Targets
 Consideration all possible Options
 Overall Vehicle Concept Decision
 Major vehicle areas Defined
 The Specification Sheet
 The Design Report
 The Impact Attenuator Report
 The Design Process
 Design for Manufacture
 Design for Cost
 Design for Performance
 Tips for Construction
 Evaluation/Validation
 Assembly and Preparation
 Whole Vehicle Testing
 The Design Event at the Competition
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You will note from the above that the mandatory pre-event document submissions…
(Impact Attenuator Report, Design Report and Specification Sheet) are listed before the Design
Process. There are several reasons for this!
1. To build the car requires that you design it first: to design it you need to have estimates of the
annual build volumes and the selling price and therefore potential profit margins.
2. Most of the Specification Sheet entries are known early on, the remainder serve to remind
you of some things Judges consider important.
3. The Design Report should cover how and why you chose what you did and not
just describe what you did. Again much of this is known very early on and the Design Report
therefore almost writes itself way before the submission deadline.
The above demonstrates two Golden Rules you can observe
1. You need to iterate between overall vehicle concept (big picture) and sub assembly level
detail to move forwards. Example, you cannot finalise the braking system details unless you
know the overall car mass and distribution.
2. A good design is one that can be built for a profit, by someone else.
Documenting the decision process assists in transferring that knowledge to the benefit of the
Design Report and future students at your University. After all this is a team event.
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Chapter 2: The 3 R’s of FS

1. Rules
2. Resources
3. Realism
1. Rules
Unfortunately, like everything in life, even students have to abide by Rules. Invariably such Rules are
set by others whose views will not always align with your own. In later life you can enter politics and
change those Rules: for this FB event you just have to accept and sign up to them!
The FB event runs to pretty much the FSG ‘Open source’ Rules (the American SAE invented the
original competition and the FB Rules are similar, but not identical, to the FSAE rules). Most other
events run similarly. There are some additional specific FB Rules to cater for local differences (be
warned) and the inclusion of electric vehicles.
So in the FB event there are two classes: One for traditional IC engine cars running with a restricted
engine of 710cc maximum capacity and one for battery powered vehicle. They compete together but
are scored separately.
Some teams plan for a whole year to enter a competition and then enter in the next year’s event.
Even 2 years is a long time in student years. Team members will get bored, change courses, find other
interests etc. We all appreciate this is a serious challenge (which is why it’s interesting) but it also
needs to be a sustained challenge with an end that is in sight and remains visible. Just to note that
the base Rules are stable for 2 years at a time’
There are plenty of new teams that have successfully completed a running vehicle from first thoughts
to the event in 12 months. Equally there are plenty that have not managed that even over 24 months.
You will hear the following phrase repeatedly in all FS articles: ‘Read the Rules’.
It is perhaps more correct to say:
Read the Rules, read them again, read them again until you understand them fully.
And then read the Rules again. And then explain them to all your team members.
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To build a pyramid you need to start at the bottom: I have never seen one constructed point down!
So start with the core foundations, the FSG Rules. Then read the supplementary (additional) FB Rules.
Only then venture into the murky realms of the Internet where there is a massive amount of
information and advice. Try my Facebook group ‘FSAE Advice and Support’.
If you have queries about the Rules there are official online question databases that firstly you should
search (we don’t like answering the same question twice) and then submit a question. You will get
official responses that you can then rely upon.
Be warned that neither the Rules nor any clarifications as to their intent will actually design your car
for you. What they will help to do is ensure that what you do is legal. You would not want to spend
12 months on your project only to turn up at the event and not pass the first hurdle, Tech Inspection.
Teams habitually do this; hence the requirements for photo and video submissions as the organizers
attempt to avoid this situation.
2. Resources
Earlier I wrote there is rarely a single correct answer to the design challenges posed by the FB event.
Rather, I suggested that you choose the solution that best suits your particular circumstances, i.e. the
least worst set of compromises. You have to work within certain restrictions, many of which you can
define in advance and therefore plan around.
You don’t have unlimited time (the event date is a fixed date), you are most unlikely to have
unlimited financial budget and, believe it or not, you don’t have infinite knowledge either. On top of
this you probably have some restrictions on premises in which to work, insurance and health and
safety obligations, computer hardware, local availability of materials and specialist firms etc.
From this you can see that your solution is most likely going to be unique to your team. For us Judges
we need to understand those restrictions and how they influence your design and decision making
process. If you simply state what you did then we don’t get the full picture and you won’t get a good
score. As they (should have) told you at school from a very young age, ‘Show your workings, not just
the answer’.
It makes a lot of sense to list down what resources you actually have, or have access to. You may find
some resistance to your plan to actually construct something in that fabulously equipped University
workshop, i.e. to physically use the tools provided. To get round this you need to show that you are
capable of working safely; you need to be prepared to go on a basic training course (example, you
need some understanding that mounting angle grinder discs correctly is vital for safety). One of the
team should do the basic Occupational First Aid course before asking for workshop access.
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Look into the OH&S policies of the University; you won’t be able to ignore them so find someone
friendly who can assist you. Do not make enemies of the workshop staff but also don’t allow them to
dictate the car design either. Getting these permissions can take time. Never assume that things will
go your way. ‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst’ is an old but valid truism.
Money is always an issue: you have but 3 options really.

1. Get more money
2. Spend less money
3. Make better use of what money you have.
In reality only the third one is sustainable in the longer term. Sponsorship for a student design is
always going to be a hard sell, not impossible but you are more likely to get goodwill (free parts, free
services) than actual cash. Formula Bharat is not a cheap exercise. It cannot be done on a non-
existent budget. If you cannot afford it, don’t do it!
In that same manner you might be able to tap into other resources at your University, i.e. outside of
those directly involved in the team. Possibilities include persuading students on other courses to do
some of the running to assist in some areas, e.g. business studies/financial students, marketing/art
students etc. They will still need to be ‘managed’ but if you have a small core team of specialist
engineers then this makes sense. However you should understand that if such people are not at the
event then at least one of you will have to have absorbed their knowledge as you will be quizzed on it.
As I said, this advice is aimed at newcomers who generally have a smaller headcount.
Speaking of which, a larger headcount is not always better. Yes, you can do more with more people
but then they all need some proper management and control and reporting and of course if they all
come to the event then you have to pay for all of them to travel, stay and eat. Again it is all about
identifying the best compromise for your particular situation and being able to explain to us how you
determined that and why.
3. Realism
Many a project, any project, fails not because of a lack of bright ideas or enthusiasm but because the
initial objectives were not realistic. As a result things start well and then perhaps halfway through
there is a dawning realisation that there is no possible chance of getting everything completed. And
whilst not to be recommended, it is always better to change direction at this stage, i.e. admit early on
that the initial targets and plans are not achievable (and indeed were probably never achievable). Far
better than kidding yourself that things will somehow get easier and there are more than 24 hours in
a day and end up both demoralised and without a finished car.
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We accept that the complete design and build and test of a full car is a huge challenge. And we
understand that if you have not done it before then estimating what is required and planning the
timings etc. to be able to determine what is realistic is also very difficult.
But there is plenty of information out there! There is a mass of good information on the Internet
detailing the many trials and tribulations of other teams. It is always wise to learn from mistakes, and
cheaper to learn from those that have befallen others before you!
What not to Do
So you have read the Rules very carefully and you are thinking just how many Rules there are and
how to knit all that together to come up with a plan, a concept.
The first proper part of the FSG Rules is Part A, Article 1. It is only one page but lays down the
founding principles that you should always come back to when deciding anything. I won’t go through
them all here but a few are worth actually pasting in (the emboldened parts are my highlights). I have
also added my own interpretation of what each ‘means’.
The FSG (and FB) competition challenges teams of university undergraduate and graduate students
to conceive, design, fabricate, develop and compete with small, formula style, vehicles.
My interpretation: Students should do the work from beginning to end.
The challenge to teams is to develop a vehicle that can successfully compete in all the events
described in the FSG (and FB) Rules.
My interpretation: The vehicle is bespoke to these events and should perform in all of the
elements of the competition.
The vehicle should have high performance in terms of acceleration, braking and handling and
be sufficiently durable to successfully complete all the events at Formula Bharat.
My interpretation: The vehicle is to be rapid, nimble and agile for these bespoke event
requirements (top speed is not really a factor). It is not meant to be used for any other
motorsport discipline.
The vehicle must accommodate drivers whose stature ranges from 5th percentile female to 95th
percentile male and must satisfy the requirements of the FB Rules.
My interpretation: The car must be ‘legal’ and have a large enough cockpit with adjustability
and good ergonomics. Fitting just the team drivers is not strictly legal.
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Additional design factors to be considered include: aesthetics, cost, ergonomics, maintainability,

manufacturability, and reliability.
My interpretation: Cost is important, value is more important still. You must be able to make it
and have the customer look after it without professional help or specialist skills.
The challenge to the design team is to develop a prototype car that best meets the FSAE vehicle
design goals and which can be profitably marketed.
My interpretation: A ‘legal’ car that has been developed and can be made, by someone else,
for a profit.
Vehicles entered into Formula Bharat are expected to be designed and fabricated in accordance with
good engineering practices.
My interpretation: You need to know, and follow, fundamental good engineering principles. It
does not say to include cutting edge technologies and innovations but it implies the use of
tried and trusted techniques.
So having read only the single most important page of the Rules, you should be able to see that you
are not designing a Formula 1 car. You are building a ’Formula Student’ car, something very different,
where the supposed ‘customer’ is not a professional.
When you read further through the Rules you will see that the course upon which you compete is
defined and that there is no wheel to wheel racing. Rather you are competing against the clock,
individually, on a tight and twisty course marked out by plastic cones with, as far as is practicable,
little in the way of solid barriers. All of which has a significant influence on the design requirements.
Read a bit further into the Rules and you will discover that there a number of mainly safety related
requirements that are based on a tubular steel structure. You do have freedom to use a different
construction and material but the onus is then on you to show that they are equivalent. You file the
various Structural Equivalency calculations and drawings quite a long time before the event. The
more you deviate from the ‘baseline’ materials and techniques in the Rules the more you have to
submit. If the experts reviewing them don’t have confidence in those submissions then you run a real
risk of being refused. And you don’t want that.
Even a team with a ‘standard’ car built to the steel tube ‘baseline’ requirements need to submit
photographic and video submissions. These requirements are outlined in the Formula Bharat
supplementary regulations.
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Electric vehicles are now accepted at Formula Bharat.
Because of some inherent dangers with high voltage electrical systems and lithium batteries, there
are additional submission requirements to prove to the organizers that your car is safe, not just for
the team, but to anyone, such as Judges, inspectors and course officials, who may come in contact
with it.
The amount of effort and responsibility to do this is not to be underestimated. In addition there must
have a nominated Electrical safety Officer, who has training of high voltage car systems and also an
Electrical System Advisor who must be professionally competent. Both carry significant
responsibilities. Neither are required for a conventional IC powered car.
Some Useful Tips
Regardless almost of what you may think, feel or believe, I am going to state this. For a new team
aiming to enter with a genuinely running vehicle within a 12 month period, that you should not
consider anything other than a steel tube frame and a conventional internal combustion engine with
no consideration of such things as aero packages, turbochargers etc.
The next thing you should not do is to enter FB with a set of individual projects, each comprising an
area of the vehicle and especially if those projects have been set by a ‘well meaning’ Faculty Advisor.
You must start with a fully holistic approach from the outset, don’t let any advisor make any one
component/area more ‘important’ at the beginning of the project. Remember the old saying “Too
many cooks spoil the broth”.
Next I will look at the basics of how to get started now that you hopefully know and understand the
Rules and your team limitations.
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Chapter 3: Initiating your FB Project
There are many books on project management and people management etc. This article is not
intended to cover any of that good stuff at all. For a brief, but fully FB relevant, project management
approach, have a look at ‘Learn and Compete’ from Racecar Graphic Limited (an excellent book that
covers most aspects of the FB project).
The former team captain for Pittsburgh FSAE team in the US, Ms Emily Anthony, has written some
very valuable articles regarding project management within a FSAE team. These can be found in
Emily’s ‘Linkedin’ page.
One of the things missing is a really well thought out vehicle concept. Rarely do teams justify why
they chose their vehicle concept. It may be that teams went through a process but failed to
document it properly. Hence they could not explain it at the event.
The overall vehicle concept is the most important design decision as it will influence almost all
subsequent decisions, and costs and timescales and reliability: you get the picture. As usual there is
no single correct answer: it all depends on your individual circumstances.
At a basic level we have the following steps:

1. Define Objectives
2. Research and Benchmarking
3. Define Performance Targets
4. Consider all possible Options
5. Overall Vehicle Concept Decision
6. Define Major Vehicle Areas
1. Objectives
 These high level goals are set by the Rules and your own resources. Remember to be realistic.
As a first year team you are highly unlikely to turn up and win outright.
 Are you looking to simply enter the event to gain the experience?
 Are you looking to start all dynamic events?
 Are you seeking to finish all dynamic events?
 Do you specialise in one area, e.g. powertrain?
 Do you want to succeed in one particular area, e.g. fuel economy, but understand the
inevitable compromises that it may cause elsewhere?
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The Judges view first year entrants that have achieved a running vehicle with respect. They
understand that the vehicle is perhaps less ‘attractive’ than it could be and accept such things in this
first year. However such a team is expected to understand why and where the vehicle is ‘sub optimal’
and be prepared to suffer heavily if you turn up again next year with similar flaws. It is expected that
your quality improves each year.
2. Research and Benchmarking
There is a mass of information out there as regards previous event results and it is not a difficult task
to assemble some of the pertinent data to provide some historical analysis of past vehicles and teams.
For example it should be possible to compile a simple descriptive table of the top 10 overall (and if
you wish, for any of the dynamic or static disciplines as the points scores are all provided individually)
such that you know the type of design and how it performed/was judged. This would likely include
the engine type, fuel source, basic structural construction, e.g. steel tube frame, composite
monocoque etc., wheel/tyre size and make, claimed power, aero package and, most importantly
mass. You can usually also unearth the basic car dimensions for wheelbase and track front and rear.
You could do this for a few different recent events or just FB, for the top 10 in each discipline or even
just other Universities that you know have similar resources to you. The possibilities are endless and
again, you need to decide for yourselves what areas to concentrate upon.
This is just a hypothetical chart and doesn’t represent any real event.
From the above you will be able to see some possible trends and you may even be able to follow up
on particular areas such that you can empirically resolve, from past data, how many points may be
‘lost’ on one event to make more up on another. You may also be able to make an estimate of the
influence of mass (and power/aero but these are not measured officially) on each of the event
disciplines.
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Note:
Later on, when you have a basic concept and look further at the details you may be able to undertake
a reasonable simulation that will further help understand the effects of mass, its distribution and any
aero influence on performance. Less mass is always better, all other things being equal.
The most successful teams in Formula Student events literally optimise their designs for the number
of points they expect to gain in a competition. This includes the compromises I am explaining, as well
as things like energy store size vs. points (endurance vs. other events) using lap time simulations.
4. Define Performance Targets
You now have some idea (based on some real evidence) as to the scale of the challenge. You can now
choose some performance targets specific to yourselves that you set to be realistic and hopefully
genuinely achievable by your team. These should of course be measurable targets and they will take
into account the benchmark vehicle styles found above.
They are very simply stated and you can choose where to direct your own emphasis (which links to
the base Objectives). So as an example you may set the following event relevant performance
targets:
 Mass: under 180kg
 Power: minimum 45 kW
 Torque: minimum 50 Nm
 Acceleration: under 4.2 seconds
 Skid Pad: under 5.1 seconds
 Economy: under 2.3 litres
Note:
The actual ‘Fuel Efficiency Score’ is defined with reference to your lap times, fastest and slowest lap
times and fuel type so a specific target would be fuel quantity used.
It goes without saying that the car will meet the Rules and there is a Specification Sheet to complete
as regards dimensions and so now is not the time to state ride height or ride frequencies. You could
propose wheelbase, front and rear track at this stage but be prepared to have some leeway as your
design progresses from concept to detail and back again. For example you may set a front track width
and then design your suspension such that your ideal steering rack is only a few mm from being an
available part rather than expensive bespoke rack bar. If, to accommodate the standard rack bar, you
need to widen the front track say 6mm that would be a sensible ‘compromise’. Of course that may
then effectively soften the existing spring/damper package at the wheel etc.
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5. Consider all Options
At this point you will undoubtedly have already decided what your car will ‘be’. But theoretically the
above targets don’t know anything about what will actually drive them: they are just targets to be
met by some design (which meets the Rules).
Now you really need to be ruthless and honest in analysing your own capabilities and blending those
resources and time along with your research to consider which of all the possible ways of meeting
the targets is realistic for you. You can look at this like brainstorming but you do need to make some
notes along the way to demonstrate the process by which you arrived at your solution.
Many of the conceptual decisions are almost binary, i.e. there are only two fundamental choices. For
example the real tyre choice is which diameter, 10” or 13” and then by manufacturer. Structures
really fall into steel tube frames or some form of monocoque. Powertrain is really either pure battery
electric or internal combustion engine, each with subsequent decision levels,
e.g. Combustion or electric.
Four cylinder, twin or single etc.
Aero package or no aero package.
Four wheel brakes or two fronts and a single rear acting on the diff.
Diff or no diff (LSD, open or spool).
One route, which lends itself well to conveyance to subsequent student intakes and to Judges at
competition, is a simple ‘decision matrix’. You look at the ‘headline’ areas, e.g. powertrain and list all
the options you found above. Then you list the major factors influencing your choice, e.g. mass,
availability, cost, experience (yours with that engine), other benefits (e.g. dry sump as standard) etc.
For each option you score against the criteria (which can be very simple for mass just in order of
ranking) using your own judgment and values (experience and cost are very much relative only to
you). For the powertrain you must show why the initial fundamental choice (combustion or electric)
was made. Realistically, your power-plant of choice is whatever you can source locally in a short lead
time. There is no best engine!
At the end you have a simple table that is perhaps 4 or 5 rows deep by 4 or 5 columns wide which
you can place in your Design Report (more next time on this). You may of course need to go back to
the performance targets and amend those in the light of this experience!
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I will remind you again you need to show the judges you did this! Quite often I see teams that have
gone the EV route with no real reasoning as to why. Maybe they mistakenly think it is an easier
challenge. If that is the case, they are wrong!
6. Overall Vehicle Concept Decision
The above process will converge to a solution, really it will. This is the single most important stage of
the whole competition. Almost every subsequent problem, solution and decision will be traced back
to the original chosen concept. So too will most delays and overruns in cost and weight!
7. Define Major Vehicle Areas
You now have an overall concept and you literally need to start putting flesh on it. You will, of
necessity, have to go back up to the concept a few times again as you get further into the details and
realise that some of your ambitions are no longer realistic. (Remember the three R’s!).
Starting with a blank piece of paper or computer screen is daunting, even if you have done it before.
You need to start with the basics: target masses and major mass locations, overall vehicle
dimensions/size, tyre sizes etc.
Your research and deliberations above will provide some starting points: you will have some
empirical data for mass and probably front and rear axle weights. You’ll have an idea as to tyre size
and you’ll know roughly (after some further research) how much space is needed for your
engine/powertrain. Whilst there are some alternative driveline options, as a first year team you will
likely end up with the crank running across the car and a simple chain drive to a sprocket and
diff/axle.
Luckily, a lot of the basic dimensions are more or less dictated by the Rules. In the Rule book you will
find that a number of the minimum interior cockpit dimensions are mandated. There are also
minimum wheelbase dimensions, minimum defined suspension travel and wheel diameters. There is
a relative track width rule. Although there is no longer a minimum ride height this can be inferred
from other Rules (ground contact) and the obvious desire for the lowest C of G.
Together with your benchmarking and prior to evaluation by methods ranging from hand calculations
through to full car lap simulations you should be able to position the four wheels, the driver and the
powertrain in 3D space quite simply. A very simple, rough and ready physical mock up may assist at
this stage: MDF sheets and plastic conduit and a hot glue gun can quickly conjure up something ‘real’.
Such a mock up can also help maintain general interest in the project, e.g. from other University
departments etc. It is invaluable as well for getting the important area of ergonomics correct.
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Summing Up
You may view the above as rather simplistic and you would of course be correct. But we all have to
start somewhere and it is vital to apply some logic and process to it. The overall vehicle concept is the
most important thing to get right. And, as you will hear the judges say far too often, ‘right’ is unique
to your team and your circumstances: all you need to do is explain your reasoning and we will listen.
There is no ‘Right or Wrong’ if you can satisfactorily justify your choices.
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Chapter 4: Document Submissions

(Design Report and Specification Sheet, Impact Attenuator Report)
The starting point for these documents, as always, is the Rules (read the
FSG and specific FB Rules together). Again, this is well covered in the
‘Learn and Compete’ book from Racecar Graphic Limited.
The Design Report and Specification Sheet describe your whole vehicle
design (they are engineering documents, not presentation or marketing
documents!) There is a deadline for their submission quite near the event.
You upload the files separately to the server and you can replace any
document with a later version. Please be aware that there are late
penalties and the organizers will review (and assign lateness to) the last
version you upload. You cannot get some feedback on your Design Report so you can rewrite it and
resubmit it!
The Impact Attenuator Report is slightly different in that it is principally there to prove that your
design of impact attenuator and its attachment are safe. Most teams use a standard IA and submit
the maker’s data sheet. This was not the original intention of the rule, but it is what it is until there is
a rule change. There are penalties for late submission for this as well. Unlike the other documents
you may be asked for more information and permitted to resubmit after modification. However your
first effort is ‘graded’ and because this is ultimately an engineering design project, poor efforts
provide the potential for a reduction in your Design Score.
The Rules mandate document format, their size, their deadline for submission and to an extent their
content. Please ensure that you read, and understand, all of the relevant parts of the Rules,
particularly Section A5 of the FSG rules along with any Formula Bharat supplementary regulations.
It is worth reminding you that the Design Report summarises very briefly your entry, possibly one
year’s work. It summarises what you did, why and how you did it. It should be possible to complete
the vast majority of the Design Report many months before the event. If you wait until the last
minute available then the Report will be rushed and the worse for it and you will likely end up with
significant and severe lateness penalties due to everyone else being in the same boat and
overloading the server!
The Specification Sheet also has a rigid format (it’s a spreadsheet template) and the same deadlines.
Again it should be possible to fill this out well ahead of the event. We fully understand things can
change (e.g. spring and damper rates) so please indicate your initial design estimate for such items.
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The Design Report rules are such that it is vital you stick to them. Eight (8) pages of A4, of which four
(4) are to be text, three (3) to contain three separate proper engineering drawing views and one (1)
optional page that should be wisely used for graphs, tables and some real photos.
You will not realistically get more than 600 words to an A4 page so in reality consider that you have
only 2,400 words to describe all of your work:. You will have trouble condensing all your efforts to
just 2,400 words won’t you?
Pages in excess of the overall count of eight, and specifically the text pages after the maximum of
four will simply not be read! Any cover or contents page counts as a text page and adds zero value:
do not use them. The drawings (drawings!) need to show detail and scale, allowing us to look for
example at the rear toe base etc. The Design Judges need to be able to see the design elements of
your car, so some thought must go into what is visible. Artistic renderings with minimal detail, low res
screen dumps or ‘artist’s impressions’ are not acceptable.
Please remove excess detail such as hidden lines. The judges are reading these in their spare time,
generally on a laptop screen, so think about the target audience please. Similarly use a simple font
size, style and contrasting colour (black) and don’t put any background images or logos on as
watermarks. And please don’t use newspaper style columns as scrolling down, then up, doesn’t work
for us, we read left to right, top to bottom.
The key thing with the Design Report is that you use it to tell us how and why you did what you did.
The ‘what’ is pretty much explained in the Specification Sheet data and your introduction to the DR.
The introduction should be very short and contain information as to who you are (state your car
number and University name), your background, experience and any notable factors relevant, e.g.
total lack of motorsport parts availability. One sentence should summarise what the car is, e.g. steel
tube frame car with 650cc four cylinder engine and 10” wheels, and it does no harm to include some
very basic statistics, e.g. mass and power.
Having judged very many Design Reports, I suggest that you allocate your potential 2,400 words in
close proportion to the sub-category scores on that sheet. For example, the overall vehicle concept is
scored from 25 out of 140 so I suggest that about 400 words are devoted to this important
area. 2,400 words leave no room for excess detail or waffle. Detail is for the time at the event with
the Judges and waffle is for Presentation crew, not engineers!
What judges want to see described succinctly is the process and understanding by which you arrived
at your chosen design choices. This is the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what. This is primarily
influenced by your own limitations and skills and resources relative to the targets you defined for
yourself. If you followed the idea in Chapter 3 to use a decision matrix approach then this can be
neatly pasted onto the optional page and referenced from here.
18
You don’t have too many words to play with so try and balance the level of detail provided. Judges
don’t need to know bolts sizes or thread forms etc. They do want to know how you dealt with the
usual compromises in all the main areas, e.g. chassis stiffness versus mass, adapting the cockpit for
5th to 95th percentile, wheel camber in roll versus bump etc. And, to repeat, there is no single
correct answer for any of these, you simply need to show what you chose is correct for you based on
sound and fundamental engineering principles.
One thing that is often overlooked in relation to analysis is the justification and validation.
The judges accept that time may have beaten you and it is perfectly acceptable to provide, for
example, a theoretical FEA based chassis stiffness analysis with a note that ‘Practical verification of
those figures will be provided at the event’.
Indian students are absolute experts at generating solid models, but computer representation of
something like testing for chassis torsional stiffness adds nothing to your presentation.
A proper photograph has more credibility!
Finally, and this is a little hard to say, but your Design and Spec sheet should represent the actual car
you have brought to the competition. Too many times we have seen cars that bear only a passing
resemblance to their documents. When questioned, the usual response from these teams is that they
ran out of time or realized their aspirations were beyond their capabilities, so they just had to ‘get
something together’ or risk missing the event.
It is also fair to remind you that you are representing both yourself and your University at the
competition, so you should present yourself and your project in a way that reflects that you care.
Your car and personnel should be clean and tidy. And, real engineers do not work in the dirt on the
floor; leave that to the auto-rickshaw fixers on the side of the road!
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Chapter 5. The Design Process Part 1
In the introduction I stated that this document was targeted at new teams, those students (and
possibly Universities) that have not entered Formula Student before. I have previously covered the
intent behind the competition, how to start by reading the Rules and doing some background
research and how to deal with the pre-event paperwork to your best advantage.
As noted previously this document is a summary and cannot cover everything involved but I hope it
provides some insight into the process and steer you away from some of the common rookie
mistakes. So having dispensed with the hard stuff we can now, as engineers, do the fun and easy bit:
actually designing the car.
As I write this I envisage there being perhaps three or four sub sections devoted to this subject which
will cover the basic structure, suspension and steering, construction tips and some background for
where to start with structural analysis.
I outlined the design ‘process’ previously in a very simplistic list:

 Design for Manufacture
 Design for Cost
 Design for Performance
 Tips for Construction
 Structural Analysis
You will note that the order is perhaps at odds with your own thoughts but think back to the event
objectives as defined in the Rules: the idea is that a manufacturing firm can make your design for a
profit. As the competition involves dynamic disciplines against the clock there will always be an
underlying need for performance but, especially for new teams, this cannot be at any cost.
20
To recap on a few other underlying principles:
 There will be more than one of you designing, making and assembling the car
 You will need a holistic approach, iterating between your ‘big picture concept’ and the details
 Computers will help but won’t do the design for you
 The best design will be the one that encompasses the best package of the many individual
compromise design choices.
 Some of those will be Rules driven, some will be Cost driven, some will be Resource driven
and many must be Customer driven. For each problem there is no single correct ‘magic bullet’
answer. It is for you to consider the various options available as solutions and to then logically
analyse each one to arrive at a reasoned choice
 In the Design Report and at the event you need to demonstrate the above to the Judges. To
do that convincingly and to get a good score you need to write things down as you go along,
not afterwards. It is only sensible that you have some form of organised process to achieve
this and also that you note the things that went wrong as well as the things that went right;
then your following intake of students won’t make the similar mistake. This knowledge
transfer within the team is critical and is something I see as sadly lacking with very many
teams.
The very last thing you want or need, initially as a goal, is a series of very well run projects for each of
the sub system areas. This is especially true if the projects are externally defined to fit your course
syllabus and not integrated into your overall concept.
Although this may appear the best approach such a segregated and formal direction is most likely to
end up lacking coherence. A really strong (and experienced) individual (their title may likely be Chief
Engineer, Technical Director, Team Manager, Project Manager etc.) may be able to tie all the disjoints
together but only if they genuinely understand the basics of every car area and how the various areas
interact and are genuinely good at people relationships management! For a first year team you are
likely to have a small number of team members and things will work so much better (and more
naturally) if all involved make it their responsibility to keep an eye on the ‘big picture’.
Please note the above does not mean that you avoid the need to have someone ultimately make
decisions, you do! Rather it means that those decisions are better informed and easier to understand
because all involved are, of their own volition, pulling in one common direction. After all you are
meant to enjoy this exercise!
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Where to go from the Concept
You should already have your basic concept/package defined, e.g. a steel tube frame with 13” wheels
and a single cylinder engine, chain drive, 4 wheel discs and minimal moulded parts. You should have
some reasonable idea of the various major masses and their approximate locations as well as basic
dimensions.
It is worth repeating at this stage that you cannot begin to calculate any of the loads involved unless
you know the mass of the vehicle. Even the most basic of determinations (e.g. brake disc size, brake
cylinder diameters) begins with the mass of the vehicle and from that the forces it can be subjected
to.
It is genuinely appreciated that without some real ‘road load’ data you will struggle to know fully
realistic forces for your first design. However, there is a lot of information and goodwill out there in
the FS and FSAE online communities and some good simulation packages that can assist. Do
remember that it is almost certain that your car will end up heavier than your computer predicts and
that ‘safety’ factors are there for a reason.
Now you need to look at some assembly/system details whilst maintaining regular reality checks on
the overall package.
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Detailed Considerations
Space
Your fundamental challenge begins with space constraints and packaging all the major components
into a physical 3D space. This in turn will then allow for the detailed smaller sub systems design to
begin in earnest.
The basic mass distribution will be governed by the overall layout. As I noted previously you should
now have the basics in place. The Rules and past data will dictate the overall vehicle size and major
mass locations. There are mandated safety structures and internal cockpit space. The tight track
tends to significantly influence the actual locations of the wheels.
So really the gap left between the physical space required for the driver (again Rules defined) and the
tyres is where the suspension must fit. Already the car is designing itself for you!
You will see from the below that I have tried to separate various ideas into discrete sections but each
contains some overlap: this is how your design process will always be; an iterative foray between
various conflicting demands.
Primary Structure
I previously mentioned the idea of a physical mock up. To best understand the Rules defined (SES)
members and to keep morale up and impress sponsors, a full size ergonomics mock up is a very
worthwhile exercise, no matter how good your 3D CAD skills. 20mm plastic electrical conduit or
wooden dowelling and some connectors are cheap and 10mm MDF sheet material can all be joined
with hot glue and a few screws.
The shorter the actual structural length of the vehicle the stiffer it will be and the easier it is to make!
It will also be lighter. So think where the major loads are going in, their direction and character and
why. You don’t need to know exactly the load at this point but rather you need to know roughly the
relative proportions, e.g. for the rear suspension you need an idea as to the relative importance of
the traction loads (and chain forces), the braking and cornering loads. If you have outboard brakes
don’t forget that ultimately the brake torque is reacted through the suspension links. Stiffness is of
far greater importance than actual strength and in this regard obvious schoolboy type errors should
be avoided unless you have sufficient data to prove that they are immaterial. For example quite often
we see significant offsets between wishbone mounting points or bell-crank pivots and the ‘obvious’
structural node on the chassis.
23
Without any supporting data this will be marked down in Design and this will be where you will
eventually see the first cracks in the frame.
It is important to remember that when simplifying the structural aspects, e.g. aligning certain
suspension locations to nodal chassis hard points, that acutely angled links give rise to considerable
loads in other directions that may have, at first, seemed insignificant. This is especially true with
steeply angled pushrods, pullrods and suspension toe links.
Steel selection.
All steels have a common modulus/stiffness, but varying strengths.
So thinner = lighter is unlikely to be advantageous unless you are able to fabricate the thinner
sections proficiently. Remember, many of the chassis member tube thicknesses are dictated by the
rules. Extra strength is better in bending but you don’t really want to go there do you?
The judges so not want to see bending forces in the structure and the team does not want to see
bending occurring when on the course.
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Chapter 6. The Design Process continued
The previous chapter served to recap what you are designing and why and we got as far as reviewing
the important objectives and a simple consideration of the structure. I will now move on to look at
the suspension and its close cousin, steering geometry.
Suspension
There is no unique, correct suspension solution. Over
the years there has been more BS written about
suspension geometry than any other aspect of the car
design!
Given the nature of the event, the lack of testing time

likely to be available and the variety of drivers, serious
consideration should be given to simple, consistent,
repeatable adjustments that can be undertaken quickly.
In practice this means dampers, ride height, toe, anti-roll bars and camber should all be simple to
adjust along with gearing and castor (ideally), Ackermann, may be worthwhile considering if you have
time.
Adjustment usually adds cost and mass but reduces stiffness, so think carefully as to how best to do it
so it produces real value. Shims are repeatable, more so than threaded attachments.
Don’t get too hung up on any one particular exact geometry requirement: the driver is unlikely to tell.
I know many will tell me I am wrong here (and perhaps have evidence to prove it) but with novice
teams you will invariably have novice drivers. The main things such drivers will be able to feel is slop
(free play) in controls and structure, suspension compliance (as in lack of toe and camber stiffness)
and then perhaps damper characteristics. They are guaranteed not to be able to know enough about
roll centre heights or camber gain or even spring rates: they simply won’t feel them.
Therefore please ensure that you don’t set off in pursuit of one particular parameter (e.g. a roll
centre value) to the detriment of all else. Rather please read and understand the fundamentals of all
the suspension and steering geometry parameters and keep it simple and fairly “standard”. Installed
stiffness, lack of bump steer and no big falling rates in any linkages will be far better than finding the
mythical “correct” roll centre. It is a good idea to run a quick check through the final chosen
geometry for the influence of tolerances: this is good practice to see if you have chosen something
that is practical to make consistently in production.
25
If, for example, your chosen front geometry is such that a small change in the inboard lower arm
height (say ½ mm) requires the steering rack height to be relocated to keep bump-steer under
acceptable parameters then I suggest you have a geometry that is too sensitive to real world
manufacturing practices. Further refinement is needed.
There are books that give some practical insight into the process e.g. Milliken, Staniforth and ‘Learn
and Compete’. In summary (and without detailed consideration of the loads)…
 It all starts with the tyre, so choose this first; the rim usually needs to be wider than the stated
tread width. So you have a rim width and diameter.
 Depending on the wheel construction and material (and often the material will dictate the
construction method and therefore the costs) you now have an inside space envelope
defined. Wheel offset plays a large part with space available for the disc and caliper, especially
with 10” wheels. Together with the upright geometry it dictates scrub radius which in turn has
a major influence on steering feel, steering weight, lateral load changes with steer angle and
upright compliance, bearing life etc. The caliper, once fitted in the wheel profile will define
the disc location.
 Once you have an inner disc surface defined from above you have an effective limit to the
outer location of the lower ball joint. The ball joint housing and material and wishbone
lengths will dictate clearances at the extreme suspension travel and steer angle positions. All
other things being equal get the lower ball joint as far out and as low as possible. If you only
have a basic idea of the loads at this point make some educated estimates as to what size
joint is needed. This may sound rather defeatist but you only have at most 8 outboard joints
in the usual suspension design and even if you can safely calculate the real loads the actual
joint also needs to be sized for its wear/life. Generally the FB suspension has restricted space
and so the loads in the links can be quite high. Consequently small joints tend to wear and any
play is quickly felt, even by our novice drivers. So an outer joint that is a bit larger than ‘ideal’
may not be a drawback and if you explain why at judging, then they won’t penalise you.
 As a starting point, use a horizontal lower wishbone as long as possible, your chassis/foot
space will normally dictate the limiting position of the inboard location.
 If you prefer to maintain a pre-defined geometric roll centre (RC) then with an upper frame
tube found from your mock up (and the Rules possibly) you have a possible inboard upper
wishbone location. In conjunction with a ‘desired’ king pin inclination you have an outer
upper ball joint location to give you your first iteration of the suspension geometry (in 2D).
 It is advisable now to consider the steering rack location (and column routing). There is a lot
to be said for having a bolt on steering arm at the upright to allow for shimmed camber
adjustment independent of toe alignment. This is usually easier done at the top of the upright
and should include an integrated upper ball joint fixing. The foot well template usually
precludes the fitting of a high mounted steering rack and if pullrod suspension is to be used,
this may also be less true given the additional structural considerations.
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 The effects of castor and mechanical trail, bump-steer etc. all now become part of the 3D
picture. It is usually better to get the basic 2D geometry and steering position sorted before
worrying too much of the third dimension. It is worthwhile considering the sensitivities of the
geometry (especially bump-steer) to inboard tolerances. My suggestion would be to forget
about anti-dive and anti-squat in a new teams design.
 Steering geometry, Ackermann angles, castor, mechanical trail, scrub radius and actual steer
ratio (wheel steer angle to steering wheel angle) are widely discussed in many excellent
books. But please remember that a lot of text books are either biased towards road cars or
single seat race cars with significant downforce. The FB event is quite different in that you
should expect a lot of mechanical low speed grip and there are few high speed, aero
dominated, corners that approximate a ‘steady state’ condition. And the track is very twisty
and often with changes in actual surface/construction.
 Don’t forget that castor angle effectively makes the steered wheel change camber and ride
height with steer angle. Castor adds favourable camber with steer angle but also adds a ‘pro
roll’ influence to the chassis (which in certain cases can actually be beneficial to the rear end,
e.g. to make a spool work). KPI and scrub radius seemingly exist just to cause further
complications!
 You are likely to be restricted in your choice of steering rack which, along with the cockpit
Rules may well dictate some of your steering system parameters. Your choice of wheel/brake
package may severely limit your choice of scrub radius and KPI. Your choice of outboard upper
and lower ‘ball joints’ (i.e. the pivots on which the uprights mount, usually spherical bearings)
may limit the castor angle possibilities, especially if you include some “anti” geometry. All of
these are significant practical influences that mean the computer screen is far from a blank
canvas.
 One thing that should be a priority is installed stiffness from steering wheel to road wheel, i.e.
no flexibility. Another is a lack of ‘slop’ or excess free play. Either or both of these will
instantly kill any driver’s confidence which in turn will mean they don’t get the best from the
car and they won’t be able to provide good feedback as their senses are being masked by
changing messages.
 The least disruptive way of including variable RC height (usually for testing on the prototype
only) is normally at the lower inboard locations of the wishbones.
 If you follow the above you will almost certainly end up with sufficient room in all dimensions
to get in a sufficiently sized wheel bearing and hub flange assembly. This assumes that you are
able to make these to fit to your design. In India, where access to suitable parts is difficult,
you may have to work the other way round, i.e. the wheel bearing/stub axle/hub flange
assembly may dictate the space left for the outer ball joint locations and if so you will end up
with a more compromised package. It will also be heavier and likely dictate certain wheel
characteristics. However, if chosen wisely, you will probably be guaranteed a good service life
and excellent installed stiffness and it will probably be low cost/good value.
27
As regards the wishbone links themselves packaging (steering angle clearance) and structural aspects
are dominant. Your initial basic choice is whether to get the road loads to the chassis directly or via a
push/pullrod and Bell-crank system. Parts count (and therefore cost) wise, the outboard
spring/damper wins hands down but the bending loads so created in the lower wishbone may higher
as the damper may not be mounted as far outboard as a pushrod, but this can be ‘engineered’
around..
It is worth emphasising here that the damper is one of the most important performance parts on
your vehicle and recalling that it generates a force only when it moves. The cheaper dampers have a
lot more friction and hysteresis and free play and so they don’t actually move as predicted and hence
do not generate forces consistently as predicted. On a car with low unsprung mass the detrimental
effects of friction in the damper and any pivots can be significant. In simple terms, the more the
damper travels for a given wheel movement the cheaper the damper you can get away with!
An inboard suspension arrangement requires a stiff and expensive pivot that itself places higher loads
into the chassis structure. However it is possible to locate these such as to minimise the structural
length in a manner not possible with the outboard arrangement.
Maybe a defining consideration in the choice here is simply ease of access for adjustment: dampers
and ride height have massive tuning potential for the dynamic events.
Consider also that the loads in the wishbone can be affected in all planes by pushrod angle, rather
than just in the vertical direction. Again this can sometimes be used to advantage. Sometimes it
means the vertical wheel loads create huge horizontally resolved forces within both the wishbone
and the bell-crank pivots. This same detrimental geometry is then very sensitive to any free play, so
problems then start to get bigger and more expensive, a nasty ‘loop’ to get into.
Detail joint/bracket/bearing/bolting design requires consideration to avoid obvious schoolboy errors,

e.g. stress concentrations, good weld area (and in shear), bolt thread run out location and no
fouling/clearance issues with spherical bearings and their housings. Construction techniques also
need to be considered. If you have a complex structural attachment that itself has tight geometric
tolerances you may be forced into some complex finish machining processes after fabrication which
will be very expensive and time consuming.
As an example, a front lower wishbone with spherical bearings at the 3 ‘points’ of the triangle and a
damper or pushrod connection would, in an ideal world, require two fabrication jigs (left and right)
and possibly two machining fixtures (left and right). The jigs are handed (even if the damper location
is on the line of symmetry) because the spherical bearings are retained by circlips and you don’t want
to load them when you can load the housing and because the housing will distort when welded
requiring light machining to true it circular and to size.
28
But, with some careful thought as to damper location and jig tooling design you will be able to make
one jig that serves both sides and if you take a practical approach to the spherical housings by making
their wall thickness more than that strictly necessary and you TIG weld them carefully and
conscientiously you can avoid the finish machining and ensure the bearing circlip is not loaded. But
the downsides to this are the wishbone will be slightly heavier and less elegant.
You will go round the above iterative loop many times: if at any point everything seems to be really
complicated just stop and start afresh. At some point it will come together and actually get simpler
where one change brings about benefits to another area and so on and so forth. This generally is the
‘light bulb’ moment where an elegant and integrated design appears. And think about the tooling
fixtures as you go.
Front and rear suspension, both in concept and detail ideally should proceed together as there are
economies of scale. Common uprights, left to right and front to rear, may be possible, common
spherical housings, common brackets, caliper mounts, bolt lengths, spacers etc. should all be an aim.
For uprights the main consideration is structural: i.e. stiffness and mass. Fitting wheel bearings to
alloy uprights requires a fair bit of thought if they are to stay stiff as temperatures change.
Circlips are cheap but can be imprecise and hard to tolerance/machine accurately. With outboard
brakes the uprights must also transmit the brake torque from the caliper to the wishbones and the
wishbones themselves transmit the loads to the chassis.
Alloy extrusions in ‘upright size’ shapes are potentially reasonably cheap and can, even in relatively
low numbers, make good financial sense. The use of sensible and stiff bolt on brackets/steering arms
may allow a single extrusion to be machined for left and right, front and rear, quite easily, and allow
for adjustment or later geometry/ride height changes.
The design ‘mortal sin’ the judges see regularly (and hate!) is excess rear toe compliance. Rear
compliance steer makes the car very difficult to drive accurately and will quickly wear out the driver.
Perhaps the most expensive and (therefore troublesome choice) conflicts arise at the rear driveline
where the usual initial assumption is for a chain driven differential, CV joints, splined driveshafts,
more CV (or tripod) joints and splined output shafts through a bearing assembly into a wheel flange.
Production cars use splined assemblies as in volume production a spline is rolled and the final part
gains strength and fatigue life as a result. Most production car parts are too large and heavy for a FB
car as their original design brief is for use in a car of perhaps 4 times the mass, which has to last
100,000 kilometers in Indian traffic, on Indian roads and driven by Indian drivers.
29
Machined splines are fairly simple and inexpensive to get made these days, but they inevitably have
potential to fail unexpectedly in fatigue as a result of unforeseen (and un-modeled) stress
concentrations. Before going down this route, especially if considering alloy driveline parts have a
look around at the ‘Production’ race cars produced for a similar audience, e.g. JK, MRF and Rolon
formula cars. Some European manufacturers like Dallara and Ralt have online manuals with nice
exploded drawings that can give you an idea how to get round construction and assembly problems.
As the LSD can be both expensive and heavy,

consider at the initial concept stage, whether a
solid diff (spool) could be used. It has been done
very successfully before but the implementation
needs thought as to the interaction of the
steering geometry.
As a clue, a kart manages quite well without a diff
but has unique steering requirements.
A fully live rear axle could negate the need for a considerable number of expensive parts and save a
significant amount of weight. Just a thought as it could be done and still be within the Rules as
regards suspension travel. However it may have some unique dynamic issues that need a bit of extra
ingenuity to overcome, like making the chain stay on!
30
Following on from previous chapters in this document, I’m going to go into a little more depth on
some of the specifics of designing the basic structures of the car, including deriving load cases,
making sure parts are appropriately sized, and how best to make use of calculations and analysis to
ensure that your designs are as good as they can be.
Firstly, let’s consider how a team can go about calculating the loads that their car needs to withstand.
It is difficult to do this completely from scratch and as a bare minimum an estimation of the total
mass of the car, the height of the centre of gravity and the wheelbase and track are required. Some
of these parameters may be variables in your design, so when calculating loads it is important to
protect against unexpected or unpredicted changes in the fundamentals. You will also need a feeling
for the maximum acceleration that you expect the car to see when on track; more experienced teams
should have this from their data logging, but teams without this luxury should use tyre data to predict
the lively performance of their new design.
It is worth breaking the cars predicted operating envelope down into a series of discrete loading
events; braking, cornering, acceleration, and any combination of these three. Keep in mind that the
car needs to also be robust enough to cope with spins, hitting cones, and bumps. Use these
fundamental car parameters to calculate the contact patch loads under each load case; these will
form the building block for all future analyses.
A reasonably good place to start is with the suspension links themselves, the loads in which can be
calculated from contact patch loads and geometry. Be conscious of the effect of different suspension
travels and ride heights, especially if your suspension geometry incorporates aggressive changes in
kinematics with bump and droop. Traditional double-wishbone suspension layouts can be calculated
via matrix methods, but using bar or beam elements in a finite-element package is also perfectly
acceptable while allowing an appreciation of suspension stiffness at the same time.
Be aware that track-rod loads are difficult to estimate based on simple braking, cornering, and
acceleration events, and teams will have to be more creative when deriving a suitable design load.
This should be taken into account before deciding whether the steering rack should be ahead of or
behind the front axle-line. Ackermann geometry is probably a less important factor when
determining the steering rack position.
Calculation of suspension loads should be an integral part of the suspension design process. Some
common designs of front suspension in FB suffer from very high link loads and therefore need to be
heavier to avoid excessive compliance or even failure of the entire system.
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It is likely that suspension link materials will only be available in certain sizes, and joining techniques
may well limit the extent to which wishbone legs, for example, can be dissimilar. Some consideration
also needs to be given to how the manufacturing methodology influences the final component. As an
example, ‘Teflon’ lined spherical bearings have very little free play, but when the housing is welded
to the rest of the component the liner can melt and result in unwanted compliance. The analyst is
also well served by an appreciation of the sensitivity of the design loads to manufacturing tolerances
when working with welded or bonded components that can be challenging to jig correctly.
Once the suspension geometry is decided, the load cases have been set, and the basic link loads
calculated, it is possible to start scheming out the basic structure of the car. I’d recommend starting
with the fastener sizes required to mount the suspension arms to the upright, bell-cranks and chassis;
this in turn sets the clevis or mounting bracket sizes. The basic cross-sectional area requirements for
the links themselves are easy to define from classical buckling and tensile loading calculations.
Based on the vertical contact patch loads and the motion ratio of the suspension, it is straight-
forward to estimate the spring force required in bump and roll. Happily, the bell-crank loads fall
straight out of such a calculation, as do spring rates from the available spring and damper stroke. Of
course, as with any engineering decision a certain amount of design iteration is inevitable, and it is
important to be aware of the implications on spring and damper design – and for that matter chassis
layout when the motion ratio of the suspension is changed. Teams that consider what their figures
mean can also decide upon a sensible torsional stiffness target for their chassis structure at this stage
of the design. The rule of thumb determined in a SAE paper on the subject is that the chassis
torsional stiffness needs to be at least one order of magnitude greater than the roll stiffness.
Now that the loads are known, teams can start to size the basic structure of their car and for this an
analytical approach is required. Broadly speaking, analysis techniques can be split into two distinct
divisions; classical methods such as beam and plate bending, fastener sizing, and buckling, and finite-
element methods (FEA). To start, and when little design definition exists, the structures engineer is
forced to adopt a classical approach. This will allow components to be sensibly sized to begin with
and should eliminate the number of iterations that are required in the future to meet the design brief.
While it sounds simple against the backdrop of advanced cars we see in some Formula Student and
FSAW events, starting with a free-body diagram is never a bad thing to do. Once the loads and design
constraints are understood the appropriate structure can be schemed. Keep in mind that this
includes material and manufacturing choices. Taking an elementary example, if a pushrod needs to
cope with loads in compression then the design will be as sensitive to cross-section (or more
specifically, the second moment of area) as it will be to the elastic modulus. Given that most
commonly available metallic materials have near-identical specific stiffness, we can see that choosing
a large diameter for the tube will give the most efficient part.
32
At this stage of proceedings, many of the better equipped and CAE-savvy teams use numerical
optimisation to help them scheme out their basic car structures. This can be a powerful way of
designing a space frame chassis, for example, although it is important to understand the limitations
of the process. One approach would be to scheme out the ‘surface’ of the chassis in which all
structural members must lie, and use shell elements and thickness optimisation to understand where
these members should go. It, of course, goes without saying that the success of the design depends
entirely on the input surface. GIGO (Garbage in = garbage out!)
Another approach might be to take a solid element volume of potential space and use an
optimisation code to remove ineffective elements based on strain energy. Whichever way is adopted
it is highly likely that several iteration loops will need to be completed before a sensible solution is
found. Bear in mind that even if you cannot follow the results of the optimisation exactly, because,
for example, the driver’s legs get in the way, simply doing it in the first place gives an insight into
which areas of the structure are most important. It should also be apparent that all of the input loads,
and their relevant magnitude, need to be included in any optimisation run to make the best use of
the software tool.
In any FEA simulation the constraints on the model are as important as the loads; mathematically of
course they’re the same thing! Representative constraints for analysis of smaller components, such
as uprights or axles, is straight-forward enough, but for a whole vehicle chassis the student analyst
will need to consider the mass distributed throughout the car and use inertia relief. Be aware that if
not set up correctly, this can be affected by element size and it is very easy to get a completely
misleading result.
In the majority of designs the failure mode can influenced heavily by details such as fillet radii,
threads, and surface finish. Depending on how sophisticated the techniques employed the
consideration of these factors can range from ‘average’ to ‘non-existent’, and the analyst must
always treat their results with suspicion. This is especially true when we consider FEA of composite
components; these are difficult to simulate, can have wildly varying mechanical properties, and being
hand-made are prone to distinct variation between nominally identical parts.
It seems prudent to finish this chapter with the topic of validation of your analyses.
Over the years students have had the importance of validating simulation results by physical testing
drilled into them by scores of judges. While this is fine when measuring torsional stiffness of a chassis,
for example, it simply isn’t practical to realistically test the fatigue life of an upright.
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This situation leads to an obvious problem; how do you refine your mechanical design safely using
FEA if you cannot validate the simulation results?
Unfortunately, the short answer is that you cannot do so without building complicated testing rigs
and manufacturing enough components to ‘sacrifice’ one in the name of validation and durability
testing. Realistically, vehicle running is the prime way in which components like uprights are proven
out. Given this unavoidable level of uncertainty it should be clear to any engineer that an aggressive
design on a component which cannot be properly tested before running on a car carries a significant
risk.
One final thought is on the subject of one-off overload tests versus multi-cycle fatigue tests.
Testing the ultimate strength of a component proves very little about its suitability for use on a car,
although year after year students try and convince judges of exactly that. For the vast majority of
components a fatigue test will yield much more useful information.
At this juncture it is also worth noting that bonded joints can have distinctly different strength under
one-off and multi-cycle tests, and for applications such as steering columns the loading condition is
simple enough to render any excuse for not conducting a fatigue test unusable. In short, do not use
bonded composite components in your steering system!
Hopefully in future you will be more understanding if a judge treats your analysis results, and
resulting claims of reliability, with a certain amount of skepticism, at least until you show them your
validated results!
34
Previous Chapters have covered the requirements and design process. Now you have to make the
darn thing!
This area is often overlooked in most theoretical text books but is of vital importance for any product
that actually needs to be made.
Note well:
The following is information intended to assist.
You remain 100% responsible for your own safety and that includes your
individual reliance upon your own interpretation of any of the information
contained in this document.
Construction Tips and Design for Manufacture
A simple flat surface is needed with some parallel lines in x and y orientation. Some simple ‘squares’
can then provide a known location in the z (vertical) direction. Such facilitates can range from a
proper engineering flat bed and calibrated height gauges to a simple shimmed wooden base with
right angle triangle squares made from MDF.
It is far simpler, especially with a tube frame to arrange the suspension mountings themselves in one
of the 3 mutually orthogonal planes. Such pick up points will be ideally at chassis nodes and, with
some consideration can be included into the bulkhead frame designs.
Consider the chassis as slices of toast in a toast rack, e.g. front bulkhead with IA mountings, forward
front wishbone pickups and possibly also master cylinders. The next bulkhead would maybe be the
knee/dash bulkhead and could include the rearward suspension locations including dampers and
steering column etc. Then you have the main roll hoop bulkhead, possibly incorporating the seat belt
mounts and forward rear suspension locations and maybe damper mountings. The final bulkhead
may include the diff bearing mountings and the rearmost suspension locations (and possibly damper
bell-crank pivots).
35
With some thought all of these can be constructed flat on the bench as separate items, with
considerable welding finished prior to locating vertically in the ‘toast rack’. This has many
advantages:
 Accuracy. The base jig can be a laser cut sheet with the holes for all major points accurately
cut and defined
 Overall accuracy. Any welding distortion can be ‘locked’ into the bulkhead rather than into
the whole frame and before the final attachment of the suspension brackets
 Finish. The simple, almost 2D, frame can be finished far easier than working around a bigger
3D structure.
 Speed. Many smaller sub jigs increases production potential, i.e. more separate welders.
 Cost. As above for speed with attendant health and safety benefits (multiple welders in close
proximity on a single frame/jig often blind each other)
So when thinking of a suspension geometry that demands complex angled pickup points in the
middle of nowhere think how to make it. The CAD screen won’t help you much here. Then think again
as how to simplify.
The same philosophy above applies to suspension links and A-Arms. In a way, it also applies to
moulded components, especially if such moulded items require any final machining operation to be
properly accurate. You still need to be able to clamp it accurately to be able to machine it accurately
and all the tooling fixtures cost money.
It is a massive advantage (and we return again to the simultaneous consideration of the detail and
the big picture) to understand how something will be made at the design/conception stage. It is very
easy to design a part in a modern CAD system that cannot be made. It is even easier to design that
part so that it is expensive to make. And easier still to design one that, because it needs to be so
accurate that when it is made, it does not fit its mating parts! Added accuracy means added cost.
Simplify, lighten and reduce cost.
It is a great idea to ensure that the person who designed a part actually gets to make or procure that
part and also is then responsible for fitting it! Tolerances are a great learning curve, supplier’s claims
can sometimes be as optimistic as their delivery promises and you will be surprised just how much
things distort when welded.
Talking of welding, most steel tube frames are, in production, going to be MIG welded, the TIG option
is simply too slow (i.e. the customer will not pay the premium). No jig, no matter how sturdy, will
stop the heat induced distortion. Arc welded space-frames are not accepted at Tech inspection.
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You will be able to easily weld 16 swg (1.6mm) thickness steel tube with any MIG plant, even with
fairly poor tube fits. With good tube preparation, a good welding machine and a good operator, then
MIG fabrication of an 18 swg (1.2mm) thickness frame, is quite feasible. You need good weld area on
brackets (and consideration of placing the weld in shear etc.) but such wall thickness is practicable.
Anything thinner really needs the TIG welding process.
Remember, rarely is the ‘one time overload’ the cause of a failure, rather it is usually fatigue over
time that gets you a DNF. With thinner metal fabrications designing with pure respect for fatigue is
your aim and this means taking great care with section changes and weld locations and especially,
where gussets and ribs actually end. Undercutting the base material with the weld bead is a big
potential failure area.
Threaded inserts into tube ends require the correct tube profile preparation to increase weld area
and to ensure the weld is placed in shear.
Marketing Attractions, Innovation or just Gimmick?
At every event some team comes up with something that they claim to be ‘innovative’, ‘unique’,
‘novel’ or ‘a sure fire selling point’. Each one is almost always disappointed to learn, often through
their own experience and at their own expense, that the feature or design is, in fact, just a gimmick
with drawbacks that were never even considered in the enthusiastic rush to have the ‘bling’ feature
on the car. To be honest, after more than fifty FSAE/FS events, there is almost nothing presented at a
competition that I have not seen before!
Some proper initial conceptual analysis would usually have mitigated their wasted efforts. Rarely
does any team have the full resources to do something truly new. The very idea implies that the
remainder of the car is beyond logical improvement. In short the resources deployed on the ‘novel’
feature should almost always have been used elsewhere, on the fundamentals.
However, as the old saying goes, “To all good rules there are exceptions” and very occasionally we
see something that is novel and undertaken without detriment to the remainder of the car and team.
It is, sadly, very rare indeed.
In the following chapters I will talk about the assembly and the setup of your car but before going
there, a word or two about aerodynamics.
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By now everyone in Formula Student knows that to win you will need to do some work in this
area. However, to score points in the dynamic events you need to be running! That means passing
scrutineering and ideally it means having done hundreds of miles of testing. If you turn up with fancy
aero bits on the car but don’t make it into the dynamic events, nobody will need to tell you that your
priorities were a bit off.
So for those that haven’t run a car at a formula student event yet, leave the wings off the car until
you’ve completed the all dynamic events at least once in a competition. If your car isn’t finished and
testing at least a month before your first event, leave the wings off the car and go testing. You may
well score fewer points in the design event (due to the car not matching the DR and Spec sheet) but
getting the car through the dynamic events is worth it.
To put it bluntly, if you cannot do aero really well, then don’t do it at all! A poorly executed aero
package will add nothing to your car but extra mass, extra drag and extra complexity. The time and
effort in production will be far better utilized in more fundamental areas. You do not ‘have to have’
aero in Formula Bharat to appease the judges. In fact, a shoddy aero kit will cost more points than it
gains and an intelligent defence of why there are no wings on the car will actually score Design
points!
38
Chapter 9. The Assembly Process
Earlier chapters have reviewed the basics of determining the requirements of the event, looking
logically at the options and choosing solutions, which has now been designed and parts
manufactured or procured.
From my experience, it is very fair to say that car assembly and preparation is often not quite as good
as it should be!
Often the reason for this is not simply a lack of the necessary skills or conscientiousness; but more
likely a lack of time caused by either genuine unforeseen circumstances (rare), or poor planning
(more likely). The former does need to be learnt and the latter needs to be avoided.
Assembly is the physical process of joining together the many separate parts and components,
whether bought in or ‘home-made’ and the underlying connections to make the whole greater than
the sum of the parts. Some of this joining will be mechanical (wishbones to chassis), some will be
electrical/electronic (engine loom) and some will be hydraulic (fuel and brake systems).
Preparation is then more to do with getting the best from that assembly process and foreseeing
inevitable likely failure points such that reliability is guaranteed. The priorities, in order, are that the
finished vehicle be safe, reliable and quick.
One judge regularly asks the team to identify the first thing that would fail in a system. When they
point something out, he immediately asks, “So what are you going to do about it?” Teams should ask
themselves the same questions at all phases of design and construction!
Remember ‘Design for Manufacture’? You will most likely not start with a huge build area and a
whole box of neatly labeled parts and a grand instruction sheet. Rather, in the usual timescales, you
will have parts, components and sub-assemblies arriving on a piecemeal basis that get thrown in a
corner somewhere. This will often be weeks after you or your team drew or bought them and
possibly weeks before someone tries to fit them all together.
It is now you learn the golden truth that anything fits together much better if some thought to its
assembly was included at the design stage. That includes not only general design principles but also
tolerances, heat treatment effects etc. and what equipment and facilities you have available. In
general there will always be something that you didn’t fully think through and rectifying it will always
take longer or cost more than you ever imagined. But this is character building and educational and
teaches not only good practices but teamwork and personal tolerance as well.
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Remember the old truism; actually there are two of them.
1. There is never time to do it properly but there is always time to do it again, and…
2. The first 50% of the project takes 90% of the time available. The second 50% takes the other
90% of the time!
Basic Understanding
If you have never actually constructed something mechanical before (Lego doesn’t count), then any
car, especially a FB car, is not the best place to start. Take your bicycle apart, or something else
simple first. And then put it back together again! You need a feel for when something slips neatly in
line/together, how to look for interferences preventing proper assembly and the good thing about
starting with something already assembled is you know it does actually fit together!
Depending upon how much you have already made, versus bought or sub contracted, you will have
some idea now that things don’t always go to plan. Your careful drawings, lovingly dispensed from
your shiny computer needed very thorough checking for tolerances etc. and you may now have
realised that fits and finishes are not quite how you envisaged them. If the mistake is yours you get to
pay for the part anyway! Suppliers can often over promise and under deliver. If you have the
equipment and the time included in your master plan then it is worthwhile checking parts, whether
‘home-made’ or bought in (goods in quality control).
If things don’t fit then the most likely solution, in the timescales we have and the real world is to
make it fit. Such solutions vary from the elegant to the plain brutal and there is a time for both
extremes, sometimes even at the same time. Always bear in mind the potential safety risk and react
accordingly: an exhaust silencer falling off is far less serious overall than a brake caliper falling off. But
ultimately both will mean you fail to finish.
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Why things fail when they shouldn’t
Most FB vehicles don’t fail to finish a dynamic event because of a once off structural failure as a result
of under-estimation of the loads involved, or because the analysis was badly flawed.
Rather most fail because of small assembly or preparation errors that could perhaps have been
reasonably foreseen.
The rest fail due to fatigue, which is usually indicative of a lack of appreciation of some finer detail of
a part or the real load cases. Sometimes fatigue is actually an assembly error. For example, if you
have drive-shafts with the same joint at each end (inboard and outboard) and you remove it without
marking the normal direction of rotation there is an equal chance of refitting it the ‘wrong’ way
round and thus increasing the risks of a fatigue failure (usually at the spline root or circlip groove)
because of the reversed torque loading.
There are many books that deal with car preparation so this is only a brief overview.
If we look first at mechanical attachments we can point out a few things that may not be totally
obvious until we think it through looking for problems. Again, ask yourself “What will be the first
thing to fail?” As an example, consider the ubiquitous suspension wishbone. This will usually connect
to the chassis and/or the upright where the suspension ‘leg’ terminates, in a spherical bearing. Quite
often the inner race of the spherical bearing is clamped between two ‘ears’, likely to be a clevis that
is basically a channel section.
All bolted joints rely on the clamping force induced by the strain in the bolt to hold them rigidly
together. If that ‘stretch’ of the bolt should be reduced, then the clamping load and rigidity of the
assembly degrades. This happens long before the bolt becomes loose and the nut falls off with the
attendant disastrous consequences. As the stretch in the bolt is very small you only need a very small
reduction in the ‘width; of the items being clamped for rigidity in the bolted assembly to disappear.
Once that happens you are relying on the bolt as a pin, it being a good fit in the clevis and spherical,
there being no thread to mill through the clevis etc. This is something it was never intended to be.
We usually use cap head (Allen socket head) set screws (bolts have thread for the full shank length
but I shall use the term ‘bolt’ here for simplicity) and only if we are super rich can we use aircraft
specification (NAS) bolts where we can precisely dictate the plain shank length. We use them because
the heads are smaller and neater than standard hex heads and so less room is needed to install and
tighten them. However this is also their Achilles Heel. The small diameter head means a small bearing
area underneath it and so it will dig into your aluminium clevis, especially if you turn it while
tightening it!
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You really need a hard washer of adequate thickness under it. The same usually applies to the nut.
The expensive but beloved K-nuts have an integral washer for greater area. But at least such bolts
have a good under-head radius to the shank. Again, if not using a washer, then the part the bolt goes
into needs a small chamfer to clear this radius.
By design, the inner race of the spherical bearing presents a very small surface area. To get the
angularity needed, we will have spacers either side of the bearing and ideally, for ease of assembly,
these will spigot into the bore of the inner race. As that contact area is small the spacers need to be
of a suitable material, alloy spacers will not do. The end faces of the spacers (i.e. those in contact
with the spherical and the clevis) need to be flat and parallel. The overall assembled width of the
spherical with spacers needs to be just less than the open jaw width of the clevis.
So as you can see there is a lot of attention to detail needed. If you have any coatings, e.g. paint and
you clamp up on that then the paint will be the first thing to ‘relax’ and all your hard work will have
been in vain. As ever, think carefully what the parts are there to actually do, and then think about
what could happen to stop them doing it. And then work to ensure that does not happen.
With bolted connections pay attention to thread length and overall bolt length: the last thing you
want is to be tightening the bolt or nut against the end of the threaded portion and thus not actually
clamping up the joint. Finally ‘Nyloc’ nuts are reusable assuming the threads they run down are not
damaged. You only want two or three threads showing on the free side so you should trim off and
dress any excess length.
Your grand design should be capable of generating quite high forces, possibly around 1.5g in most
directions. As such, all of the components that are not fixed rigidly are going to be inclined to move in
response to those forces. A radiator pipe carrying coolant has a not insignificant mass and therefore
is subjected to significant forces in all directions. Keeping that in place is not the job of the hose clips
that join the pipe to the radiator or engine via flexible hoses. Even beading the ends of the pipe
doesn’t do that. So consider carefully all the items like pipes, wiring looms, cables etc. and make sure
that you mount them properly and carefully.
Most wiring connectors have terminals that are retained by some form of mechanical latch to ensure
that the terminal cannot escape the connector body. Make sure that you use them and insert them
fully home. The connectors themselves will almost certainly have a mechanical fastening to ensure
they do not become inadvertently disconnected: but again they only help if you use them! Wiring
looms can become quite bulky and heavy, especially in EV cars and so it needs adequate support. It
doesn’t take much repetitive movement to chafe through the insulation and cause all sorts of
problems, up to and including fire.
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In that regard it is worthwhile remembering that carbon fibre and its dust, is conductive. So be
careful with your electrical boxes etc. when doing that last minute trimming etc. on a composite tub.
Stainless steel braided hoses, e.g. brake lines, oil pressure hoses etc., have a propensity to be able to
cut through almost any material over time. Again it is a matter of checking clearances and envisioning
potential problems and eliminating them before they have a chance to occur.
Exhaust manifolds are prone to fatigue due to their environment, heat cycles and vibration. Often
hand fabricated without full consideration of the filler wire/rod and often mounted poorly. Leaving
the muffler hanging unsupported off the end of the exhaust pipe is asking for trouble.
Why things feel bad
Another area that can often be a let-down and can be a general assembly and preparation problem is
the control systems. Judges are regularly disappointed by the feel and precision of the control
systems when they sit in cars to try them. Massively excess free play (‘slop’) in the steering, excess
free travel or compliance in brake pedals, stiction in throttle action and gearshifts. All of these
controls have safety implications as well as driver confidence impacts.
Sticking throttles, failing steering and a loss of brakes are all disastrous events.
Throttle action is very much personal in terms of travel and force but no one ever said anything good
about a throttle with stiction!
A stiff throttle stop is required to avoid stressing the cable or throttle components and it also helps to
have a return stop (this can stop the cable leaving its abutment when least expected). Set both
accurately and check them from time to time because cables do stretch. Route the cable with
generous bends and away from heat (many have liners that melt easily).
You can arrange for the throttle action to be progressive, usually easiest to do at the throttle body
end with a cam action lever, have a look at many production cars with mechanical throttle bodies or
carburettors. The simple inclusion of long throttle travel can mitigate a peaky power curve.
Cut the cable to length neatly: Cut the outer casing square neatly and deburr the inside. Blow
through with the airline and if the cable has a Teflon low friction lining, don’t use any oil.
A push-pull cable takes up more room, is bulky and heavier and requires more open bends but has
the advantage of being able to close a throttle by hooking a foot under the pedal. This may just be
enough that one time to save the accident. Also be sure to check the action of the throttle return
springs at the throttle body to ensure they don’t go over centre and they cannot jam up on anything.
43
Remember, the internal spring in the throttle body does not qualify as one of the two required
springs. Carry a spare throttle cable, already cut to length and ready to fit, complete with adjusters
and end fittings.
Invariably, every driver likes a brake pedal that travels very little and feels rock solid. Getting a silky
throttle feel requires a pedal pivoting on a proper bearing and with enough stiffness not to bend
including sideways when ‘heel and toeing’.
The brake pedal needs far more structural consideration than the throttle (read the Rule about pedal
load capability) as it is surprising how much force a frightened driver can apply. The pedal also needs
to pivot on a proper bearing and be stiff in all planes. Most of you will have front/rear split systems
with separate master cylinders and a balance/bias bar. I do not recommend tandem master cylinders
and you certainly should not employ a diagonal split brake system.
Again it is essential that everything slides together neatly, without binding and without any free play.
It is most likely that the actual travel used in each master cylinder will be different and so you do
need to set the system up so that when decent force is applied to the pedal the balance bar is square
to the master cylinder axis. This may lead to a slight angle on the bar at rest, which is fine. Make sure
you tighten all lock nuts and that the pushrod is not protruding through the balance bar clevis such
that it interferes.
Don’t have more than a small gap needed between the inside faces of the clevises and the balance
bar housing/pedal sides. This is because in the event of a total failure on one circuit you need the
clevis to jam against the side of the pedal assembly to ensure that the remaining good circuit can still
take load. As with all these things it pays to try that when first assembling the car and most suppliers
provide advice when you buy their balance bar assembly.
You should ensure that the pedal at rest allows both master cylinders to be fully ‘released’
(sometimes does no harm to have a light spring pulling the pedal back against a stop) as otherwise
the internal feed ports won’t be open and bleeding the brakes or pushing the pads back will be
impossible!
Finally, make sure the calipers are mounted with the bleed nipples on top or it will be impossible to
bleed the brakes!
44
If the team is using ‘handed’ calipers from a motorcycle, this means the calipers on one side of the
car will be on the bottom when the calipers are fitted. To bleed such a
system, the ‘upside down’ calipers will need to be removed from the car
and a packing piece placed between the pads. (The calipers are then turned
with the nipple upwards and the brakes bled in the normal way. Brake
bleeding should commence with the caliper farthest from the master
cylinder, i.e.; rears first.
The steering mechanism, from steering wheel to road wheel/tyre must be both strong and stiff
enough. You will be surprised at just how much force you can exert via the steering wheel multiplied
by the various leverage ratios to the rim! You will also be surprised at how much things flex and how
quickly free play develops. You ideally need to support the column/shaft either side of any universal
joint (UJ), in all planes. In general all supports will tend to add friction so again you need to consider
this carefully. The universal joint cannot perform miracles and the greater the operating angle the
less miraculous the result will be shaft velocity variations, greater wear, strange tight spots etc.
The often used steering column ‘helicopter joint’ requires some good detail design to affix it to a
tubular shaft such that it does not quickly develop play. Just drilling a
hole and tightening a bolt won’t do it. Splined joints requires thought as
to how you will assemble them, how you prevent the shaft from pulling
back out etc. You also need to consider the weld area if welding the
spline stub into the tube, filler rod etc.
Other Observations
There are often adjustable links with a left and right hand thread at opposite ends of the link.
They are commonly used in suspension links to adjust the toe, used as push or pullrods to actuate the
suspension and to hold wings (aerofoils) in place at the correct angle of attack. In theory such links
are very purely loaded in tension or compression and so simple to analyse.
They commonly have simple rod ends, one left and one right hand threaded, with locknuts. They are
usually fabricated from a stock tube size with an insert welded (or sometimes bonded) into the ends.
When done professionally the threaded inserts have a flat machined onto them to allow each locknut
to be properly tightened.
45
Why explain that in so much depth I hear you ask? Well, it is very easy with poor assembly and poor
preparation adjustment to end up with one of those links failing catastrophically.
What happens is that the flats are not provided and the locknuts are tightened without full
consideration of the actual relative positions of the rod ends to each other. So the locknuts only
tighten because the two rod ends are ‘held’ by their respective mountings. Usually the link then ends
up with zero capacity to accommodate the angular displacement that dictated the use of the rod
ends to start with. So as soon as the suspension moves up and down the lack of angular travel either
tends to undo the rod end and locknut, or even worse, creates a large bending load in the exposed
threaded shank and the rod end mounting clevis.
So now the carefully minimalist link and small rod ends are no longer loaded in pure
tension/compression but instead will fail from fatigue in bending. As these rod ends are usually quite
small and of metric thread form (often M6 in typical FB suspension toe links) such failure is usually
both swift and dramatic.
Left hand thread rod ends and clevises can be expensive and difficult to obtain. Even the LH locknuts
can be hard to get, but there is an alternative. Two different RH pitch rod ends can give a fine
‘micrometer’ adjustment.
Whilst talking about rod ends, never present a car to the

judges with rod ends loaded in bending through the
shank! It makes sense to make A-arms with adjustable rod
ends for testing and tuning. When the optimum geometry has
been determined in testing, make new competition A-
Arms with spherical bearings (or flexures?) for the event. The
test A-arms can be put aside as spares, but don’t let the
judges see them!
When you assemble any components that move relative to each other always run the final assembly
through its full range of travel to check for fouling. For a suspension corner without spring and with
damper adjusted fully soft, and one link of the anti-roll bar disconnected there should be almost
weightless fluidity to wheel travel. Equally on full lock there should be no restrictions caused by lack
of capacity in the rod ends or spherical bearings.
The inside of the rim should clear all the suspension links and the brake caliper. There will be some
compliance in the wheel assembly, so ensure there is adequate clearance to avoid fouling. The inside
face of the disc musty clear all the suspension wishbones etc.
Steering rack lock stops should be fitted in order to limit the total steer angle.
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Chapter 10. Car Setup
Again, this is a chapter aimed at first year teams and aims to steer you from the usual rookie mistakes.
It also tries to stop you panicking about things which are really not that difficult, time consuming or
important. I can be business-like and call it ‘prioritising’ if you wish.
By now you might have actually assembled your beast and hopefully ironed out the basic sub systems
functionality. Time is very tight, maybe even non-existent and there is probably little money left in
the bank either. But before you can do even a shakedown run of your creation you do need to check
again that it is safe and whilst doing that (spanner checking assemblies, wiring and plumbing checks
etc.) you may as well take a little bit extra time to square it up so the wheels (and therefore tyres) are
at acceptable, even if not optimum angles.
Despite popular wisdom, you don’t need expensive equipment, a flat floor or lots of time to do a
good enough job for this exercise. If you have not done this before you need a space big enough to
work comfortable around the car, 4 axle stands, some string, a spirit level and two straight edges (or
lengths of tube that by eye are straight), one that is approx. the tyre diameter in length and one that
is about equal to the wider track width of the car. And a reel of cotton thread.
You will also need something to weigh the car with and to level the floor area locally under the tyres.
Vinyl floor tiles are great for this or even glossy magazines (which can also serve as ‘turntables’ under
the front wheels, but be sure you don’t want to keep them as they will probably be wrecked during
the procedure.
Because your car will be relatively light (less then 100kg at each corner) , then for about ₹2000 you
should be able to buy 4 bathroom scales, each of which will accommodate about 150kg. Bathroom
scales at the cheaper end of the market may not be very accurate, so instead of adjusting them at
‘zero’, instead have one team member stand on each scale and adjust them so they all read the same
weight. Absolute accuracy is not as important as you are more interested in comparative weights.
I assume you don’t have lots of time and so I suggest the following is order of priority.
All measurements and adjustments need to be finalised for the vehicle complete with an ‘average’
weight driver and a full complement of fluids on board.
If time really runs out use the same order but do all measurements by eye: it’s amazing how good the
human eye is for seeing lack of symmetry especially.
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The tyre maker will provide some guidance on preferred angles and pressures and you should of
course have understood those recommendations at the design stage, but a quick and dirty setup can
be… Toe Front 3mm toe out Rear 33mm toe in
Camber Front 2° negative Rear 1° negative
These settings are a good starting point, but may be changed after testing.
It makes sense to quickly draft up a ‘Set Up Sheet’, examples of which abound on the Internet.
When undertaking his first set of adjustments you may have time to note the adjustment sensitivity,
i.e. one full turn of the tie rod changes the toe by ‘X’ mm. Note this on your Set Up Sheet.
How to do these is explained after the list:

1. When you assembled the car you should have set all the various adjustable parts equal side to
side, and to your design specification.
2. Level the floor under the tyre contact patches (Stack vinyl tiles or magazines as needed)
3. Ensure tyres are fitted correctly and symmetrically to the right ends of the car!
4. Pump the tyres to something close to a hot (warm?) running pressure (note that this will likely
be a few psi higher than the recommended cold starting pressures).
5. Check each wheel/tyre for run out (wobble). Rarely are wheels truly straight. Mark two
diametrically opposite points on the rim, these will be the positions you measure from.
6. Install an average mass driver. Handcuff him so he cannot touch the steering wheel!
7. Adjust the ride height at each corner to about 30-40mm and ensure that you have legal
suspension travel in bump and rebound and are unlikely to have the chassis contact the
ground when driving. It should be equal left to right and usually the rear will be higher than
the front for a variety of reasons.
8. Set the front camber angles and then the rears. There is a difference in camber requirements
between radial and cross ply tyres, radial tyres require more negative camber. Many camber
adjustment designs also affect the toe setting, so do camber first.
9. Set the castor angle at the front. If you don’t have much time at least get it equal side to side.
3° to 5° positive is a reasonable starting point for caster.
10. Set the toe equal for each wheel. Remember, as you adjust the toe while measuring at the
front of the wheel, the rear of the wheel is moving in the opposite direction!
11. Re-check the camber again and reset it if necessary. This may affect the toe angle!
12. Set corner weights accepting that if they are a long way off and using soft springs then you
may have changed the ride height a lot and thus need to go round the car again from Step 8.
Try to keep the weight difference across each axle to about 2kg or less. I like to write each
corner weight on the top of each tyre and check all the weights after every adjustment.
Adjustments at the rear will affect the front and vice versa.
13. Never leave treaded fastenings (bolts, locknuts etc) finger tight. Always tighten them every
time. Otherwise, someone will drive the car with a loose fastener.
48
How to do it
Almost everything you adjust will have associated influence: usually as you adjust castor you will also
affect bump-steer etc. Bear this in mind if you make significant changes.
1. It is probable that to adjust some things you will need to jack the car up. For repeatable
consistency you need the car to settle back to the same position each time. So you need to set all
dampers full soft, and disconnect one anti roll bar link, front and back if used, to allow the car to
be as supple and independent as possible.
2. Roll the car into the working area, draw or mark around the tyre locations and move the car
away. Using the level, shim the marked areas until the floor is level side to side. It is useful to
mark on the floor the thickness of shims required to level the floor. It is not so important that the
car be level front to rear, within reason.
If you prefer you can add the shims (tiles) on top of the scales and do all the adjustments on the
scales. You gain some clearance but lose the ability to roll the car back and forwards.
3. Note tyre details
4. Note tyre pressures
5. You will do camber first so set the two marks to be vertical
6. Add the handcuffed driver!
7. Measuring to the floor, or when really uneven, to a stretched piece of string stretched between
the tyre/shim (ground) interfaces, set the ride height to your design specification. A ruler is
adequate for this.
a. If you don’t know the ride height then it makes sense to aim for 30mm or a little more, as the
Rules require an inch of travel in each direction and no bottoming out
b. In almost all cases this will be done by adjusting the spring platform height to compress the
spring.
c. If you have push or pull rods then you need to set the pushrod length initially to get the bell-
crank in the design position and then adjust the spring collars to suit and then go round the
loop again to keep the bell-crank in the right position at the required ride height.
d. Be aware that springs are notoriously poor quality and that that the end coils are ‘dead’, i.e.
contribute little to the overall support. They are also quite variable despite what is marked on
them, variances of over 5% are quite normal even in ‘good quality’ springs.
49
8. Camber is adjusted next, and whilst a digital gauge is convenient you can make do with a spirit
level or even a plumb line. Whilst it improves accuracy to measure over the greatest distance, the
tyre will bulge at the bottom, so it is better to measure to the rim where you earlier marked the
two equal run-out points.
a. Calculate a simple angular camber to be a lateral measurement from true vertical across the
rim diameter, e.g. 1° on a 13” rim is about 6 mm. Hold the level against the straight edge
touching the base rim point and when the level is vertical measure the gap to the upper rim
point.
b. Cross ply tyres work best almost vertical, radials need a lot more initial static negative camber
generally, more so again at the front. 3° negative is not uncommon.
9. Castor is hard to measure directly but you have the advantage that you probably know
the relative locations of a feature on the front uprights, e.g. caliper mounting bolts. You can
therefore measure directly the angles of these features in side view and relate back to the kingpin
axis. Simpler still, and if in a hurry is to lay a straight edge across these bolts, one each side and
simply adjust until they appear equal when viewed together across the car! A simple eyeball from
above of the upper and lower ball-joints will tell if you have any castor at all.
If you have access to a proper castor gauge, they work by measuring the camber angle change for
a given steer angle at the rim. So you need some way to measure steer angle which can be lines
chalked on the floor using a protractor! Glossy magazines under the front tyres will allow them to
steer without moving the car.
10. Now for the time consuming part. What you are going to do is to create a perfectly rectangle
around the car from which you can measure in to the rims (the marked points, now moved to the
horizontal position). The simplicity of this method is that the string rectangle is referenced to the
wheels and not to the chassis and thus allows for any asymmetry in link lengths etc. In other
words it squares up the tyres’ direction relative to the other tyres, which is, after all, the
important point as it is unlikely your chassis will be perfectly ‘true’.
a. The reference rectangle will be constructed from stretched string or cotton thread in a
contrasting colour to the workshop floor is best and it needs to be fairly non stretch. This
needs to be at rim centre height.
b. I find it easiest to have two lengths of timber exactly the same length and about 500mm wider
than the outside width of the widest track (usually the front). Put a small hacksaw cut in each
end of the wood to prevent the thread we are going to use from slipping off.
c. Position an axle stand about 500mm forwards and 200mm outboard of each wheel front
wheel and the same in reverse at the rear. We can then rest the lengths of wood across the
front stands and across the rear stands. They serve to keep the two threads equidistant from
each other which saves a lot of time.
50
d. Stretch the thread in a rectangle all around the car and adjust the position of the wood to
ensure the thread on each side is parallel to the c/l of the car and ensure it is taut.
e. Now measure from the thread each side to a fixed point on the wheel hub area, at centre
height, e.g. to the flat face at the centre bore, to a brake disc face or similar. Note the
measurement to about .5mm (this is quite possible with a steel rule and stretched thread).
f. Get this dimension equal left to right at the front. LF and RF in the sketch.
g. Don’t allow anyone to disturb your thread rectangle at this stage or you have to start again!
h. Do the same at the rear, the rear distance to the hub will most likely not be the same as at the
front as the rear track is usually narrower on FB cars.
i. Go round in a few iterations until the car is central in the string box to within .5mm measured
to the wheel centres
j. Now simply measure the distance between the thread and the forward rim (marked point)
and the rearward mark for each wheel. Write these down as you go for each wheel, toe out is
when the forward reading is smaller than the rearward reading for a wheel.
k. As a starting point perhaps aim for about 1.5mm on each rim, toe out per wheel. Bear in mind
that any compliance that causes a wheel to wobble between some to in and some toe out will
feel bad so where you have flexibility have enough static toe to avoid it going over-centre etc.
l. Adjusting the toe will sometimes cause the car to ‘re-align’ within the box, especially if you
need to jack it up. Simply reset the box as per steps (e) to (i) again and re-measure. Note the
sensitivity of the adjusters.
11. If you made significant toe adjustments you will need to check camber again.
This may then entail another round of setting the toe!
51
12. Corner weighting is again not mysterious or hard, just time consuming and easy to get
frustrated by! Essentially you are looking to balance the car’s mass across the 4 contact
patches, the basic accuracy of which is dictated by the car’s design mass distribution.
However, at the expense of ‘perfect’ ride height, you can adjust the individual corner weights
by raising or lowering a corner: raise the ride height at a corner to increase the load carried by
that tyre.
a. With pushrod/pullrod linkages you want to do this on the link to keep the bell-crank at the
desired geometrical position (most have significant rising rate in their geometry). For
outboard suspension raise or lower the spring collar to change the spring preload.
b. You should be able to do this whilst the car is on its wheels: if you need to jack it up then
sometimes it is hard to be consistent and repeatable because of the dampers and any
friction in suspension pivots.
c. From a driver confidence perspective it is usual to prioritise minimising the difference
between the two fronts but if you have limited rear droop travel and a weak LSD or ‘open’
differential, then it may be beneficial, performance wise, to prioritise the rears. Depending
on the basic mass distribution you probably won’t get much better than 5kg difference
across an axle but aim for 2kg..
d. If you changed the ride height much, and depending on your camber gain characteristics
you may need to go round again from Step 8.
13. Reconnect the anti-roll bar links, ensuring they are adjusted to fit without any preload
because the actuation links may now be different lengths, left to right.
a. Check everything is tight.

b. Reset the dampers to where they were/should be. If in doubt err on the soft side as it is
easier to feel excessive softness than the other way round.
c. Check travel to the bump-stops: there should be some! Cheap bump-stops tend to be
pretty solid and with minimal progression, proper ones can be used effectively on
outboard suspension as they are very progressive (rising rate). Very simply the more
conical the bump-stop the better. Note the internal shape of the spring cap also influences
the rate of the bump-stop.
d. Measure the fitted length of springs, pushrods, adjuster links etc. and record them along
with the car and driver mass and distributions. These will come in very handy should you
take the car apart at any time.
52
If you really want to check things thoroughly then you can do a bump-steer check, i.e. measure
change in toe at each wheel at every ride height increment. You can do this inside the string box but
you will need to remove the springs and have a jack or blocks of wood etc. under the car to support it.
It’s worthwhile doing if you have time but only if you have some method/adjustment available to
correct it, usually this means shimming the vertical position of the steering rack or toe link pivot.
Bump-steer and its first cousin, roll-steer makes any car difficult to drive as there are steering inputs
over which the driver has no control. In some advanced designs, some intended roll-steer can be
used to assist handling (passive rear steer), but at this level, teams should strive to eliminate any
unintended steering inputs.
53
Chapter 11. The KTM 390cc Engine
As the KTM 390 engine is by far the most popular engine in Formula
Bharat, it is worth talking a little about preparing it for use.
The 390 ‘Kato’ is a lightweight single cylinder, high performance

engine and probably the most suitable engine readily available on the
Indian sub continent. As a result it is very popular with teams.
However, for inexperienced users, there are many traps to fall into as the engine is quite difficult to
adapt successfully to FB use.
In standard condition, the KTM390 is in a very high state of tune, so

tuning mistakes can easily ruin the engine. Beware of buying a used
engine from a crashed bike, as it may have lain on its side, revving its
heart out until someone switched it off or it shut down itself.
The engine is a short stroke, high revving engine with a very high
compression ratio. To avoid engine damage from detonation, the
Bosch engine management system uses a knock sensor to ‘hear’
detonation and adjusts the fuel mixture and ignition timing to
compensate.
Specifications
 Displacement 373cc
 Valve system DOHC, 4 valves
 Compression ratio 12.7 to 1
 Bore 89mm
 Stroke 60mm
 Fuel system EFI with FBW throttle and 46mm throttle body
 Management system Bosch
 Cooling Liquid cooled
 Max Power 33 kW @ 9000rpm (in unrestricted form)
 Max Torque 37 Nm @ 7000rpm (in unrestricted form)
 Electrical system 12V Neg. earth
 Starting system Electric start
54
It can be seen that the engine is highly tuned in standard form, and adapting it for FB use is quite
complex. It is far from a simple ‘insert a 20mm restrictor’ exercise!
The first issue is the throttle body, which is quite unsuitable. At 46mm diameter it has about 4 times
the area as the 20mm restrictor. This means that at about one third throttle opening, the T/B flows
enough air to saturate the restrictor. Opening the throttle wider does not admit more air but the TPS
reports to the ECU that it does, so the ECU adds more fuel. The result? Engine performance is ruined,
throttle response is like a light switch and the excess fuel can wash lubricant away resulting in worn
can lobes and cylinder bores.
A further complication is the throttle control is electronic, making it very difficult to adapt to the
usually fairly simple FB control systems. And to make matters worse when contemplating
replacement of the standard T/B with one from a smaller engine, the fuel injector is fitted to the
throttle body at the engine, whereas the FB rules require the T/B to be located before the restrictor.
My recommendation is to gut the standard T/B, removing all the electronics apart from the injector
and removing the throttle and shaft, making sure to block the shaft bores to prevent an air leak. The
original T/B then is simply used to mount the injector.
A new intake system should be designed using a smaller T/B feeding the restrictor into a plenum
before feeding the original gutted T/B. Designing the intake system is something I am not going to
discuss here as it is part of your FB challenge. However I would suggest your new T/B should be about
28mm to 30mm from a smaller EFI bike or even the 30mm T/B from the Tata Nano.
All this will require a new ECU! There is no point at all trying to adapt the standard Bosch unit. The
new ECU may be a kit build like a ‘Megasquirt’ kit, or any of the available aftermarket units. Making
this whole package work will require access to a dynamometer or endless test driving. No one
promised you this would be easy!
A word of warning, dyno tuning with a relatively simple ECU requires aiming for very conservative
settings. The high compression ratio makes the engine prone to detonation and damage if the
mixture is set too lean or the ignition timing too far advanced. You have been warned.
Remember, tune the engine for easy drivability. New teams with very inexperienced drivers do not
need peaky engines with snatch throttle response. They will tire quickly and degenerate into ‘cone
killers’.
Of course, it goes without saying the car must be finished early, not only to sort the car, but for the
drivers to gain experience. They cannot hope to compete at even the most basic level, something we
sadly see too often.
55
Exhaust System and Muffler
Exhaust tuning is easy with a single cylinder engine. After all, there is only a single exhaust pipe, so a
hacksaw is the only adjuster needed.
Controlling the exhaust noise is a very different matter and failing to pass Tech in Noise is a very
disappointing way for your FB adventure to end. Mono-cylinder engines are difficulty to silence
sufficiently to pass the new noise restrictions and may even require two mufflers in series to pass!
Before I Finish and Before You Drive the Car.
Every time: Yes every time, before the

car is driven, the team should do a
‘spanner check’ of all critical threaded
fasteners! This means that every critical
nut and bolt is checked for tightness.
And, after the car is driven, at the end of

the day, the car should be cleaned
meticulously. Not only does this express
pride in your achievement, but makes it
easy to identify any developing
structural issue. Many drivers have been
hurt after these simple procedures were
ignored!
Thank you very much for reading this far. I hope the content will help when you start on your
Formula Bharat adventure
56

Technical Tips for New FB Teams

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Technical Tips for New FB Teams

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Technical Advice

What is Formula Bharat and why should you enter it?

FB is an educational engineering challenge that is popular because the engineering product to be

How will this book help me?

What format will this book take?

Firstly, the 3R’s of FB.

Then, how and how not to do it.

The above demonstrates two Golden Rules you can observe

Chapter 2: The 3 R’s of FS

Money is always an issue: you have but 3 options really.

Additional design factors to be considered include: aesthetics, cost, ergonomics, maintainability,

Electric vehicles are now accepted at Formula Bharat.

Some Useful Tips

Chapter 3: Initiating your FB Project

At a basic level we have the following steps:

2. Research and Benchmarking

4. Define Performance Targets

5. Consider all Options

6. Overall Vehicle Concept Decision

7. Define Major Vehicle Areas

Chapter 4: Document Submissions

A proper photograph has more credibility!

Chapter 5. The Design Process Part 1

I outlined the design ‘process’ previously in a very simplistic list:

To recap on a few other underlying principles:

Where to go from the Concept

Chapter 6. The Design Process continued

Given the nature of the event, the lack of testing time

Detail joint/bracket/bearing/bolting design requires consideration to avoid obvious schoolboy errors,

As the LSD can be both expensive and heavy,

Chapter 7. The Design Process Part 3

Chapter 8. The Design Process Part 4

Construction Tips and Design for Manufacture

Marketing Attractions, Innovation or just Gimmick?

Chapter 9. The Assembly Process

Remember the old truism; actually there are two of them.

Why things fail when they shouldn’t

Why things feel bad

Whilst talking about rod ends, never present a car to the

Chapter 10. Car Setup

How to do these is explained after the list:

a. Check everything is tight.

Chapter 11. The KTM 390cc Engine

The 390 ‘Kato’ is a lightweight single cylinder, high performance

In standard condition, the KTM390 is in a very high state of tune, so

Exhaust System and Muffler

Before I Finish and Before You Drive the Car.

Every time: Yes every time, before the

And, after the car is driven, at the end of

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