Banging fenders on a short track at Wilkesboro, god, we’ve got expensive cars and it costs a lot of money to do that today. But it’s kind of like a pay back [to the fans]. And we got to always be thinking about what we’re giving back… and not what we’re taking all of the time. I don’t want to see us get into a situation where it’s take take take.
These words, spoken by the great Darrell Waltrip in 1996 regarding the demise of North Wilkesboro Speedway, is at the core of who we are at Formula Trinity. Or at least, in spirit; I don’t know if, in 2017, our founding members were oft reciting twenty year old quotes from retired Nascar drivers about a track that stopped being used, but I feel as if in their actions they reflected the thesis that Waltrip was driving at (pun intended). At Formula Trinity, we love to compete. Few things would make use happier than to raise up a great big trophy at the end of all this.
But that isn’t what this project is all for.
In 2017, our inaugural team started working on a Formula Student car not so they could beat everyone or score loads of victories, though I doubt they’d have minded if you’d asked them. Formula Trinity was then, and is now, a project to allow people to learn. It’s a project to allow students to take what they’ve learned to the next level, to apply the lessons they’ve received in the lecture hall in a practical context. Nothing, not even a class win, makes us happier than the knowledge that through our collaboration and our work, that we’ve helped a fellow teammate become more experienced, more qualified, and more capable than they’d otherwise have been.
In our time, we’ve accumulated huge amounts of knowledge. When the project started, no one knew anything about cars, and four years later we’re on the precipice of fabricating one wholesale. The team has built up an incredible institutional memory, and it is a testament to every member that has been a part of the journey.
But part of the journey is the ending, and as members from the team of ’17 began their final years, we became of the pressing need to not allow this accumulated knowledge to be lost. It was too valuable, it was essential to making sure the new generation would not repeat the mistakes of the past that the veterans left behind something for the newcomers. And so, we began the project to build department wikis to ensure the knowledge could be retained.
To date, it has been an incredible success, making the lessons we as a team have learned accessible to all members with a passion to learn. It has enabled us to bring our new members up to speed with unprecedented speed, and has meant that they can begin practically applying their skills sooner, giving them more time to build on this established body of knowledge, rather than trying to rediscover lessons that have been forgotten as members graduate.
Formula Trinity wants to give back to our members by giving them access to this font of knowledge and the tools to use it. But to return to the great Darrell Waltrip, we have been thinking more about how we can give back to the people who have supported us along the way.
This body of knowledge was not built in a vacuum; we only had the privilege of accessing the lessons learned by other teams, sometimes by word of mouth, sometimes by online musings. We stood on top of the shoulders of older teams to allow us to reach this stage, and I think Darrell would agree that it would be palpably unfair of us not to try and give something back to the community that has helped us along the way.
As such, it is my privelige to announce that, over the next few weeks, we will be making the wiki’s we use as common points of reference public.
A lot of the content will not be revolutionary. Some of it will seem obvious. All of it has been helpful. No matter what level you’re at, we want to make sure that what we have can be of assistance, whether you’re looking to take a Class 2 team to Class 1, or you’re starting your college’s first Formula Student team in the basement with a few of your mates.
All great things start somewhere. And if we can be part of helping you get there?
That’s just giving back. It’s what we do.
And so, here’s the first wiki, courtesy of suspension. Every week, we’ll post another one, with a story of how we learned along the way. We hope you find this useful.
This Wiki will cover:
1.Tyres
1.1 Slip angle
1.2 Slip Ratio
1.3 Traction circle
1.4 Radial vs Bias Ply
2.Some Vehicle Dynamics
2.1. Understeer and oversteer (U/S & O/S)
2.2. Unsprung and sprung mass
2.3. Vehicle axis system – SAE
2.4. Tire Axis System
2.5. Bump & Droop
3.Rules
3.1 Wheelbase (T2.3)
3.2 Vehicle track (T2.4)
3.3 Driver’s Leg Protection (T5.8)
3.4 Suspension (T6.1)
3.5 Wheels (T6.3)
3.6 Tires (T6.4)
3.7 Rollover stability (T6.7)
4.A – Geometry
Part 1 – Jargon and Concepts
4.1. Camber
4.2. Caster
4.3. King Pin Inclination & Scrub Radius
4.4 Toe4.5 Bump steer
4.6 Ackerman
4.7 Instantaneous Centre and Roll Centre
4.8 Anti Dive and anti squat
B – Geometry
Part 2 – Design and Optimization
4.9 Packaging
4.10 Line diagrams
4.11 Optimization
5.Suspension Types
5.1 Macpherson Strut
5.2 SLA suspensions
5.2.1 Push rod
5.2.2 Pull rod
5.2.3 Direct acting
6. Anti roll bars
6.1 Principles of Anti-roll bars
6.2 Adjustable Anti-roll bars
6.3 ARB Video
7.Springs
7.1 Spring rate
7.2 Motion ratio
7.3 Wheel rate
7.4 Ride rates
7.5 Coil over video
8. Dampers
8.1 Types of constructions
8.2 Damping ratio
8.3 High and low speed damping
8.4 Rebound vs bump damping
8.5 Tuning U/S O/S
9. A arms
9.1 Avoiding REIB
9.2 Buckling
9.3 Materials
9.4 Jigs
10.Uprights
10.1 Assembly overview
10.2 Forces
10.3 FEA model
