Thank you so much to JHA Environmental for the generous donation!
We had a great time at competition last spring and are looking forward to our next race. We just registered for the SAE Baja competition for May 2016 in Gorman, CA! We have a new team and will be building a new car from the ground up this year. Here are some pictures from last competition that never went up to get everyone excited again.
The website will be updated more frequently with our progress as the year goes. For now we are in the design phase and we plan to begin building in the Winter.
The website will be updated more frequently with our progress as the year goes. For now we are in the design phase and we plan to begin building in the Winter.
Spring Updates
We spent Fall quarter taking the car apart, cleaning everything up, and taking note of what we could fix and improve on. We learned the car inside and out and made a plan for the next few months. Winter quarter was spent designing and building new parts to exceed the conditions we will face in Oregon. We reused many parts on the car and had to completely redesign others.
The car after it was stripped down and ready for a new paint job.
A big thank you to Prestigious Auto Body and Paint for an awesome new paint job!
An element analysis of our new upright that connects the 3 link rear suspension. This part broke in the competition last year, so we have improved it to make sure it doesn't happen again.
The car is finally getting put back together! We're just waiting on a few important parts to get machined and we should be rolling in the next week or so.
New 2015 Team
We have a new team for the 2015 Oregon race! We are really
excited to be fixing up last year’s car and redesigning a large portion of the
car before the competition in May. We’ll keep everyone updated with our
progress as we get more done. Here is the car after we stripped almost
everything off the chassis. Next step is to sand and paint it while we design
some new parts for the front and rear suspension.
Finished Product + Testing Footage
The team has been doing some serious testing and tuning. Camber, castor, and toe have been nearly optimized and the shocks have been tuned to handle rough terrain. We did not receive our CVT tuning kit and we had to modify the parts included with the CVT. It is shifting decently but not as responsive as we would like.
Big, big thanks going out to Jeff and Virgil Elings for their support on the Baja project.
Here is a video with 3 more in the testing section below.
Assembly
Testing
These are a compilation of high speed videos we used to tune the suspension.
Big, big thanks going out to Jeff and Virgil Elings for their support on the Baja project.
Here is a video with 3 more in the testing section below.
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| FINALLY!!! |
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| Ahdi catching some air over some treacherous logs |
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| CVT Backing plate |
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| CVT cover and air circulation fan installed and ready to be plumbed |
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| One of Spencer's custom uprights machined by Andy Weinberg |
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| We achieved the steering Ackerman we were looking for after we added more caster. |
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| Tail light and reverse alarm up top with the engine kill switch to the right. |
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| 3-Link rear suspension |
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| Cockpit with dash board |
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| Installing braking system while modifying the upper shock mounts. Look at that 12 volt accessory outlet! |
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| Night driving is not a problem |
Testing
These are a compilation of high speed videos we used to tune the suspension.
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| Staggered Log Suspension Test |
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| Zach going over the staggered logs |
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| Terry too |
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| The CV boots always seemed really stressed out and one finally popped off. |
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| The remedy was to cut the small clip on the shaft and move the boot to the next recess. They work much better now. |
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| We went out for a full mock run on private property. The tools and spare parts are loaded in the trailer. |
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| The course took roughly 4'30" per lap. We went up the hill on the right, over a few ridges, dropped down an extremely steep incline to the valley, and returned on the lower road. |
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| Race trailer and tow rig |
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| Working in the race trailer. |
March - April Updates
Welcome to UCSB Racing's website. We compete June 4th-7th in Illinois and we are working overtime to get this finished for testing and tuning. This is a big update, so kick it into high gear and hold on.
Take a minute to watch the time lapse video of the fiberglass work.
Our goal when designing the rear suspension was to idealize camber and toe. This is very easy with A-arm/H-arm suspension systems but proved to be extremely challenging for a 3-Link semi-trailing arm suspension. We tuned the radius arm lengths and mounting positions for 20-30 hours using Solidworks. The ideal geometry must take camber, toe, track width change, and drive shaft plunge into account.
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| Does this spark your interest? Kyle is testing out his freshly welded swing-arms while Zach is welding on suspension mounting tabs. |
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| The chassis at 57 pounds with engine mount and no mounting tabs. |
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| A few additional members were added to support lateral suspension forces. The suspension mounting tabs are tacked in as well. |
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| Dean, Matt, and Tucker establishing the correct locations for seat belt mounts. |
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| Ahdi's laser cut steering rack mount. It fit beautifully. |
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| Steering column is supported by sealed bearings. |
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| Lower steering column and a peek at the brake system |
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| Transaxle shifter cable and mounting |
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| Custom shifter with authentic Paul Silva hand painted lettering |
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| Dean removing some material from the transaxle so it will fit in the frame |
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| Our brake is sourced from a Jeep wrangler and came in a plastic housing which wasn't necessary for our purposes. |
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| We weighed the housing and made some steel mounts that were much lighter and slimmer |
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| Zach getting creative with his welding positions |
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| Terry and Ahdi battling with the firewall |
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| The first piece of the body paneling and belly pan |
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| Tim is the head composite specialist. Here he is cutting the panels into separate pieces. |
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| Callie Barker is our head seamstress and is making the safety harness holes larger in our seat cover |
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| Here is the cover with a larger hole |
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| OH... and here is Ahdi testing out the cover at spring insight |
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| Tucker modeling for the nice people |
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| Wheel adapters to convert from the Gravely Trekker hub bolt pattern to a standard Polaris size |
Our goal when designing the rear suspension was to idealize camber and toe. This is very easy with A-arm/H-arm suspension systems but proved to be extremely challenging for a 3-Link semi-trailing arm suspension. We tuned the radius arm lengths and mounting positions for 20-30 hours using Solidworks. The ideal geometry must take camber, toe, track width change, and drive shaft plunge into account.
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| 3-Link swing arm rear suspension |
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| With a wheel in place (before we got the wheel adapters) |
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| Brake rotor mounting. The Gravely Trekker hub was drilled and tapped using a rotary table and the inside of the factory Polaris rotors had to be lathed outward a bit. |
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| Upper control arm caster adjustment spacers |
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| Gas pedal is mounted. The throttle cable and return spring rest between the two chassis tubes out of harms way. |
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| Throttle cable mount |
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| We need raised racing numbers and the carbon fiber should give us at least 5 more horsepower |
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| It gets really hard to keep track of things on a team of 10 |
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| Dean is on the job |