BIG Thanks

[geoffct]

Copied from: http://www.msefi.com/viewtopic.php?f=92&t=35431

On behalf of the University of Michigan - Dearborn, I would like to thank Bowling, Grippo and the whole MegaSquirt team for their support of our 2009 Formula SAE team. We finished the Michigan event in 9th place overall (our best ever) with a 6th place finish in the actual racing events . It was the highest place finish for a CVT equipped car and the highest finish that I am aware of for a MS controlled engine. We were competing with teams who's budgets were much higher, had more members, and weren't machining on a war surplus mill. (don't ask which war) Our sister school University of Michigan - Ann Arbor was running the exact model Bosch ECU run in Lemans cars. We finished higher in dynamic events, however their presentations and reports gave them a higher finish in the overall event. The cost of our vehicle was actually the lowest at the entire competition, due in part to the affordability of the MicroSquirt.

Without further ado, I will link some photos taken by a professional photographer. This will allow you to not only see our car but also our straight out of F1 competition. Just close the image and a gallery should show up.
http://bucchi.smugmug.com/gallery/82382 ... gBNM-XL-LB
http://bucchi.smugmug.com/gallery/82728 ... pMKZ-XL-LB
http://bucchi.smugmug.com/gallery/82603 ... KFyu-XL-LB

Also you might not have seen my comments or questions on the forums for the majority of the past year, that is simply because after the initial setup challenges last year, our MicroSquirt has been a turn key solution, and since our team is so small, my focus has been directed to the parts that actually required attention.

For a bit of background on the competition here is the official SAE press release which does not mention us by name, but does link to the points results.
http://www.sae.org/servlets/pressRoom?O ... SE_ID=1032

With such a successful finish we hope to add a whole host of new features to our car for next year and share some little projects we are worked on. (Including wireless telemetry which we tested over a 1/4mile range)

Thanks Again,
Geoff C. Turner
University of Michigan - Dearborn Formula SAE

[TheMonkey]

Geoff-

Congratulations.

Since cost seemed to be acknowledged in the competition, did other teams take an interest in Megasquirt? Were there any other MS cars?

What motor are you running? At first glance, the 3rd pic looks like the inside of your right/rear hub is not attached to anything, but then it looks like a clutch from a snow mobile engine.

[geoffct]

The engine is out of a Yamaha snowmobile. The competition limits us to 600cc and a 20mm restrictor in order to keep the speeds down. With the restrictor the max power is ~100hp, but we make a good bit less than that. We keep the weight to a minimum at 398lbs and the with the CVT off the snowmobile we make the most out of that power.

The competition does have a cost component, and there are a number of teams either interested in or running the megasquirts. There is however a new judge this year who is heavily arguing that all ecu's need datalogging. We're working on getting an external datalogger going, but I think a number of teams will be discouraged from the use of simple ecus by this judge's comments. We'll see. Our finish this year may change some minds.

Thanks,
Geoff