FSAE cars eligible?

[racerjb]

Has anyone thought of the possibility of converting an Formula SAE car to a 1000cc and running in this class. Some of the cars are very trick. Although the short wheelbase being a problem for high speed tracks they may be perfect for tracks like Topeka since it is said to be a big go kart track. Also some of the cars look to have a lot of downforce and great suspension designs. Or another option is for the schools to build F1000 cars which could build interest in the class. The top colleges could design and build some seriously cool cars for this class.

-Jim

[Wren]

I don't know that i have ever seen an FSAE car that would pass the '86(or whatever) homologation rules. 1" .035 4130 is about as thick as anything there goes(except for the roll hoop, which still wouldn't pass). It's also rare to see one with the centerline of the wheels in front of the driver's feet.

I'd be hesitant to race one wheel to wheel, b/c you never know when one of those wheels is going to come flying off(not that it isn't impressive to see two wheels, complete with uprights go bouncing down the track). A 500 lb car is fairly heavy for FSAE, so everybody cuts corners to get as light as possible. The tech inspectors seem to want you to lie to them about safety items as well. consider that something like 1/2 of them can finish a 20km race.

As for getting them to convert a car to F1000, I think there are a lot of teams that could do a really good job with this, but why would they? There is a lot of prestige associated with winning or placing well in Detroit/California in front of all of the engineers from the big 3. I don't see an F1000 win being anywhere near the accomplishment. But, when I was at the University of Virginia, they had a legends car team instead of FSAE, so there is some chance you could get a group interested.

[HazelNut]

having driven Columbia's fsae car a few years ago I can comfortable say i'd have no urge whatsoever to put it on a track.

They are too short and stmpy and are when unrestrited are way overpowered. Hell i drove one with an cbr900 F3 (old, and not running too well as they hadn't gotten all the EFI conversion kinks worked out yet) engine and it was a major handful. Yes I'm sure part of the handling prblem were due to design and setup, but i couldn't ever see that thing being good enough to race. Aside from that god forbid you hit anything with it. You certainly woudn't want to go off the downhill at lime rock in something like that. They'd be mopping you up.....