Looking to Join FF

[JCond]

Hi all,

I have been lurking around the site for a little bit of time and decided to make it official.

I graduated out of the FSAE program this past year believing I would enjoy the break from the fast pace seasons, but have already found myself looking to get back into the formula world.

The University I'm from has started to crack down on selling old cars due to legal liability concerns; so I have been seriously considering and researching joining the FF community instead. Since my new job will pretty much have me grounded close to home for about 90% of the next racing season I was planning on buying a car to go through over the winter and learn a bit more about. Then, rely on the local autocross weekends to become more familiar with the car and plan on looking at potential race license options the following year.

My main newbie question regarding the FF cars was that, knowing it can vary quite a bit, what are the typical maintenance costs that you may see over a couple seasons excluding engine and tires? That is, baring any sort of collision how often are you changing wheel or spherical bearings, CV joints, or other suspension or drivetrain wear components?

I am also interested in typical engine rebuild interval/cost/commitment, but I figured this would vary even more between years and models.

Thanks in advance for any help.
-John

[Will Velkoff]

Hey John,

You sound very much like myself a few years ago. I graduated Lafayette College with a BSME and ran the FSAE team when I was there.

I hopped into a Club Ford less than a year after graduation, with help from the many good people in the open wheel community.

To give you a quick run down of costs...

I bought my car for 10k. I already had a truck/trailer and a shop to store/work on the car, plus most of the tools I needed.

For a normal season, my budget for running the car (fuel, tires, consumables, transporting to/from the track, hotels, plus some maintenance/upgrades on the car), it's averaged out to about $4500 per season, running 4 regional weekends per year, with $0 crash damage. Also factored into account licensing costs and the cost of the safety gear (helmet, HANS, gloves, shoes, suit)- I keep a spreadsheet over virtually everything I spend.

My second year was an exception as I popped a motor and only ran two races that year, but my budget for the year was $8500 ($4000 spent on the new motor when it was all said and done, plus I did a complete frame off winter rebuild that year (did $500 in replacing all rod ends and hardware alone, plus bead seat, chassis bead blasting/paint, new bellypan, new bead seat etc...).

Motors should last 40 hours before needing a freshening. Running CF I've been able to only do one set of tires per season. I do all my own work on the car prepping and at the track. It's not easy, but very rewarding and it's been a blast. That's the only real way to keep the costs down.

Good luck and hope this helps.

-Will

[marshall9]

Get licensed by SCCA, NASA, PASA, or another sanctioning body, and I will let you try my FF for a free session during a Friday practice day, provided, you have the means to fulfill a signed financial responsibility form. That means, you over rev, or crash, you pay. Free means, just that, no fuel/tire/consumables, but you must demonstrate the ability to pay for the entire car if you wad it up, welcome to racing !

[TimH]

One of the guys in our EFF group has about 90 hours on an Ivey engine. Jay no longer builds for maximum power but his motors keep pulling for a long time if they're not abused.

As you've noticed, tire budgets can be huge or tolerable, depending on the group.

By running street radials and relatively unstressed drivelines our group has found fatigue failure to be only a small component of the total expense. Off-road racing, putting holes in radiators, bashing curbs, however...

[Roland V. Johnson]

Jay Ivey states the his engines are still built with max power as his goal. They just last longer because the parts he worked to develope and sells (pistons, heads, blocks, valves,springs etc) last a lot longer than they usd to. My customer's engines make more power now than ever before. We have never had anyone pull us down the straight with a legal engine on any horsepower track we have ever run. (draft and corner exit speed excluded) Jay doesn't do this site for many reasons. When he reads stuff like your statement, it gets his blood pressure up.

P.S. I'm sitting on the beach in Mexico with Jay!

[TimH]

Please relay my apology to Jay if he was in any way insulted. I am quite delighted with my motor. And I've had a little experience dodging pieces flying out of ones he didn't build.

[tstrong]

Roland/ Jay- both of you "bite me". I'm running around at work ( on my day off) with my hair on fire and trying to finish putting the Mk9 back together for CVR while you guys bask on the beach with cerveza and tequila. I'm jealous. See you in a couple weeks, Todd

[fitfan]

Thats ok Todd, i have a feeling there may be old beer bottles in my car by the time i see it at CVR...

[JCond]

Hey John,

You sound very much like myself a few years ago. I graduated Lafayette College with a BSME and ran the FSAE team when I was there.

I hopped into a Club Ford less than a year after graduation, with help from the many good people in the open wheel community.

To give you a quick run down of costs...

I bought my car for 10k. I already had a truck/trailer and a shop to store/work on the car, plus most of the tools I needed.

For a normal season, my budget for running the car (fuel, tires, consumables, transporting to/from the track, hotels, plus some maintenance/upgrades on the car), it's averaged out to about $4500 per season, running 4 regional weekends per year, with $0 crash damage. Also factored into account licensing costs and the cost of the safety gear (helmet, HANS, gloves, shoes, suit)- I keep a spreadsheet over virtually everything I spend.

My second year was an exception as I popped a motor and only ran two races that year, but my budget for the year was $8500 ($4000 spent on the new motor when it was all said and done, plus I did a complete frame off winter rebuild that year (did $500 in replacing all rod ends and hardware alone, plus bead seat, chassis bead blasting/paint, new bellypan, new bead seat etc...).

Motors should last 40 hours before needing a freshening. Running CF I've been able to only do one set of tires per season. I do all my own work on the car prepping and at the track. It's not easy, but very rewarding and it's been a blast. That's the only real way to keep the costs down.

Good luck and hope this helps.

-Will

Thanks for the info Will. It is greatly appreciated and good to see some FSAE people around the site. From FSAE I feel I have a pretty realistic idea for tire and other consumable costs.

For the upgrades/replacements you have done to your car how is part availability for the CFs and have you felt it was easier to fab any of your own parts?

Lastly, for prepping your car, what do you use to set all your suspension parameters? Did you have to buy or make a jig or laser alignment setup and do you focus time to maintaining/tuning corner weights?

Telling me to do more research is a perfectly acceptable response I am just trying to get a more realistic gauge for true entry level costs and requirements. Thanks again for the advice thus far.

[JCond]

Get licensed by SCCA, NASA, PASA, or another sanctioning body, and I will let you try my FF for a free session during a Friday practice day, provided, you have the means to fulfill a signed financial responsibility form. That means, you over rev, or crash, you pay. Free means, just that, no fuel/tire/consumables, but you must demonstrate the ability to pay for the entire car if you wad it up, welcome to racing !

That is an amazing offer and I may have to hold you to that. Once I get licensing lined out I will probably be in touch.

[marshall9]

That is an amazing offer and I may have to hold you to that. Once I get licensing lined out I will probably be in touch.

[2BWise]

Thanks for the info Will. It is greatly appreciated and good to see some FSAE people around the site. From FSAE I feel I have a pretty realistic idea for tire and other consumable costs.

For the upgrades/replacements you have done to your car how is part availability for the CFs and have you felt it was easier to fab any of your own parts?

Lastly, for prepping your car, what do you use to set all your suspension parameters? Did you have to buy or make a jig or laser alignment setup and do you focus time to maintaining/tuning corner weights?

Telling me to do more research is a perfectly acceptable response I am just trying to get a more realistic gauge for true entry level costs and requirements. Thanks again for the advice thus far.

The only downside with FSAE is the budget is wasn'town wallet now. I thought I understood the consumables cost but I way underestimated. Whatever your estimate is. Double it.

Depending on the part it can be very easy to fabricate a replacement, but it's also a lot easier to buy them. Since I moved away from the school I lost all access to the shop facilities and no longer had the resources to fab my own parts. Will you have access to fab equipment? If so, then replacement parts may be much easier to source since you could fab them.

I've had my car on a chassis plate to make sure it's straight, but otherwise I've done all the alignment and corner weights on pads in my garage.

FSAE was a good basic understanding of what it takes to run an open wheeler wheel-to-wheel, but at the same time it is a completely different venue. The biggest resource will be to learn from someone who is already doing it. Buddy up with someone in the paddock that can not only give you advice on the car, but also help you know when to start buttoning up the car and heading to grid. What needs to be looked at between sessions. Just to get a feel for how events run so that you have a good understanding of the flow of the weekend.

[Will Velkoff]

Thanks for the info Will. It is greatly appreciated and good to see some FSAE people around the site. From FSAE I feel I have a pretty realistic idea for tire and other consumable costs.

For the upgrades/replacements you have done to your car how is part availability for the CFs and have you felt it was easier to fab any of your own parts?

Lastly, for prepping your car, what do you use to set all your suspension parameters? Did you have to buy or make a jig or laser alignment setup and do you focus time to maintaining/tuning corner weights?

Telling me to do more research is a perfectly acceptable response I am just trying to get a more realistic gauge for true entry level costs and requirements. Thanks again for the advice thus far.

I have fabricated parts wherever I could. But some stuff like uprights, hubs etc. you need to purchase them. Depending on the type of car, there will usually be someone that is a good source for parts. In my case, for a Crossle, Neil Porter isa great source of information and parts, along with a few others.

For alignment, I bought 4 shipping scales, and shimmed them to level them out in my shop. From there, I've done my corner weights, ride heights, and caster/camber. I strung the car a ghetto way to get the toe dialed in-but this winter I'm making proper toe bars for the car. It's a bit of a pain not having an actual scale pad/platform, but I make due. I found a used data system for the car and set it up, it's just the basics, but a big help. I'd recommend that as a nice upgrade for a CF car, as most cars won't come with one.

[TimH]

I found a used data system for the car and set it up, it's just the basics, but a big help. I'd recommend that as a nice upgrade for a CF car, as most cars won't come with one.

It won't make the car faster, but will certainly in time make *you* faster.

[swiftdrivr]

When I started [very long ago], I went to the runoffs, took tires out of the dumpsters, and ran them all the next year. Wasn't fast, had no idea what it meant for a tire to "hook up," but had a lot of fun. Friends with talent and tools helped me set up the car. You can run really cheap if you realize that you don't have to be in front to learn or to have fun. Get a good, reliable, well maintained car, join your local SCCA, ask a lot of questions, and spend what you got. As you get further along, you will make more money, spend more money, and go faster, and you will have a blast the whole time. Open wheelers don't do well in contact, and so most of us have some courtesy and common sense/survival instinct. Hopefully, your crowd is a heads up group, and crash damage will be a rare event, as that does get expensive.

[jim murphy]

John,
Just so you are doing due diligence, have you looked into Formula 600? A whole lot cheaper and just as fast.

Jim