The automotive industry is an extremely competitive business. It is not only about finding the correct setup, it is also about understanding why a setup change is working or not working, and knowing how to quantify this advantage. It is about understanding how, why and how much certain factors affect vehicle behavior, rather than relying on experience and intuition. Perhaps most importantly, it is about knowing how to reduce the time and money spent on the track to find the best setup.

Learn how to:

• make the most of your data
• be a more efficient trouble shooter
• relate driver feedback to logged data
• improve driver and chassis performance
• increase your understanding of tires, springs,anti-roll bars, dampers, weight transfer,aerodynamics,over/understeer, roll centers and much more
• use data acquisition to understand, analyze, predict and improve car handling

The seminar is presented with more than 500 animated color slides and films. Many examples of vehicle setup and practical experience are shown, both successful and unsuccessful.

All examples are displayed using the MoTeC Interpreter 2 software, however all performance data, car and driver style analysis and math functions are adaptable in any data acquisition software.

Who Should Attend

• vehicle engineers and vehicle design engineers
• data acquisition technicians
• racecar components fabricators
• high performance vehicle technicians
• racecar component specialists
• team owners and team managers
• technical managers for race teams and car manufacturers
• students in Formula SAE/Student programs
• automotive specialists in aerodynamics, simulation, finite element analysis, electronics etc.
• drivers and team managers who want to communicate more effectively with their engineers
• data acquisition specialists, race engineers, crew chiefs, chief mechanics who want to upgrade their skills
• personnel involved in carrying out vehicle dynamics analysis and development of high performance vehicles

Topics

Tires The only elements of your race car in contact with the ground, understand why and how much the grip, balance and performance of a car is decided by the contact patch forces and deflections. We will also cover tire testing, analysis and how to use tire data in race car design and setup.

Aerodynamics After a review of aerodynamics basics, we’ll focuse on the understanding of aero-maps, wings, gurney flaps, static and dynamic ride height settings, and how to integrate them into the design of a suspension.

Kinematics See why poorly designed kinematics cannot be “patched” by springs, antiroll bars and shocks. And why, from the design to on-track testing and racing, understanding the effects of kinematics is essential to the efficient use of race tires. We’ll also explain the essential differences between kinematic and force roll centers, as well as kinematic and force pitch centers.

Steady state weight transfer Understand, step-by-step, the weight transfer calculation in steady state. See the influence of springs and anti-roll bars on weight transfer distribution, as well as the influence of tire vertical stiffness and chassis torsional stiffness. You will get a guided exercise on weight transfer calculations under combined lateral and longitudinal accelerations.

Shocks, ride and transient weight transfers After a brief description of damper technology, we will focus on the damper settings’ influence on tire load, tire load consistency and racecar performance. A guided exercise related to spring and damping calculations, as well as selection and fine-tuning of these suspension elements will help you to considerably diminish the amount of time spent in testing and improve your understanding of simple simulation tools.

Data acquisition Hear both technical and practical aspects of data acquisition used to develop racecar and race driver performance. This knowledge will help you to appreciate the challenges and the satisfactions you face with data acquisition system understanding, choice, installation and calibration, as well as efficient data analysis. We will focus on mathematical data analysis and its direct application to race driver performance, and racecar tire performance and endurance evaluation.

Car design, tuning modification and chassis setup Young and experienced racecar engineers alike have gotten new ideas, new engineering principles and new perspectives related to car design and testing due to this seminar. You will receive practical information and perspectives on in-shop and on-track car setup. Our “tips and tricks” focus on engineering and constitute a practical application of vehicle dynamics knowledge.

More Information

For more information about our seminars, please contact us at engineering@optimumg.com