Media Releases

U of T Formula SAE Racing unveils 2011 race car

April 26, 2011

TORONTO, ON – On April 28, 2011 at 6 p.m., the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to For­mu­la SAE Rac­ing team is reveal­ing to the pub­lic their great­ly antic­i­pat­ed 2011 com­pe­ti­tion vehi­cle, “UT11,” at the Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Build­ing.

Over the past nine months, a diverse group of tal­ent­ed U of T Engi­neer­ing stu­dents have been devot­ing their time to the real­iza­tion of this project. UT Rac­ing is one of 500 col­le­giate design teams to com­pete in the inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized For­mu­la SAE series, which tasks stu­dents to devel­op, man­u­fac­ture and race an open-wheel, open-cock­pit type com­bus­tion vehi­cle each year. With a 14-year team his­to­ry, includ­ing three world cham­pi­onship titles (2003, 2005, 2006), this unveil­ing mark the begin­ning of what is to be anoth­er for­mi­da­ble and reward­ing com­pe­ti­tion sea­son.

The design of UT11 was tar­get­ed at improv­ing in the areas of man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty and dri­vabil­i­ty. Vehi­cles in the For­mu­la SAE series must be stu­dent-dri­ven, there­fore dri­ver-skill devel­op­ment is essen­tial to achiev­ing high-vehi­cle per­for­mance.

By mak­ing design choic­es that enabled UT11 to be man­u­fac­tured with lit­tle com­plex­i­ty, the team was able to get the car on-track with ade­quate time to accom­mo­date dri­ver train­ing and vehi­cle test­ing. The most influ­en­tial design choice in this regard was the deci­sion to use a steel-tube chas­sis over the car­bon-fibre mono­coque design, as seen with UT10.

Anoth­er chal­lenge in the series is the lim­i­ta­tion on max­i­mum engine size a team may use, this restric­tion large­ly moti­vat­ed for safe­ty rea­sons. UT11 focused on devel­op­ment in aux­il­iary engine sys­tems, such as the intake and exhaust to increase pow­er. UT11’s stain­less steel-stepped exhaust head­er pro­vides a pow­er increase and broad­er torque curve. By widen­ing the rpm range of +80 per cent pow­er out­put, the stepped head­er design pro­vides a more for­giv­ing pow­er band suit­able for ama­teur dri­vers.

A win­ning vehi­cle begins with these two com­po­nents. At For­mu­la SAE com­pe­ti­tions, teams com­pet­i­tive­ly present their design inno­va­tions, cost analy­ses, mar­ket­ing plans and on-track per­for­mance which is then eval­u­at­ed by a jury of experts com­ing from the motor­sports, auto­mo­tive and sup­pli­er indus­tries.

There are nine com­pe­ti­tions world­wide, of which UT Rac­ing attends two: For­mu­la SAE East (FSAEM), held in May at the Michi­gan Inter­na­tion­al Speed­way, and For­mu­la Stu­dent Ger­many, (FSG) held in August at the Hock­en­heim­Ring. UT Rac­ing is one of only two Cana­di­an teams to ever com­pete at FSG. Each year the team com­petes, the rac­ing team con­tin­ues to rep­re­sent the high-cal­i­bre edu­ca­tion avail­able at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to.

UT11 Vehi­cle Spec­i­fi­ca­tions    
Top Speed 96 km/hr Wheel­base 66 inch­es
Accel­er­a­tion 0–60 mph in 3.5 sec­onds FR/RR Track 47/46 inch­es
Lat­er­al Accel­er­a­tion 1.3 G Frame Con­struc­tion Steel Tube Space­frame
Weight 373 lbs Mate­r­i­al 4130 Chro­Moly Steel
Engine Hon­da TRX450ER Tires 20.5x7-13 R25B Hoosier
Max Pow­er Design 47 HP (8000 rpm) Wheels 13” Braid Wheels
Max Pow­er Torque 30ft*lbs (6500 rpm) ECU Hal­tech PS1000
Fuel Type 93 Octane Data Acqui­si­tion Stack MFR Daq

 

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Aman­da San­tos
Team Man­ag­er 10’–11’
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to For­mu­la SAE Rac­ing
647–233-7333
amanda.santos@utoronto.ca
www.fsae.utoronto.ca