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Formula SAE - Where the rubber meets the road!

Southern Illinois University - Carbondale Saluki Racing

The smell of gasoline and rubber, and the roar of single and four-cylinder engines are prevalent

in the air of Lincoln, Nebraska as 80 Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) teams from universities around the world put their cars through a series of tests, which push the cars’ design to its performance limits. One such team competing at this annual summer event was Saluki Racing from Southern Illinois University (SIU) – Carbondale.

Formula SAE is an internationally renowned engineering and design competition involving student-led teams that build and race formula cars. These cars are similar to Formula One race cars, where all vehicles comply with a set of rules and are similar in design as they have a single seat, open wheels, an open cockpit and an engine mounted behind the driver. Designing and constructing a fully working performance car is no easy task; requiring engineering students of all levels to apply their technical knowledge and engineering

backgrounds to create a competition-worthy machine with the best overall package of design, construction, performance and cost.

The Saluki Racing team is made up of 20 of Southern Illinois’ top undergraduate students who are majoring in such programs as Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, along with students from the Automotive, Industrial, Aviation Technology and Business programs. Throughout the process of producing their competition car, students in the program learn many valuable skills that most college courses simply cannot teach, such as leadership, accountability, machining, marketing and teamwork.

The 2016 competition mandated electrical, mechanical and environmental requirements for the teams. The car would be running at temperatures near 212°F and cooled with distilled water. It needed to be waterproof in order to properly run in the rain, and all electrical power needed to run through two master switches and the appropriately rated wires/relays/fuses, etc. Finally, the engine and intake sizes were restricted to limit power.

With these requirements in mind, Saluki Racing approached HELUKABEL USA about the cabling and accessory options necessary to construct the wiring harness used to control their car. After exploring a few cabling and accessory options, Saluki Racing selected various sizes/colors of FIVENORM, which are multi-approval, single conductor hook up wires that are UL AWM rated to withstand temperatures up to 221°F and are VW-1 and FT1 flame tested. To enhance the high-temperature resistance of the wires mounted near the engine, Saluki Racing also chose to use HGP braided hose which can protect internal components from temperatures up to 302°F, and in temporary instances up to 428°F. They also selected SK heat-shrink hose, which further increases the temperature resistance of the wires and other components enclosed to 230°F.

After 12 months of designing, machining, constructing, and testing, the Saluki Racing team was finally ready to compete.

Like all Formula SAE races, the Lincoln competition involves various dynamic and static events that are all taken into account when choosing the winning team. Dynamic events include: an endurance and autocross

race, and testing of fuel efficiency, acceleration and the skid-pad. These events are used to judge a car’s on-track performance. Static events include: a design review of the car, cost analysis, and a business presentation to manufacturers. These events are

judged by experts from the motorsport, automotive, aerospace and supplier industries. Each event has a unique score ranging from 50 – 300 points. The goal is to score as many points as possible, with a maximum score of 1,000 points.

After watching other teams compete and knowing how their car would perform, the Saluki team was aiming to finish between 10th and 20th place. They were well on their way to achieving that goal especially after a fourth-place finish in one event. However, during the endurance race, the Saluki Racing team’s car began to leak water which ended their trial, causing them to lose many valuable points. The team still managed to finish in the top half of all the teams competing with a 39th-place finish!

“As a low budget team, we rely on sponsors to donate materials and parts for the construction of our formula car. We would like to thank HELUKABEL for all of the help we received,” said Saluki Racing’s Electrical Team Lead Nathan Brady, a senior studying Automotive Technology and Electrical Engineering. “Everything exceeded expectations allowing us to compete in a great competition!”

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HGP braided hose

FIVENORM hook-up wire

SK heat shrink

What Team Saluki Used

The Build

The Team

The Competition