Originally, we had planned on keeping this build quiet, with intentions to reveal the car in October. More recently, however, we decided it's in our best interest as a undergraduate program to publicize what we're doing to increase the legitimacy of our program both in the eyes of potential sponsors and potential employers (which is the root of all we do, as students).
Our 2010 season began on the drive home from the 2009 Challenge. Over our two-way radios, we began debating what we should bring the following year. The first two things the entire team agreed upon were no Miata, and no Civic. We'd already done one, and EVERYONE had done the other. We bounced around ideas from motorcycle-powered MGs to big-block powered Volvos.
Weeks later, we sat down ready to make a decision. Being engineers, we laid out a list of criteria our ideal platform must have. Ready supply of aftermarket parts, proper suspension architecture, rear-wheel drive, and light weight. We agreed upon those criteria, thought for a minute and just looked at each other. "We're doing a Miata, aren't we?" The answer once again was Miata.
If we were going to do a Miata, we were going to do something that hadn't been done before. We considered our chassis and powertrain selection processes as two independant areas, within reason. We bounced around a few ideas, and settled on the VG30E out of the normally-aspirated 83-89 300ZX. We selected this engine for its high availability at low cost, stout bottom end, rear-sump design, easily modifiable ECU, and affinity for forced induction.
No proper Miata would be complete without forced induction, so we turned to Craigslist. We found a (very) used Turbonetics T3/T04E 60-trim that had more shaft play than we would be comfortable with, but on a $2010 budget, concessions have to be made, so we crossed our fingers and bought it.
I recently "built" us a new website on an official server, and it's leaps and bounds beyond our old site. We've also got our build of our 2009 car posted, and will have information on our Formula Hybrid cars shortly. The website is saeintl.tamu.edu (sae.tamu.edu was taken). The Miata bulid page is still a few workdays behind current, as it's finals time here, but it should give you a good idea of what we're planning on bringing to the table in October. We're going to try and be as transparent and professional as possible with this, so ask away.
Here's a teaser shot of a month or two ago, we've since gotten all the mounts fabricated. Surprisingly, the only modifications to the car were adding two hardpoints for the transmission to mount to. The subframes had to be modified for the engine mounts and the front mount for the differential, but other than that everything's playing along rather nicely.
