Formula SAE challenges University students around the world to design, build and compete with small formula-style racing cars.

From Valencia (Spain), Federik University (Cyprus), to Canterbury University (New Zealand), a wide variety of University teams choose Link Engine Management in their cars.

 

Being located just 10 minutes away from Link’s New Zealand Head Office, the University of Canterbury Motorsport (UCM) Team have been able to keep us well informed of their progress over the years.

UCM began a major project for the 2018 edition of Formula SAE, using a Triumph 675 engine in their custom car.

The car competed in the 2018 Formula SAE competition in Australia and was then parked up on display in the Engineering Department at UC, while the 2019 team focused on electric competition.

In 2020 however, the combustion engine came back out to play. This time at Leadfoot Festival in Hahei, New Zealand.

This awesome video shows more about the car at Leadfoot and some on-board footage.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, it was another successful experience for the team. Not only did the car perform well up the tight and twisty driveway, but its good looks captured the crowd’s attention too!

 

From it’s initial design, to the final stunning outcome, students aged 18 – 26 accomplished the entire project themselves.

This included the wiring and installation of the the Link Fury ECU along the way. The G4+ Fury completely controls the three cylinder engine and allows it to operate cohesively within the customized car.

The Fury features on-board digital wideband lambda control (along with a host of other features) making it a premium ECU for this kind of application.

 

 

The engine first burst to life July 2018, ahead of the competition in December the same year.

 

Following first start-up, the engine was tested extensively on the in-house dyno. All the features were set-up within the Link ECU and the tune was dialled in for reliability and also usability. SAE is not just about building a fast race car, but one that is agile, economic and can complete a wide variety of challenging exercises.

 

 

This left UCM Team with a few months to finish things to install the engine into the chassis and load up to be shipped to Australia.

Testing was undertaken at Rodin Cars Private track and the Wigram Airfeild. In fact, they took a trip back to Wigram before heading to Leadfoot 2020, check it out!

 

Well Done Team UCM. We are proud supporters of your efforts.

 

Link ECU are large supporters of Formula SAE teams, encouraging students who are avid learners, interested in Motorsport and keen to push boundaries in the automotive world.

 

“Formula SAE challenges students to conceive, design, fabricate, and compete with small formula-style racing cars. Teams spend 8-12 months designing, building, and preparing their vehicles for a competition. These cars are judged in a series of static and dynamic events, including technical inspection, cost, presentation, engineering design, solo performance trials and high performance endurance.” – https://www.fsaeonline.com/