Sneak Look at Jay Novak's 600cc F500

[urbanimports02]

is that chassis 4130 or mild steel? what do you guys run for an axle? is it off the shelf, like for a kart? what size fuel cell do you plan to run with the 600? sorry for all the random questions, just find the idea intresting. jesse

[Jnovak]

The chassis is mild steel. You cannot get large section rectangular tube in 4130. The chassis design is like it is for several reasons:
1. Less expensive to build. This is super critical for a very low cost chassis in a low cost class.
2. It is VERY stiff for the method of construction. While not as light as a small tube structure it is quite stiff at 4500 ft-lbs / degree. Complete chassis weighs 90 lbs with every bracket etc. Maybe 10 lbs heavier than a small tube chassis.
3. Driver protection. This chassis will take a crash.
4. The axle is purpose built out of 4130 tubing, centerless ground. Similar in concept to a kart axle but designed for the specific application. Note that the axle has nuts on the end. This allows for a very rigid axle system as the nuts clamp everything together.
5. We will run the same cell as our F500 which is 5 gal. However the 600 will use less fuel for certain.

Thanks ... Jay Novak

[2BWise]

As someone who is looking to start racing on my own (5 yrs of FSAE at school) I'm very interesting in the progression of this class. As of now F500 is one of the classes I'm considering starting out in. One of the major cons is the fact it is a 2 stroke and has a CVT. If there was a F600 derivative my decision would probably have been made by now.

That being said I feel that many people are scared of the implications of a 600 without proper cause. 600s from the last 10 yrs are very stout, reliable, easy to maintain, and easy to find (and cheap). I've spent 5 yrs working strictly with 600s with a custom setup (including restrictor) and have realized that power out of these motors is already close to optimal from the factory. Most upper lever teams running naturally aspirated were in the same power range and close to the same acceleration figures. The major difference being the other design changes that are not available in F500 as its currently written.

I've been actively following your progress Jay, here and on eformulacanews, and am impressed with your resolve to see this project thru. What I didn't realize is that I'm actually pretty close to you (I'm in Novi) and would like to check out your progress and/or help out if you need an extra set of hands.

Bill

[Jnovak]

Thanks Bill, please contact me at my e-mail. jnovak@novaracecars.com

Jay Novak

[JerryH]

Jay, I spent quite a bit of time talking with you about this concept at the runoffs in 06.
I'm very pleased to see you've done your usual fine job - and that there is a real possibililty of this happening. I've long been a proponent of using 600's in either a ford or f500 chassis.

I like f1000 too, but was dissappointed with some things that will drive cost up - like dry sumps - thanks for understanding how to control cost.

I only have one question: with the rear sprocket located so far inboard from the control arms (as in the pictures in this thread) is axle flex under power going to be a problem? I would have assumed the sprocket would be closer to the control arms (made possible by the use of a jackshaft).

Thanks,

Jerry Hodges

[Jnovak]

Jerry, we have 2 different axles to use for testing. The one in the pic is 40mm with about .25" wall. The other is 50mm. I am certain that the 50mm will do the job if the 40 is not adequate.

Thanks ... Jay

[Mike B]

I like f1000 too, but was dissappointed with some things that will drive cost up - like dry sumps - thanks for understanding how to control cost.

FB rules do not require a dry sump. However, reality of the operating conditions may make it a requirement. I would've hated to be the one to write a rule package that outlaws them only to find out that they're needed to make the engines live longer (aka "cost reduction.") Time will tell if they're needed in F600.

By the way, great work, Jay. You may have a winner on your hands.

[Purple Frog]

I also am concerned a bit by outlawing dry sumps. The FST guys are moving to them rapidly to protect their engines. If there was a rule against it, FST would suffer. Instead it is a growing class.

Pennies saved, pounds wasted?

[RussMcB]

Admittedly, the initial cost of a dry sump can be painful. I think my dry sump pan and pump were $1,800, oil tank was $300. My system (from Larry Kropp) retains the stock water pump, so I did not need a new electric water pump.

If you go wet sump you still need a special windage/baffle tray, right? I'm not sure how much they cost. Both wet & dry systems need an oil cooler and some plumbing, but the dry sump's plumbing lines may cost a little bit more.

Even though I believe a wet sump can be fine, I like the advantages of a dry sump. The main oil pump will never suck air. The oil is easier to cool, easier to keep air bubbles out of the oil and you can run more oil.

A dry sump system will add a little more weight and complexity to the car.

There's no real performance advantage, so maybe the F600 rules don't need to prevent dry sumps. If someone wants a dry sump rather than spending the money on tires or entry fees, why not?

[Bill Bonow]

Banning dry sump is the only thing that you may wish to revisit. In FST we now allow them (wet or dry, your choice) after seeing about a 5% oil related failure rate before we allowed dry sump. Might not seem like much, but when your trying to get a class/concept going, your heavy under the magnafying glass and any trouble is no good. Some FST guys had no trouble with wet sump while others did. Once we allowed dry sump, we have 0% oil related failures. I have no knowledge about MC oiling system other than the F1000 and DSR wet sump boys are very picky about setting oil level at just the right spot. The 600 cc MC engine may be just fine in wet sump configuration. I'm just suggesting to keep the option open.

[Jnovak]

Well gents, you may be right. We will test my car with a very well designed wet sump. If we have any problems at all we can revisit this issue.

Thanks for the advice & I will definately look into the cost.

Thanks ... Jay Novak

[kmt63]

i too would like to see the dry sump be an option.i have a lot of time testing dsr engines.we where using wet sumps until the car was getting much faster through the corners and we had low oil spikes in some corners.then motors where blowing up left and right.we tried running very high oil levels witch killed hp.then a recerculating oil tank that would return back to the pan.worked at some tracks.but lost another motor at a track that has a high g left hand turn.all the oil goes into the clutch area and above out the breather and there goes your motor.the thinking with the f600 is that it would not pull that kind of g loads.im looking into building a f600 and just dont want to revisit this low oil preshure problem again.no fun at all.we will see how jays car does soon enough.i do hope the wet sump works just fine.but if not the dry sump is very good piece of mind if the wet sump is very marginal.

[problemchild]

Having lived through the FST civil war over dry sumps, I would suggest that you guys give Jay the opportunity to make it work.

From a technical viewpoint, comparing FST to F600 is comparing apples to oranges. A FST engine is a racebuilt engine that makes about double what it made in stock form using much more rpm than Dr Porsche ever dreamed about. We have air cooling and an oil system that was designed in the 1930s. Engines are built by bolting together a combination of German, Brazilian, Mexican and of course "Chinese" aftermarket parts. After 45 years of FV engine building and a decade of FST engine buiding, we have determined what parts are mostly up to the task. My 2 engines have done more than 30 events (23 wet sump) with no DNFs. You can dry-sump the engine for about $500 which is adding about 12-15% to the value of the engine or 2-3% to the value of a new car. Fitting the dry-sump components within the car is the biggest challenge.

The modern MC engine is a completely different situation. In F600, it will be used in close-to-stock form at appropriate rpm levels. Presumably, the low-milage salvage engine is going to be much of the supply. As I understand it, it will cost $2K to properly dry-sump the engine. Does that mean the dry sump system is worth double the value of the engine? The same? Either way .... It will add $2K to the cost of the car. It will add $2K (double?) to the cost of converting a F500 to F600.

It was very difficult to do wet-sump development on the FST engine. There is no pan to remove so the entire engine needs to be dis-assembled. It is expensive and time-consuming. The people with problems wanted an immediate fix .... which is understandable. As a result, there was absolutely no effort made to identify why some people had no trouble and others had constant trouble. The dry-sump solution was adopted and became the standard for FST in 2008. For many ..... it was salvation. For others, like myself, it was a complete waste of time and money. With a 3-5% hp gain it was necassary to remain competitive.

There is no doubt in my mind, that had we had an engineer of Jay's ability spend a day working on making wet sump FST engines work, that the technical problems would have been resolved. Considering that he seems to be entrusted with making the rest of the F600 package work, why not give him a chance to make it all work.

I think that if all that nasty "regular world" stuff can sort itself out, the next few years look really good for people being able to get into formula cars that are affordable to buy and then to operate. Nice work Jay!

[RussMcB]

I can identify with your points made about the cost of ancillaries compared to the costs of engines themselves. It seemed very wrong to me that my engines cost under $1,500 (with all their parts and complexity), and then you've got people spending $3,000 or more on differentials, $2,000 on dry sump systems.. Just didn't seem right.

Back when I was first looked into motorcycle engine powered formula cars, a primary thought was that motorcycle engines (in their original bike location) are always leaning in corners to keep the oil in a predictable place. In our cars, especially developing high side loads, the oil control is very different. That was the reason why I thought dry sumps were a must. I've since softened on that opinion.

[problemchild]

Russ,

I am certainly not against dry sumps if required. I know that we had to go dry sump in FST because of the perception of 80% of our people who wanted an immediate fix to a problem. The technical arguments did not support the solution offered. We all make choices about the technical people that we will trust and this was the course taken by our group. One year later and I believe that most are happy with that decision.

With Jay engineering and Brian driving, this F600 car will be up to speed and technical info will soon be available. IMO, there is no need to poisen the water with speculation, no matter how well-meaning.

Keeping costs down is so critical to the potential success of a class. Several percent in several places is thousands of dollars. Dry sumps could be as much as 10% of the car's cost. That is huge!




BTW, what is the target price range for a complete car or F500 conversion.

[Jnovak]

Thanks for the support PC. I want to try the wet sump solution to reduce cost & complexity. Your analysis of the costs is spot on & a dry sump wpuld cost a minimum of 10% of the cost of a new car & about 40% the cost of a conversion.

Our goal with this project is to make a functional & fast, LOW COST FORMULA CAR. If we can make these cars as fast as the best F500s for essentially the same cost as a Rotax powered car we will have achieved our goal. I am very confident we can do this.

Current F500 chassis kits (for Rotax) start at about $12K, rollers are about $15K, complete cars with Rotax are $20K to $22K. I see no reason for the 600cc engine combination to increase the cost of the cars.

I want to see guys moving from Karting & other higher cost formula cars to this class. If it works this class could be very big.

[jim murphy]

As I posted Clint McMahan's comments over on eformulacarnew.com forum, Clint talked with Adam Malley, DSR builder, and he has no problems with a baffled oil pan in his DSR's.

Jim

[2BWise]

There is absolutely no reason why a well designed pan and baffle won't work as well as be relatively inexpensive. The addition of an accusump can supplement as well. Regular rod bearing inspection and replacement (about 5 events) will give you the peace of mind that a wet sumped motor will survive.

I've seen several 600s fail due to starvation, but have also worked to clear the oiling issue. With the above steps taken motors lasted longer and were less likely to catastrophically end their lives. It must be noted though that junkyard motors will need inspected. Not all bikes have the tip sensor and with fuel injection will continue to run after being laid over. All these motors should be inspected for signs of oil starvation upon purchase.

[Jnovak]

Here is a picture of the 2 piece oil pan & the pickup. The oil pan is 2.3" deep & will hold 4.5 quarts to the center of the sight glass. There are also 2 very small baffles that fit above the pan inside the case.

I am quite sure this will work as it is very similar to many wet sump pans I have built in the past with great sucess.

This is the 1st cut at doing this pan & we have since figured out how to reduce the cost by about 50%. This one will be fine for testing though before we start making others.

[Purple Frog]

That's a great approach. I want the idea to be successful. And without too many years of testing. The oldest grandson is already 10.

I always thought that all the designers of motorcycle engined cars needed to do was figure out a way to lean the engine in the turns, just like on a bike.

A picture of my prototype in testing:

[Jnovak]

Hey PF, I love the camber gain. GREAT GRIP but no tire life but what a qualifier.

PS: we willl for sure be ready for your grandsone by the time he is 12!

Thanks ... Jay

[stonebridge20]

[

quote=Jnovak;194092]Here is a picture of the 2 piece oil pan & the pickup. The oil pan is 2.3" deep & will hold 4.5 quarts to the center of the sight glass. There are also 2 very small baffles that fit above the pan inside the case.

I am quite sure this will work as it is very similar to many wet sump pans I have built in the past with great sucess.

This is the 1st cut at doing this pan & we have since figured out how to reduce the cost by about 50%. This one will be fine for testing though before we start making others.

[/quote]


Jay, You should talk to George Dean about the articulating pickup he uses. We use it on two of my customer CSR's with ZX12 (George Dean) engines. 3 years and zero oiling issues.


Mike

.

[Jnovak]

Just a new heads up. We are building the new Blade with this chassis under the Blade body. The best of both worlds!

Room for the big guys up to 6'5" and 250 lbs.

[TDI PILOT]

Jay,

Lets see some drawings of the new Blade!

[lowside67]

Jay - can you provide the wheelbase and track width for the blade? (Wondering for autocross use).

Thanks

[Jnovak]

Jay,

Lets see some drawings of the new Blade!

see your email in an hour or so

[aims20]

see your email in an hour or so

Hey Jay. Hobbyist racecar designer here. Are the drawings still available? Send me a PM?

Hope all is well.

[Jnovak]

We are starting the build of the new design of the Rakavon Chassis that fits within the Blade body within 2 or 3 weeks. This will result IMO in an F600 with the handling of the Rak chassis along with the great aero of the Blade.

We have also been working very hard on lowering the cost of building the car and we have created many lower cost manufacturing solutions. Hopfully we will do a show and tell this year.

PS. I am no longer building or assembling cars myself anymore as i am now an official old fart.

Perhaps i will post some roller pictures in a month or 2

[lowside67]

We are starting the build of the new design of the Rakavon Chassis that fits within the Blade body within 2 or 3 weeks. This will result IMO in an F600 with the handling of the Rak chassis along with the great aero of the Blade.

We have also been working very hard on lowering the cost of building the car and we have created many lower cost manufacturing solutions. Hopfully we will do a show and tell this year.

PS. I am no longer building or assembling cars myself anymore as i am now an official old fart.
Perhaps i will post some roller pictures in a month or 2

Who is building them now and how can they be contacted?

Thank you,
Mark

[Jnovak]

Who is building them now and how can they be contacted?

Thank you,
Mark

soon, he is not ready to announce.

[GBugg]

Will the new Blade bodywork fit the original Rakavon chassis?

....asking for a friend.

[Jnovak]

Will the new Blade bodywork fit the original Rakavon chassis?

....asking for a friend.

no the original RAK chassis (like yours) will not fit within the Blade body. There were only 3 RAK chassis built and each one has won the Runoffs!

[Jnovak]

Meeting tomorrow with the new builder. Our goal is lowered cost performance..

The next gen Blade ha a very slightly designed Rakavon chassis that fits within the Blade body.

Hopefully we will do a 5 car build.. the best of both worlds.

Rakavon room and simplicity along with the lowest drag body in the class

We built 3 rakavon cars and each one has won the Runoffs

The Blade 1 car also won the Runoffs at Daytona with a top speed of 149.989 mph thru the Daytona speed trap and 150.5 mph on the data system!

Hope that I know more tomorrow!

Jay

[E1pix]

Looking forward to seeing what you've done.

[John R]

Jay,

Any updates that can be shared at this time?

John

[Jnovak]

Gee Stan,can I run in 2 groups and get twice the track time?

Not easy but it has been done.

[Jnovak]

Jay,

Any updates that can be shared at this time?

John

Info soon.