Engineering Data for Dirt Bikes?

10/23/2015 6:49am

Two comments:

1) We (Cobra) always work with aftermarket companies to supply them digital data...That ensures better fitting parts, and it reduces the cost and time to market for whatever product is being developed.

2) If you're looking for incredible hands-on experience, I strongly suggest FSAE (Formula SAE). Granted, it's not two wheels, but you'll be immersed in real-world race engineering, project management, and fabrication. Do it if you have the opportunity. FSAE pulls together theory and practice at a hyperdrive pace.
mxtech1
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10/23/2015 7:18am
JM485 wrote:
Wow, this is a really awesome thread! I have a question for those who have been through an engineering program though. I'm currently in my third...
Wow, this is a really awesome thread! I have a question for those who have been through an engineering program though. I'm currently in my third year working toward a ME degree in the UC system, and I'm getting a little bit concerned about getting any hands on experience at this point. It seems like all we do is a bunch of book problems that are not realistic to what we will see once we graduate. The only hands on experience I have (other than some simple garage fabrication when I was growing up) is a machining course, but that only taught us a limited amount. My question to you guys is did you get a lot of hands on experience during college, or did it all pretty much come after you graduated or through your own means? I just don't want to be one of those guys who graduates and has no idea what they are doing other than a bunch of theoretical book work. I think I'm on the right track since I know a lot mechanically and understand how machines work, but I'm a lot more interested in physically doing things than solving meaningless book problems and it seems like that is what is in store for the future. Should I, at this point, be creating my own projects and machining them in order to gain some real experience, or is that something that comes later on? I'm sorry for the long and somewhat jumbled post, I've just been thinking lately that there is so little emphasis on how to actually apply what we have learned that it's starting to worry me a bit, and I'm curious if it was the same way for you guys.
I think you are absolutely right being concerned about not having physical experience. First, I would talk to your college and find out how you can land an internship. Internships are extremely valuable and look great on a resume.

If you can't get an internship, your next best bet would be to start hitting up all of the local fab/manufacturing shops near your school. Let them know your situation and you want hands-on experience. Be open to anything they have. At this point, you would benefit just as much from being a shop employee than a office engineer. Ask them if they have any part-time employment positions that would allow you to work 20 hours a week and then school the rest. Something like that. Anything from a machinist, welder, assembler, laser/punch/press brake operator in the shop will go miles to help you understand how product is actually built, not just designed.

Don't call. Go in. Talk to the owners/managers. Have your resume on hand and be ready for an on-the-spot interview. Let them know you are flexible and willing to learn. Be assertive and confident and make it clear you are serious about your work and learning.

You will quickly learn that book work only takes you so far. In my opinion, any engineering degree is only good enough for you to get your foot in the door somewhere. Your real engineering education will start once you actually get into Industry.
Andrew337
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10/23/2015 9:17am Edited Date/Time 10/23/2015 9:21am
JM485 wrote:
Wow, this is a really awesome thread! I have a question for those who have been through an engineering program though. I'm currently in my third...
Wow, this is a really awesome thread! I have a question for those who have been through an engineering program though. I'm currently in my third year working toward a ME degree in the UC system, and I'm getting a little bit concerned about getting any hands on experience at this point. It seems like all we do is a bunch of book problems that are not realistic to what we will see once we graduate. The only hands on experience I have (other than some simple garage fabrication when I was growing up) is a machining course, but that only taught us a limited amount. My question to you guys is did you get a lot of hands on experience during college, or did it all pretty much come after you graduated or through your own means? I just don't want to be one of those guys who graduates and has no idea what they are doing other than a bunch of theoretical book work. I think I'm on the right track since I know a lot mechanically and understand how machines work, but I'm a lot more interested in physically doing things than solving meaningless book problems and it seems like that is what is in store for the future. Should I, at this point, be creating my own projects and machining them in order to gain some real experience, or is that something that comes later on? I'm sorry for the long and somewhat jumbled post, I've just been thinking lately that there is so little emphasis on how to actually apply what we have learned that it's starting to worry me a bit, and I'm curious if it was the same way for you guys.
I graduated with a BSME almost a year ago. Nearly all of my hands-on experience came from motorsports, and was all made possible by our university's Formula SAE team. I joined the team as a freshman, put in late nights and long hours learning the different aspects of fabricating a racecar. After a year or so I held a design role on the team, while still improving my fabrication skills. This got me a part time job as a fabricator in a racecar chassis shop, building mostly drag cars but a little bit of everything. I really honed my fabrication skills there for over two years and learned to quickly come up with a design for some component and fabricate it from start to finish. Meanwhile I was still heavily involved in the design and management processes of the Formula SAE cars at school. In my last semester I took an internship at a company outside of the motorsports world I had previously lived in, and hired on full time when I graduated. It has still been a steep learning curve, as we are a small company that is growing, but my fabrication and design experience have allowed me to keep up when I'm tossed straight into the fire on new projects.

The best advice I can give is to find a student design competition to participate in and commit yourself to it, this really opens the door to internships and other experiences. I'm an introvert and not very good at networking, so being part of a successful Formula SAE team really helped me get some great opportunities.
JM485
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10/23/2015 4:00pm
Thanks for all the info guys, much appreciated. My school has a formula SAE team and I looked into joining as a freshman, but a few things kind of put me off of it. I didn't want to sacrifice riding on weekends to work on the club project, and I also wasn't into the fact that it was going all electric and focusing on efficiency rather than outright performance. I know that in the grand scheme of things that doesn't seem like a big deal, but riding is a huge part of my life and I just wasn't willing to give that up. I'll have to look into machine shops in my area to intern at in the summer time, in the mean time I might push forward a bit on my linkage arm design and try to make a physical part for me to test on my own bike. I've had it drawn up on CAD for a while now, I just have to make it happen. Again, thanks for the info guys and for confirming what I was thinking, it seems crazy that so little emphasis is put on real world skills now adays.

The Shop

philG
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10/23/2015 4:28pm
we sold some ready to go motors to Formula SAE teams. with ECU and everything , they spent months trying to get the motors running with a Motec system, rather than developing what we had sent them .

Some teams didnt even get them running till they gave up on their own stuff.

i was told some wise words , many years ago.. design is making stuff that works , development it making it work perfectly.... it isnt about designing stuff that doesnt work , and developing it until it does.
motokiwi
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Fantasy
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10/23/2015 4:56pm
JM485 wrote:
Thanks for all the info guys, much appreciated. My school has a formula SAE team and I looked into joining as a freshman, but a few...
Thanks for all the info guys, much appreciated. My school has a formula SAE team and I looked into joining as a freshman, but a few things kind of put me off of it. I didn't want to sacrifice riding on weekends to work on the club project, and I also wasn't into the fact that it was going all electric and focusing on efficiency rather than outright performance. I know that in the grand scheme of things that doesn't seem like a big deal, but riding is a huge part of my life and I just wasn't willing to give that up. I'll have to look into machine shops in my area to intern at in the summer time, in the mean time I might push forward a bit on my linkage arm design and try to make a physical part for me to test on my own bike. I've had it drawn up on CAD for a while now, I just have to make it happen. Again, thanks for the info guys and for confirming what I was thinking, it seems crazy that so little emphasis is put on real world skills now adays.
Option C: Find a way to do both mx and formula SAE
dmm698
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10/23/2015 5:01pm Edited Date/Time 10/23/2015 5:08pm
JM485 wrote:
Wow, this is a really awesome thread! I have a question for those who have been through an engineering program though. I'm currently in my third...
Wow, this is a really awesome thread! I have a question for those who have been through an engineering program though. I'm currently in my third year working toward a ME degree in the UC system, and I'm getting a little bit concerned about getting any hands on experience at this point. It seems like all we do is a bunch of book problems that are not realistic to what we will see once we graduate. The only hands on experience I have (other than some simple garage fabrication when I was growing up) is a machining course, but that only taught us a limited amount. My question to you guys is did you get a lot of hands on experience during college, or did it all pretty much come after you graduated or through your own means? I just don't want to be one of those guys who graduates and has no idea what they are doing other than a bunch of theoretical book work. I think I'm on the right track since I know a lot mechanically and understand how machines work, but I'm a lot more interested in physically doing things than solving meaningless book problems and it seems like that is what is in store for the future. Should I, at this point, be creating my own projects and machining them in order to gain some real experience, or is that something that comes later on? I'm sorry for the long and somewhat jumbled post, I've just been thinking lately that there is so little emphasis on how to actually apply what we have learned that it's starting to worry me a bit, and I'm curious if it was the same way for you guys.
I graduated with my BS in mechanical engineer about a year and a half ago. I work for a large supplier in the automotive industry as a test engineer. I feel it's the perfect position for using my degree but also getting to be hands on.

I carried a very large role on an SAE team in college, implemented a standalone ecu from scratch that ran a turbo skidoo on alternative fuel (all your northerns like me appreciate winter toys). This without a doubt helped me get to where I am today. Regardless of if your school offers any SAE programs or not, try and land an internship or co-op in the type of field you think you want to end up in. Even if you end up disliking it, that experience will make you much more marketable in the future to employers when you graduate.

I raced more when I was interning because it provided me with the funds to do so. While in school I didn't ride as much. One of the reasons I went 3 hours away rather than close to home was to leave a lot of distractions behind. From somebody who was in your position not long ago, I suggest you put moto on the back burner until your done. The. You'll get out of school and land a job and be able to ride as much as you want.

To the OP, any trusted supplier is provided with the models required to do what they need to do. I'm sure the aftermarket industry does not have this luxury and it's a lot more reverse engineering.
Andrew337
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10/23/2015 5:26pm
philG wrote:
we sold some ready to go motors to Formula SAE teams. with ECU and everything , they spent months trying to get the motors running with...
we sold some ready to go motors to Formula SAE teams. with ECU and everything , they spent months trying to get the motors running with a Motec system, rather than developing what we had sent them .

Some teams didnt even get them running till they gave up on their own stuff.

i was told some wise words , many years ago.. design is making stuff that works , development it making it work perfectly.... it isnt about designing stuff that doesnt work , and developing it until it does.
The Formula SAE rules require a 20mm intake restrictor (18mm for E85), so the teams have to develop (at the minimum) custom intake and exhaust systems requiring custom fuel and ignition mapping. It isn't as simple as dropping in a crate motor and going racing, the rules are written to introduce design challenges to prevent that. Otherwise I agree with you completely, it's very difficult for young engineer to call something finished! It's all part of the learning experience.
JBernard_401
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10/23/2015 7:13pm Edited Date/Time 10/23/2015 7:15pm
JM485 wrote:
Thanks for all the info guys, much appreciated. My school has a formula SAE team and I looked into joining as a freshman, but a few...
Thanks for all the info guys, much appreciated. My school has a formula SAE team and I looked into joining as a freshman, but a few things kind of put me off of it. I didn't want to sacrifice riding on weekends to work on the club project, and I also wasn't into the fact that it was going all electric and focusing on efficiency rather than outright performance. I know that in the grand scheme of things that doesn't seem like a big deal, but riding is a huge part of my life and I just wasn't willing to give that up. I'll have to look into machine shops in my area to intern at in the summer time, in the mean time I might push forward a bit on my linkage arm design and try to make a physical part for me to test on my own bike. I've had it drawn up on CAD for a while now, I just have to make it happen. Again, thanks for the info guys and for confirming what I was thinking, it seems crazy that so little emphasis is put on real world skills now adays.
uh..i'd rethink the FSAE. its an amazing program. i'd love to go back in time and do one. that experience would be way more than a machine shop. and my guess is that at a machine shop, you wouldnt have the luxury of landing at a place where a guy will show you the ropes, teach you from the ground up and give you basic turning, milling, inspection and engineering experience on his dollar. good chance if you came in there with 0 experience youd be running a saw, or pushing a button on production. not ALL the time, but look at it from their point of view, whats their benefit of teaching you everything on their time?
edit- my machine shop experience was 90% cnc lathe running, setup, and button pushing and 10% learning on my own. we were to busy for me to dick around and get a lot of milling experience and the like. thats what i was referring to.
dmm698
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10/23/2015 7:54pm Edited Date/Time 10/23/2015 7:55pm
uh..i'd rethink the FSAE. its an amazing program. i'd love to go back in time and do one. that experience would be way more than a...
uh..i'd rethink the FSAE. its an amazing program. i'd love to go back in time and do one. that experience would be way more than a machine shop. and my guess is that at a machine shop, you wouldnt have the luxury of landing at a place where a guy will show you the ropes, teach you from the ground up and give you basic turning, milling, inspection and engineering experience on his dollar. good chance if you came in there with 0 experience youd be running a saw, or pushing a button on production. not ALL the time, but look at it from their point of view, whats their benefit of teaching you everything on their time?
edit- my machine shop experience was 90% cnc lathe running, setup, and button pushing and 10% learning on my own. we were to busy for me to dick around and get a lot of milling experience and the like. thats what i was referring to.
I kind of got the vibe from a few people from various schools that formula SAE is kind of clique-ey. There's definitely a ton of fab/machining work. Baja SAE has a ton of fab work and machining but the engine is a Briggs and can't be altered. Low emissions /clean snowmobile is probably the least of the three went it comes to fab/maching, but very very involved with tuning/calibration more so then formula. All 3 are a great experience and from my experience the core group of guys from each team end up helping on each others respective teams here and there.

Your 500 build is a work of art by the way.
philG
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10/24/2015 3:29am
Andrew337 wrote:
The Formula SAE rules require a 20mm intake restrictor (18mm for E85), so the teams have to develop (at the minimum) custom intake and exhaust systems...
The Formula SAE rules require a 20mm intake restrictor (18mm for E85), so the teams have to develop (at the minimum) custom intake and exhaust systems requiring custom fuel and ignition mapping. It isn't as simple as dropping in a crate motor and going racing, the rules are written to introduce design challenges to prevent that. Otherwise I agree with you completely, it's very difficult for young engineer to call something finished! It's all part of the learning experience.
Yes , thats why it was supplied with a fully unlocked ECU with software.

There is a little cliquey-ness about it, but dealing with that is part of it.

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