In April of 2009 when Tracey and I were on a brief visit to Australia, I had the opportunity to visit the ECU Motorsports workshops at Joondalup and talk with half a dozen of the ECU, Formula SAE team who were completing the 3rd year of the ECU Bachelor of Technology (Motorsports) course that uses the FSAE platform for assessment.

I offered as much hard nosed pragmatism as I though the 3rd year greenhorns would listen to, then added WEVO to the sponsor roster for the 2009 ECU FSAE challenge. With such easy access to the myriad of Aircraft fastener systems from our WEVO office in California, it seemed appropriate to assist the team with sponsorship of their fastener and bodywork fastener requirement (thanks to Coast Fabrication, CA and Skybolt, FL).

Windrush Yachts in O’Connor, WA has been a sponsor of both ECU and the 2008 World Champions UWA over the past several years. Tracey and I were happy to add WEVO and our contributions to the efforts of students in the most remote city in the world – Perth, Western Australia.

When I was studying at Curtin university in the early 80′s no such career education opportunity existed, if you had a passion for a vocation in motorsports, then it meant completing a Degree in an associated field (in my case Industrial Design) then travel abroad in an effort to make friends and forge an opportunity…… pretty wildcard, but hundreds of Western Australians before me went on the same path, with many – like Kim and Barry Green making it all the way to the top of ladder in the USA.

In 2009 the FSAE – Australasia was contested by 24 teams from Australia and New Zealand, around the globe the number of teams participating in FSAE is over 200. It provides a wonderful environment for our youngest creative thinkers to explore the rules of the FSAE and be exposed to the learning and the pain of learning in a truly unique manner. There is no doubt the FSAE and the tertiary programmes that employ the FSAE as a key part of the curriculum are producing some fine young engineers and technicians to fill the openings in the motorsports industry. In addition, these young men and women are exposed to unique design, fabrication and project management challenges that make their experience appropriate for many other problem solving industries too.

Last week, on another trip to Perth, I caught up with John Hurney, course controller, Luke Mason Team Principal and James Murdoch - lead on Chassis design. Luke and James showed me the variety of solutions they had designed since my visit in May and were clearly massively more mature from the whole experience. They were both filled with stories from the 2009 run-off event experience in Melbourne too, where the ECU teamed finished a credible 6th place in only the second year of participation. The FSAE has been a large part of their last 12 months – obsessively large and will be an experience that will serve to remind them over and over the fundamantals of completing and managing projects of this style.

Good luck to the 2009 graduates of the ECU Motorsports programme, hopefully the efforts by all the local sponsors, mentors, tutors and lecturers will help you reach your own goals in a motorsports career without ever needing to experience the “old fashioned way”

Last post I covered some very, very early “research” into shifter design. Preceding that in the early 70′s was a very funky double lever, one wheel brake for my hill trolley as an 8 year old……..but that’s another story.

This time we are covering some more recent history and forthcoming shifter product developments.

In 1999 Windrush purchased our first 3D CAD programme and at the same time purchased Z-Corp 3D Rapid Prototyping equipment to augment product development at WEVO. The costly luxury of 3D prototyping equipment was unusual for such a small company in the late 90′s and we offset some of the costs by building models for a wide range of clients.

We also put the equipment to good use by stretching the envelope of product development and casting those ideas into 3D models that were the extravagant predecessors of more restrained and marketable solutions.

The shifter above and below was designed and built in 2000 – pretty much on the basis of a dare by Jerry Woods, who challenged me to come up with an “idiot-proof” shifter for a 915 that used irreproachable logic to control the access of the gear change sequence. The complicated mechanism dubbed the “logic plate” resides at the base of the shift lever and controls the access to each gear in a logical manner – in particular, only 3rd or 4th are available as a downshift from 5th, with 1st, 2nd and reverse all blocked.  I hate to think how much time was spent at the design workstation, or the 3D model machine to come up with this functional prototype, but we did it and I recall the surprise and dismay that Jerry exhibited when a) we demonstrated it was possible and b) we demonstrated how absurdly complex it would be to achieve the “logic”.

In September 2001, with more realistic goals, we introduced the current architecture of WEVO shifters. They perform wonderfully and with about 2500 shifters in circulation for 901, 915, 930 and G50 transmissions, we have loads of happy customers.

With so much product in service we inevitably get requests for derivative products. Over the 8+ years so far, we have delivered straight levers, tall levers, extra bent levers, lightweight levers, short levers for hi-console shifters etc, etc.

As you can see from the 2000 experiment, I once considered the angled main shift tube an acceptable solution. The discreet shifter experience we have accumulated since 2000 means that I no longer believe that is a valid solution. Two basic reasons - 1) the angle change of the shift tube leads to deflections and lost motion (both killers to accuracy and shifter feel) and 2) the angle shift tube requires cutting the chassis for tube clearance and we always try to design WEVO products that can be installed and removed from your Porsche without any irreversible modifications.

The 915 Tall Boy shifter will be available fully tested and ready to race by Memorial Day 2010. You can see a passing resemblance to the 2000 Shifter project, but the design actually shares much with the existing WEVO 915 shifter. In addition there is a partial adoption of logic, with the reverse lock-out being disarmed by a press button and remaining inactive until 5th gear is once again selected. This time we are better equipped to bring the product to market at a fair price and do so without conceding to the angle shift tube approach used in other high knob shifter solutions. Keep an eye open for products testing in street and race cars during the 2010 Spring.

This deliberately sketchy image does not reveal too much, but as you have come to expect for a WEVO product this shifter will be accurate, light and have great driving feel.

Some times it’s not a matter of where you are heading, but rather – where have you come from?….

Today I had a chance to uncover some relics that long pre-date the first products I ever designed for Porsche’s, but it is air-cooled and it is mostly hand made. In the very best of “competition engineering” it is also very light – at just 408kg. Crude, resourceful, ugly, dangerous, ingenious, ridiculous choose your superlative, it’s at least one or more of those.

My first ever shifter design exercise, short throw relatively precise and built with some amazingly restricted resources. Nifty push down knob for reverse lock-out stolen from a buddies Fiat 850.

Even more important for our mid-engine, VW powered car club Special, was the carefully made “tailshift”mechanism that allowed the VW transmission to function in the rear location.

This car we called “the Special” was created in a relative vacuum in the early 80′s while studying Design at university and trying to feed dual addictions of windsurfing and car clubs competition events. My windsurfers were more attractive (how hard would that be?!) but the Special was a great way for me to learn about critical systems and solutions that needed to work under duress……both the mechanisms above are the Rev.2 versions deployed after the initial solutions just didn’t work well enough to be competitive. It was last used in an event in 1984 if I recall and the car still wears the numbers 51 and 52 from a Sprint, Gymkhana or Auto-X. I know it was not a hill-climb, for those we used to remove all the cooling fan, shrouds and alternator to make the car even lighter and run only on the battery (note the absence of a starter).

Without the Special, there would not be any WEVO 915 shifter’s or a WEVO 915 SideShift, so while you are laughing remember to enjoy the result 27 years later and the even more adventurous work that will be seen in the future.

Foils are one common link between sailboats and race cars. Over the past 20 years Windrush has been involved in designing and manufacturing both.

My brother Brett and I have both been fortunate to have the opportunity to work on some pretty exotic sailboats and race cars wearing high performance foils that are the key to their extreme performance.

Seen here is the hydrofoil borne sailboat “Spitfire” that was constructed by Brett and his staff at Windrush in Australia during 2001. The designed was executed by BDG for a Queensland client, this boat developed concepts and experience first deployed when Brett sailed his hydrofoil Moth to two race victories in the 2000 Moth World Championships series.

“Spitfire” is a 40′ (12 m.) Catamaran, built almost entirely of carbon fibre, at the time this vessel was groundbreaking for it’s engineering and manufacturing processes and standards. The boat was controlled by an aircraft style gimbal and joystick and at the time of launching, very few sailors had any experience “flying” foil borne sailboats. Brett and a couple of other Moth sailors with foil experience conducted the sea trials with Spitfire and with very little testing this boat eclipsed local record speeds for all sail-craft other than a sailboard. Current World 500m Speed Records are now in excess of 50 knots.

In contrast, but not so far removed, I was involved in the group at Allard who designed the 1992 Allard J2X, an FIA Gp.C Sports Prototype. This race car uses massive foils and other discreet aerodynamics to develop downforces exceeding 3 times it’s own weight. The Allard J2X was also manufactured almost entirely of carbon fibre, it embodied ground breaking design features and explored new engineering standards. The visual cues for the aerodynamics on just about any 2010 Sports Prototype can be traced to design elements first revealed on the Allard J2X. More info available on Mike Fuller’s Mulsanne Corner  site.

One of the services we offer at Windrush – perhaps the one that is most personally satisfying for me – is the customization of our own designs, to achieve alternate solutions for customers with special needs.

Today I assembled these innocuous little parts, simple enough steel fabrications that are a new derivative of the WEXO XT_224 from the 915 oil cooler system.

Our complete WEVO 915 cooler system uses a Weldon 9200A electric pump to push the oil through our custom ARE cooler and internal WEVO spray rail, there is a small group of customers in Europe racing in FIA governed vintage series, who must use a mechanical driven pump, such as the unit that the Porsche factory deployed on the ’85 & ’86 911 Carrera. There are at least two other FIA acceptable solutions, each with their limitations…..

This variation (XT # not yet allocated) of our XT_224 Oil Return Manifold will allow the factory Carrera serpentine cooler unit to socket into the return manifold and feed the WEVO spray rail in the normal manner. This takes the simple oil cooler system of the Carrera 915 transmission and converts it to a spray rail delivered lubrication solution – making greater advantage of the cooled oil returning to discreet sources of heat inside the transmission.

For such a unique application, we only make a short run of parts. But these parts are designed and manufactured and finished to the same standard as all our other WEVO solutions.

Next week these parts will come back from zinc plating, be assembled with swaged XRP HS-79 Nomex braided hose and be delivered – a one of a kind – to a WEVO customer with a custom requirement.  He and I both satisfied.