Race Mechanic Thread

Pretty much all the radios in the WEC are made by MRTC, as well as the headsets. for those who can't wear headsets because they need to wear helmets, they get custom-made earplugs made of some kind of gel or foam (there are also cheap "universal" foam earplugs, but they are annoying as hell to wear so you will switch to customs pretty much immediately). MRTC does those too, but you can easily go somewhere close to home where they sell hearing aids and they will make them for you a lot cheaper.
we are talking about £80+ for a pair of fucking earplugs made by MRTC on-site, it's almost a scam, but hey, if you break an earplug at the track and you don't have a spare, they are the only ones who will give you a new one so they charge you a lot.
An other common name you'll see on radios and headsets is Motorola.

For the championships that enforce full fireproof clothes for the pitcrew, you get fireproof shoes, gloves, balaclava, underwear and of course suit, plus helmet and eye protection.
for those championships that don't enforce that, you can dress with whatever your team gives you as an uniform and use normal shoes.
In my experience, for this kind of job where you need to be on your feet 12-15 hours every day, the absolute best shoes to use are running shoes, they really make a difference on your back. Fireproof shoes (which are usually just driving shoes) are devastating for the back unless you use a ton of padding under your sole.

As for eye protection, it's usually just snowboarding/biking goggles (same for the helmets, except for refuelers who need full racing helmets), who makes those depends on how much the team is willing to spend and if the team has a tech sponsor for that kind of stuff.

Do you ever get the feeling when you look at top flight P1 team crews that they're living the life? Or is it all the same shit for the grunts, whether you're banging on some shitbox's panels or race taping a fender on a P1 after a FERRARIIIIIIIIIII took it out?

Forgot the part about Formula E tires.

Actually I don't really know much about those, I don't think they are street legal if only for the fact that they are meant to last only a few hundred miles. Usually every tire used in serious racing has a big fat "FOR RACING USE ONLY" warning on it.
I guess your chance to daily drive on used Formula E tires are pretty slim.

Had you made me this question a couple of weeks ago, I could have asked to the Michelin engineers at the track, but the season is over so I can no longer ask them unfortunately.

Sorry I couldn't help you with this

What's the part you hate to see break the most, in or out of a race? Suspension arms? That little fucking connector in the back of nowhere?

Do race cars run air filters, or just some sort of fine mesh? Is this one of the reasons why race engines have to be rebuilt so often?

With more and more turbo engines showing up, are there extra considerations for the pit crew with regards to race conditions, regular maintenance, and stocking parts?

Does WEC do open pit days? I think IMSA usually has open pit on Fridays or Saturdays I think, and people walk up and down the pit lanes chatting with the crews and such. How do you feel about those?

Does the pit crew partake in the "show off the car" thing at Spa and Le Mans and such where they roll through the town?

They definitely get some serious money, P1 is full F1 territory as far as money is involved. they spend a fortune on cars, equipment and staff, so the people working on those cars will never have money issues.
One of my colleagues worked in F1 several years ago and is friend with a bunch of Toyota P1 mechanics, he told me those guys have the same job contracts as F1 crew and get five-digit bonuses if the team gets good results.
A lot of the long faces you saw at Le Mans this year weren't only because they were dominating for 23+ hours and then lost everything, but also because some guys were probably planning on buying new cars with the bonuses for that race only.

Also the quality of the job is higher, the grunt who manages the front suspensions of a P1 does pretty much the same shit as the grunt who works in P2, but they get better tools, better gear, the cars are probably easier to work on and there is more people helping each other.

As for the life itself, those guys don't really have one, at those levels your life is the track, the workshop and your colleagues, there is no time to build a proper life outside of work. If you chose to aim for the top, you have to understand you are trading your life for the glory and the money.
F1 is even worse because they have more than twice the amount of races than WEC has so you are literally living in hotels for the most part of a year.

Yes you get to see amazing places, you get to party hard, you get to know a lot of fine ladies, but there is really no time for friends or family at home, this can get to you sometimes, you need to really live for race cars to endure this kind of life, because your life becomes race cars once you start working on world-class events and cars.

What brand of tools do you favour? Some fancy German stuff North Americans have never heard of? Snap On? Cheap Taiwanese shit that you can buy 100 of for the same price as Snap On?

>I'm also interested in knowing what you guys think about the upcoming WEC season now that Audi is out of the game, the privateer P1 class is down to one car,
from my perspective LMP1 is a match between manufacturers. The privateer is the underdog that ads excitement should they leap laps.
>the P2s get new regulations
the only people that care about p2 are people that own the cars, work on the cars, or are physically involved in the race. Anybody is trying to be edgy.
>and Porsche decided to go mid engine
when going up against purpose built race cars like the ford gt I think they need to considering hp is suppressed.
Porsche is in a weird spot. They need to win races, and their road car needs to be fast, yet the two may not have much in common as the turbo s develops more power than the gte cars are allowed to, and I would not be surprised if the 911 turbo s outperforms the road going ford gt.

Race Mechanic, what is the safest a race car, prototype, or gt could go around LeMans. I would love to see gt1 return

>what is the safest a race car, prototype, or gt could go around LeMans
Full course yellow
:^)

>of course a Am driver will fuck even that up
>toyotatakenoutintherain.webm

>What's the part you hate to see break the most, in or out of a race? Suspension arms? That little fucking connector in the back of nowhere?
Depends on the car. mid engined GTs are usually super cramped in the engine bay so really anything in there is a pain in the ass to fix. Also steering racks get an honorable mention.
On protos there are some pieces of bodywork that are really complicated to remove, plus with closed cockpits things have gotten much more complicated to fix inside.
But really, it depends on the car, there are things that are a pain to fix on a Ferrari, but are quick and easy on a Corvette (like radiators) or things that are stupid easy on a Oreca, but not so much on other P2s (like front crashboxes)

>Do race cars run air filters, or just some sort of fine mesh? Is this one of the reasons why race engines have to be rebuilt so often?
yes they run reusable air filters that are no different than the ones you can buy for your car, the necessity to rebuild engines is more a consequence of the them being extremely delicate and ran to their limits.
some cars get specific engine maps for qualifying that you can only run for a couple of laps before grenading the engines.
Anyway don't underestimate endurance engines, if nothing bad happens a P2 engine is scheduled for refurbishment between 5k and 10k km, which is a lot considering what they have to do.

>With more and more turbo engines showing up, are there extra considerations for the pit crew with regards to race conditions, regular maintenance, and stocking parts?
I still havent worked on a turbo engine in endurance, so I can't really answer but I don't really see them being much different than NA engines except for the fact that there is a bunch of additional stuff on the engine. Keep in mind you always have motorists who take actual care of the engines, so mechanics only do the hard work of removing stuff or removing the entire engine.

cont..

>Does WEC do open pit days? I think IMSA usually has open pit on Fridays or Saturdays I think, and people walk up and down the pit lanes chatting with the crews and such. How do you feel about those?
Yes, WEC has the pit walk a few hours before the race and sometimes on the day before. Unfortunately the WEC suffers a lot from the same shit that happens in F1 where tourists can't really see anything interesting because everyone tries to keep everything secret. It's a shame really, European motorsport has a lot to learn from American motorsport when it comes to getting the public involved. Really the only cool thing to see as a tourist during the pit walk is the occasional pit stop practice, but apart from that the public is always kept at a safe distance from the cars and the garages.

>Does the pit crew partake in the "show off the car" thing at Spa and Le Mans and such where they roll through the town?
Only Le Mans has that kind of thing in the WEC, it's not just a show off, it's an actual part of the race weekend. If you look closely at the pictures or if you have ever been there, you will see that cars go through official scrutineering while being pushed around the town centre (pic related, the car is being pushed in the weighing tent), there is a specific course that ends in the main town square where the whole team goes through a photo session so yes, usually most of the team takes part in that.

I don't really have a favourite, I'm used to work with what I have, but I have seen a predominance of snapon tools around the garages. There are some special tools (like digital torque wrenches made specifically to check differential preload) that are made by some specialist brands that I honestly don't even remember.

I recently found this on my hdd, dunno if its of any value for your guide

pastebin.com/h9zAUqG6

What does a race mechanic do during off-season? I know that the big prototype works teams do bunch of >24h endurance tests in Portugal or Spain, whats on your agenda?

What team you with?

>from my perspective LMP1 is a match between manufacturers. The privateer is the underdog that ads excitement should they leap laps.
As I said the privateer class should be abolished entirely,it never really took off since the day one. It's just a waste of money for the teams involved and it's a bad way to fill the grid.

>the only people that care about p2 are people that own the cars, work on the cars, or are physically involved in the race. Anybody is trying to be edgy.
I'm probably biased by having worked on P2s, but damn you get some entertaining racing in that class sometimes. Unfortunately it's the class the public cares the least about, but it's understandable: there are no famous manufacturers involved, no famous drivers and no famous teams. For the public P2s are really just grid fillers.

>what is the safest a race car, prototype, or gt could go around LeMans. I would love to see gt1 return
are you talking about top speed or lap times? I don't really have an answer for that. Current cars have lower top speeds than old GroupC, but run considerably faster laptimes, it's the track itself that is dangerous (as it should be IMO). Look at what happened to Simonsen a few years ago for an accident that didn't even look that bad at first, and you can't really say it was the car that was unsafe. GT1s were amazing but they weren't really GTs anymore.

I'm really curious about P2s next year, manufacturers claim top speeds in the 340km/h territory, which is a huge jump from the 280/300 of current P2. The new Gibson engine seems to really be a powerhouse.

I am not really comfortable saying that, plus I work with multiple teams in different championships. However I could answer you with a big "I don't know" because I'm trying to step up my game for the next year so things could change completely in 2017

Well then I can safely assume you're not with Stevenson

thanks for the link, unfortunately it doesn't have what I need, which is info on schools and training programs in the US

about your question; cars come back from the second half of the season that are (figuratively) falling apart, once the european races are over, everything is packed into containers or flight decks until the end of the season so cars are always fixed at the track from that point onward.
So once they come back there is a long process of complete strip of the car, damage assessment, parts and spares are sorted by mileage and replaced accordingly. upgrades for the next season (if any) are installed and everything is put together again.

Then you go testing, and testing, and testing and the only good places to test in winter in Europe, as you said, are Spain and Portugal so everyone goes there.

As for myself, I am still a freelancer so I don't work much at the workshop and I keep myself busy with minor races and testing throughout the winter. I still don't get much action, winter is always a boring season for me.
So my agenda is to finish the few events I have left, do a bunch of skiing and then die a bit inside while I patiently wait for the new seasons to start.

I'll probably start actually taking care of my car since I have a CV joint that has been screaming for months and the injectors need some cleaning.

You assumed that because I'm in Europe?

Yeah. I was just curious cause Stevenson is based in my city

How expensive is it to run a Le mans team and start a racing team?

Thanks for the insight.

What do you think of the idea from FIA to have turbocharged cars have atmospheric pressure sensors for real-time BoP adjuustments?

How do you setup a Le Mans Prototype 2 car for wet weather conditions in Silverstone?

Do the ferrari teams in GTLM and GT3 actually think theyre scuderia ferrari?

Like any race car?

SOFT
O
F
T

Let me rephrase; what things do you do differently when setting up a car for a wet race?
In an endurance race, how does your setup change at the start of a race when it's raining, and then dries out 50% into the race? Lets say like 6h race. What I mean is, how do you balance it out? Where is it the easiest to make compromises, aside from wing angle?

Have you tried getting in touch with them or are you not interested in working in Motorsport?

I'm pretty sure they are looking for new staff for the upcoming season, you would hit jackpot to have the team base close to home and IMSA runs amazing championships IMO. I am really jelly of people working in American Motorsport.

Tremendously expensive. We are talking about millions just to buy the shittiest GTE AM available and all the stuff needed to race it, then more hundreds of thousands (if not again millions) to keep it running for a full season.
Multiply that a few times for P2s

Like said. I am assuming you are asking for a videogame? Higher ride height, softer springs, softer ARBs, higher tire pressures, anything to get more mechanical grip.
I don't have a full setup sheet ready for you, the setup of a car depends a lot on how you drive it.

I think real time BoP is retarded, if their idea was to fight sandbagging, this won't solve it and makes the team's job a lot more difficult.

The only reason I'm living in this shithole of a city is because im stationed here for military

At my real home back in wisconsin I live about a half hour away from Road America

if i had 10 million could i effectively run a team in the IMSA GTLM class? would that be enough to generate a good enough cash flow to be sustainable?

I can't speak for everyone but I don't think so, where did you get the idea?

Once the race starts, the setup is pretty much set in stone, every modification takes too much time for it to be done during a pit stop. You can only play with tire pressures and compounds at that point.
If your car is set up for a dry race, and it starts raining unexpectedly while waiting on the grid, the usual emergency solution is to completely disconnect one end of one or both ARBs or play with damper settings, but that is risky because races are so long and that move could backfire at you should it become dry a few hours after the start. Emergency on-grid modifications are best done for short races, not for endurance.

If your car becomes completely undriveable because of the rain, then either the driver is not a good wet driver or you made a mistake as an engineer when planning the setup. If the situation is so dramatic that you need to change the setup during the race, then you are already so far behind the rest of the field that it doesn't matter anymore. The race is lost anyway.

Luckily there are very reliable weather forecasting services at the track so it's unusual to be caught unprepared for rain.

God I love that track

I don't know? I'm not an accountant, I don't have actual numbers. I only have a vague idea of what cars cost and what the equipment costs.
10M seems a safe number, although you would still need to find sponsors and drivers willing to pay for a seat with a team that nobody has ever heard of that decided to race in one of the most important American series.
If you want to run a team your name means a lot, you can't expect to become sustainable in the first year if nobody ever heard of you and your team before. Blowing a lot of money on the best car and the best gear does not guarantee an immediate return.

What do teams do when it's clear from the onset they're not winning anything due to setup or weather or crashes or something? Just put your heads down and get the race over with? How's the mood in the pit when that happens?

You try to finish the race no matter what happens.
Especially on long races, anything can happen, you might get lucky and have someone in front crash and retire, giving you free positions. You could also be in a place where you still get points.

DNFs are really bad to see on the scoreboard. It's also bad for your business, think about that:

You are already mid-field, something in the suspension snaps, car spins, maybe even touches another car or a barrier. Driver manages to crawl to the pits, it's been lapped by everyone in the process.
The damage is not catastrophic, you can fix the bodywork quickly with duct tape, you just need to change a whole suspension, which is a relatively quick operation because you already have spare suspensions completely assembled for this kind of situations.
Let's say this inconvenient will put you back dead last in the field, 8 laps behind, there is no way you can score points unless someone crashes in front of you.
Do you give up? Do you announce your retirement for something as stupid as a broken suspension? How are you going to explain that to the driver, which is also the guy who pays for the car? Do you want to look so weak in the eyes of your team and every other team (and paying drivers that may want to race with you in the future) on the field? What is there to gain from retiring because of a repairable damage?

It's nonsense, the only thing to do is to fucking launch yourself at the car, fix it asap, send it out and hope it finishes the race safely.
There are races where someone spends hours to fix the car and they still send it out when it's done.
Everyone's job is to keep the car racing.

If you already know the car won't win anything because the driver is just not good enough, there is not much you can do about it. Of course the morale of the crew is low, but you still try to do your best so that the car is in top shape when it's on track

How do regular employees interact with drivers outside the pits?
I heard some drivers regularly hang out with their mechanics.

It really depends on the driver.
Some are cunts, some are total Bros, some are just indifferent, some try to keep an aura of professionalism and you never see them outside the track or interacting much with the crew.
I met drivers that fit in every category regardless of age or depth of their pockets, you can't really generalise much.
The only thing I noticed is that paid drivers are usually more friendly than paying drivers, I guess the fact that they are working instead of spending money makes them bond with the crew more easily.

There is no rule that says that mechanics can't interact with drivers, so if one of them wants to have a beer with us then he is more than welcome.

Not the guy but nice read!

I'm giving myself a shameless bump, but I'm also still waiting for useful information about motorsport training.

I know there is a couple of more race mechanics on this board and a bunch of drivers and ex drivers, I'd like to hear from them too.

I've been accepted to UNOH in the US and will start there next year. The campus has classes specific to motorsports tech and has a dirt track team that is entirely student run. They also have direct connections to NASCAR and Indycar. Has anyone here been to this school, or want to say anything about it?

Yeah I would like to get into this scene too. I live in SoCal and I really haven't put any research into it but I'm sure there should be plenty going on in motorsport.

I have a couple friends that go there, one for auto diesel and the other for auto body. As far as I know it's not bad for the money and they love it

>and a bunch of drivers and ex drivers
really? All I ever see are benchracers

do you think that Ford GT >>> Corvette?

Cool, are you going to take the motorsport route or you are there for other studies?

University-sponsored motorsport programs are pretty popular here too, they usually go for the Formula Student kind of project (which is 100% equivalent to the American FSAE) or for the Moto Student that is even cooler in my opinion, as they get to actually race the bikes instead of going around cones as it happens with formulas.

You should start researching asap if you are really interested, this is a golden moment to look for jobs in Motorsport because teams are all preparing for the next seasons and the market for pit crews is busier than ever.
As I said in the OP link, you have more or less until the end of the year to get good chances and until about march/april before job offers become basically nonexistent.

I'm pretty sure in one of my old threads I met a couple of guys who used to race single seaters and there are at least two more who worked or are still working with race cars such as the Ferrari Challenge.

Can't really speak for the GT, but the Corvette is an amazing car from a mechanic's perspective. Stuff is easy to reach, things are quicker to be taken apart and the whole car is generally mechanic friendly as opposed to the load of cramped and uncomfortable crap that are Ferraris.
I can only imagine the GT, being built primarily to be a race car, to be even better in that.
I mean look at pic related, it's a goddamn prototype disguised as a grand tourer

My phone is fucking with my tripcode, it's probably the Clover app being old and broken, I can't figure out why it keeps posting anonymously sometimes

Were you the guy doing the Challenge series in SEA?

Yes, not doing that anymore, I changed my trip because I completely forgot the password

What can I do to make myself more appealing on the resume side of things for an entry level motorsports job?

I'm about to finish my last year for a bachelors degree in automotive engineering. ive been running my own car dealership for about a year now, have 6 years of experience maintaining/building my cars and a few summers as a landscaper which is completely unrelated. I would like to work in motorsport but the area I live in is very competitive when it comes to engineering jobs and I feel like I'm going to get shit on when I put my resume out there by all the 4.0 GPA students. The FSAE team at my school disbanded for a few years and only this year did they start back up and I'm far too busy with my other stuff to consider joining it.

Do you have much of a life outside motorsport, or is everyday a 7am-7pm +weekends? I would like to continue running my dealership as the money is great for doing virtually nothing but I need time to do that.

What is the conventional way people become a mechanic for a professional race team? Did car you start as a licensed car mechanic or take specific university courses?

I'm an automotive service technician apprentice in Ontario but I want to learn more advanced things like CAN bus protocol and feel as a mechanic I'm limited in the education I have access to outside of the shop.

On that note there's a company called Multimatic near Toronto that does a lot of engineering for pro racing and I considered an entry level job as a assembly tech just to get my foot in the door so to speak.

Is there a need for an IT guy trackside?

Unfortunately I'm not that much of an expert when it comes to engineering jobs, but here's my two cents:
Do you want to work as a race engineer or as something else, more on the electronic side of things?
If you want to become a race engineer, you should highlight in your resume whatever study you did or experience you have on vehicle dynamics, because that's all there is to it. A race engineer's job is mainly to decide the setup of a car and be able to decide quickly what to do according to the driver's feedback, so this is what makes you valuable: good knowledge of vehicle-related physics and dynamics, ability to think fast, being able to take decisions and stick to them.

If you want to work more on the electronics, I suggest you learn how to use or at least read telemetry software, Aim and Motec make some good beginner stuff.
For entry level jobs there is not much to do for electronics besides reading telemetry and fixing broken wires and connectors, so soldering skills are important, but coding will get you further if you want to go for more important jobs.

Take a look at the link I posted in the OP and pick one of the three links you will find in there, look for engineering jobs, see what are the common requirement and try to shape your resume around those.

Your experience as a dealer is important, it highlights your managing skills. You could become a Team Manager with that, which is not a position directly involved with cars, but you still get to see a lot of track action and the money is probably better.

How much of a life you want depends entirely on how far you want to go. Your local team running with spec open wheelers at regional events won't keep you very busy, especially if you want to be a freelance, but the DPi team doing 10+ races and shitloads of testing won't leave you with much time left on your hands.

>What is the conventional way people become a mechanic for a professional race team?
Working with small, crappy teams and going for better stuff as you gain experience. Making lots of good friends will also get you very far.
Another common way is to take motorsport-specific courses which will give you an internship in a good team.

>Did car you start as a licensed car mechanic or take specific university courses?
I was a normal street mechanic before, did it for 5 years then I got bored and found a training program for race mechanics that basically jump started my career.
That's why I'm looking to make a new document with all these courses and schools, because they really do help you getting into the business.

>I want to learn more advanced things like CAN bus protocol and feel as a mechanic I'm limited in the education I have access to outside of the shop.
If you like that kind of stuff, you'll be limited as a race mechanic too because all the diagnosis/troubleshooting/data analysis is usually done either by engineers from your team or technicians from whatever engine/electronics manufacturer gives you track support, unless you work with very, very small teams that can't afford engineers and everyone has to do all little bit of everything.
So maybe companies that specialise in racing electronics like McLaren, Cosworth or Bosch will have stuff that better suits your passion for electronics

>there's a company called Multimatic near Toronto
Multimatic does a lot of racing, they used to build dampers for 458 GTEs and various suspension components for lots of cars, they are the guys in charge or building and racing Ford GTs and they are partners with Riley to build the new LMP2s for next year.
So definitely try to go with them if you want to do something on race cars, multimatic is a big name in the field.

Not really, IT stuff is usually carried over by the electronic engineers in charge of setting up everything that works on electric power, so IT guys are kind of redundant unless you have a degree in a relevant field and you can sell yourself as an engineer rather than an IT guy

In a last attempt at bumping the thread, I'll keep you guys entertained with a little insight on how setups are made on race cars.
I've already done this in past threads, but I figured someone new might be interested and some of this stuff may be useful for DIYers with some disposable income who want to get serious about tuning cars for track events.

Doing a setup means putting a car in an ideal static condition that can be consistently used between sessions so we can modify suspension parameters in a predictable and accurate way. To do this we need to prepare our car so it is in working condition and we need to find a way to keep it perfectly level at all times while we work.

We will need a set of specific tools to do our setup, the most basic list is as follows:

- Flat metal platforms raised from the ground and with adjustable legs, sturdy enough to sustain the car's weight without bending, one for each corner. These will be our main stands and are used to create a surface upon which we can rest our car and measure everything.
- A set of straight and sturdy metal beams, emphasis on straight, will be used as level tools and to measure certain things on the car.
- A couple of metal poles and some fishing wire, used for wheel alignment
- A set of scales, one for each corner
- A set of metal plates that simulate the presence of a wheel on the car, also called setup wheels or hub stands, one for each corner. (For DIYers, this component is optional)
- Protractors and level tools, ideally digital.
- Rulers

Rich teams get way better gear. For example, you may find stands with wireless scales already in them that cost thousands each or hubstands with lasers for a faster angle measurement. What I'll be describing here is something everyone can realistically do without spending a fortune on tools.

Pretty much evey tool here is cheap-ish to buy and can be made yourself if you have access to machine shops, by far the most expensive tool here is the set of scales.

>Phase 1 - Preparing the working area

The car needs to be horizontal at all times when working on the setup, here is where we use the adjustable stands.

The first thing to do is to put our car where we want it to be and mark the position of each wheel on the ground, then we move the car away and put the stands were the wheel markings are.
It's important to assign each stand to a specific corner of the car and to precisely mark its position on the ground so it can be put exactly in the same place and with the same orientation every time we want to work on the setup in the future. This is a vital procedure because it will ensure that the working area will always be where and how we want it.

Now we have the four stands on the ground, it's time to take our level tools and trusty metal beams and start working.
First, you should use the level tool to adjust the stands so each of them is horizontal, then we need to make them level with each other and we will do this by laying our metal beam on two stands at once and putting our level tool on it.
The metal beam just became a giant level tool, you can see for yourself how the flatness and straightness of the beam is very important here.

Now we adjust the two plates so that the beam is horizontal and we keep doing that with all four corners.
The best way to do this is to choose a starting point (let's say the rear right stand) and to keep one end of the metal beam always there, so you will be first adjusting the RR-RL plane, then the RR-FL one and finally the RR-FR one. Ideally, the RR platform should never be adjusted again after the first time you made it horizontal.
There are cases where the ground is so fucked up that you will need to repeat the process multiple times, there is not much you can do about it.

If we did everything good, we should be able to lay our big level tool between any two stands of our choice and always find it horizontal. Congrats, we can now work on the car.

>Phase 2 - Preparing the car

The car needs some preparation too, we need to choose our reference condition that will always be used when working on the setup, this means choosing a standard fuel level and putting a driver (or something that weighs as much as the driver) in the driving seat.

There is no way to set up a car so that it works as you want it during the full course of a race, some weight is inevitably lost and this will upset the balance of the car as the car becomes lighter and the tires go bad, the driver knows this and will adapt to the changes.
For a race setup it's common to work with whatever average fuel level you will be getting during a race or slightly less than that so that the car is the least upset when it has a full tank (or full race fuel if the race is short) and when it's almost dry.
For qualifying setups you want to choose a different reference condition, which is usually with barely enough fuel to make however many laps you need or are allowed to do during the session.

It's extremely important to pick a reference condition and stick to that every time you work on the setup so that you will get consistent results and measurements. Changing your reference point is only useful if the driving conditions are different (like going for qualifying or for a race), but should never otherwise be changed unless you grossly misjudged something like fuel consumption.
Setting up a car when it has 20L of fuel in it and then checking it after a session when it has 5L (or, perish the thought, with an unknown fuel level) is wrong and pointless and it's the fastest way to fuck up your setups big time.

>Phase 3 - Preparing for alignment

Now that our working area is ready, our car is in its standard condition and the driver is where he should be, we can raise the car, put setup wheels on and lower it on the four stands.

We need to do one last thing so we can be ready to measure everything that can be measured, we need to prepare the frame used for wheel alignment.
This is a case where a picture speaks more than a thousand words so pic related is the result of our work.
Basically, we need to create a perfectly centered rectangle around our car so that we can use it to measure a specific set of distances that will give use alignment values.
To do that, we hang two metal poles at each end of our car and connect them together with fishing wire. To ensure the rectangle is centered, we need to make sure the distance from the wire to the hubs on the same axle is the same (A=B and C=D).
At this point, checking toe values is just a matter of measuring the distance between the two lateral edges of our hubstands (or the edges of the rim if you work with normal wheels on) and the wire. Subtracting the two values together (E - F) will give us a number that can be converted to actual toe angles using charts provided by the car's manufacturer or by figuring it out yourself with a bit of math. If the number is positive (E>F) then we have toe in, if the number is negative (E

>Phase 4 - Measuring everything else

Now that alignment is done, we can proceed to check everything else. Basic race cars will have at the very least adjustable ride height and adjustable camber, which is all stuff we need to measure. Other race cars will have variable caster, track, ackermans and pretty much variable everything, we won't cover those here as it would take too long.

Ride height on GT and touring cars is a bit harder because you need to work under the car. There are usually four flat surfaces machined into the chassis or on a subframe at each corner of the car that will be used as a reference point to check ride height, they are called "master points".
To measure ride height we take the same metal beam we used in Phase 1, we lay it on two stands of the same axis and proceed to check the distance between the lower edge of the beam (which should be resting on the stands and simulates ground level) and the master points.
On formulas and protos we can simply lay the beam on top of our wheels/hubstands and measure the distance between its lower edge and a precise spot on the chassis (for front ride height) and on the gearbox (for the rear).
Keep in mind these values will not give you the actual ground clearance of the car, most likely we will still have parts that are closer to the ground like splitters, floors or skid pads, but they are consistent values (bodywork and skidpads can bend and wear) and are useful to calculate suspension travel and a host of other things.

Camber is simply a matter of laying our digital protractor (or a square ruler with a notched level tool on it) flat against our hubstands/wheels and marking down the number that comes on the display

We also have scales to use, so it's time to raise the car, put the scales on the stands and lower the car on them. Useful values here are corner weight, front-rear weight distribution and left-right weight distribution, which are hopefully already displayed on the scales themselves.

>Notes

With so many numbers to take care of, it's easy to lose track of something so we should always make sure to write down everything.
Engineers usually give us something like pic related before working on the car, the blanks are filled with whatever he wants and our job is to adjust the car so that what we measure is exactly what is written on the setup sheet.
It's also useful to keep a few empty sheets so we can write down our measurements whenever needed.
When you start working on advanced cars, setup sheets become absolutely crazy with hundreds of numbers to keep track of.

A common procedure after free practice is to do a "set down" of the car, i.e. to measure everything again after all the modifications done during the session to see how far we went from the baseline setup we used before we started. It could happen that our engineer will ask us to make a lot of tweaks during a session and each of them upsets every other chassis parameter by a certain amount, so a full set down after the session is necessary to check the actual situation of the car and to decide what to do next.

Finally, there is a specific order of events you should follow when tuning the usual stuff which is ride height > camber > toe, from the one that upsets the others the most to the least. Every modification you make will always change something else so it's good practice to start modifying the ride height and the proceed to stuff that is easier on the rest of the chassis to avoid the frustration of having to go check everything a million time.

I guess that's it, if you have more questions about specific operations, just ask.

For those that are still confused at all the gibberish I just wrote down, check out these sites
intercompracing.com/alignment-equipment.html
mktechnologies.com/products/mkt/mkt_setup_wheels.htm
which are really just random places that sell setup equipment so you can see better how they look and how they work.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all this.

This bread deserves a bump.

Any demand for dedicated transport drivers?

Are the truck drivers usually mechanics as well or do they only focus on driving the trucks from track to track?

How would someone with absolutely no experience with cars or higher education go about getting into the race scene?
What paths are possible?
Mechanical engineering degree? Then what?
Or what to do without a degree?
Become a mechanic? Then how do you transition to racing work?
Sorry if this seems like questions from laziness but I think a lot of people would be interested in this despite it being somewhat hard to answer. I don't want to let this thread die since OP seems to be doing some awesome stuff that I would love to get into but I have no idea how. Btw I'm in the US if that makes a difference.

Personally I'm going to a community college at the moment for mechanical engineering then I will transfer to a 4-year university to get my bachelors. No idea where to go from there

Glad you enjoyed it

Yes truckies are essential. During the events they usually take care of setting up the garage and either do something on the car (usually tire management or refueling) or something else like managing spare parts for the crew or assisting other guys with the hospitality building.
It seems like truckies don't usually become mechanics, but some of them do although they are a minority.

Experience on race cars doesn't seem to be essential for the job, there is always something to do that doesn't require specific car-related knowledge. Your main task is still to drive the truck after all.

Check the link in the OP, I swear I saw an ad for a truckie job for some important team a few days ago, maybe it's still there.

>How would someone with absolutely no experience with cars or higher education go about getting into the race scene?
>What paths are possible?
Read here , also read the link in the OP.
TL;dr: join local small team > gain experience > join better teams > keep doing this until you feel satisfied.
Or
Join motorsport-specific school or course > get internship in a team > gain experience > join better teams
the advantage of the second option is that usually schools have good connections and can give you an internship on mid/high-level teams, but they cost money and time.
>Mechanical engineering degree? Then what?
Then read here or find yourself an R&D job with some manufacturer of race cars. If you want some track action, you should go for a race engineer position tho.

>Or what to do without a degree?
Mechanic, various technician jobs (gearbox, tires, composites, etc), refuelers, truckie and pretty much everything that is not engineering.

>Become a mechanic? Then how do you transition to racing work?
You mean a street mechanic? There is no need to do that. It could help you learning the job faster, but it is no way essential and it's never required.
It won't make the transition easier unless you find a job with a street workshop that also happens to deal with race cars on the side.

>Personally I'm going to a community college at the moment for mechanical engineering then I will transfer to a 4-year university to get my bachelors. No idea where to go from there
Since you are already on the engineering path, get yourself going on vehicle-related studies so you have a better chance at becoming a race engineer. It's a high responsibility job that pays well and it's not terribly complicated to do.

Ok Guys, I'm about to be away from an internet connection for a day more or less.

If you have any more questions about anything, use them to keep the thread bumped, otherwise I guess I'll just see you whenever I make a new thread.

Cheers, everyone

bump

thanks op you're the best

This is my last year as a high-school student and I want to follow a dutch university to study automotive engineering. My goal is motorsports and I was wondering what important stuff should I join or do to go there. I want to move to electric cars, be one step ahead and maybe prepare for a domain in Formula E or similar types of motorsports in the future. Pass me the knowledge OP, tell me the hints and secrets.

Start with reading the paste file :^)

(Not op)

Current Formula E rules allow for teams to develop their own powertrain and maybe their own electronics too (don't quote me on this one tho, last year the electronics were all in charge of McLaren and I don't remember if it's still like that), so there is plenty of room for R&D positions in most teams.

Needless to say, you should focus on car-related electronic studies.
Look in the document I posted in the OP (and read everything in it if you didn't do that already), open the RaceStaff link, there is a job vacancy for Roborace which is the side event of FE and has pretty much the same engineering requirements, check that out so you can see what are the skills they are looking for.

You can also try your way with suppliers of electronic equipment like Cosworth, Magneti Marelli or McLaren so you can develop useful skills for your end goal.

There are so many things you can do as an electronic engineer, just keep in mind you will hardly ever have any responsibility on the car, like deciding setups and stuff like that.

You better find yourself a good field to specialise into, because in big teams there is not a guy in charge or everything, but a lot of guys in charge of many different things, like comms, telemetry, race strategy, engine management, networks and stuff like that.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, but engineering is not my field, I can only speak for what I have learnt by talking with engineers and looking at online job advertisements.

Thanks for keeping the thread bumped, guys

Bumping with another alignment measurement technique.

This is one of the many variants of hubstands you will find on race cars, it has been set up to check alignment by measuring the distance from one end of the hubstand to the corresponding end on the opposite one (see the measuring tapes going under the car).

This technique works just as good as the other one, the only "problem" is that the result you get is a total toe value for left and right rather than the single toe value for each individual wheel.

With the technique shown here you get, let's say, 2mm of toe out, but with pic related you will get 4mm of toe out. In this case you just have to make sure the steering wheel is straight (not a problem with rear wheels) and divide the result in half.

In the pic you can also see the hubstand is resting on a scale (notice the electric cable coming out of it), but the scale is sitting directly on the ground.
Of course this situation is not ideal, but works good enough for amateur levels.

Pros of this technique:
- less stuff to use (no poles and fishing lines)
- faster
- just as precise as the other technique

Cons:
- if the steering wheel is not straight, you won't notice it by the measurements alone.
- usually needs two people to execute