7/30/2025 - 8/9/2025: Suspension and Summer Cleaning / Meet Our VIL!
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Anton Walvoord
Aug 9, 2025, 2:58:13 PM8/9/25
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Northwestern Formula Racing
@nufsae | northwesternformularacing.com
Summer Newsletter - 8.9.2025
Suspension and Summer Cleaning:
Hello again NFR-heads! As mentioned in the [last newsletter], this past Sunday was our deadline to finalize our suspension geometry, and we're happy to announce that it has officially been finalized!
This is the first major step toward a particular design goal we have for this year. When our suspension lead began designing the geometry we were unsure if we'd be able to balance proper vehicle dynamics alongside this change. Fortunately, after many iterations, we believe we've found a sweet spot.
As you can see from the CAD screenshots below, NFR26 is designing hub motors.
NFR26 Finalized Suspension Geometry
This is our first year attempting to use hub motors, and there are a number of complications that come with the territory. As such, we've decided to use a somewhat unconventional drivetrain configuration. Our plan is to have a hub motor in each of our front wheels and retain our single motor and differential in the rear.
Hub motors can provide a number of benefits, including torque vectoring and better power delivery to the ground. These benefits are best achieved when each wheel has its own motor. This is our end goal, but as you may already understand, that is a major change from our past designs. Our intent is that NFR26 will serve as a transition point for the team, allowing us to experiment with a new drivetrain while building on the reliability of our existing knowledge. We want to be competitive in both performance and design, and we believe this is our best path toward that goal.
* * *
Another goal for NFR26 is to lighten our steering weight. NFR25 took a lot of force to steer -- particularly an issue for the endurance event. We are actively determining the major causes of this resistance, and so when we had a number of members on campus doing some Summer cleaning, we decided to assemble a few basic testing setups. Below is a photo of one such impromptu system used to determine the torque required to turn the entire steering assembly.
Hello again NFR-heads! As mentioned in the [last newsletter], this past Sunday was our deadline to finalize our suspension geometry, and we're happy to announce that it has officially been finalized!
This is the first major step toward a particular design goal we have for this year. When our suspension lead began designing the geometry we were unsure if we'd be able to balance proper vehicle dynamics alongside this change. Fortunately, after many iterations, we believe we've found a sweet spot.
As you can see from the CAD screenshots below, NFR26 is designing hub motors.
NFR26 Finalized Suspension Geometry
This is our first year attempting to use hub motors, and there are a number of complications that come with the territory. As such, we've decided to use a somewhat unconventional drivetrain configuration. Our plan is to have a hub motor in each of our front wheels and retain our single motor and differential in the rear.
Hub motors can provide a number of benefits, including torque vectoring and better power delivery to the ground. These benefits are best achieved when each wheel has its own motor. This is our end goal, but as you may already understand, that is a major change from our past designs. Our intent is that NFR26 will serve as a transition point for the team, allowing us to experiment with a new drivetrain while building on the reliability of our existing knowledge. We want to be competitive in both performance and design, and we believe this is our best path toward that goal.
* * *
Another goal for NFR26 is to lighten our steering weight. NFR25 took a lot of force to steer -- particularly an issue for the endurance event. We are actively determining the major causes of this resistance, and so when we had a number of members on campus doing some Summer cleaning, we decided to assemble a few basic testing setups. Below is a photo of one such impromptu system used to determine the torque required to turn the entire steering assembly.
Steering torque was measured in a number of ways to help our suspension members to determine possible sources of resistance.
Our final exec member on the management team: Matt Hosemann!
Matt
Hosemann is a third year student from Oakland, California studying
mechanical engineering. After contributing to the design of the
high-voltage enclosure in his first year and leading battery pack design
and testing in his second, Matt will now be shaping and executing the
team's technical direction for NFR26.
Matt's experience designing and manufacturing tightly knit mechanical and electrical interactions has given him a strong understanding of vehicle integration. This experience will now be put to use on an even greater scope, pushing NFR26's competitive edge.
The team is looking forward to the insights Matt will provide and excited to see what he accomplishes in his new role!
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