The unikat - understand car setups

Non-engine, eg: aerodynamics, gearboxes, brakes, suspension
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Christoph Thuerey
Posts: 14
Joined: November 20th, 2008, 9:47 pm
Location: Oldenburg, Germany

The unikat - understand car setups

Post by Christoph Thuerey »

Hi,

in a thread about roll center adjusters in the Competition car preparation section, I mentioned a car called the unikat. This car was designed and produced in our company ATP.

ATP is the abbreviation for Automotive Testing Papenburg. The company is situated in northern Germany and is the operating company of one of the biggest and most modern testing facilities for the automotive industry. Our business starts with renting the tracks, among others a one to one copy of the small Hockenheim-racetrack and a high speed oval with a length of 12,4 km and curves with a banking of 49 degrees. So we can drive 250 km/h without side forces. Besides we offer for example complete durability tests, pass-by-noise, tyre testing or driver trainings.

The driver trainings and the driving dynamic are part of my job. I am an automotive engineer and prior to my studies, I apprenticed as a industrial mechanic. Racing is my hobby now for about 18 years, starting with Autocross and racing for the last two years in a Cup sport series.

But now back to the unikat. It was designed by our executive director, an experienced race car designer. He was responsible for cars like the CLK-GTR or some of the Mercedes DTM-cars. He was supported by my line manager, who has worked for many years as a race engineer for teams in the DTM, LeMans and WRC. I was involved in the complete development and by having the chance to work together with such experts, I have learned ten times more than during my complete studies.
We built nearly all parts at our workshop. I cut the tubes for the frame, welded them, my colleagues and I milled hundreds of parts and finally assembled the complete car. Even the driveshafts were built by me. It took about one year from start of production until roll-out.

Now my line manager and I train automotive engineers with the unikat. Contents are among others suspension settings and their effects of handling and comfort, influence of masses, rollcenter and tyres. It is very important to have an impression of step widths. Is it useful or necessary to have the Wishbone-pickups in a tolerance of 1mm? I would say no, but if your steering column is 1mm too high or too low, you will have bumpsteer which has great effects on handling behaviour. That is exactly why we have built the unikat, to demonstrate on which parameters you should look at.

Right now we have started to design the unikat 2 because some of our customers want their own unikat. The second unikat will be improved in a few points. Number one is a single piece, if you want to build 10 of them you will have to change some designs. Furthermore we figured out that the engine is too weak if the car is fully loaded. Finally we had some problems with oil feed during steady state driving on a circular path.

Guy permitted me to post a link to a presentation of the unikat in his great forum. Thanks for that and also many thanks to Anthony (cantfindausername) who uploaded the presentation to his web space.

http://www.car13.net/temp/christoph/UNIKAT-Series.pps

Regards Christoph

P.S. If you have further questions, feel free to contact me or reply to this post.
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Guy Croft
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Re: The unikat - understand car setups

Post by Guy Croft »

MODEL POST!

Thanks for taking such care to form a nicely crafted and interesting article Christoph.

Now!

"Finally we had some problems with oil feed during steady state driving on a circular path"

What's this about and how are you going to solve it?

GC
TR-Spider
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Joined: June 23rd, 2006, 8:37 am
Location: Rekingen / Switzerland
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Re: The unikat - understand car setups

Post by TR-Spider »

Hi Christoph

Great post!

And congratulations to your job, certainly one of the really interessting ones around.

And it's a small world, I actually had a track day at the ATP side, 2 or 3 years ago with some classics, mainly on the small "Hockenheim" circuit.


Thomas
GC_23
Christoph Thuerey
Posts: 14
Joined: November 20th, 2008, 9:47 pm
Location: Oldenburg, Germany

Re: The unikat - understand car setups

Post by Christoph Thuerey »

Hi,

if we drive "steady state" it is not uncommon that it takes five minutes for a complete run. You start with 0.5g lateral acceleration, i.e with a radius of 45m, and you will end over 1g. So nearly every wet-sump-system will have problems with it. But we cannot change to a normal dry-sump, because there is not enough room for the pump belt. I call it the minimum package problem, because almost all designers want to build everything as small as possible. So we have installed two electric scavenge pumps and one electric feed pump for the OE oil pump. In combination with an 8 liter oiltank, we solved the problem. But the unikat 2 will get a normal dry-sump-system.

@ Thomas: thank you, yes I cannot complain about my job. Hope you enjoyed the day at ATP!

Regards Christoph
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