Combustion

The combustion team is the oldest team within Longhorn Racing, founded in 1980 by Professor Emeritus Ron Matthews, and it competes in the Formula SAE competition, which was founded in the same year, by the same professor, and on the same campus. The competition and the team were formed in order to create an environment in which students can not only learn about but also experience the automotive engineering world by requiring them to design, build, and race a custom formula-style car according to a given set of specifications. Both the competition and the cars that were created in 1980 have come a long way after 45 years, forcing students to adopt the newest technologies and practices to push the limits of their cars. The current combustion car is powered by a 600 cc Honda CBR 600RR motor with a restricted intake and bespoke titanium exhaust, sitting in a fully custom, in-house welded 4130 steel space frame chassis, with carbon fiber double wishbone suspension, student designed 7075-T6 aluminum uprights and hubs, and a full carbon front splitter, rear wing, and undertray. Within the combustion team, there are seven systems: aerodynamics, body, composites, dynamics, electronics, powertrain, and simval, which are all also supported by our operations teamsadds.