Mahr Federal Sponsors Illini Motorsports

Mahr Federal Inc. (Providence, RI) has announced it will provide a Silver Level sponsorship to Illini Motorsports, a University of Illinois-sponsored student organization. As part of the sponsorship, the company will donate a range of gaging equipment, including digital gages, micrometers, calipers, and a Digimar 814 SR height measuring and scribing instrument.

Each year, Formula SAE teams such as Illini Motorsports are challenged by a fictional manufacturing company to design and develop a small formula-style racing car that is targeted at the nonprofessional weekend autocross enthusiast. Based on a predetermined set of templates and rules, they must design the fastest, most effective racing machine possible while minimizing costs, maximizing reliability, and utilizing the latest racing technologies. Competitions are held annually in various places all over the world where these design teams are able to bring their car and compete against some of the best engineering students from across the planet.

The Illini Motorsports team has had many top-10 finishes and, in their most recent season, the group’s car finished third out of 80 teams at Formula SAE Lincoln. “Our team manufactures many tight-tolerance parts in house to support our racecar,” said Shreyas Sudhakar, a student at the University of Illinois and the engine team leader for the school Formula SAE team. “Anywhere from cutting simple parts on the band saw to CNC milling suspension components to rapid prototyping custom intake geometries. It is critical that our parts are dimensionally accurate to ensure proper fit, performance and safety of our drivers.”

Formula SAE is unlike most other engineering societies/groups because its members tackle real engineering problems. To solve them, students apply knowledge gained in the classroom to formulate an idea and see it through manufacturing to application. That sort of involvement also teaches participants responsibility, teamwork, self-motivation, budgeting, and communication skills. “Illini Motorsports doesn’t just turn out high performance cars, they turn out well-trained engineers,” noted Tony Picone, the president of Mahr Federal. “We are very pleased to help support their efforts and look forward to some of these engineers perhaps joining our ranks in the not too distant future.” Gaging products being donated as part of their sponsorship program include:

• 5-15 mm Digital Internal Gauge for measuring small bearings and clearances
• 0-1 in Digital Indicator for checking part height and runout
• 0-1 in Digital micrometer for measuring critical part thicknesses, suspension shims, bore gauges, and bearing journals
• 0-8 in Universal Digital Caliper for measuring complete part geometries
• 0-6 in Standard Digital Caliper for general part measurement
• Digimar 814 SR Height Measuring and Scribing Instrument/Height Gage for chassis jigging, suspension set-up, etc.

www.mahr.com