Baja Throttle System
Baja SAE • Manufacturing • FEA
A durable and easy to assemble throttle pedal for the 2023-24 Northwestern Baja car. Raced at Baja SAE Williamsport, PA. Designed in Solidworks with FEA and manufactured via waterjetting with 4130 steel
Overview
This was my second NU Baja project and I was assigned the task of designing the throttle of the car for the 2023-24 season. With the throttle being such an crucial component, and one that had issues the previous year, I was determined to have a reliable throttle this year. After lessons learned from last year’s throttle system, we set out knowing that the system was going to interface with optional throttle assembly sold by Kohler.
Design
We selected 4130 Steel, which was readily available and set our strength requirement as being able to sustain the load of a 300lb force at the face of the pedal while still maintaining a factor of safety of above 1.1. The design above was able to fulfil this requirement. After my DR and verifying with my lead engineer, we move on to manufacturing, as shown in the file on the right.
The FEA of the part was setup as shown below.
Parts & Finish
After waterjetting the parts, the raw steel was pretty rusted, so I finished the parts by sanding them down and begun the welding process, welding the throttle stop together and the pedal face and stem together. The throttle stop was also welded onto the frame itself, show below. After some testing ensure correct movement, we also mounted the throttle cable as well as the connecting the cable to the engine in the rear shown below.
The rear assembly purchased directly from Kholer ended up being a little bit finicky to work with, with a crucial part of the assembly being held in place by a e-clip, but the parts overall worked fine and showed no signs of wear after use. The one issue that the team ran into at competition with regards to the throttle was one of the rear throttle brackets being bent/damaged due to someone having to bend it out of the way to remove other engine parts after an oil leak, which significantly weakened the bracket and lead to some warping during use. However, that was some thing out of my design control. As such, I won’t count that against my design.