Will Dyson keep the MG's?

[Dauntless]

IMO, Jim Downing isn't likely to abandon the Mazda engine any time soon. He's been racing them for what, 20 years? Unlikely to change, I think.

[thebear]

Originally posted by dretceterini
I'm wondeing if the 3.4 liter Judd might fit in Downings WM....

Are you sure that you don't mean WR?:confused:

[Tim Northcutt]

I don't know about the "de-tuning" for the race last weekend by Intersport....but their race times were about 1 second off what they ran in practice....

Compared to the two Dyson cars, they were on pace or a little faster in practice than the Dyson #20...the Dyson #16 was obviously faster, but that could be as much to do with the trio driving the Dyson #16 as anything else....

Concerning the two engines....

AER has had 3 years to work out problems with whatever has ailed that engine or their aspects of the car....three full seasons of ALMS work with teams like Intersport, Knighthawk and in the past year, Dyson...

On an ALMS telecast earlier in the year, the announcers mentioned that the design of the piston heads and other internal aspects of the turbo engine had been changed to try to improve the engine's reliability...

In 2002 Le Mans, the Knighthawk became a flaming dish during the night, and the final MG-XPower LMP675 Lola in that same race definitely blew the engine.....other engine failures have occurred...granted, the overall problems have been widespread and have not all been engine-related...but the engine has had its share in the lack of results....

The Judd ran on-pace last week and finished the race as the class winner in its first outing in that particular chassis....

It still has more development and will improve as Intersport gets acquainted with it and the full potential of the engine, the gearig it needs, etc....

AER's record is fast, but fragile...that hasn't changed in 3 years....

[Dauntless]

Originally posted by thebear
Are you sure that you don't mean WR?:confused:

Never mind...not my post!

[Carousel]

It's worth noting that the Intersport #37 might have split the two Dyson cars in PLM qualifying had they not (somewhat mysteriously) decided to start on full rain tires. Dyson, I believe, ran a couple of laps on intermediates and quickly switched to slicks. Jon Field only had four laps on slicks, and they had just started to "come in" when the clock ran out. I will truly be interesting to see what this car can do over the next few months.

[Tim Northcutt]

I can hardly wait to see how they run vs. the two MG-AER Lolas at the LM-1000k in a couple of weeks.....

They obviously have some notes to work with from Petit and can tweak the package for the specific characteristics of the LM-Bugatti circuit...

One Other Note: In one of the LM-1000K threads, Fab told us that the average temperature during the day in that region in November is between about 5 degrees C and 10 degrees C....

For the Yanks in the house, that's about 40-50 degrees F....VERY cold temps for getting heat in tires....

I expect LOTS of problems for teams and lots of spin-offs or accidents....

I sat through an Indy 500 about 10 years ago on a day that was in the low 50s F, and it was next to impossible for the drivers to get the tires up to proper racing temperatures, and thus the proper grip....

A lot of mangled hardware left the Brickyard that day......

[billnchristy]

Uh...doesnt a lot of mangled hardware leave the brickyard after EVERY race?

[thebear]

Originally posted by billnchristy
Uh...doesnt a lot of mangled hardware leave the brickyard after EVERY race?

Mostly broken, not mangled.

[Tim Northcutt]

Not really....there were a few wall-bangers in last year's run...but they're turning laps in the 220 mph range for 500 miles with 33 of them all running at about the same range of speed....

as far as reliability, the IRL cars were VERY reliable this past season....except for the Chevy Gen. III before Cosworth bailed GM out...

We're waiting on the word concernign what caused Tony Renna's crash and death yesterday in testing...but his wreck happened at 9:20 a.m.....and yesterday, the air temps were not warm...in the 50s most of the day, and probably the low 50s at 9:20 a.m.....

I hae no idea if that was the cause....

But this is a sportscar forum....I just used the IMS example for the cold temps on tires.....it won't be pretty if the teams can't get tire temps up at LM-Bugatti on Nov. 9...

[C_g]

Originally posted by Tim Northcutt
We had a whole thread (Intersport with Judd Power) on that Judd vs AER for horses and torque....Jon Field said in Atlanta that the Judd is "more torquey" than the AER....
Look at that thread, particularly the numbers on each engine as we have been able to get them from teams or manufacturers, but more important, look at the "reverse engineering" and the graphs that Dauntless put in that thread....it is quite insightful...

For the record, the Judd 3.4 with 2003 restrictors cranks about 500 hp. and the AER with 2003 restrictors somewhere between 450 and 475...but we don't know exactly....the AER numbers are general numbers listed by teams that run it....the Judd numbers are from their website....

Bottom line, we'll find out which is the better choice next year. The Dyson cars were faster at Road Atlanta, and that's with both of them running quite a bit over the weight limit of 675kg. I don't know at what weight Intersport were running.

That reverse engineering is only as good as the numbers you put into it, and those are uncertain.

I still think the AER is the way to go, especially since a whole new motor (block, heads, pistons, everything) was designed for and used by Dyson at PLM. There's a lot of development left in that motor.

In general, the restrictor rules favor turbo-charged motors. We can see that with the GT-One back in '98-99 and the R8 now.

[billnchristy]

Thats not what porsche thought when they got out...

[Dauntless]

I could bore you guys with another long engineering exercise about "power under the curve", but the bottom line is that I strongly suspect that the rules favor turbo engines up to about 90% of RPM, then favor the normally aspirated engines above that.

Overall, I think LM's rules strike quite a good balance. Other than reliability, there appears little to chose between the two engine configurations.

As C_q says, the test will be next year.

[dretceterini]

My mistake...although Welter Racing is the remnanats of the old WM Peugeot team.

I don't think the chassis is that bad; it would take another 100 horsepower to really tell

[Carousel]

Originally posted by dretceterini
I don't think the chassis is that bad; it would take another 100 horsepower to really tell

I think it's safe to say that at PLM, Downing's car was rarely on the verge of losing grip due to too much horsepower being applied to the wheels.

[veeten]

so, how many of us happen to get a look at the new livery scheme for the RML Lola?

Sharp!...

[billnchristy]

the WR would probably make a fine LM2 car then.

[Tim Northcutt]

I would agree with you to a point, c_g...

But how many times must a package fail to finish over a 3-year period before somebody like Intersport finally says,

"There has to be a BETTER and MORE RELIABLE way to try to race with this chassis...."

The Intersport car was competitive at Road Atlanta....they ran in the top 5-7 cars in virtually all of the pre-race sessions.....

Yes...we will see next year....Dyson can be rocket fast in all of the short sessions he wants....but if the car doesn't hold together and doesn't finish (now that it will be in the LMP1 category with all of the 2003 LMP 900s that CAN go the distance quickly) they won't have anything to show for their efforts...

This year, they "backed into" a championship with the #20 car in the ALMS season only because its competition in the 675 class was either slow, or also a "ticking time bomb" MG-Lola with the AER package and the electricals and such that Dyson is racing...they won't have that luxury next year in a class that has reliable and fast prototypes (LMP 900s) in it with them....

[thebear]

Originally posted by billnchristy
the WR would probably make a fine LM2 car then.

The car as run at Road Atlanta was not the same as Jim Downing ran earlier. The early version required that the entire body be removed (one piece) in order to service anything. The RA car had (at least) a removable rear deck for engine access. Hopefully the balance of the car was improved as well. I don't have any lap time data to use when deciding if they "Won" third place or the others "Lost" it.

[73_Gstock]

This was not the first running of the Judd motor. Wasn't it the same block that Dick Barbour ran in 2001?

As far as the temperatures, Jon Field better be thankful Oberto isn't in the 30.

Did one of the AER motored Lolas with draw?
The entry list shows the JML Lola AER and the Intersport Lola Judd, but no Chamberlain car.

The entry list now shows 41 cars, so it must have been withdrawn.
Was the Junkyard Dog at Petit? I never saw it. Carousel?

[Tim Northcutt]

In the Downing WR's case, others "lost" it....in the final hour or so, they were turning laps at about 94 or 95 mph, according to the scoring ticker on SpeedChannel....the GT cars were going faster than the WR....

and I believe that there were only 3 of the LMP 675 cars still running at the end of the race....the others expired.....

[KA]

Originally posted by Tim Northcutt
I would agree with you to a point, c_g...

But how many times must a package fail to finish over a 3-year period before somebody like Intersport finally says,

"There has to be a BETTER and MORE RELIABLE way to try to race with this chassis...."

The Intersport car was competitive at Road Atlanta....they ran in the top 5-7 cars in virtually all of the pre-race sessions.....

Yes...we will see next year....Dyson can be rocket fast in all of the short sessions he wants....but if the car doesn't hold together and doesn't finish (now that it will be in the LMP1 category with all of the 2003 LMP 900s that CAN go the distance quickly) they won't have anything to show for their efforts...

This year, they "backed into" a championship with the #20 car in the ALMS season only because its competition in the 675 class was either slow, or also a "ticking time bomb" MG-Lola with the AER package and the electricals and such that Dyson is racing...they won't have that luxury next year in a class that has reliable and fast prototypes (LMP 900s) in it with them....

I think the question for Dyson is going to be whether the Judd will give the car enough speed to contend for outright wins- if they don't think it will, then I can see them continuing to risk the AER- from his comments post-race, Dyson isn't interested in being 'competitve' with the current 900's- he wants to beat them.

Yes, Intersport were competitive at PLM, and as you said ran pretty consistently in the top 5-7 cars in the pre-race sessions, but so far, on one outing, we don't really know yet if the Judd gives the car enough speed to take on an Audi and win

If next year, with more experience of the package, Intersport are right on the pace, and maybe win a couple of races early in the season while Dyson continue to have reliability troubles with the AER, then I can see Dyson making the switch pretty quickly- if, on the other hand the Judd proves to be pretty competitive but without really looking like an outright winner, then I suspect they'll stick with the AER.

In theory, there's no reason why you can't get a reliable 450-500 bhp out of a 2-litre turbo 4-cylinder- it's been done in the past (think back to the Ford Sierra Cosworths in late 80's touring car races), it just takes time, money and development....