The never ending Toyota return to Le Mans (LMP1) Saga

[Articus]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

i more than you about what you have written. Last year ullrich and audi sport personell, more than once said that because of audi ultralight technology the dry weight of R18 TDI was a lot ligther than the min. required 900kg. This let them to use the ballasts not only to reach the weight of 900kg but also to use different setting of weight balance according to various situations (the concept that i explained before). Then think also that even if the 2012 r18 ultra has a bit different tub than the 2011 one, basicly, not having the hybrid, the car has the same structure and layout of the r18 TDI! but meanwhile this, audi placed a lot of ballast in the front of the car to simulate the presence of "something/hybrd" changing the weight distribution as consequence if we want to compare to the 2011 r18 TDI.
There are no fact behind any of this? i behind this see only you a childish way to do.... is already problematic when in a discussion with different point of views (as far currently i can't proof my opinion, is however true that until now none has been able to prove beyond doubt that i'm wrong) an user tries to taunt anonther one... still more pathetic when this user pretends to be cool writing something that make laughing the others...

You made your entire comment about how the Peugeot could supposedly move weight around. I comment to that sayings its false. You respond by telling me about the Audi R18? Are we on the same page? You typed Peugeot 908 not Audi R18 in your original comment.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

i more than you about what you have written. Last year ullrich and audi sport personell, more than once said that because of audi ultralight technology the dry weight of R18 TDI was a lot ligther than the min. required 900kg. This let them to use the ballasts not only to reach the weight of 900kg but also to use different setting of weight balance according to various situations (the concept that i explained before). Then think also that even if the 2012 r18 ultra has a bit different tub than the 2011 one, basicly, not having the hybrid, the car has the same structure and layout of the r18 TDI! but meanwhile this, audi placed a lot of ballast in the front of the car to simulate the presence of "something/hybrd" changing the weight distribution as consequence if we want to compare to the 2011 r18 TDI.
There are no fact behind any of this? i behind this see only you a childish way to do.... is already problematic when in a discussion with different point of views (as far currently i can't proof my opinion, is however true that until now none has been able to prove beyond doubt that i'm wrong) an user tries to taunt anonther one... still more pathetic when this user pretends to be cool writing something that make laughing the others...

In addition i tailored my comment to avoid personal attack..This is how you respond.

[alexkiller8]

i think that my reply suits the situation... i'm talking about weigth distribution as general concept giving you examples, i'm not talking about of just one car.

[Articus]

So did he also tell you that he sends the parts to Peugeot?

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by Articus

So did he also tell you that he sends the parts to Peugeot?

call me when you'll start to write some sensefull post.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

call me when you'll start to write some sensefull post.

It was a joke and you know exactly what I am trying to say. Just because Audi is doing something with there car does not mean Peugeot was doing the same thing. And it does not mean that Toyota is doing that either.

It was originally that Peugeot was doing something with there car.It was probably deduced that if Audi is doing this then surely Peugeot is doing it. "They're both diesels after all". (im not saying that was the exact thought process) but theres not proof behind what you said about the Peugeot. You hinted that Audi does this which is still up for debate. But then just push it further to say Peugeot does it...

There is not much in this. Something was stated and said to be true but there was very little evidence of it.

If you believe that Peugeot did this as well then show me where this was said and I will believe you.

[alexkiller8]

sincerly i think that not only peugeot could do it, but all other lmp1/lmp2 that use ballasts to reach the min. weight... speaking with numbers, to obtain a 46/54 ratio are just needed 36kg extra on the rear (414/486) is not a high value as maybe you thought. Sincerly i don't know if there are FIA/ACO homologated parts or devices that teams must use as ballast or if teams are free to use whatever they want! but if teams must use 5kg/10kg cilynder shaped ballast as are used in f1 and in fia gt years ago, i don't think will be hard to find a symmetric place in the rear of the car to place 3 10kg cilynder and 1 5kg one. The same for ballast placed in the front of the car.

[aneesh99]

I'm sure someone can point me in the right direction but with the Ultra being underweight, I'm certain that one of the technical commentators (probably Sam Collins or Mulsanne Mike) said that the ballast was all being put in the holes left in the tub from the missing hybrid system, as with the TS030's ballast being put into the parts missing after the removal of the front hybrid system.

I can also tell you this much. I've done a fair amount of tuning and setup work on road cars. The last time I moved weight in a car, it completely goofed all the suspension settings and you could notice it a lot whilst driving. And that was 10kgs out of a the back and 10 into the front 1220kg Honda S2000. That's 0.8% weight movement. A P1 is much more finicky, and the 36kgs you just posted is ridiculous. That's 4% of the weight being moved. No team is ever going to shift around 36kgs, no matter how good they are. It's more trouble than it's worth. Why do you think teams spend so much time setting up suspension? And don't the rules mention that ballast has to be fixed?

I know teams place ballast in strategic places to balance the car as a whole, but like I said, I find it hard to believe they shift it all event on event.

P.s. I know someone else mentioned this in a another thread but the Ultra has ballast not only from the missing hybrid system but also the fact that the car is outright lighter. The source mentioned in the said post suggested around 140kgs!

[alexkiller8]

i don't want to give offence but i think that the only ridiculous thing is you that compare the suspensions of the s2000 with the pull/push rod suspensions of lmp cars that can be set in multiple way in response to other changing on the car.
Your argumentation can be true in a stock road car* but not in a racecar! just think that gt1/gt2/gt3 car, that use road chassis, because of bop and winning ballast were constantly forced to shift weight because of extra weight of ballast and i never saw suspension failure because of this.
All lmp1 and lmp2 cars; who more, who less; have a dry weight lower than 900kg, teams however are forced to insert somewhere some ballast to have a regoulamentar car. Is useless to say that the add of ballast can be used to change the weight distribution of the car if is useful to the race.

*(however isn't true because also in road cars a lighter engine can be swapped with a larger displaced one, taking more weight on front or rear, the stability is kept modifying suspensions setting... example, think to the various nissan silvia that are modified swapping the SR20DET with the skyline RB26DETT, obiouvsly the skyline engine is heavier than the original one, but with the right suspensions setting the car keep the stability with maybe an improved handling. I saw with my eyes nissan silvia with engines swapped, and they were fast)

[aneesh99]

None taken

I'm talking about you mentioning movable ballast. Last time I checked, when you swap an engine, it doesn't move about of it's own volition.

I'm not even sure I understand what you're saying (I am lacking in sleep to be fair), your previous posts seem to be arguing that teams could move around huge amounts of ballast, now you say:

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

Is useless to say that the add of ballast can be used to change the weight distribution of the car if is useful to the race.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly the opposite of this:

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

This let them to use the ballasts not only to reach the weight of 900kg but also to use different setting of weight balance according to various situations (the concept that i explained before).

I don't think it's ridiculous to make my comparison because even though the S2000 has independent double wishbone suspension versus pull or pushrod suspension, road cars are far less susceptible to being effected by small weight changes than prototypes. Like I said, they are much more finicky. Stands to reason that moving 10kgs from back to front in an S2000 would have far less effect on it's overall handling characteristics than moving 10 kgs from back to front in a 900kg P1 carbon fibre sledge.

On a different note, no hostility to ya, I do like your posts on the whole, so we're still cool right? And yeah, I've seen S-platform cars with RB26's, that engine in a non-bloated AWD setup is a beast!

[alexkiller8]

ok i try to explain better, let's take as model the r18 TDI that as all we know had a dry weight of around 750kg. OK now, we all know that the car is mid engined, so if we split the car in 2 (front and rear section) because of the presence of engine in the rear part, this one is heavier than the front one (i guess that we all agree with this).
Well, now audi is forced to insert 150kg of ballast in the car! and this huge amount of weight to insert, audi personell can decide to insert more ballast weight on the rear in certain tracks like le mans at example (45/55; 46/54) or less to give the car more stability in tracks with a lot of turns and brakes in downhill like road atlanta or imola (48/52) or again as happens in r18 ultra they can use more weight on the front to simulate the presence of hybrid system. I said a post above that all lmp1/2 cars have a dry weight lower than 900kg, so using the ballast teams can decide to place in different way and different places this ballast to give a different balance that better suits the situation!
is useless to say that audi personell being forced to insert 150kg have more set up freedom of some other team that use a car that has a higher dry weight than r18 and need to insert less ballast to reach 900kg, having less freedom to set up the weight balance.

Think this way: you have a car and you need to carry with you a very fat guy; the road is flat, then you can make sit him on the front seat or in the rear seats without too much problems. But if you have to carry this very fat guy in a downhill, in your opinion is better to make him seat on the front or in the rear?

[alexkiller8]

An other example that i can tell you is the mc12! in fia GT because of bop the car weight was 1100kg heavy (without winning ballast) and had a shorter rear wing than the mc12 that ran in ALMS, that had the same weight but the long rear wing! is useless to say that the shorter wing developed less downforce than what the car was projected to produce! so they needed still more weight on the rear to reach the wished rear downforce. Because of this until 2009 maserati and ferrari more than once per season asked to fia the permission to shift the weight of the winning ballast in different places as they wished, for the simple reason to have the best possible balance for each race. In 2010 with the new specs the bop was still more aggressive, with the car that ran almost all the season with a min. weight 1225/1240kg! paraddoxly this was a good new for them, being able to use more than 200kg of ballast as they wished for all the season! as consequence of this maserati asked to fia the permission to have the possibility to place the winning ballast on the "passegger's seat" of the car!
we are talking about a car that had more than 60% of the weight on the rear, that as adrian newey it self said when he tried the car last year, need to be driven in a very different way than other cars because of this.

[aneesh99]

My bone to pick isn't that it's a fundamentally flawed idea, just that the way you're portraying it is like it's some sort of magic bullet to setup, that if you get a certain distribution, the car is perfect and ready to go, but that's patently not true. I've never heard of teams moving ballast round on round to achieve better balance, what I'm saying is that the majority of balancing and handling issues are sorted by suspension setup, brake balance etc, that's they way it's been done for years, and it's what's done today. Why bother introducing another variable to control which inevitable knocks everything off?

Like I said, I see what you're getting at but so far, but I'm certain that Audi, nor Peugeot or Toyota would/will be shifting the ballast. As for the MC12, I took a look at the FIA GT1 regs and waivers from the years it was competing and can't find anything about the movable ballast. Do you have a source on hand for that?

[alexkiller8]

I didn't say that shifting weight is the main set-up system that team uses! i just said and reported how teams can use this possibility.
About MC12, for each season on the fia site there are the public bullettins that fia releases about fia gt (bop, bop changes, team requests etc...) unfortunately every year are erased the bullettins of past years, so i can't show you any proof (none force none to blindly believe in what i say afterall). If someone saved these bullettins, i please that he can post the pre-2010 bullettins and the 2010 ones of fia gt (and le mans too) will make me a huge favour.

[aneesh99]

Fair enough, then I apologize for over stating what you said. It's true that the possibility is there, but that doesn't mean it will be used or if it's even a good idea for prototypes.

I think I've talked about Audi, Peugeot and weight enough now

Looking ahead, what are peoples opinions on what we can expect from Toyota at Silverstone?

[TF110]

A fight to the finish! 6 hours is plenty within range of their reliability from what weve seen at LeMans. Question is their speed there. We'll see soon.

[alexkiller8]

toyota absolutely need to optimize their consumes, too much high, second only compared to the arx-03b! this is a big handicap for them, because even if in the best scenario they will manage to be faster and more competitive than audi, their poor fuel efficency will force them to make a pit stop extra than audi. Reliability is another problem too, at le mans the engine of the #7 worked more than 6 hour, is true! but during the practice session, the #8 had soon an engine failure. Nakajima driving in the traffic may be an issue too.

[Félix]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

toyota absolutely need to optimize their consumes, too much high, second only compared to the arx-03b! this is a big handicap for them, because even if in the best scenario they will manage to be faster and more competitive than audi, their poor fuel efficency will force them to make a pit stop extra than audi. Reliability is another problem too, at le mans the engine of the #7 worked more than 6 hour, is true! but during the practice session, the #8 had soon an engine failure. Nakajima driving in the traffic may be an issue too.

11000 rpm burns more fuel than 5000 rpm? For real!?! Some say: may the best technology win... but once again equalization needs to take place and how much of a break you get is very political. How many Audis has the ACO been given in the last decade?

Bring back the GV5 and other slower revving big atmospheric engines I say. Now! not in 2014 because the sport can't afford to lose any more LMP1 entries at the rate it's been losing them for years if we want to see the category on track at all next year.

[alexkiller8]

i don't think that the ts020 revs to 11000, realisticly will be 9000rpm or something more. Honda lmp1 engine too is a high revlimit but consumes a lot less. I don't understand your point... nobody forced toyota to use a really high revlimit engine... if they can't find a way to reduce consumes is their fault not because of the kind of engine.

[Félix]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

i don't think that the ts020 revs to 11000, realisticly will be 9000rpm or something more. Honda lmp1 engine too is a high revlimit but consumes a lot less. I don't understand your point... nobody forced toyota to use a really high revlimit engine... if they can't find a way to reduce consumes is their fault not because of the kind of engine.

It's simple physics: to make power from a small NA engine, you need to rev it hard (power is torque*rpm, there is no way around it). The restrictor that these engines use chokes the maximum rpm because only so much air can circulate through it before reaching sonic speeds. The Acura and Porsche engines made their power around 11000 rpm, and they would have gone for more (like the 905) if the rules had not mandated that restrictor size. And of course friction goes up big time with rpm, which is very bad for consumption.

(and it's been rumoured but not confirmed afaik that the Toyota unit is the only NA endurance engine with direct fuel injection since Porsche, something that was used as an excuse when discussing the HPD/Judd/Zytek units)

[chernaudi]

The TS030's engine doesn't have DFI--in fact, it turns out, in spite of speculation and rumor that the TS030 had a unique engine, it is actually running a TMG-tuned (uprated) version of the FN/Super GT engine that Rebellion are using. The only issue is that Toyota have had several engine failures with the TS030 spec engine, while Rebellion have never lost a TMG supplied engine.

The question we have to ask is have Toyota's upgrades damaged the engine's reliablity, or are Rebellion's engines that much de-tuned before sale/rental? Or could it be chassis related? I doubt the latter (I'd vote that the TS030 variant is that much more stressed due to making more power), but it has happened before (the Zytek V8 in the Panoz LMP07 basically shook the car apart because of lack of chassis stiffness and a bad engine mounting system), but it and it's derivatives worked fine in the Reynard/Zytek chassis.

But to answer the question, no, the TS030 currently at least doesn't use DFI.

[Félix]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

The TS030's engine doesn't have DFI--in fact, it turns out, in spite of speculation and rumor that the TS030 had a unique engine, it is actually running a TMG-tuned (uprated) version of the FN/Super GT engine that Rebellion are using. The only issue is that Toyota have had several engine failures with the TS030 spec engine, while Rebellion have never lost a TMG supplied engine.

The question we have to ask is have Toyota's upgrades damaged the engine's reliablity, or are Rebellion's engines that much de-tuned before sale/rental? Or could it be chassis related? I doubt the latter (I'd vote that the TS030 variant is that much more stressed due to making more power), but it has happened before (the Zytek V8 in the Panoz LMP07 basically shook the car apart because of lack of chassis stiffness and a bad engine mounting system), but it and it's derivatives worked fine in the Reynard/Zytek chassis.

But to answer the question, no, the TS030 currently at least doesn't use DFI.

OK, good to know. All I'd read was speculation in RCE at the car's launch (it was also said to be 10kg lighter) and so I'd be curious to read the more recent article with that info (and probably a lot of other interesting tidbits).

Another reason to wish for bigger engines revving at saner rpms is that V8 want to self-destruct at the rpm they are forced to run with the restrictors (harmonics or something). The Judd V10s were so much nicer and half the grid used them as a dependable starting point for their cars a few years ago.

[chernaudi]

Small V8s run flatplane cranks in them, which tend to vibrate badly at high RPMs, not a problem with larger V8s that run crossplane cranks. Of course, the Audi R8's V8 ran a flatplane crank in it, but it was a forced induction engine, and the fact that it was rev limited to about 7000 rpm (turbochargers are a torque multiplier--more torque equals more power at lower RPMs) vs Toyota's engine which in the TS030 probably has a 10,500 rpm limit, that makes a big difference with those vibrations.

But in the smaller engines, crossplane cranks aren't desirable, because of weight and issues with engine response (spin up and slow down times). I think that the TS030 running more RPM to make more power is the issue it has vs the Rebellion spec engine, which is largely the same aside from those variations.

It's also interesting to note that V10s aren't very balanced either, because, like an inline 5, they have an off-balance firing order. The 5.0 Judd V10s and larger V10s don't have the problem that smaller engines had due again to rpm restrictions and having more torque such that they didn't need to run an insane amount of RPM.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

toyota absolutely need to optimize their consumes, too much high, second only compared to the arx-03b! this is a big handicap for them, because even if in the best scenario they will manage to be faster and more competitive than audi, their poor fuel efficency will force them to make a pit stop extra than audi.

That is not necessarily true. In 2011 Audi spent less time in the pits than Peugeot, by quadruple stinting the tyres, even though it could only do 11 lap stints.

Furthermore this year the #1 Audi did various 11 lap stints.

[alexkiller8]

about toyota engine, more than a rumor tell that toyota is currently developing a new v8 3.4 engine for the ts030, while for this year they are using a heavy modified/updated rv8k without DFI. In my opinion after the engine failure during tests, toyota set up the engine for le mans with a bit lower revlimit sacrifing a bit of power but increasing torque in mid rev to have a better accelleration (+ the boost of the hybrid).
About pit stop, the pit analysis .pdf showed that audi pit stops were a lot faster than the toyota ones. Surely because audi personell is better and more expert and surely also because meanwhile flow restrictors, to load 58 liters requires some second less than load 73.