[WEC] Alpine Hypercar Discussion

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by seanyb505

I'm quite doubting alpine would run in IMSA. The manufacturer buy in doesn't really feel worth it for someone who sells no cars in North America. Could it be rebranded?

I'm with you there, what other marque would they use? Nissan seems to have less interest in sports racing than before, Mitsubishi is giving cars away to move the rest of the inventory.

My thoughts are

[KlBD]

Originally Posted by seanyb505

I'm quite doubting alpine would run in IMSA. The manufacturer buy in doesn't really feel worth it for someone who sells no cars in North America. Could it be rebranded?

If the car runs in IMSA it would probably actually would be an Alpine. The kicker is that despite making the pretty cool A110, Alpine's ambition to enter the US road car market is with SUVs only

[tomcug]

I also wonder how different the final car might be from that mockup they had on display and published renders. Looks really cool so far.

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by seanyb505

I'm quite doubting alpine would run in IMSA. The manufacturer buy in doesn't really feel worth it for someone who sells no cars in North America. Could it be rebranded?

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a4...-cars-details/

[Mike E]

The F1/Netflix exposure means it's now or never

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/66016904

[seanyb505]

Originally Posted by Simmi

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a4...-cars-details/

Ah, there you go then.

[Simmi]

I guess it should at least be noted in here all the changes going on at Alpine in the last few weeks.

Laurent Rossi, who announced, unveiled and I'd imagine was heavily responsible for the Hypercar, has been ushered aside from the position of CEO.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/b...-alfa-engineer

He's since been torn apart in the press by Alain Prost - https://www.wtf1.com/post/alain-pros...ement-figures/

And Alpine F1 Team have also sacked Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer and Sporting Director Alan Permane - both leaving at the end of the Belgian GP today.

With the F1 team "in the mud" and a new CEO let's see if that has any impact on the sportscar side, US expansion/IMSA etc.

[tomcug]

Not a new article but I haven't seen it earlier myself and I think it wasn't posted in this thread:
https://www.motorsportweek.com/2023/...-of-f2-engine/
Considering how bad this engine was in LMP1, not surprising they redesigned it heavily I'd say.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by tomcug

Not a new article but I haven't seen it earlier myself and I think it wasn't posted in this thread:
https://www.motorsportweek.com/2023/...-of-f2-engine/
Considering how bad this engine was in LMP1, not surprising they redesigned it heavily I'd say.

I had not seen that either. Good luck to them! All seriousness though, I'm sure they can modify it enough to be competitive.

[Adam43]

Power shouldn’t be a problem. Reliable power sounds like a challenge with that engine.

[flatlandsman]

Thing is, it is probably getting its heritage from something road based, most engines do, do they not?

[Adam43]

That in itself is not a problem. Nowadays 700hp reliably in road engines (supercar obviously) is not unusual.

This is based on a Formula engine. But I don’t know what, if anything, that was based on.

I have done some extensive research (wiki). It was based on an GP3 engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecachrome_V634_engine

As it is Mecachrome it could be originally road based or only blade for racing. Either way you’d think they’d only chose it if it was appropriate.

What next? Having a car with a fuel tank too smal? .

[broadrun96]

Ouch, that's cold sir

[veeten]

Well consider that most of the manufacturers are running a single/twin turbo V6, in sizes from sub-3 L to 3.6 L. Then, the fact that both LMH/LMDh chassis had been equalised to a base of 1030 K, with allowed adjustments. This makes it possible for said ICE components to return great power to weight ratios, before addition of hybrid systems are included.

The Meccachrome V6 is a NA-based Formula engine, and all it took is to do the necessary upgrades to handle forced induction for endurance racing. And, as we have seen so far, many engines being built to race at the present rules are based on previous work that have been around since 2016. Just upgraded with more modern management systems.

[tomcug]

Originally Posted by Adam43

What next? Having a car with a fuel tank too smal? .

I think they already learned that lesson after racing Oreca's LMP1 in 2021 and 2022

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by veeten

The Meccachrome V6 is a NA-based Formula engine, and all it took is to do the necessary upgrades to handle forced induction for endurance racing.

Yeah, there is a NA and a turbo version. They use the turbo version in F2, so they’ve already done the work to add a turbo.

[flatlandsman]

I think most teams so far are using fairly old engines. Isn't the Porsche unit loosely based on the old P2 engine? the BMW unit the M6 GT engine> Caddy obviously have used that lump for years. No idea on Toyota but I would guess that is the same lump basically as when they dropped the v8 in LMP1. Not sure on Peugeot

but it is damned expensive to make a new engine from scratch, hence why most manufacturers either use old stuff or go outside for it.

[Gerard C]

Heavily modified, I understand (barely!) the words but cant catch the spirit. Plus "Most of the parts are new, benefiting both performance and reliability."
It sounds more like a new Viry-Chatillon engine maintained by Mecachrome as was the case in the past. The best engine they had way back was the Nissan (modified by Sodemo a very good specialist) so Carlos, if you read us! Yes, I know, take my coat now.

[broadrun96]

I'm thinking some of y'all here think because it's derived from X if must be EXACTLY X. Development makes things that don't work on the old engine at all and definitely weren't taken out of the parts bin from an assembly line

Oh and Caddy changed up the engine in fairly in depth manner from the previous, they didn't just bolt a hybrid on it and go.

[Mike E]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

I think most teams so far are using fairly old engines. Isn't the Porsche unit loosely based on the old P2 engine? the BMW unit the M6 GT engine> Caddy obviously have used that lump for years. No idea on Toyota but I would guess that is the same lump basically as when they dropped the v8 in LMP1. Not sure on Peugeot

but it is damned expensive to make a new engine from scratch, hence why most manufacturers either use old stuff or go outside for it.

Porsche is derived from the P2 engine via the 918.
BMW is derived from their DTM V8.
The Toyota is a new engine for Hypercar. The LMP1 engine was 2.4 litres and Hypercar is 3.5 litres
The Caddy is apparently new. Related to the Corvette C8?
The Peugeot is new, as far as I know.
Acura is their next gen Indy car engine.

[Adam43]

And they all compete together!

[Mike E]

Shakedown test imminent

https://www.dailysportscar.com/2023/...pine-lmdh.html

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Mike E

Porsche is derived from the P2 engine via the 918.
BMW is derived from their DTM V8.
The Toyota is a new engine for Hypercar. The LMP1 engine was 2.4 litres and Hypercar is 3.5 litres
The Caddy is apparently new. Related to the Corvette C8?
The Peugeot is new, as far as I know.
Acura is their next gen Indy car engine.

It is slightly similar but is not a development of a Vette engine program

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Mike E

Porsche is derived from the P2 engine via the 918.
BMW is derived from their DTM V8.
The Toyota is a new engine for Hypercar. The LMP1 engine was 2.4 litres and Hypercar is 3.5 litres
The Caddy is apparently new. Related to the Corvette C8?
The Peugeot is new, as far as I know.
Acura is their next gen Indy car engine.

Originally Posted by broadrun96

It is slightly similar but is not a development of a Vette engine program

Off topic, but a good read, Caddy engine development details,

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...-v-8-analysis/

[broadrun96]

And a great video

https://racer.com/2023/01/26/video-g...ustion-engine/