Category engine

[champcarman]

why not a spec hybrid system, more in line with other categories, WEC, Indycar, DTM and in the near future even NASCAR.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by champcarman

why not a spec hybrid system, more in line with other categories, WEC, Indycar, DTM and in the near future even NASCAR.

If they find funding the present drive train difficult then if a hybrid system is employed it will add on top of those expenses and the complexity and recruitment of suitable people to run them will be even higher. They either stick with dino fuel or go full electric which would be cheaper and brings instant parity but the fans won't accept that of course. Maybe there is a slim chance that going full electric would attract manufacturers, a pretty vague chance though.

[Armco Bender]

I'd rather forgive Australia for the underarm bowl than watch Electric Super Cars....

[justracing]

Originally Posted by Armco Bender

I'd rather forgive Australia for the underarm bowl than watch Electric Super Cars....

Mmmm, paint and dry spring to mind.
Quite frankly some of these teams need to wake up and smell the coffee before this along with some other major series disappear altogether. I honestly believe that the true financial implications of the pandemic are yet to bite.

[Mixer]

Both Supercars and DTM down to 1 manufacturer at the end of this year.

Opportunity?

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Armco Bender

I'd rather forgive Australia for the underarm bowl than watch Electric Super Cars....

Thanks for proving my point. The fact that there would racing and it would be far cheaper with true engine parity will not be seen by fans as a plus. I bet that if it was the other way around, moving from electric to new fangled IC motors with lots of noise the reaction would be the same....why do we have to have all that noise. Electric racing cars might have saved Oran Park & Amaroo, we will never know but just maybe it might have.

[S griffin]

I don’t see the need to have electric power. Just keep the current engines or have something similar which are cost effective to build. As for the noise, call me old fashioned, but that for me is still part of the attraction of motorsport. Hearing an racing engine either in person or onboard and it does leave an impression, especially the hairs on the back of the neck. Yes we have lost a few tracks to housing and it’s unfortunate, but then a new track is usually built not long after

[crmalcolm]

I'm not trying to knock, or attack. The fact that image exists (amongst many) is because of the resistance to change that exists in many areas of life.
A lot of people push back at change, whether that is in the workplace, technology, leisure, sport etc....
Why do we do that? One reason is fear. Another is the reluctance to move from what we are comfortable with.

Underlying this reaction is quite often the fact that we simply don't know what the alternative is like. We have no experience to draw on, so no real comprehension of how good or bad it may be compared to what we already know.

Quite often, those resistant to a change are called 'dinosaurs'. This is typically from someone who hasn't experienced the previous version(s) of the subject matter, so don't have the prior comfort of understanding the pros and cons.

This is seen across a lot of threads in this forum currently.

But, change is good. Moving to something new allows you to learn from, and eliminate the weaknesses of what went in the past. Everything we like about what we have/had, was at some time a change. That change was probably resisted with just as much passion.

The worst thing we can do (IMO) is to accept what is now as being what will survive. If we like what works in 2020, it will inevitably start to lose its appeal over time for others, as things around it move on.

[Casper]

It always strikes me as somewhat odd that a lot of people think that what they are used to will continue indefinitely and never change. Does anyone here think that SC will be the same in 50 years? of course it won't be and won't even exist.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Can confirm!

I am entirely used to the lower-pitched sound of the hybrid turbo V6s in Formula One, though watching any old V10 or V8 races remains a shock to the system... I had forgotten they used to sound like that!

Originally Posted by Casper

Does anyone here think that SC will be the same in 50 years? of course it won't be and won't even exist.

In that case, should Supercars be an anachronistic retro series reliving the essence of the 1960's and 1970's and milking that for all it's worth, until such time as the (typically older) fanbase dies off?

To keep Holden fans happy should the ZB Commodore be replaced by the VZ Monaro -- with a battle of retro muscle cars, South Australia's finest Monaro (albeit designed in Victoria) vs Michigan's finest Mustang.

[V8 Fireworks]

Some ideas for the category engine...

Maybe Supercars could dust-off the 5.0 Repco-Brabham engine (I never knew there was such a thing!):



Or something from a manufacturer that stills exists, the 4.0 Judd DB (an 8-cylinder derivative of the Judd V10):



670bhp @ 10,000rpm, worth it for the sound alone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1DQ9f_VEAg

I'm not sure that going to a gear-driven quad cam racing engine would cut costs, but you never know!

[Woolley]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

Some ideas for the category engine...

Maybe Supercars could dust-off the 5.0 Repco-Brabham engine (I never knew there was such a thing!):

There certainly was. We've had a hillclimb car running one for many years. Possibly the best sounding car I have ever come across. Glorious.

[V8 Fireworks]

Or how about this for the category engine, who needs eight throttles when you could just have one oval-shaped whopper of a throttle body! :P



625 bhp @ 7900rpm on E85 (max 8200rpm), 12:1 compression, variable valve timing

A modern road-relevant engine similar to the real Mustang GT, and it sounds great... All for a fraction of the cost of the current $150,000 abstractions?

A reasonable $2500 for the Ford Performance Cobra Jet manifold is probably, what, 1/5th the cost of the current intake manifold setups?

Existing Ford BOSS engine:

[Casper]

This is where the whole 5/6/7 litre generic motor idea needs to be done away with. The notion that manufacturers from Europe or Asia will b******ise their cars to run a specific motor that has no relationship to the car being raced is fanciful at best and without those sort of cars there is no future for the category but then those cars don't fit the category philosophy anyway.

NASCAR enticed Toyota and no one has followed them on the same path or maybe it was Toyota who were the instigators but it has not enticed other manufacturers to actually race. Unfortunately the recipe for SC went down the same gurglar so to speak as domestic production of the cars that made the recipe. NASCAR in years to come will face the same problem, indeed it is most probably facing it right now with the recent Ford anouncements.

Couple all that with Archer's declaration of getting out, the media rights issues yet to be dealt with and sadly the future does not look rosy at all and there will be a lot of people affected by it unless a new category can be found but more likely invented. Maybe they just use old body silohuettes and carry on but even that has a limited end of use date as fans lose interest. My crystal ball says five years maximum if they do that.

Edit, why the forum blanks out a word in the Oxford dictionery beats me.

[bludvl_x19]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

Some ideas for the category engine...

Maybe Supercars could dust-off the 5.0 Repco-Brabham engine (I never knew there was such a thing!):

I realise I'm possibly going to come across as rude, but were you not aware of the exploits of Jack Brabham in his Repco-Brabham F1 car?

Also, thats a fine machine that Repco V8 is in, the Matich SR4.

As for the sound, it is and was fantastic. The Volvo V8 in Supercar spec was very similar in note.

[one five five]

The category has gotten progressively more expensive and the racing less interesting the more control items have been added

So let’s go another step and have control engines, that’ll fix things....

[Casper]

Repco did a lot of odd stuff back then, even a head for the B20 Volvo and one complete car https://primotipo.com/2015/06/26/rep...hi-power-head/

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by bludvl_x19

I realise I'm possibly going to come across as rude, but were you not aware of the exploits of Jack Brabham in his Repco-Brabham F1 car?

Of course! To F1's 3.0L regulation, not a stomping 5.0.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

Of course! To F1's 3.0L regulation, not a stomping 5.0.

Is that a 5 litre and where is is quoted as such?

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by Casper

This is where the whole 5/6/7 litre generic motor idea needs to be done away with. The notion that manufacturers from Europe or Asia will b******ise their cars to run a specific motor that has no relationship to the car being raced is fanciful at best and without those sort of cars there is no future for the category but then those cars don't fit the category philosophy anyway.

Thinking that any major manufacturer will join a class that is not electric or at least hybridized is fanciful as well, though, and even hybrids will just be a stopgap solution for a few seasons.

One answer to that situation is to run the type of power units that manufacturers demand, but I think series like SC are better off going their own way without manufacturer involvement.

[Compromised]

Originally Posted by one five five

The category has gotten progressively more expensive and the racing less interesting the more control items have been added

So let’s go another step and have control engines, that’ll fix things....

I'm not sure how engine's that are potentially HALF the cost of the current options would increase cost?

Wether it would make the racing better is if course an unknown.

Although Supercars don't exactly have a solid history in regards to picking cheap, practical and robust control parts

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Casper

Is that a 5 litre and where is is quoted as such?

Frank Matich’s 5 litre, quad cam, 580bhp Repco V8 powered sports racer ‘SR4’ was one of Australia’s most powerful and the most successful sports-racer car ever built

https://primotipo.com/2016/07/15/mat...d-mark-bisset/

It's a shame the 1968 3 litre four-valve version of the Repco engine was a bit underpowered and unreliable compared to the Cosworth DFV, and didn't show the same excellence as its two-valve Repco forebearer, and that the Brabham team thus followed the crowd and switched - with some success - to the Cosworth in 1969.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Compromised

I'm not sure how engine's that are potentially HALF the cost of the current options would increase cost?

There is a suggestion of protecting sunk costs, since teams already own the current engines. Only Kelly Racing has had to pay out the $600,000 to manufacture a new engine and spare for each car (total of four) any time recently.

Everyone else can get by on $60,000 worth of rebuilds per entry per season, which is not unreasonable.

[one five five]

Teams don’t build or purchase any new engines these days?

Originally Posted by Compromised

I'm not sure how engine's that are potentially HALF the cost of the current options would increase cost?

Wether it would make the racing better is if course an unknown.

Although Supercars don't exactly have a solid history in regards to picking cheap, practical and robust control parts

The COTF was sold as being half the cost of a Blueprint car.....look what happened to costs there

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

Thinking that any major manufacturer will join a class that is not electric or at least hybridized is fanciful as well, though, and even hybrids will just be a stopgap solution for a few seasons.

One answer to that situation is to run the type of power units that manufacturers demand, but I think series like SC are better off going their own way without manufacturer involvement.

Certainly the European manufacturers are building hybrid & electric powered vehicles but they have no choice and are being driven by legislation of their home governments and I don't think the idea of abandoning those drive trains would be a good look at all in the medium to long term future for any manufacturer.

I suspect this is going to be a huge problem for SC but the bigger problem is going to be moving away from the 4 door sedan form of design which Ford has made no secret of and even announced the intention in major press releases. It is also ironic that a series based on electric power would be both cheaper and more even in performance to race, far far cheaper in fact. The ROW manufacturers are abandonig the type of car that we used to race and that is a big problem. As suggested by someone quite a while ago, maybe stick with IC power trains and use body shapes that also used IC power.

The stunning lack of commentary on the whole thing is I think a good indication of the problems which are only going to get bigger as time goes on. If they had the answers the way forward would already be known because they need that for media rights discussions.