Silly season special - Suggest a way forward for F1 engines.

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by Marbot

That sounds.................expensive!

And road relevant!

Ban refuelling, allow only one fuel tank and only fuel composites legal for road cars in the EU. Ban tyre changes but allow a tyre war. Ban diffusers, allow front and rear wings with one element only, abolish minimum weight. Eliminate all driver aids (tyre warmers, semi-automatic gearboxes, electronic differential, drive-by-wire, etc) and leave the use of tyres, engines and chassis free. Reduce pit lane speeds to 50 km/h.

I can't wait to see a Ferrari 6.0 litre V12 competing against a Mercedes 3.2 litre V6 compressor, BMW 2 litre L4 twin turbo and Audi 5.5 litre V12 TDI.

Sadly though, sweet dreams are made to be dreams.

[Pingguest]

To add to my previous post: teams should be allowed to use any sort of engine, as long as it would be legal for road car use. At least the FIA should mandate catalytic converters and onboard starters.

[juicy sushi]

i'd like to really up the engineering challenge on the engine side, and make it more relevant to transportation r&d. to that end i'd make the rules very simple. i'd calculate a global average of the fuel economy performance of all cars sold globally. then i'd calculate from that the average fuel consumed by a car with that performance when driving 300km at 150km/h. then, i'd double that load and say that formula one cars could have no more total fuel energy than that in order to complete a grand prix. all fuels used would need to be street legal, and meet all relevant restrictions in all countries hosting gps that season.

then i'd say, anything else goes for the engines, but they must be available for sale to privateers for 5 millions euros per season. also, all powerplants must last 2 race weekends, excluding testing (which is not official practice sessions, qualifying, or the race)...

[Marbot]

Surely,in order to be "road relevant",a 'power plant' should be able to last at least a 100,000 miles.

[JeremySmith]

All this road relevant stuff is just well complete nonsense..This is F1 racing, do we really care it if lasts for one or two races, or the rest of the drivers life!

[Marbot]

I wouldn't mind having the engine in my road car changed every couple of weeks as long as someone else is paying.

[JeremySmith]

I mean it's a nice try, but what you and I do in a road car has nothing to do with a race car.. I would not wish to drive a race car around the city of Austin or Watford...

[Oldtony]

Currently F1 isn't "road relevant because the tech regs make it much too DUMB.
No 4WD, no ABS, no Traction control, no Automatic or constant velocity transmissions, no active suspension, very limited energy recycling, no turbo charging, in fact none of the technical advances enjoyed by higher end road cars.
It really is getting like a de caf, unsweetened skinny late coffee, all pose but in substance "Why Bother"
By the way has anyone ever considered allowing anything you like under the car for ground effects aero, but with an 8cm speed bump at the entry and exit of the pits? Together with limits on wings that could solve the wake problem.
I know this thread is about engines, and I really cannot see why enforced durability gives so many people a problem. That, together with economy is a valid area for research, which is more than you can say about the current waste spending on wind tunnels.
I still go for 1.5ltr any format you like but based on a stock block, last 3 races, and a fuel flow limit based on the type of fuel being used.

[JamesH]

Road relevent? As OldTony says, if F1 cars were road relevant they would be much more sophisticated than they are now!

I would go for any engine type (reciprocating, rotary, electric, gas turbine, 2,4,5,6 stroke engines, variable compression engines etc), but fuel flow limited.

That would really get development moving on replacing the effectively very inefficient 4 stroke. Or has it not occurred that we will run out of petrol if we keep using it at the current rate?

Noise? You want noise? Well, nobody around the circuits want it, but put a mp3 player and speakers on the car if it's that important....at least it can be turned off in noise sensitive areas.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Road relevent? As OldTony says, if F1 cars were road relevant they would be much more sophisticated than they are now!

I would go for any engine type (reciprocating, rotary, electric, gas turbine, 2,4,5,6 stroke engines, variable compression engines etc), but fuel flow limited.

But they will (as ever) all do their homework and more than likely arrive at the same type/configuration.If not in the first season of the new regulations,then certainly in the second.

That seems to be the problem these days.You don't have to build anything in order to find out if it works OK or not.You just pop all the info into a computer and out pops the answer for the most likely type/configuration for the purpose required.

[Oldtony]

Exactly Marbot. And if Engineers were given more options to pop into their computers they would come up with more variations into the best soloution.
They may also come up with soloutions that are viable outside the incestuous world of F1
By the way, I agree that fuel flow limitation is the best way to control speed/safety, but the feul flow rate should be set according to the type of fuel. i.e varied rates for oil based hydrocarbons, farm based bio fuels, algae based bio fuels etc. To insist on the fuel being commercially available is both a block to a vital field of research, and internationaly difficult to supervise.
I was going to suggest that fuel should be commercialy available in it's country of manufacture but I then got a picture of new oil refineries in Monaco, Andora, Lichtenstien and Macau

[JamesH]

Computers are not that good!! They don't come up with ideas - they can test ideas to a limited extent, but that's about it (and the test are only as good as the simulation software, which will need to be verified against the real world at some point).

It's the ideas that are important, and F1 rules means that the ideas are sadly lacking - it's just tiny incremental improvements on what is already there - no blue sky thinking at all. A good example of where blue sky thinking works can be found in dinghy racing - the International Moth class started out relatively simply, moved to wings, trapezes (?), and they are now sail driven hydrofoils that go ridiculously fast. I think the only relevant rules are hull length and sail size!! Similar with International 14's - very free rules resulting in better and better results from thinking 'outside the box', if you will forgive me that phrase!

[duke_toaster]

If it is desireable for manufacturers to race their pet technology (direct injection for Volkswagen, rotaries for Mazda, variable valve timing for Honda), one option could be a power limit and very vague production basing regulations - that's to say, similar capacity as a road engine, same number of cylinders in same configuration and funky technologies must be on the road car.

This could be coupled with a rule giving bonuses for a fuel economy test either before the season or during it. Of course, a one year engine freeze would be needed but that's not a real problem.

[johnh875]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Thats what I posted John.... Not a 1800-2000hp engine!
Don't misquote me! However if you want 1800-2000hp I am sure you will find some supporters although you'll probably need 20inch wheels and some massive 8 pot calipers on the brakes.... plus the FIA will want about 200m of run off on every straight longer than 400m....

Sorry, I should have used a or a , it was a tongue-in-cheek modification of what you wrote only. Outside of drag racing and possibly trucks has there ever been a racing car with that much power? Porsche 917-30 and BMW F1 turbos would probably come closest.

I'm happy with a fuel-flow suggestion (flow multiplied by time = L of fuel anyway), and as for an "economy" drive, that is what the teams will be doing anyway - increasing the efficiency of the engines. Extending the stints between pitstops has given big advantages last season for example.

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by Oldtony

By the way, I agree that fuel flow limitation is the best way to control speed/safety, but the feul flow rate should be set according to the type of fuel. i.e varied rates for oil based hydrocarbons, farm based bio fuels, algae based bio fuels etc. To insist on the fuel being commercially available is both a block to a vital field of research, and internationaly difficult to supervise.

But with different fuels and fuel flow limitations and/or a maximum quantity of fuel specified per sort of fuel, there still wouldn't be an 'equility of arms' and the organisor could easily messing up with the engine rule favouring one fuel over another. Wouldn't it be a better idea to leave the engines totally free and introduce emission standards? Regardless you're using diesel, compressed air, gasoline, ethanol, hydrogen, electricity or LPG, its completely legal as long as the emissions aren't higher than permitted by the standards. This would necessarily result in the use of the 'fastest' energy resource but in the use of the cleanest resources.

However, it may be found out that the use of different fuels isn't that practical at all. In that case I propose a fuel formula with one fuel only (E85) combined with a fuel flow limit to limit the maximum engine output in both race and qualifying.