Will a bike engined hillclimb car ever win the British Hillclimb Championship?

[bentimingstrut]

Any thoughts?Over 2u

[b1ackcr0w]

Can't see it happening in the next 5 years. There is a good point to this though. I think that the design of car and bike engines will become increasingly similar, with engines becoming higher revving and lighter through using bike engine technology. The reduction of the capacity of F1 engines will probably speed this trend eventually in lower branches of motorsport.

[blackx]

Originally Posted by bentimingstrut

Any thoughts?Over 2u

What about your thoughts ???


Over 2u

[Steve Wilkinson]

They already have!

1951 & 1952 - Ken Wharton in a Cooper-JAP Mk 4

In 1953 & 1954 he also used an ERA as well as the Cooper.

1955, 1956 & 1957 - Tony Marsh in a Cooper-JAP Mk 8

1958, 1959 & 1960 - David Boshier-Jones also in a Cooper-JAP

1961 - David Good in a Cooper-JAP

As for the current era there may be an outside chance if you consider the Powertek V8 in Trevor's OMS to be a 'bike engine'?

On Sunday at Harewood in the second wet run-off the bike engined cars were on the pace of the V8s up to Orchard then they fell behind on the blast up to Farmhouse and then the run up to Quarry.

Currently the attempts to either Turbocharge or Supercharge bike engines has not been successful, which isn't to say that they will continue to be so. However I suspect that they will still struggle to beat a good V8.

[Cameron Winton]

Already happened - David Boshier Jones & Tony Marsh in the fifities using Cooper Jap's. The JAP V-Twin was used in Brough Superiors etc
Can't remember the other champions that used Coopers in the fifties.

[Cameron Winton]

Whoops - Steve beat me!

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by Cameron Winton

Whoops - Steve beat me!

Sorry about that Cameron, but I was always told a good beating was character building!

[Cameron Winton]

Ah Steve, I beat you to stating what kind of bike used the JAP engine.
Is Trevor's car the modern equivalent of John Bolster's Bloody Mary?
Two JAP's tied together?

[Paul Ranson]

Making some assumptions like the OP intended to write 'again' at the end of his subject line and that the rules don't change perhaps the discussion should be

'If you were looking to build a car to be competitive in the championship would you ever choose a bike engine?'

I think the answer is no. A competitive car needs a lot of downforce, therefore it needs a lot of power. A Hayabusa and a Cosworth XB have roughly equal cylinder capacities but the XB has much larger valves and a larger bore. That means it can flow more air and therefore make more power. And there is not a lot you can do to the bike engine to change that.

There are some XB internal photos at http://www.lolachampcar.com/Cosworth%20XB.htm with some Busa parts for comparison.

And of course the XB is not exactly modern. It is though very practical.

Paul

[bentimingstrut]

Maybe my post should have read "Can the championship now be won without using a Gould chasis?"

[Cameron Winton]

Adding to this, back in the fifities, the Cooper JAP had a significant power to Weight advantage over what was competing with conventional engines. Nowadays, because of the huge changes in different technologies, the ball game is completely different
So, my answer is no - Unless the rules change (Safety?)
As far as Gould's are concerned - Paul is probably more familiar with what they have done but from 1st impressions, will someone spend the money to develop a more aero-efficient or lighter XB powered car?

[Steve Wilkinson]

I suspect that if you spent the equivalent amount of money that you would need to purchase a brand new Gould Chassis plus sequential box and NME V8 then you may well be able to match the current performances - that is if you also had the talent of either Martin Groves or Scott Moran.

How about the 3 Litre Cosworth TJ V10 (which will have 900bhp and will run for 1200km between rebuilds) slotted into a Predator?



I think Paul Ranson hit the nail on the head with the comment 'If you were looking to build a car to be competitive in the championship would you ever choose a bike engine?' I suspect the answer would be NO assuming it was a money no object design.

[stevie m]

I think the closest bike engined car to challenge the Goulds and Pilbeams could be Ian Scott's Megapin.With it's turbo charged Kawasaki,once sorted in this superb chassis,might just win the British Sprint Championship in the future .

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by stevie m

I think the closest bike engined car to challenge the Goulds and Pilbeams could be Ian Scott's Megapin.With it's turbo charged Kawasaki,once sorted in this superb chassis,might just win the British Sprint Championship in the future .

I think Ian is a superb engineer. However I doubt very much that a Turbocharged Kawasaki could actually win either of the Speed Event National Championships, mind you I hope he proves me wrong!

[Dennis.Doyle]

Originally Posted by Steve Wilkinson

I think Ian is a superb engineer. However I doubt very much that a Turbocharged Kawasaki could actually win either of the Speed Event National Championships, mind you I hope he proves me wrong!

I spoke to Ian a month or so ago at Teeside, but am sworn to secrecy until this year's machine breaks cover.

Re. a BEC wnning either of the chmpionships. Agree it's highly unlikley as things stand. Mind you if the courses used were a bit more twiddly favouring agility over grunt it could be a different story. Back in the days when the Coopers won, was this the case?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by Dennis.Doyle

Re. a BEC wnning either of the chmpionships. Agree it's highly unlikley as things stand. Mind you if the courses used were a bit more twiddly favouring agility over grunt it could be a different story. Back in the days when the Coopers won, was this the case?

Not really, in the Hillcimb championship of 1952 for example they visited ...

Rest-and-Be-Thankful; Bouley Bay; Craigantlet (the 1833 yard version); Shelsley Walsh and Prescott.

It was just that the power to weight ratio advantage that the Cooper-JAPs had at the time far outweighed their lack of BHP. It wasn't until the 60s when the Cooper-Climax and Marsh Special hit the scene that the Cooper-JAP became obsolete.

[DaveK]

I think any future advances will come with effective power management, as the big cars struggle to use all there power below 100mph, being able to harness the power (Loton april 2006,Willems Pilbeam is an example) and translate it into forward motion will pay dividends.

Dave

[jonners]

Another interesting angle on this - the analysis (of course) revolves around the bike engines currently available

Can't help wondering if the time will come when a sufficiently powerful bike engine is available, and what the bike will be like that it's designed for...

Are the bike engines people are using tweeked up to same extent that the bike racers use, or are the torque/bhp demands a completely different ball game?

[RED21]

I am just going to put a one of my warped idea’s / brainwaves (OUCH) down, so please forgive me!

If I was wealthy enough and stupid enough to purchase a Dodge Tomahawk motorcycle and then proceeded to install the engine into a single seat car, would this car become a “Bike engine car” or just a single seater with a Dodge viper engine in it???

[Dennis.Doyle]

Originally Posted by RED21

I am just going to put a one of my warped idea’s / brainwaves (OUCH) down, so please forgive me!

If I was wealthy enough and stupid enough to purchase a Dodge Tomahawk motorcycle and then proceeded to install the engine into a single seat car, would this car become a “Bike engine car” or just a single seater with a Dodge viper engine in it???

Wouldn't that really make it a single seater with a truck engine in it?

Going back to real bike engines, about which I know very little. I wonder if some of the versions you get in sprint & hillclimb cars aren't more highly tuned than say MotoGP engines. Certainly if you watch the revs displayed on MotoGP they are pathetic compared to F1, given the fact that small engines should rev much higher than big ones. Also, given the way that current bikes eat the back tyre, both on road & in short races, I suspect there is little motivation to tune them much higher in that context. I would have thought you could tolerate a much higher & peakier power delivery through a pair of 10" Avons than you could on any bike.

Probably wrong, but maybe interesting to discuss?

[blackx]

So how much bhp does a 1600 force produce ?
The Ducati motoGP bike is rumoured to produce around 240bhp from less than 1000cc ...

[Dennis.Doyle]

Dunno, but just had a look on the TTS site & they do a 1900 Haybusa for which they give 150ftlb & 245+bhp at back wheel for drag, hillclimb & sprint (bikes primarily I assume):

http://www.tts-performance.com/catal...38bdd554996661

Mind you it is 14 grand, i.e. more than you could have bought last year's BSC 2-litre class winner for. BTW I think that has a 270bhp n/a Cosworth in it + more torque + more weight primarily in the box.

The thing that makes the big bike engine look really sad is, of course, the Honda S2000 engine, which produces almost the same power in showroom spec with a catalytic convertor, would do a fair few miles without a rebuild & could be picked up from a scrapper for not a lot. That is what I shall dream about tonight

[Jeff 8]

Originally Posted by Dennis.Doyle

Going back to real bike engines, about which I know very little. I wonder if some of the versions you get in sprint & hillclimb cars aren't more highly tuned than say MotoGP engines. Certainly if you watch the revs displayed on MotoGP they are pathetic compared to F1, given the fact that small engines should rev much higher than big ones. Also, given the way that current bikes eat the back tyre, both on road & in short races, I suspect there is little motivation to tune them much higher in that context. I would have thought you could tolerate a much higher & peakier power delivery through a pair of 10" Avons than you could on any bike.

?

The reason MotoGP engines only rev to what you term pathetic, is partly because they are limited on how much fuel they can carry, as they are limited more each year to slow the bikes down. If they went quicker all the tracks would have to be remodelled, just like F1's move forom V10s to V8s. Also like you said the tyres cannot keep up with the power they have let alone more. When they were running 500 two strokes they would detune them to make them rideable where sidecar teams using the same engine could squeeze another 30 horsepower out through their 10 inch Avon.

Whether hillclimbers could squeeze more power out depends if they have a budget like MotoGP, but at least they don't need to last 30 laps.

Jeff

[Dennis.Doyle]

I had no idea that MotoGP was restricted by fuel consumption & that does indeed suggest that a lot more power could be extracted from them.

BTW I only said "pathetic compared to F1" since the old 3 litre engines were doing about 19K revs so I'd expect a 900 to be capable of maybe 30K revs before if flew apart given the way things scale. Anyway, winding up bikers is always good for a laugh

[DaveK]

Last years 990cc Moto Gp engines were reckoned to be in the 240/250 bhp bracket, primarily due to the revs that they could pull circa 16/17k.

Our 1600cc busa motor puts out approx 225 bhp/130 lb ft torque under 10k revs, where as our engine is based on a std production motor the Moto GP engines are purpose built race engines much in the same mould as an F1
engine.

I would be interesting to see a 990cc ducati engine fitted to a 1100cc hillclimb car, to see if it was much quicker than the current engines bearing in mind that you have to rev to 16k to get the power

Dave