The Technical Questions Thread

[culver]

Given the engine question, a conversation came up and work and I was trying to think of true F1 to non-race car tech transfers. I mean we hear via marketing about all sorts of F1 inspired and F1 technology in this car or that. I'm inclined to believe most of the claims are pure BS.

F1 is a place where many racing technologies originated (suspension inerters) and where many technologies were incubated for racing (composite construction) and where ideas that started in other series were often brought into high art (ground effects and racing aero in general). However, I can't think of that many significant transfers to road cars and certainly not in recent times. I mean we do have some "F1 inspired" ideas but those seem to fall into simply copying for the sake of creating an artificial link (Ferrari's steering wheel knobs) even though the underling technology isn't inherent to F1 or sometimes stuff that is only coping the general idea while the implementation is much different (paddle shifting). I mean the design links between the F1 versions and the road car versions are likely rather weak given the much different needs of a road car vs race car system. It's also worth noting that the general concept predates it's 1989 use in F1 and the DSGs that have become the preferred paddle shift design in road cars are mechanically very unlike an F1 box in mechanical or software design.

Many engine technologies don't transfer such as the valve trains. Others like turbos and fuel injection seemed to have developed in parallel. F1 might have done a lot with turbos in the late 70s and early 80s but so were companies who weren't in F1 such as SAAB, Mitsubishi and Porsche who used them in other racing applications.

Brakes are the only recent thing I can think of. While F1 didn't invent ceramic brakes they did spend the money on researching them and I bet that did help with the knowledge needed to make road car versions even though the road car versions are quite a bit different than the racing versions.

Certainly when looking at racing in general we can find more examples of transfers but in this case I'm only talking about F1 specifically.

[RacingManiac]

I agree with that entirely. F1 right now(and has been for a while) is an entity in itself as far as R&D/innovation goes. Stuff you do for it is just for F1 alone....

I do think though there might be less tangible transfer in terms of methods and ways of doing things. Simulation and modeling in F1 for everything and how they integrate together is probably something much rarer anywhere else outside of top Sportscar teams, but every F1 teams relies heavily on it as with the test ban.

[culver]

If we look at F1's impact on other classes things look brighter. I mean the suspension interter was an F1 based invention that is making it's way into lower classes. Racecar Engineering had an article on this recently. One comment was they weren't sure if it would help other classes like it did in F1 since the suspension designs in F1 are very screwy thanks to the high profile tires that are all but unique to the class.

F1 has probably been partly responsible for improvements in CF but likely in a less direct fashion. People saw the benefits of CF in F1, Indy and top LMP cars. They might be responsible for the shift from "black aluminum" like the early Lotus cars were CF panels were almost direct substitutes for aluminum panels to the custom contoured layouts we have today. However, some of that knowledge probably came from the light aircraft guys. People like Rutan were working on layup methods in the 1970s. Anyway, F1 showed that, budget no object, CF was the best but many lower end classes and the like couldn't afford the methods used by top teams/manufactures. Thus people put time and effort into inventing lower cost methods that might not be useful for people with F1 budgets but are great for people will ~$100k budgets. The D sports racers running in the US are using hybrid CF-tube frame chassis. The construction method is not like an F1 car but the cost isn't either. I don't think we would see so much CF if F1 (and Indy and LMP) hadn't shown us the benefits but after the benefits were shown (a big deal), was it the F1 guys or other people like the light aircraft guys who came up with the lower cost methods that are often used today?

F1 suspension ideas and even the stepped nose has definitely trickled down but is that always a good thing? The siding shuttle mono-shock used by a few makes including Van Diemen and Dalara started with F1. I'm not entirely sure what problem it was trying to solve but in the end it didn't work that well due to high levels of friction in the system. It's basically a dead end design. Well people copied it but perhaps they shouldn't have. Again F1 suspension needs are much different due to the large tire sidewalls. On the other hand I think F1 was the early adopter of the bell crank-pushrod suspension that is now common on most race cars. F1 I think was also the first to use the torsion springs (vs coils) we now see on many LMP cars (Indy is stuck with coils).

Stepped noses again seem like a design that is more about addressing the particular rules of F1 vs a generally good idea (like say wings). Of course, how much step counts as a stepped nose? Indy car noses are no longer ground hugging as they used to be but they are still rather low compared to the F1 nose. Mechanically a highly stepped nose is weaker as it adds a bend in the chassis. Aero-wise it's not clear if the design is always sound. It certainly is for an F1 car but even when CART had open rules it was never adopted in CART, likely due to the different rules regarding the size and placement of the front wing. In SCCA's F1000 class the car that's the clearly dominant car has a low to the ground nose. The designer feels he gets all the front downforce he needs with just the wing area on either side of the nose. No reason to raise the CG and compromise mechanical grip via changes to the suspension geometry.

F1 paddle shift gearboxes and before that sequential gearboxes probably are the fathers of the paddle shift boxes used in CART, LMP and F1. A notable LMP exception would be that Porsche used a dual clutch box in the 956 in '83. I doubt it was a paddle shifter and I'm not sure when F1 switched from H-patterns to sequentials.

Anyway, interesting stuff.

[drakkie]

Anyone here experienced in measuring with a Faro-arm and willing to give me a bit insight in the alignment of it in the software? I cannot post the exact question here but i'll PM you.

[RacingManiac]

Shuttle bar monoshock is the most basic form of design that you can decouple roll from bump. It has some merit...but I think the current system in F1 probably works much better with more inter-linked hydraulic design....

As far as raised nose goes, F1 being so wing dependent, with a stepped bottom, their airflow to and from the wing is the critical design they have take care of. CART/IRL with a much more aggressive floor/tunnel has much less need to have that kind of design. The current LMP car are moving to raised nose too, and not by coincident, they too share a relatively less effective floor.....

[MilesR]

As far as raised nose goes, F1 being so wing dependent, with a stepped bottom, their airflow to and from the wing is the critical design they have take care of. CART/IRL with a much more aggressive floor/tunnel has much less need to have that kind of design. The current LMP car are moving to raised nose too, and not by coincident, they too share a relatively less effective floor.....

I am not sure that the stepped nose is for the benefit of the wings. As I understand it, flat-floor regulations make the underbody of F1 cars relatively ineffective for downforce generation, but compensation can be made by increasing the quantity of airflow under the body. This is achieved by raising the front of the chassis, to allow more air to be guided under the car. The safety-related nose-height restriction can be complied with by lowering the tip and top surface of the nose only, but then the step is necessary to accommodate the driver's feet, behind the nose. If Lotus 79-style ground-effects were permitted, the high nose would not be necessary for airflow purposes, so it was the banning of traditional ground-effects that led, indirectly, to the stepped nose. I don't think the step itself enhances performance, and I would be reluctant to consider it a technological advance. I do not think it will find any application, except in artificial situations such as F1, where relatively arbitrary rules make it advantageous.

In a more general sense, I agree entirely that F1 is almost completely isolated from the real world, and furthermore, I think it has been for almost two decades. The last noteworthy transfers that I can think of came from the 1980s, and have subsequently been partially or completely banned from formula 1. Electronic driver aids, active suspension, ABS, adjustable/active aerodynamics and ground effects have all found application in production cars. Many recent developments, such as blown diffusers, F-ducts, and the stepped nose, were introduced only to try to overcome the restrictions imposed by the FIA. Remove those restrictions, and these features lose some or all of their value. Hence, I would not expect them to find their way into the real world, or even other forms of racing, where those restrictions do not exist.

As Culver says, carbon fibre was developed for the aerospace industry, but it was also in use in sporting equipment by the end of the 1970s, at about the same time as it began to finding use for formula 1 parts, and predating its use in formula 1 chassis. Likewise, flappy paddles were used elsewhere before F1 adopted them. Carbon-carbon brakes were initially used in the Concorde, and are still pretty restricted to racing and aircraft applications, whereas carbon ceramic brakes were developed for the TGV, and have subsequently found their way into road cars.

From the other side, formula 1 regulations prevent F1 cars from using common production technologies. Any kind of variable valve timing or lift system is banned, as are driver assistance electronics, direct fuel injection (until 2014), active suspension, variable throttle mapping, four-wheel-drive, or even a choice of tyre sizes, brands and profiles. Even after 2014, variable-geometry turbos will be banned, and engines and hybrid systems will still be restricted to what is effectively a blueprint design. The rapid charge-discharge hybrid systems from F1 might find some use in production cars, but F1 cars cannot directly benefit from the hybrid technology developed for production cars. While the stated aim of the FIA is to reduce fuel use, they have also regulated out many of the technologies that could be used to achieve it, and indeed are used, in the real world. I do not like it. It regulates out exactly the kind of cleverness that the Deltawing demonstrates.

[NSXType-R]

Does anyone know what happened to the Michelin Tweel?

Did it just fade away or is it not suitable for high speed applications yet?

[pbracktom]

Hey folks, new to the forum and classic cars in general.

Had a question about an 82 Camaro me and my friend are working on making race worthy.

It currently has the stock engine, we want to swap it for a 454 Big Block that we acquired. My question is what do you guys recommend for Headers and Heads to make it fit the new engine and get all that horse.

Thanks!

[Magnum9987]

Hey folks, new to the forum and classic cars in general.

Had a question about an 82 Camaro me and my friend are working on making race worthy.

It currently has the stock engine, we want to swap it for a 454 Big Block that we acquired. My question is what do you guys recommend for Headers and Heads to make it fit the new engine and get all that horse.

Thanks!

Whatss your intention for the car? You cant pick heads, intake, cam exhaust, without knowing what you want to do with the car.

[jcp123]

Whatss your intention for the car? You cant pick heads, intake, cam exhaust, without knowing what you want to do with the car.

Ditto. Street? Strip? Both? Hill Climb? Bouleverd cruiser? Need reliability? Concerned about overheating? What octane of fuel are you wanting to run? I have Desktop Dyno, I'll be happy to help when I know some of the specifics.

[culver]

There has got to be an F-body site that would know far more about Camaro mods than this place. I think the knowledge here is more generalized.

[Magnum9987]

There has got to be an F-body site that would know far more about Camaro mods than this place. I think the knowledge here is more generalized.

I know a thing or two....

[erinender987]

I would have thought that striking a plane wouldn't help it in that sense .But,as they are not earthed it is not normally critically damaging.


printer ink refills

[f6fhellcat13]

How much parasitic power loss does the valvetrain account for?
I realize it's different car to car, but are there any rules of thumb or do any of you have numbers for a specific engine?

[Magnum9987]

How much parasitic power loss does the valvetrain account for?
I realize it's different car to car, but are there any rules of thumb or do any of you have numbers for a specific engine?

Their are so many variables you cant have a rule of thumb. You need to account for spring pressure, friction, valve lift, and mass, which varies from each engine design to the next, and on system type. On pushrod engines, at least on high performance applications, you need to account for harmonics, which can create a loss if unaccounted for in the design stage, and even failure at extreme RPMs.