Emissions in F1

[Absolutelee]

I was just reading another thread about electric running in the pitlane and someone conceded that it would reduce emissions in the pitlane but there's other ways to do that. That made me, and my technical ignorance, wonder. Do F1 cars have ANY emissions systems? Catalytic converters and such. Also, how much power does the emissions system rob the engine of?

Thanks

[Websta]

absolutely no catalytic converters - they sap engine power, as you mentioned. Some of the engines will go to four cyclinders in low speed corners to save fuel I think. They are also very fuel efficient considering the power they produce - an F1 engine is a lot more efficient than a family car at converting fuel energy into drive power (?) and they run on very similar fuels.

The emissions of F1 cars from the entire F1 season probably is comparable to the emissions caused by the fans driving to a single race really.

[FrukostScones]

To reduce emissions in the Pitlane? Funny thought. F1 exhaust fumes are toxic and give you are sore throat (maybe I'm bit sensitive) and are not filterd/catalyzed in any way (afaik). Direct Fuel injection will probably lead to visible soot exhaust fumes ... In LeMans the Diesel cars have to run with soot filters, no visible soot plume is allowed. F1 is as green as !

[WhiteBlue]

emissions are not only exhaust gases. it also includes noise. that would drastically be cut back by electric running. for some traditional venues noise has been a problem. Melbourne, Brands Hatch and Imola come to mind.
F1 is intentionally running on petrol and not on diesel because many fans love the noise which would be suppressed by the catalytic soot filters that would be required for the diesels. other than noise the emissions of the cars are not relevant compared to the total emission footprint of the event. getting every one and every thing in place outstrips the race emissions probably by a factor of 10,000.

[FrukostScones]

emissions are not only exhaust gases. it also includes noise. that would drastically be cut back by electric running. for some traditional venues noise has been a problem. Melbourne, Brands Hatch and Imola come to mind.
F1 is intentionally running on petrol and not on diesel because many fans love the noise which would be suppressed by the catalytic soot filters that would be required for the diesels. other than noise the emissions of the cars are not relevant compared to the total emission footprint of the event. getting every one and every thing in place outstrips the race emissions probably by a factor of 10,000.

you forgot the turbocharger.
emissions are not relevant to the spectators? (how many NASCAR fans died because of leaded fuel?).
And co2 is not a pollutant for me at those normal ppms cars emit. co2 is not something pollution should be measured with.
a crazy world we live in.

What emissions do we have:

engine: fumes, soot particles, noise
brakes: brake dust
tyres: marbles

[Absolutelee]

Thanks for the answers! Anyone know a rough % of engine power lost by attaching an emissions system to the car? As WhiteBlue said emissions can include noise, so a muffle could be part of that. I know...it would really suck to see that happen lol

[Tommy Cookers]

the current cars are mostly running around 16% rich (for maximum power rather than maximum efficiency)

thereby producing large emissions of Carbon Monoxide (lethal concentration) that would prevent their use on the public road

if they ran about 2% lean these emissions would reduce about a thousandfold

[Jersey Tom]

Imagine the emissions reduction if they all ran 100hp engines instead of the spec we have now which are not even remotely road relevant.

[flynfrog]

The real emissions in F1 don't come from the race cars. The transport of cars and teams has far more emissions than a few race cars driving at speed for a few hours. Not to mention the factories where these limited use beasts are built and rebuilt.

[PlatinumZealot]

What? Twenty four 750 horsepower engines with sky high compression ratios running at 18000rpm for two hours! There is obviously huge Nox emissions! The transport cars more than likely are less than this because they are EU4 qualified cars.

That being said there is no point in trying to reduce the F1 car emission.

[tathan]

NOx won't be that bad if they're all running a bit rich, peaks around handful percent lean iirc and drops off fairly sharply as you move rich. Silly stuff like electric pit lane running will save about the same fuel as YOU ALONE deciding not to go for a spirited weekend drive, not even worth mentioning on a global scale. What's more important is bringing ideas like that into the consumer mind, so they would consider them important for their own use, you know, in the more than 1 billion cars in the world that aren't one of the 24 F1 cars...

Anyone who genuinely worries about the carbon footprint or emissions of F1 has no idea of what numbers actually mean IMO. F1 is orders of magnitude below say the manufacture of the worlds iPads or golf clubs or fireworks, I don't see anyone pointing out how toxic they all are for the environment and we should regulate them immediately.

If F1 technology can even contribute a fraction of a percent increase in the efficiency of new consumer cars, then it will have outweighed its own use of resources. If we really want to stop polluting the earth, the most obvious solution is don't have 7 billion of us on it, but that's a whole different can o'worms

[flynfrog]

What? Twenty four 750 horsepower engines with sky high compression ratios running at 18000rpm for two hours! There is obviously huge Nox emissions! The transport cars more than likely are less than this because they are EU4 qualified cars.

That being said there is no point in trying to reduce the F1 car emission.

what about the Jumbo that for the flyaways?

[PlatinumZealot]

You don't see the jumbo jet on TV. That is what the whole point of this is. To LOOK green on TV.

As I said making F1 greener is pointless, but lets not think these cars are peppermint clean, similar high reving road cars are not even legal in the USA due to emmisions.. Eg. Honda Type R - had to be de-tuned, same for the BMW E46 M3 among other similar high compression high revving cars (without direct injection).

[flynfrog]

You don't see the jumbo jet on TV. That is what the whole point of this is. To LOOK green on TV.

As I said making F1 greener is pointless, but lets not think these cars are peppermint clean, similar high reving road cars are not even legal in the USA due to emmisions.. Eg. Honda Type R - had to be de-tuned, same for the BMW E46 M3 among other similar high compression high revving cars (without direct injection).

I totally agree.

[Absolutelee]

I made this thread out of curiosity about how much power would actually be lost, not a sincere desire to see this happen. Does anyone have an estimate, either in bhp or %?