Tech details of 2000 hp+ world's fastest supercar engine?

[J.A.W.]

& to be fair, VW also built the Phaeton..

& why bother with such monstrosity.. just watch a couple of Ghostrider vids..

[Greg Locock]

Well done ColdFusion, good point.

[Writinglife]

2000 hp is surely a tyre limitation and not a engine limitation.

So that means whoever goes for a 2000hp car has to figure out how to make tyres last longer at high speeds.

[Greg Locock]

Let me know when you find a supercar manufacturer that can design tires. Perhaps it'd work better if Michelin designed 2000 hp supercars, the car is the easy bit.

[J.A.W.]

& where is this car gonna be unleashing these speeds in public?

If a Porsche 917 could deliver up to ~1,500hp ~40 years ago, it is certainly no technical obstacle today..

[Writinglife]

Point 1 - Tyres - Obviously the car designer won't be manufacturing the tyres, but they would be working in tandem with pirelli, bridgestone, Goodyear etc to do the job. No company is an island...

Point 2 - The point isn't about unleashing hypercars on the public roads, if it was, we wouldn't have anything that could do 71mph. The point is about ADVANCING technology. Money, Usage laws, environment isn't a factor when you're pushing the envelope, because you have NO idea where the next advancement will come from.

We cannot be afraid to do these things.

Jeremy Clarkson said it well, Without pioneers, we would still be sat in a cave.

[Cold Fussion]

Jeremy Clarkson said it well, Without pioneers, we would still be sat in a cave.

But what is being pioneered in this case? We had 2000 hp+ aero engines during WW2. It's not that inconceivable that a manufacturer should be able to achieve 2000 hp with something like a 10L engine, if people like Koeningsegg can achieve 1300 hp from 5L. Without some breakthrough in tyre technology, that 2000 hp is largely un-delpoyable, and thus mostly useless. I don't think future hypercars from manufacturers will be anything other than hybrids of some description, and frankly, a hybrid hypercar like the 918 is a lot more interesting.

[ChrisM40]

The pioneering in this case is making the rest of the car able to take the power. The Veyron is a classic example of that. Its designed to last for 100K+ miles with relatively normal servicing. There are plenty of garden shed American cars getting 1000bhp from an antiquated V8, but the rest of the car is usually just some old junk that is out of its depth at 400 let alone 1000 and the whole thing needs servicing or replacing constantly.

Tyres are certainly a part of it, but there is more to something like the Veyron than good tyres and a big engine.

[g-force_addict]

Its designed to last for 100K+ miles with relatively normal servicing.

So it makes sense to look at recent fastest cars' volumetric efficiencies.

Bugatti Veyron 8.0 L displacement / 1000 hp thus 125 hp/liter
Bugatti Veyton Super Sport 8.0L / 1200 hp / 150 hp/L
Hennessey Venom GT 7.0L / 1244 hp / 178 hp/L
Saleen S7 Twin Turbo 7.0L / 750 hp / 107 hp/L
Koenigsegg One:1 5.0L / 1341 hp / 268 hp/L
Ferrari La Ferrari 6.3L / 950 hp with KERS / 151 hp/L
Porsche 918 4.6L / 887 hp with electric motors / 193 hp/L
McLaren P1 3.8L / 903 hp with KERS / 238 hp/L

So for a reliable street engine with 200 hp/L to get 2000 hp a 10L engine is needed.
13.3L for a more down to earth 150 hp/L.

[J.A.W.]

But.. will 2000hp on the street - really be enough?

This bloke reckons his Mustang needs 3000hp..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJZ6qoYVOFc

[MadMatt]

But.. will 2000hp on the street - really be enough?

This bloke reckons his Mustang needs 3000hp..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJZ6qoYVOFc

Yea that's gotta be the laggiest engine I've ever seen. 10 meters of charge pipe, packaging is aweful too with hot pipes running everywhere around the engine.

Should I even mention to never believe numbers from a dyno? I can calibrate a dyno to give a VW Polo 1200bhp, no problem. For this that engine's got power but who cares how much really. What count is your time on the track (or the strip, in this case). This discussion about bhp (aka wee size) is ridiculous. I wasn't expecting this kind of discussions on F1T.

[WaikeCU]

Can the chassis withstand 2000hp?

[SlowSteve]

As I think has already been said, 2000HP is more than do-able - both aero engines and ship engines have been producing these types of power for 50 years - 60 years in fact.....nope - 70 years. i.e your grandparents knew about 2000 hp engines.

So... is it do-able? Yep. easy peasy.

Next question: Is it do-able within a reasonable volume?
A 10 liter engine is a damn big engine. And it's going to need a damn big everything else to go with it. The clutches, gearboxes etc are going to be monsterous. So, how do you get it IN the car? Do you have a different shaped car? Bigger? Wider? longer? Super cars are itty bitty things. Not much good having an itty bitty car with a huge lump of engine sticking out of the back - people would point and laugh and the chassis designer would be annoyed and cry.

Or - do you put two 5 liter engines in - one front and one rear and wire them together with clever electronics? Over all it will lead to a lot less mass. Weight distribution is a little off the beaten track, but this has been done before and it's well proven.

Or - do you put in 4x 2.5l engines - one on each wheel, and an even fancier ECU. The guy who sets up the suspension is going to be in an entirely new world, and may make the grumpy face, but it gives a whole heap of new ways of doing 4WD, getting the power down in a tyre friendly way, traction control, launch control etc etc.

4WD and a fancy computer means that you may well not need the new tyres that some of you are worrying about.

The current Formula Student champion has an electric motor in the HUB of each wheel - awesome idea.


Almost all the discussion in this thread is about idealogical discussions. But - this is an engineering forum, and perhaps you guys should think practically for a while: a 2,000 HP car will be created. Of course it will - because it doesn't exist today, and people like new things and engineering nerds like to make new things before other engineering nerds manage it - that what makes engineering nerds excited. I can say this, because I'M an engineering nerd, and its what makes me excited. a 2,000HP car is as certain as Night is to follow day.

Is it reasonable to put a single 10 Liter engine into a car? no - not unless you only ever want to go in a straight line and have a bell housing the size of a catherdral in it.

So, if A is going to happen, and B is NOT going to happen, then it suggests that C will occur.

How will it work? I don't know - I just build the bloody things after the clever designers wave their hands and draw pictures on a computer. But they WILL be built. This is the forum to work that out I guess. But there's no need to pull each other apart, like you are doing, about pre-concieved idea's, when 5 minutes with a pencil and paper will suggest that the only this which probably WON'T happen is the old way of doing things.

Example: I like to build very fast boats. Oh so fast. Sometimes my wife even lets me GO in the fast boats. 1000Hp is a reasonable amount of power for a boat. 1500 is better. Do I put in a 1000HP engine - no.... it'd be massive, cost a fortune and it'd be a swine to look after. Instead I use 4 x 250HP motors. Which are cheap, easy to fix and gives me lots of new functions when it comes to steering and active control. Also, they have the benefit of not smashing their way out of the hull when you go over a big wave, like a huge block of 1,000HP motor would - this is considered beneficial.

If I want more power - 1500 - I use 6x 250HP motors. But now I need a wider boat to get them all in a line. That changes hull design, which changes.... pretty much everything else really. A 6 engine boat is a different beast to a 4 engine boat. But... either of them are MUCH MUCH better than a single engined boat.

[J.A.W.]

This Lambo 8.2Ltr V12 boat mill gives 1,100hp N/A, & is strong enough for the rigours of offshore endurance racing..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzoNIADg2mM

Add a modest 1 bar or so of boost from 4 turbos - & it should give ~2,000hp without too much strain, or bulk..

[autogyro]

With the tyre limitations it is weight, weight transfer, gearing and aero.
Power is only secondary.
There now that has got rid of most of the boy racers.
It is why I stay silent when I hear a spotty yuf saying his Mitsubaru NX wabler has 1000 bhp.