Camless F1 engines (and cornering speeds)

[axle]

With the current interest in reducing costs, greater reliability and slower speeds, why are camless engine's allowed especially when the currently used technology cannot (as far as I know) be used in road/passenger car engines?

The basis for my question is that they still use a Pneumatic valve system in F1, if I am wrong in this assumption, forgive me but I'll contine

Camless Pnematic valve trains should be banned in my opinion because this would change the face of racing in F1. I would ban all cam systems not adaptable to the modern petrol or diesel engine. This would mean you could use traditional cams but they would be forced at the same time to put more research into electromagnetic valve actuation systems like those prototyped by Lotus Engineering. Electromagnetic valve actuation needs to be researched more and motorsport is the best place to do it. But in the mean time the engines could use a dohc system with cam wheels.
This would have several effects -
lower engine speeds
CoG raised
weight gain?
better reliability
reduced fuel consumption
reduced corner speeds
a drag race in the tow of another car should be long enough for the tow to give a real help to the chasing car instead of them blatting down the straights at lightspeed /
Unit price of each engine should be lower.

A major con is the initial cost of the redesign but they would be designing a new engine anyway, so it shouldn't be that much of an issue.
The other one is that the rich teams will plough more money into the electromagnetic/solenoid systems but this should/would benefit jo public in the long run. An argument can be made for this opening F1 up to increased cost, but it's worth it in my opinion and change always costs.

This change alone would see more research in cam/valverain design, it would slow the cars down and if they build them properly reduce engine failure's due to the cam system (though I recognise when you're pushing the limits then things break).

I only though about this at the weekend but wondered what you all thought of this. Am I barking up the wrong tree in the wrong field? Or should I run for President of the FIA (After all it's better than lopping off 2 cylinders )

Regards

[axle]

If the cornering speeds are too high, why don't they limit the car bodies to being aerodynamically neutral, no positive dowforce and no negative lift?

Why is i not just down to the wings and the way the (at the back) the air gets fed to them? All thes winglets and vents look messy. If the engine gets too hot then tough. And why limit the front wing so much - they should allow in the rules to make and F1 front wing that can still work enough in a corner to allow for drag races out of the corner maybe a wider front tyre is needed? Or undernose venturi? The problems with F1 are down to notbeing able to overtake, cause the cars can't work in dirty air - why not fix this rather than slow the cars down.

As far as I can see my 2 posts today would cost less and still add the entertainment they are looking for, without removeing the manufacturer's interest (FIA ECU etc)

Again, am I mad?

Ps. Is it possible to make a neutral body? Or something along those lines?

Regards

EDIT - oops meant to put that in a new thread...Mods feel free to cut and shut it into a new thread

[bernard]

The problems with F1 are down to notbeing able to overtake, cause the cars can't work in dirty air - why not fix this rather than slow the cars down.

Besides the entertainment issue the main reason for slowing corner speeds is safety. The cars are getting too quick. And you would like to accelerate this development? I guess ralf is a good example of what happens when you drive a corner really fast and in the middle of it lose control. At the rate the cars are getting faster today(a few seconds a lap/year) were gonna see some insane conering speeds within the next 3-4 years or so. This is even more so because most of that speed increase comes from cornering.

[Guest]

But the cornering speeds would be lowered by the cam-ed engine and ban on additional winglets etc (neutral bodywork) but by allowing the designers more scope in the front area we could get F1 cars chasing each other more like touring cars...which is a good idea IMO.

[Rogue230]

I made the same mistake based on how they call them.

The pneumatics refer to the fact that the valves are closed by air pressure and not by mechanical springs.

Spring operated valves have an RPM limit of around 15000 RPM, in part due to the harmonics of the spring themselves.

You want to reduce conering speeds? Reduce, or better yet elliminate aero.

[ReubenG]

Other than the cost issues, why can't pneumatically sprung valves be adapted to (normal) production engines? As you mentioned, springs are limited to approximately 15000 rpm before inertia effects/ resonance vibration of the spring causec valve train destruction. Do pneumatic springs not work effectively in the sub 7000 rpm range that most production engines run in?

[axle]

My understanding is that the Pneumatic system needs to be recharged before use (at least they used to) and that is why it can't be used in production cars. Is this now not the case?

The electromagnetic system is pretty much unlimited, no springs and the actuation of the valves is completely digital and is not tied to the rest of the engine and it's rpm. The problem is that the prototypes are too bulky right now. But a camless passenger car engine is the holy grail of piston engine design should the FIA not push motorsport in that direction - for the good of us all?

[axle]

Ahh I was slightly mistaken in thinking that the pnuematic system is camless....I have been corrected here.

"i think some people believe pneumatic valve gear is cam LESS, it's not, the inert gas is used to replace the metal valve springs, the valves are still operated by camshafts. Current engines use a pump to keep the sytem recharged, and a reservoir for a reserve gas supply. Pneumatic valve "springs" are solely there to allow higher revs. Given a capacity limit and none foreced induction rules you need to maximize efficiency and / or turn higher revs. So pneumatic valve gear would be out of place on a road engine as they never turn anything like enough revs to go beyond cheap and cheerful valve spring technology. Solenoid activated, camless engines are an entirely different kettle of fish though, and therein lies the next generation of piston engines."

Source = http://www.mkivsupra.co.uk

[bernard]

Woulndn't a great way to decrease cornering speeds be to ban diffuser? This wouldn't increase straight speeds, as the teams would look for the lost downforce on wings, and the car would actually go alittle slower, because wings cause more drag, but the downforce generated by wings wouldn't suck the car to the track in corners the same way as diffuser does, so this lowers the corner speeds without increasing the speed on straights

[Rogue230]

As I said, I made the same error. No shame on you.

I have my own prototype camless sys on the drawing board but the computer to real world interface speed is a real problem.

As for production use of pneumatically sprung valve-trains, they work great unless you loose the air. A production car could use a compressor on the engine but due to weight considerations an F1 car uses a storage tank which can be charged in the pits if they loose some air.

Without a working model and CPU, my other thought is that the seals in the air-spring may be short-lived and maintenance intensive.