New engine regs idea

[marmer]

I have had an idea to keep F1 fun and at the front of technology

Super and turbo charged v5 with no restrictions on fuel flow and a much bigger limit perhaps 150kg
No rev restrictions either or boost limits.
2 ltr
Boost should be set at start of weekend so team decides power Vs reliability
I would bring back kers but applied to the front wheels only and charged by brakes going into a corner then used on exit with a small battery so it would run out quickly and need charging by the next corner. Teams could develop this but with a set battery size limit.

Would this allow scope for fast cars and good noise and would anyone like to see it or change elements of it

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[jjn9128]

Interesting idea. I particularly like the idea of reducing the battery size, batteries are what has really bloated the current generation of cars. I agree that a fuel flow limit seems redundant when the total fuel capacity is limited.

Out of interest how are you proposing the front axle KERS be implemented? In-hub motors or single motor mounted in the front of the chassis? I'd be slightly cautious about placing anything heavy or uncrushable in front/under the drivers legs, though perhaps that's an unnecessary worry. Would the motor(s) on the front do the BBW (MGU-K) job currently done on the rear axle or would the regen be performed in the engine like the MGU-H? Also added to your increased fuel capacity it would mean the length of the cars would probably increase even more, some of that might be absorbed by the smaller battery and perhaps a 2,0l V5 would be equivalent length to a 1,6l V6. Perhaps refueling could be allowed from a rig with a capacity of 150kg (214l) given to all teams. I never understood the cost implications of banning refueling as the teams have to store that fuel and pump it into the car somehow.

I'm not sure how it keeps F1 ahead of current technology though as none of this is new. Should F1 even be aiming for pinnacle of technology or road relevance? I'd personally like to see a fuel and a power limit and leave manufacturers relatively free on how to get there. Perhaps that's unrealistic because the competitive order may end up track dependent, the engine manufacturers probably wouldn't like that.

[marmer]

bbw on the front wheels hub mouted motors so less bulk in drivers leg area.

would a v5 not be shorter than a v6 or the v12 of old potentially even with the increase in fuel limit and engine capacity.

you might be on to a better idea though by letting teams do what they want with x amount of fuel. however costs would sky rocket as teams play cat and mouse with performance. would love to see a turbo v6 vs a natural v10 or whatever but i think costs would be too high

[zac510]

I agree the costs would be too high. Anyone can fantasize over technical V and aspiration variations but I think a truly genius engine idea will take into account not only the engine but all other real-world factors like budget and environmental wastage. People may hate those two things but they are non-negotiable in the modern day real-world application of F1 regulations.

[jjn9128]

A V5 would not be shorter than a V6 of the same capacity, one side still has 3 cylinders!? If the bore is increased with an increase to 2,0l from 1,6l the engine will get longer.

I'm not sure it's a given that costs would skyrocket if the rules were more open, but I did say that it is probably not feasible in F1. That said Le Mans have managed to have fairly open rules (2,4l V6 vs 2,0l V4) but I think there's a fair bit of juggling to equalize the engines.

[DarkSurferZA]

Front wheel KERS and smaller motors and battery combos are an epic idea. Would make the sport less space age and more road relevant. Would also encourage more engine manufacturers as the technology will be less complex and more relevant to their road performance car program.

Boost and rpm limits are required I think. Otherwise the exotic materials and structural material designs send costs out the window again. Go back to having an engine (not a power unit) with some energy recovery that's road relevant and less weight will be more exciting and easier to follow.

But not to be critical of FIA/FOM but I don't get the refeul issue. They have these conversations about the glory days of the sport and then try to find solutions which are nothing like the ones we had back then. Sport needs to be less NASA (who never get budget approval) and more NASCAR (with the huge fan base).

Lewis made a statement this weekend that he wouldn't waste his time trying to explain Merc vs Ferrari performance to someone who didn't understand the technical aspects of F1. That's the problem. Lewis was right (although I hate the statement). F1 is just too far away from the fan right now.

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[marmer]

would a boxer engine be suitable for f1, being flatter and wider would be loads better for center of gravity.

would they have issues at f1 rpms

[rscsr]

would a boxer engine be suitable for f1, being flatter and wider would be loads better for center of gravity.

would they have issues at f1 rpms

A boxer engine is not really that good in terms of cog. You need space for the exhausts (or intake) on the underside of the car and therefore have to lift the crankshaft to accomodate that ducting. Better would be an engine with a very high bank angle, like 150° or so where you could have the crankshaft at the usual position and have the lowest cog for a given configuration.
But in F1 aerodynamics is king. And a narrow engine is preferable because in front of it are the chassis and the tank anyway. With a wide engine you would have "less space for the coke bottle shape" and therefore likely less efficient aerodynamic.

Renault used a 112° V10 (instead of the usual 72°) in 2002 - RS22 engine. They abandoned it because they couldn't achieve the rpms necessary with that engine.

[CriXus]

I don not know who was the "economic genius" proposed 4 engines per season. I think the rule should be one engine per race weekend (it's much cheaper to make engine for let us say 500-600 km than engine for 2500-3000 km). From that one you can think about v4, v6, v8 and so on.

[marmer]

end of the day they cocked up when they got rid of the cheap v8s. they should go back to that idea but keep turbo

[waynes]

bring back V8.

get rid of the turbo and hybrid nonsense.

[hurril]

The V8:s were a noisy sleeping pill though. (I'm a total engine(sound)ophile so I really do enjoy a good sound/ noise. The V8:s sound like an angry chain saw.)

To me: this would be (even more!) interesting should they loosen the rules so that the number of cylinders can be made freer, say: 3-8, numbers of turbos, say: 0-N, but keep the fuel flow. Or keep the maximum per hour and permit a momentary consumption on the order of about twice the current one.

That would bring back some of the experimental stuff of the earlier days where they weren't all running basically the same stuff. Plus: different fuel strategies could be made more akin to the different tyre strategies. (Not saying that I particularly like or agree with the tyre aspects, but I can see how they make sense and sort of agree with their place that way anyway.)

You could even, although I don't particularly like this either, require that engine modes are only allowed to be altered from the pit lane.

Something else that could be interesting would be to allow everyone to see an engine's internals as soon as it broke and were taken out of circulation. To lessen the very immediate loss of secrecy should the engine break on the first race, we could allow a grace period of, say, 2-3 races before the veil must be lifted. The possible initiative lost by this for the leader would not be _that_ large anyway since the lead time to understand and implement a newly discovered idea is fairly long anyway. The benefits would be that the field would be more even and that more manufactures get to iterate on new fancy subjects sooner. It would also mean that really really expensive exotic paths may not be as viable since stand to lose the benefits of them rather quickly.

[jjn9128]

If engine regulations are based on sound nothing will beat the exotic materials Mercedes v10 from ~1998/99 that was so different to everything else around that time, like 1000 angry wasps in a tin at aircraft take-off volume. You could tell when a McLaren was on-track from Silverstone Village. Agree that the v8's were just loud without any character.

Honda went a very different way with their turbo and it backfired, now all the manufacturers are playing catch-up while copying Mercedes' 2014 engine. I'm starting to think more freedom would ultimately end up in convergence - probably after a few years of one team dominating.

Your idea of showing the engine to everyone ties in with Brawn's NASCAR open scrutineering - it could also keep costs down as what's the point spending so much if everyone can copy it at 1/10 of the cost. I think manufacturers would not allow CAD to be released or any deconstruction of an old engine, but allowing other teams, the public and press to see the cars close-up and in bits might just have some traction.

[hurril]

If engine regulations are based on sound nothing will beat the exotic materials Mercedes v10 from ~1998/99 that was so different to everything else around that time, like 1000 angry wasps in a tin at aircraft take-off volume. You could tell when a McLaren was on-track from Silverstone Village. Agree that the v8's were just loud without any character.

Honda went a very different way with their turbo and it backfired, now all the manufacturers are playing catch-up while copying Mercedes' 2014 engine. I'm starting to think more freedom would ultimately end up in convergence - probably after a few years of one team dominating.

Your idea of showing the engine to everyone ties in with Brawn's NASCAR open scrutineering - it could also keep costs down as what's the point spending so much if everyone can copy it at 1/10 of the cost. I think manufacturers would not allow CAD to be released or any deconstruction of an old engine, but allowing other teams, the public and press to see the cars close-up and in bits might just have some traction.

I must find myself some of those really angry Mercedes V10s because (MAN!) they had a terrific sound.

I can agree, regarding your last paragraph, that offering up the cads would probably be overdoing it. But I think I actually do want them to have to allow close scrutiny after the fact, so to speak. If you use unobtainium or some very advanced manufacturing technique somewhere, then for once: how are you going to be able to tell unless you could extract actual metal samples? And secondly: if you can just by looking what a certain something is, then that thing was not a de facto secret for you and you'd probably already considered using it; if you don't know what it is then ... well that sucks. They're going to stay ahead/ behind, depending on your interpretation of that sentence

Another factor that I expect could come of this is to provide more information and writing for us, the fans that really really appreciate the technical stuff. I very much enjoy reading what the really knowledgable guys and gals here have to say about this or that fancy thing. (That is why I come here and why I stay; here being both this site and Formula 1.)

[PlatinumZealot]

There is a thread for this already.. it might be a good idea to merge.