Any Historians out there ??

[nlowdon]

Hi Folks !

I'm an avid F1 fan, have been for years and have only just stumbled across the site/forum !!! I'm really impressed so far - where has this been hiding ?!

Anyway - there is a reason for me stumbling across it and i'm hoping some of you maybe able to help !

I'm doing a university piece on the 'advancement of electronics in F1 racing' and i'm wondering if anyone knows 'roughly' when electronics first started apearing in the cars ? I've done numerous searches but can't seem to narrow it down. If anyone knows then i'll be able to search for individual cars, articles etc.

Any info/guidance/help would be very much appreciated !

Thanks in advance

Neil

[WhiteBlue]

check for John Barnards gearbox developments in the 80ties.
in early 90ties you got the whole lot with traction control, launch control and even active suspension

[RH1300S]

I think you will find that "modern" electronics really started to appear with the engine management of turbo engines of the early 1980's. I'd probably start researching with Renault & BMW on that route.

I am too lazy to do a search; but I am really sure that I read an interview with Mario Thiessen and seem to remember he made some claims that BMW were "firsts" in that department. (BTW - guys, don't flame Mario - flame me if my memory is wrong )

[WhiteBlue]

yep, thats true
electronic fuel injection was introduced by Bendix to aero engines used in the Korean war.
1958 they did an unsucessfull, unreliable automotive application for Chrysler De Soto
first Motocycle was 1982 by Honda with electronic fuel injection

F1 used the technology first in 1982

BMW used the K-Jetronic from Bosch in the 70ties in F2 and in the famous M12/13 Turbo engine with Brabham from the 1982 season. http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/71/Brabham-BT52.html




Ferrari used Bosch in road cars but mechanical Lucas injectors in their 126 C4 with 1.5 L V6 turbo engine. http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/168/ ... 26-C4.html

Honda only returned 1983 to F1 with the spirit team. So their turbo engine was later. They became famous for championship winning turbos with Williams and McLaren later. I remember that Prost complained at one time that Honda manipulated his engine electronics in favour of Senna.

Renault introduced their 1.5 L V6 Gordini Turbo 1977



you can see the mechanical Kugelfischer injection system on top here.
spec from http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/1050 ... -RS10.html

Strangely electronic fuel injection has come from road cars where the Bosch D-jetronic was first used by Volkswagen for a serial release in 1967 for the 1600 LE/TLE to meet the strict Californian emission control laws.

So we can be reasonably sure that the BMW F1 deployment was the first use of electronics in F1

[flynfrog]

I believe fuel injection by Rochester maybe was on the 57 vettes as an option

[WhiteBlue]

yeah, it was so expensive that nobody bought this stuff. US race cars, sports cars and F2 used electronic injection much earlier than F1. The Renault R17 Gordini of the seventies used the Bosch system long before F1 converted to electronics. F1 used Lucas and Kugelfischer mechanical injectors for a long time because they were not concerned with automatic electric cold start up. they could manually inject some fuel into the air intakes.

the turbos changed all of this because they had the problem of the turbo lag. they started to use bi turbos quickly and later went to variable geometry turbos. that required sophisticated engine mappings for high power and was much better done with electronic systems.

[WhiteBlue]

I'm a bit flabbergasted but fuel injection wasn't alone in the first application for electronics.

Lotus introduced partially electronic controled active suspension 1983 with the Lotus 92 !!!!

This was the last Lotus to use the famous ford DFV engine.The FISA took steps to ban "ground effect" racing cars, so the Type 92 featured computer controlled "Active Suspension." The car had onboard sensors, that could monitor suspension. However, the car suffered some reliability problems with the sensors, causing problems with the suspension, so the car was reverted back to a more normal configuration, unfortunately with little success.

http://www.lotusespritturbo.com/Lotus_Models_Part_2.htm

[nlowdon]

Ok - this has been fantastic ! =D> =D> =D>
Here's me thinking i knew a thng or two about the sport until you guys start talking !!
Just with those few replies i've managed to get a HEAP of research points and things are going great !
What i've kind of got a feel for is that things kicked off with fuel injection (which was what i'd suspected) then probably on to suspension. I'm thinking that the other main points i'm going to include will be comms, the development of the steering wheel, telemetry and of course the new ECU unit.
If anyone can help with timelines etc then it would be much appreciated.
Also if you think i've missed out any important factors or a defining moment (i.e i've used the repair of DC's McLaren from the pit wall in Monaco 2002 as a defining moment) then please let me know !

Thanks a lot everyone - don't worry i'm not looking for anyone to DO the piece for me, the great posts going up are very helpful for pointing me in the direction of where to look and research. As i'm sure you're all aware it's really quite a VAST area and i'm very thankful for all the info.

Neil

[scarbs]

BRM in the sixties and latterly Tyrrell in the late seventies tried data aquisition with domestic Tape recorders logging suspension movements

[Carlos]

Lotus astive suspension:
http://www.gglotus.org/ggtech/activesus ... esuspn.htm
F1 Overview
http://www.f1-grandprix.com/history6.html