Qualifying 'only' specials (engines).

[saviour stivala]

Qualifying ‘only’ specials.
Power supping friction and the secret of the qualifying ‘only’ engines in the NA 3.0-litre V10 era.
For 2003 regulations prohibited any change of parts between the engine/s used in qualifying and the one used in the race and that spelt the end of the qualifying ‘only’ engines.
By 2002 expanded piston rings had been developed in order to reduce friction, oil consumption and blow-by gas leaks produced by fluttering. This development allowed an increase of 1000 RPM before piston ring fluttering set-in.
These were ultra-fine rings of 0.9mm in width and 1.4mm in thickness with a rear expander to provide tensile force.
Development testing had shown that a single piston ring configuration without an oil ring boosted power by more than 10 KW. And that was over and above the BHP gains by the 1000 RPM increase permitted before fluttering set-in. But this configuration increased oil consumption to 30 KM/L range. It therefore (this configuration) could not be used in a race distance, and so was only used in qualifying.
Contrary to many believe at the time those qualifying ‘only’ engines not only could ‘last’ a race distance but unless there were new engine upgrades they could also be used for a race distance by simply converting back to normal race engine rings configuration at the next race.

[e36jon]

Thank you for another educational post Saviour.

I am sure I have read here and elsewhere that other aspects of the quali motors were also 'on the edge'. Things like even lighter castings that would fatigue at race distances but were OK for the few quali laps. Ditto for every other mechanical part of the engine. Granted saving those few pounds wouldn't have the same lap time impact as the significant power bump you discuss with the piston rings.

I also remember special quali fuel, but that may have only been in the turbo era, where everyone turned up the boost for a few laps...

I have held a quali wheel rim, from the V10 era I believe, that was much lighter than the race piece. Again, it was known that it wouldn't survive race distance...

All said, I don't miss any of the above from a 'show' POV. I do wish they could run the current motors at full-tilt all the time though.

Thanks again for an amazing post!

Jon

[saviour stivala]

Thank you for the compliment/s. Those “qualifying ‘only’ specials” were no more stressed than the race engines and had nothing different than the race engine apart from their oil consumption as a consequence of the ‘one’ ring configuration. I too read what you have read and a hell lot more at the time. That lot that went into print was all speculation of which is normal. One thing was for sure. Those ‘qualifying ‘only specials” build configuration had fooled and misguided into speculation galore many a technical F1 writer.

[coaster]

I remember the qualifying exhaust fumes smelling very rich, almost like nitromethane instead of unleaded, different to race distance smell.
I would speculate some teams pickled their fuel in the V10 era, opinion, not fact.

[saviour stivala]

I remember the qualifying exhaust fumes smelling very rich, almost like nitromethane instead of unleaded, different to race distance smell.
I would speculate some teams pickled their fuel in the V10 era, opinion, not fact.

"pickled their fuel" with what? other than the oil that they were burning. fuel used was fuel approved by the FIA back than.

[coaster]

I remember #onda getting caught out for hidden voids in the chassis to increase fuel capacity, for say 35 litres of unleaded you have maybe 800ml of nitromethane used as an on demand boost. Cheating happens, Charlie Whiting was good at catching it.
Speculation is the nature of this forum without f1 teams laying bare all their design tricks, so get used to it.

[ENGINE TUNER]

All said, I don't miss any of the above from a 'show' POV. I do wish they could run the current motors at full-tilt all the time though.

Jon

What makes you think that they can't run the motors a "full-tilt" all the time?

There have been several instances of Hamilton winning both pole and the race on a 7 race old PU, against significantly lower mileage PUs. Can they run at qually/party mode for a whole race? No they can't, but that has never been the case. But lower revving turbo motors suffer from much less power degradation than high revving N/A motors. Do you think that they cannot engauge qually mode on the 7th race? Teams have always turned down engines when leading. Why would a driver with a comfortable lead stress the PU any more than it needs to be?

The cars are much more performance limited by the pirelli tires than by the PU control or the fuel race limit.

[e36jon]

Greetings EngineTuner

I don't want to get too off topic in Saviour's thread so I'll be brief. My impression that they are not running the engines at the highest power output that they are capable of is driven by what I have heard via commentary when watching the races. Again, my impression only, the engines have to be de-tuned a ton due to durability issues.

If that doesn't address your question hit me with an IM and maybe we can start our own thread...

Cheers,

Jon

[gruntguru]

The reason they don't run at max output continuously is storage. Max output uses energy from the ES. Max self sustaining mode is available any time AFAIK.

[Just_a_fan]

I remember #onda getting caught out for hidden voids in the chassis to increase fuel capacity, for say 35 litres of unleaded you have maybe 800ml of nitromethane used as an on demand boost. Cheating happens, Charlie Whiting was good at catching it.
Speculation is the nature of this forum without f1 teams laying bare all their design tricks, so get used to it.

Honda ran with a second tank (supposedly a fuel collector) that was filled during the last pitstop to bring the car up to weight at the end of the race. It meant the could race 2/3rd of the race underweight.

[Ringleheim]

Isn't there an old story about BASF digging around in their filing cabinets and re-discovering materials lost since WWII. It was directions on making, literally, rocket fuel for the Vengeance weapon programs.

I suppose it amounted to getting more oxygen into the fuel once burned. They put that into the BMW turbos at the time and, especially for qualifying, and the rest is history. How much power they really made I don't think anyone knows. Every time you hear this story the power goes up. Now it seems to be somewhere around 1,450 bhp.

A last comment: folks talk about how remarkably reliable the engines are today. That's rubbish. These things are tuned way back to survive, and live nowhere close to the edge.

We used to have frequent engine blow-ups in F1 b/c everything was being pushed to the limit all the time.

But that was when F1 was still F1. Not what we have now.

[Ringleheim]

Greetings EngineTuner

I don't want to get too off topic in Saviour's thread so I'll be brief. My impression that they are not running the engines at the highest power output that they are capable of is driven by what I have heard via commentary when watching the races. Again, my impression only, the engines have to be de-tuned a ton due to durability issues.

If that doesn't address your question hit me with an IM and maybe we can start our own thread...

Cheers,

Jon

They are running nowhere close to the limit, almost all the time. Races now have become controlled time trials of sorts, the idea being that going slow, if it saves the tires, can end up being a superior strategy to going fast and eating tires. It doesn't help that the Pirelli tires are garbage and require quite a bit of pampering to make them survive.

Drivers are talking about how they are just cruising at 7/10s or something during the races, most of the time. Look at engine revs as well. Ridiculously low and nowhere close to where they were supposed to be when this formula was in the planing stages.

F1 is now like Le Mans. Everything is turned down to last the duration and the engine supply limits.

[stevesingo]

What is the limit in your head verses what is the limit of the regulations?

The regs say an number of PUs and associated parts can only be used per season. In that context the PUs are at the limit of what they are designed to do.

[saviour stivala]

Engines that were used only for qualifying when that practice was in use were not used only once for qualifying because of reliability. See first post of thread for explanation. At that time formula one engines were in general already became remarkably reliable compared to previous times. Formula one engines are designed tested and validated for their intended usage. No manufacturer intending to compete is going to design an over-engineered engine to attain reliability for more than the intended usage rules allows.

[Bence]

I'd welcome a RA166/167-E Quali Special in an RB16...