as you can imagine im one of the ones who think the new engine rule for 2004 will be a step back in engine performance and, technology.Since these engines will have to last for a whole weekend(i dont know if they wont b able to change them even since friday practice) one must suppose this will translate in a sad rpm drop,,,less power,,,,not the same exiting sound because of the revs dropping...etc...what do u think will be the most significative changes ?how many revs do u think they will be able to tolerate? and of course how many hp less? please explain your answers.
let me say I'm all in favour of this new regulation change, as far as the engine is concerned. I find it as important for the car industry that Formula One also investigates ways to lengthen the lifetime of an engine.
Like BMW for instance.. it is said that it will again be the best engine of the field next year. The P84 is already running on the dyno, while at Renault for example, the only plan to do that in a couple of weeks.
The P84 has already run faultlessly for a complete weekend distance, and will.. as far as developers can see, only incorporate a rev drop of 250 rpm. I don't think that will cost them much power would it
I agree with Tomba, I think we will see a small drop in ultimate rpm and power, but not a lot.
I am dissappointed in Renault's decesion to drop their pioneering wide angle engine. Vibration has always been an issue that has hindered reliability and ultimately performance. They are talking about taking two big steps backwards to a "Classical" configuration, so I assume 72 degrees?!..
I can understand the logic, everything balances better, runs smother, more reliability and acheiving the best performance potential. What really concerns me though is what will happen to the wonderful handling of the chassis? This change will have a significant effect on the centre of gravity of the engine and the chassis.
renault was talking about lower cg and lower rear bodywork when they introduced 110 degrees engine in 2001.but as far as rear bodywork(means more aerodynamically efficient) is concern,ferrari has a very small rear end and achieved that with 90 degrees engine.
So personally I think,CG position and hence car handling is not hugely dependent only on what type the engine is used,its more toward manipulation of component placement where it can compensate the higher CG engine.
Due to new long-life engine regulation,even if the rpm will be dropped(not interesting at all), its just a matter of time before the supreme rev and hp will kicks in again.the engine performance knows no boundaries,especially when money is thrown all over the place in big excellent teams.
I have heard that BMW had pushed Castrol and Petrobras to develop new lubs and fuel to help the engine to last the whole race weekend. And they also thanks those technical partners for their huge help in this area once it will now be possible to run their engines on Fridays as much as possible without the risk to have a failure that cause prejudice to the Qualy and Race.
well this brings up a new point of view about the new regulations concerning the mileage of an engine.
It is very likely that some teams down on the grid will have less secure engines, that hardly last a whole weekend. In order to prevent engine failure during the race, these teams might decrease testing before the race. This would have two consequences:
1. The teams, that already have a hard time, might even run less, cannot get that much television coverage, harden the job to find sponsors, and decrease performance in race-conditions, as they have not found a good set-up because of the low amount of kilometers driven.
2. Interesting for the FIA, it will decrease interest from visitors for the training
I can understand your theory regarding smaller teams not testing as often. Sort of ironic considering the FIA reason for longer lasting engines is cost cutting and to help the smaller teams.
Though the FIA are sort of making the manufacturers to make their engines available to smaller teams at a lower cost.
I struggle to see the point in this ruling, already the teams currently have to run a single engine from qualifying through to the races end, when you add the fact that they also prefer to run that engine in Saturdays practice sessions, it currently only leaves Fridays limited sessions to run a different engine (i.e Friday night engine change). So in effect the teams are almost already running one engine per weekend, but without the penalty of dropping grid positions should they need to change it. Obviously the new race weekend rules will alter this a little.
When we think about what the teams will do with the new engine rules, the Cosworth customer teams cannot expect to qualify well or finish the race at the best of times, so why not switch engines during the weekend anyway? Also, should a top team struggle in qualifying, why not pull the car in for an engine change, put in a higher spec unit to last only the race?
Testing would require lots of laps purely to put the requisite mileage on a new spec engine to test it, most team do not actually put a lot of laps in during a test so they would need to change their testing program and perhaps number of testing days to get the engine work completed.
Technically the engine next year will differ little from this years, Revs will drop a little (150-250rpm) to preserve the internals, but as the teams are gaining around 50-150 RPM per year any way, this will only be a blip on the engines development. Cooling and oil tank size may increase (Jaguar and Jordan had even run auxiliary oil tanks in 2003) . Otherwise expect to see the same order of power and development we’ve seen over the past few years.
I agree with Scarbs in terms of additional developments costs, schedules, and headaches as well as the possible expliotation of loopholes concerning penalties. I would imagine the FIA will require the same engine spec for replacement, so i dont think putting a sprint motor in before going green will be an option.
In terms of engineering it is true that the output and rev limits will probably change little. Mario Theissen said that it would be a non-issue regarding this fact, but thats also coming from the top engine manufacturer. Reliability certainly didn't ail the grid front-runners in '03, but the lesser teams struggled. I think the new engine life period will only increase the disparity in terms of power between the top and bottom teams. If there is any cost savings it wont materialize for several seasons i imagine.
Renault's 110-degree V was an interesting method, but I think the top teams have proved that the tighter-V is more ideal, and as mentioned, Ferrari managed an incredibly compact rear end with a tight angle. Lubrication issues are less of a problem with the narrower angle, and exhaust manifold design is more ideal as well. I don't know enough about the aerodynamic intrusion of the wide-angle to comment on that area.
Sort of ironic considering the FIA reason for longer lasting engines is cost cutting and to help the smaller teams. 