Engines - Cost, Lifetime, etc

[uzael]

I've been slowly learning about engines recently, both street car and race car. But as I've learned more I keep coming up with new and more comlicated questions. Maybe someone out there can help me out with this.......

Ok, so a current formula 1 engine (normally aspirated) produces approximately 900hp @ 19000RPM which would translate to 248.77 ft/lbs of torque.

A CART engine produces 900hp @ 12500RPM (with 37 PSI boost) which translates into 378.14 ft/lbs.

So by these calculations I'm assuing that a Cart engine is approximately twice as powerful as a formula 1 engine. Now obviously this means that the Turbo nature of the CART engine provides a drastically higher MVE, which in turn boost the power output per stroke.

Ok so now we go back in history where F1 was turbo charged. Using approximately 55 psi I belive, they were producing approximately 1000-1200Hp at 10000-12000RPM.

I guess my question is, why whouldn't we go back to the old days of Turbo charging, say using a 2.4 Litre V 8 with say 1-1.5 BAR of boost at approximately 12000-15000 RPM.Wouldn't this greatly increase the lifetime of the engine, and hence lower the cost drastically of the sport?

[TD]

You lost me there mate well sort of anyway

I can remember when I was racing that if you got 100hp from a 1 litre engine it was stoking hot and unrelaible, now days this is the norm for road cars

[Monstrobolaxa]

Well that is true....I think that a smaller engine producing a lot more power....will make the engine work at higher tempretures!

The question about why don't we go back in F1....well....the answer is...FIA wants the cars to go slower and not faster...so in the mid 80s the banned the turbo engines...the other thing is that it would raise costs because of the construction fase that engine makers would have to go through rihgt now.....and they'd have to build the normally aspirated engine...and a prototype of the turbo engine for development....so costs would rise.....maybe in the distante futur the costs would end up by compensating.

[uzael]

It just seems to me that the huge power being produced in the turbo days was due to the awesome boost levels they were running. CART managed to keep both costs down (compared to F1) and to keep thing relatively level and controlled. When people started going too fast just turn the boost down a bit. I believe that HP remained relatively similar from 1993 -2003 while the boost went from 45psi to 37psi. Hell, and by 2003 most teams only used 4 engines per car per year due to the single engine weekend and the ease of rebuilding the turbo engines. Combine that with some sort of rev limiter at say 13000RPM and I think you'd see that rather than 60-75 HP difference between front and back of the grid to maybe only 10-15. Wouldn't that not only increase the exciting nature of the sport, but let the talent of the drivers show fully?