F1 Engine Power Secrets (2000) • Hacker News Board

Re: F1 Engine Power Secrets (2000)

#41

Post by siika2000 » Sat, Feb 12, 2011, 2:45 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #8

dabeeeenster wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent winners of Le Mans have been powered by diesel engines. I went 3 years ago and it was very strange - the diesel power LMP1 cars were almost inaudibly quiet compared to the petrol powered cars. Almost like they were floating round the track - most surreal. Diesel engines have advanced incredibly in the last 15 years.

(Yeah the new Audi's are incredible!) And they were trying everything to cut the balls of them, weren't they? The Diesels aren't banned but they restricted their fuel-tank size. They also have to refuel slower than non-diesels (not by design but by regulation) and they have a new +30kg weight increase restriction just for diesels. There might be more. I suppose its not a bad thing to try to equalize the cars for raci…

> I dislike the outright banning of certain technologies.[1]

So do I. Did you forget to include some link you intended to include?

Re: F1 Engine Power Secrets (2000)

#42

Post by gregpilling » Sat, Feb 12, 2011, 4:57 PM UTC

shimi wrote: post #24

The magic of F1 cars in the last years was for that although the power output of the engines has decreased and so is the downforce due to regulations lap times have stayed consistent. Its fascinating to see how people like Adrian Newey keep on pushing the envelope to produce brilliant cars with tough regulations. BTW A short poll how many HN readers are into F1?

i am into F1, but more into MotoGP.

Re: F1 Engine Power Secrets (2000)

#43

Post by eftpotrm » Sat, Feb 12, 2011, 5:04 PM UTC

siika2000 wrote: post #40

bigiain wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. While I feel curious about what sort of spectacle we'd be seeing if they were still allowed to run 1.5l turbo motors with active suspension and ground effects all at the same time, I understand the need to both keep costs within reasonable bounds, and to keep drivers alive...

Here's something I don't understand: Why do they ban technologies on cost grounds? Why not just force the teams to sell one of their cars (chosen by random) in an auction at some minimum price at the end of the season? Banning technologies to control costs just results in more money being poured in to old technologies, when it should be poured into new technologies that could finally set us free from the tyranny of t…

Well, at present the cars are pretty much written off at the end of the year as total losses anyway - you might see a few cropping up for sale, but for well below the manufacturing costs in my experience. So forcing a sale wouldn't really change the economics of the situation in the way you're thinking.

Who would buy though? The cars gain new parts on a race-by-race basis - they're never line production vehicles so there'd never be a stock of parts available to support them. The support infrastructure to run them is horrendously intricate, components are designed to be inspected every few hundred miles.... I can't see how it'd be viable - the current market that buys the few cars that crop up is hardly enormous.

Re: F1 Engine Power Secrets (2000)

#44

Post by regomodo » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 10:15 AM UTC

eftpotrm wrote: post #35

regomodo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does 600BHP from 1.5L in 1951 sound? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Racing_Motors_V16

Supercharged, unreliable, unsuccessful sadly. Other early very high power engines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_engine - 1941 450bhp to 1966 840bhp, equally unsuccessful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_W125 - 1937 600bhp, championship winner

Well, controlling 16 sparkplugs with a mechanical distributor at that rpm was always going to lead to timing issues. That much power from such a little engine, when it did work, is amazing to me.