http://www.intof1.nl/Technical/Engine/engine.html


Random Facts:

· In an F1 engine revving at 18,000 rpm, the piston will travel up and down 300 times a second.


· Maximum piston acceleration is approximately 7,000 g (humans pass out at 7-8 g) which puts a load of over 3 tons on each connecting rod.


· The piston only moves around 50 mm but will accelerate from 0 - 100 kmh and back to 0 again in around 0.0025 seconds.


· If a connecting rod let go of its piston at maximum engine speed, the piston would have enough energy to travel vertically over 100 metres.


- If a water hose were to blow off, the complete cooling system would empty in just over a second.


Amazing!

Brian

If you really want to read some amazing facts about F1 engines, there is an article in Racecar Engineering (issue with the Nissan Skyline GTR on the cover) about racing crankshafts. Just the materials they use makes my head spin.

Hey, Geo, Where can you find the mag? The only copy I ever bought or even saw was at Borders about a year ago. Haven't seen it since.

Originally posted by Phantom
Hey, Geo, Where can you find the mag? The only copy I ever bought or even saw was at Borders about a year ago. Haven't seen it since.

I've been buying it at my local Barnes & Noble.

It's a great magazine. Some stuff is a bit too technical for me and others just gloss over a subject. But on the whole, if nothing else, it opens my eyes to new things and makes me realize just how archaic club racing really is.

Can you tell us what month issue it is?

Brian

Awesome stuff. I think they are approaching 20000 rpms now. Amazing...

BMW's Mario Theissen recently claimed that their engine would easily have surpassed 20,000 rpm's this year if they had not been preparing for next season. Next year, as some of you may know, F1 engines are supposed to last for an entire race weekend (practice, qualifying and race) without a rebuild. BMW's engine geniuses have intentionally dialed back the power the P83 could theoretically develop.

The current issue of Racecar engineering has an article about surface hardening techniques being used in F1. This was much of what had my head reeling in the last issue.

I still have to find the issue on the crankshafts. I'll try to find it this weekend.

yea well my rc car revs to 45000

wow dude i love this stuff. i wanna know how top fuel dragsters work too. what can F1 cars do on a 200ft skidpad?

Originally posted by Geo31
I still have to find the issue on the crankshafts. I'll try to find it this weekend.

The September issue. It has a red Nissan Skyline GTR on the cover.

Originally posted by ///Mon3y
wow dude i love this stuff. i wanna know how top fuel dragsters work too. what can F1 cars do on a 200ft skidpad?

Not as much as you'd think. In fact, it may be slower than a Champ car because of the grooved tires. A 200-ft skid pad doesn't allow the cars to go fast enough to really begin taking advantage of their aerodynamic wings and tunnels. The Champ car, with full slicks probably has more mechnical grip.

Yep, you have to have the right conditions to use any Formula car to take advantage of thier very complex aero systems.

And this also applies to ALMS prototype "style" cars. These are basically F1 cars, with full slicks and a body, which means they are sometimes faster then Formula 1 (given a good driver).

However if put on a slow track, they sometimes won't create the needed downforce and will be considerably slower then you would think.

However since F1 is run at very high speeds on pretty large tracks where they can normally stretch thier legs, it shows why the Chief Aero's are making millions each season.

We have an alumni from our fsae team from a couple years ago who is now one fo the big wig aero's for Mclaren f1. We also got 2-3 other guys in F1, but not as major positions, still impressive nonetheless.

When you are in a car that creates so much downforce at speed, its quite impressive... Imagine what could be done without so many restriction....However these restictions allow the engineers to push the limits so that they can go around the rules and virtually create new rules, as this is almost always the case.

As soon as a new technology comes out, or a technique to accomplish something that has a significant benefit, it is either banned or heavily restricted.

Which for human life is important, otherwise we'd be doing 300mph in f1 :eek:

Originally posted by 95m3racer
Yep, you have to have the right conditions to use any Formula car to take advantage of thier very complex aero systems.

When you are in a car that creates so much downforce at speed, its quite impressive... Imagine what could be done without so many restriction....However these restictions allow the engineers to push the limits so that they can go around the rules and virtually create new rules, as this is almost always the case.


I've heard from a few places that the Ferrari F50 and the Saleen S7 create so much downforce at 160 MPH+ they could be driven upside down with no loss in adhesion.

Brian

Originally posted by dallasbboy
I've heard from a few places that the Ferrari F50 and the Saleen S7 create so much downforce at 160 MPH+ they could be driven upside down with no loss in adhesion.

Brian

technically how the hell would it be "no loss" in adhesion. probably means it has downforce greater than the weight of the car which is to say it could drive upside down without falling off. but still there will be a difference in downforce equal to twice the weight of the car if it were driving upsidedown.

EDIT: i guess what you said makes sense in a straight line...what i mean is that it couldnt pull the same on a skidpad going upsidedown.




Still tight as hell tho, if you drove upsidedown at 200 mph.

Originally posted by ///Mon3y
technically how the hell would it be "no loss" in adhesion. probably means it has downforce greater than the weight of the car which is to say it could drive upside down without falling off. but still there will be a difference in downforce equal to twice the weight of the car if it were driving upsidedown.

EDIT: i guess what you said makes sense in a straight line...what i mean is that it couldnt pull the same on a skidpad going upsidedown.

Still tight as hell tho, if you drove upsidedown at 200 mph.

The way I understood it was at such a speed the downforce created is larger than g (gravity) so it wouldn't fall down if the surface it was driving on suddenly flipped over.

Brian

Its just a neat fact that technically at a certain speed (depending on the setup of course) the car will be creating more then enough downforce to push it into the surface its driving on, so if its upside down, it would "stick" to the road.

This "can" be proven in a windtunnel if wanted.

Originally posted by 95m3racer
Its just a neat fact that technically at a certain speed (depending on the setup of course) the car will be creating more then enough downforce to push it into the surface its driving on, so if its upside down, it would "stick" to the road.

This "can" be proven in a windtunnel if wanted.


ya thats what i meant