Say goodbye to 19,000 rpm V8's

[David]

This has to be a wind up!! Four pot turbo engines for the pinnacle of motorsport, what's next diesel? Joke! 

Bring back screaming high capacity V12's and keep our sport special.

[Jericoke]

Part of what I see as the 'problem'  (I don't know that there really IS a problem...) is that racing was originally a way of seeing who could build the best car.  Hell, Henry Ford won the backing to start Ford Motor Company because of winning a race in one of his cars.  It was about selling cars.

F1 is NOT about selling cars.  It's about rich boys with toys.  Is that something people want to watch?  (I do, but again, I don't see the problem.)

Does F1 want to be a venue for selling cars?  It certainly seems a natural fit.

[John S]

I'm not sure F1 has ever been about directly selling cars Jeri, I think it's always been about developing technology which happens to get transferred to road cars, which then helps improve & sell cars. Lately though the main developments have not transferred to road cars as thay are pure racing improvements, due to a clampdown in so many areas of the regs. Who really needs an F-duct or a blown double diffuser on their Ford Focus, VW Golf or other makes equivalent?

   

[cosworth151]

Besides, I doubt that turbos will be the future of production cars. Back in the early 60's, cars like the Corvair Turbo Spyder and the Oldsmobile Starfire Turbo were going to be the end of V8's. The same thing happened in the late 70's and early 80's. Anyone remember the Mustang SVO Turbo or the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe? Ford maybe playing with their "Eco-Boost" turbos, but they've also just come out with the all-new Coyote V8.

Except for Porsche, turbos on gasoline engines are gimmicky fads, like vinyl tops and 3-D movies.

[lkjohnson1950]

If the feds impliment their proposed MPG rules, V8s will be a high end luxury item with a huge gas guzzler tax. The turbos will rule the more prosaic performance cars. I have lots of fun tweaking Mustang GTs with my little Subaru Turbo!!

Lonny

[cosworth151]

My old 427 Ford delivered about 450 horses and was closer to gallons-per-mile than miles per gallon. The week-end before last, I was looking at a new Shelby Mustang. It had a small block that put out over 500 ponies with close to 30 mpg, just slightly less than my MG Midget.

Turbos are a costly nuisance that will never make it in the mass market.

[Jericoke]

My old 427 Ford delivered about 450 horses and was closer to gallons-per-mile than miles per gallon. The week-end before last, I was looking at a new Shelby Mustang. It had a small block that put out over 500 ponies with close to 30 mpg, just slightly less than my MG Midget.

Turbos are a costly nuisance that will never make it in the mass market.

I'm not enough of a car girl to know what the problem is with turbos.  Is it a moving part issue?  A maintenance nightmare?  Would superchargers be more beneficial, or less?

Is it possible that modern turbos have learned the lessons from the past?  (For example, it's hard to believe that the maker of the iPhone almost went bust trying to sell a handheld touchscreen computer)

[lkjohnson1950]

The biggest problems with turbos are heat and RPM. Naturally, with the exhaust passing through soon after leaving the manifold, the temps are off the chart. During night races the turbos often glow red from this heat. You need alloys that will withstand this. At the same time turbos spin at 100K + RPM, so those materials must also withstand high centrifugal force. Then you have lag. When you hit the gas, it takes a second for the volume of exhaust gas to spin the turbo fast enough to provide significant boost. All these problems have been greatly reduced since turbos came into racing in the 70s. Renault was one of the leaders in this technology along with Porsche. Superchargers provide similar advantages, with less heat and more linear response, but they add mechanical drag that increases as the engine turns faster. The V8 in the Shelby Cossie mentioned is supercharged. One of the reasons F1, the IRL, and the WRC are all switching to smaller, turbo-ed engines is that several manufacturers said they would be interested in building them, but not in building V8s. It appears they intend to sell them whether Cossie likes it or not. I sympathise. If you came to F1 too late to hear the 3 liter Cosworth V8s and Matra, Alfa and Ferrari V12s you missed an absolute treat.

Lonny

[cosworth151]

The turbos also need lubrication, so they heat the oil to extremely high temperatures, causing the oil to quickly break down. The oil seals in the turbos fail. This was why the last outbreak of turbos quickly started blowing thick clouds of blue smoke. They also used to cause engine knock, and  piston failure, but modern computer engine control has greatly eliminated this.

The dreaded Turbo Lag that Lonny mentioned is also better than it was. The driver used to have time for a good meal between stepping on the accelerator and the power kicking in. Now there is just time for a quick sandwich. 

[Monty]

It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that making everyone develop completely new 4-pot 1600cc turbo engines will be really expensive (hardly a cost saving exercise then!).
It also really annoys me that they want to limit everything - number of cylinders, capacity, turbo, revs, number of engines, etc.
This stops all creative thinking. If someone could produce a 6 cylinder 1600cc turbo motor that can rev to 22,000 rpm which they believe can last 12 races why not let them, or perhaps another team finds that although their 2 cylinder 1600cc turbo motor is less powerful, it offers a massive weight advantage, then great; bring it on!
I still think the best days were when the specifications were more open. Am I correct in thinking there was one year when there were V12's, V8's and turbos all on the track at the same time? I certainly remember days of listening to screaming V12's and growling V8's in the same race and the racing was still close.
Grumpy old man syndrome is setting in!  

[Jericoke]

It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that making everyone develop completely new 4-pot 1600cc turbo engines will be really expensive (hardly a cost saving exercise then!).
It also really annoys me that they want to limit everything - number of cylinders, capacity, turbo, revs, number of engines, etc.
This stops all creative thinking. If someone could produce a 6 cylinder 1600cc turbo motor that can rev to 22,000 rpm which they believe can last 12 races why not let them, or perhaps another team finds that although their 2 cylinder 1600cc turbo motor is less powerful, it offers a massive weight advantage, then great; bring it on!
I still think the best days were when the specifications were more open. Am I correct in thinking there was one year when there were V12's, V8's and turbos all on the track at the same time? I certainly remember days of listening to screaming V12's and growling V8's in the same race and the racing was still close.
Grumpy old man syndrome is setting in!  

I agree.

You are a grumpy old man...   

But besides that... limiting the engine configuration doesn't seem like much fun at all.  I can appreciate the effort to stop the F1 Arms race... after all, if one company can make the fastest engine, what's the point in having multiple suppliers?  I ASSUME that the FIA isn't pulling these rules out of thin air, and are actually in discussions with existing and possible suppliers about what they are willing to pay for.

I HOPE that over time F1 becomes stronger, budgets become bigger, and that the FIA will once again remove the shackles and let F1 become truly innovative again.  I do believe that if current measures hadn't been implemented, it would have become the Ferrari vs McLaren show as their astronomical budgets crushed all comers.  The sport is much healthier now (2 whole seasons since Ferrari or McLaren won!), and while it's debatable if they're going in the right direction, at least they stopped the sport from driving off the proverbial cliff.

If the only way to get there is 5 years of Turbos... we'll see.  And if they really manage to solve all the 'turbo problems' (third time's a charm, right?) which lets us squeeze a little more milage out of our mini-vans, so much the better.

[John S]

... after all, if one company can make the fastest engine, what's the point in having multiple suppliers? 

If only it was that simple, the present engines all have differing characteristics and 3 different makes have powered cars to the constructors title in the last 3 years.  It's hard to judge which of the makers really has the best unit and I think F1 would be the poorer for having just one supplier of anything significant. I for one like the competetive atmospere in all areas.

 
 

 I do believe that if current measures hadn't been implemented, it would have become the Ferrari vs McLaren show as their astronomical budgets crushed all comers.  The sport is much healthier now (2 whole seasons since Ferrari or McLaren won!), and while it's debatable if they're going in the right direction, at least they stopped the sport from driving off the proverbial cliff.

The rule changes on budgets and engines had little to do with the wins by Brawn last year and Red Bull this, IMHO it's all down to innovative chassis and areodynamic work by the thinkers and dreamers.  Same as it ever was in F1, although I concede the end of in season testing has prevented the usual suspects catching up too quickly.
 
Neither team could have acheived the crown without big investment, for Brawn the real money was spent by Honda (shame they never stayed for one last year to reap their reward), RBR clearly are allowed to spend what is necessary and then some.

This change to turbos might in fact turn out to be a proverbial cliff, I do hope not but we shall just have to wait and see.

[lkjohnson1950]

Am I correct in thinking there was one year when there were V12's, V8's and turbos all on the track at the same time? I certainly remember days of listening to screaming V12's and growling V8's in the same race and the racing was still close.
Grumpy old man syndrome is setting in!  

Yes there was at least one year, my memory is a little fuzzy, might have been more, but I saw 3 kinds of V12s, Cosworth V8s, and Renault V6 turbos all the same year at Long Beach. Within 2 years there were only turbos, 4s and 6s. The V12s and V8s couldn't match their power. Some people estimated the best ones had 1200 HP in qualifying tune.

Lonny

[Wizzo]

I would imagine everyone is wondering what the new engines will sound like. Here is a vid of a F2 car which I have been reliably informed has a similar sound to the new F1 cars.