Which exhaust do you take?

[Javert]

as the title says, this is a topic about what exhausts system is the best

Much discussion has already been done,

(sorry if it's not the very latest iteration)
Red Bull system looks good as it can feed the centrum of the diffuser well
I would think this has less horsepower lose than McLaren's one as the position of the pipe is slightly more neutral.

McLaren's one

I would say it has less drag than RB one and probably goes more efficiently in the zone of router/diffuser deleting vortex. I think this is the best solution at least for the external zones of the diffuser to work and make downforce.

I vote the McLaren's one

[turbof1]

Very difficult to tell. Both do essentially the same: crossflowing the airflow around the sidepods and the exhaust flow, without making them interfere eachother. the exhaust is being used in both cases to seal the diffuser, while the normal airflow is used to blow the diffuser (most preferable the central startmotor-hole). which one is better, is difficult to tell. I do see that McLaren used more undercut towards the back of the sidepods, which the Red Bull couldn't have due the ramp setup, which goes as a loss of air volume towards the diffuser. On the other hand Red Bull uses the tunnels to duct air towards the diffuser, which does spill less air.

I would go for the Red Bull one, but that's more about feeling then anything else.

[wesley123]

They are the same thing, the only difference is that the Red Bull sidepod has a piece of carbon on which the exhaust can flow. The field last year seems a good view to me of which is better, everyone went for a McLaren exhaust solution, no one did a Red bull ramp and only one team did even consider it.

The Red Bull ramp only seems to cause problems, with no visible performance gain. The only reason why people pick the Red Bull one is because of this; "Red Bull is the best car hurr durr exhaust ramp is the best solution!!!" I think Red Bull themselves showed well enough how it isnt any better than the McLaren coanda exhaust.

[turbof1]

They are the same thing, the only difference is that the Red Bull sidepod has a piece of carbon on which the exhaust can flow. The field last year seems a good view to me of which is better, everyone went for a McLaren exhaust solution, no one did a Red bull ramp and only one team did even consider it.

The Red Bull ramp only seems to cause problems, with no visible performance gain. The only reason why people pick the Red Bull one is because of this; "Red Bull is the best car hurr durr exhaust ramp is the best solution!!!" I think Red Bull themselves showed well enough how it isnt any better than the McLaren coanda exhaust.

Not sure about that. sauber went from a ramp to a more McLaren-like exhaust, but reverted back to their original ramp.

The general idea I got from the Red Bull ramp is that it is more efficient: it spills far less exhaust gasses and airflow, but I also think this comes at a cost of air volume.

[flynfrog]

First you need to define the criteria. The best at what? They are a small part of an over all system. Each teams has there own design goals in mind we they built the cars. What if one team deiced the power loss wasn't worth the down force or vis versa.

[turbof1]

First you need to define the criteria. The best at what? They are a small part of an over all system. Each teams has there own design goals in mind we they built the cars. What if one team deiced the power loss wasn't worth the down force or vis versa.

I think that last sentence is much simplier then you think. It's all about cost-benefit analysis. If the gains in pure laptime are bigger then losses in pure laptime, then you put it on. I think we are describing the overall philosophy of the both; infact the cars are actually build around those philosophies. They are by no means small parts of the overall systems. Sidepod design, front wings, vanes,... all are designed around getting airflow towards and around the exhaust.

[raymondu999]

They are the same thing, the only difference is that the Red Bull sidepod has a piece of carbon on which the exhaust can flow.

I very much agree with this statement.

I think the difference really just stems from there. The Red Bull style, I would think, has a much stronger exhaust effect as the effect is shielded from any other flows, but at the cost of added drag, as obviously there will be additional boundary layers and additional choking issues to contend with.

IMO the reason why more people went McLaren is that it was easier to set up - but at the cost that the exhaust effect would be less, as the exhaust direction will be much more affected by other flows of air.

[mep]

Seriously guys, both exhaust are just a metal pipe with a flow.
The differences you see in the pictures are different bodyworks. What RedBull does, and can't bee seen on a picture is to generate a channel which connects the central diffusor to the bodywork. The central diffusor has some slits. The low pressure generated by the diffusor should help to re-guide the flow around the side pots probably to improve sealing of the flow next to the tires at the expense of some low pressure loss where the slits are. If this works is questionable.

[Spacepace]

I am going to look at it from the last six races onwards when they both had there final iterations and I would go with the McLaren design. The cars are just designed a lot differently is why you would see a performance difference at certain tracks. The McLaren design was more effective at getting the exhaust to wash down to the floor and flow between the tyre and side of the diffuser to better seal it. Red Bull had troubles getting it to the right spot and the effect wasn't as powerful.

But I do believe Red Bull was able to achieve a faster car at times in the final six races and that was down to the cars attributes but not the exhaust. It was very good at changing direction which a lot of the circuits in the latter part of the year demanded. Lets look at Japan; the first sector is the most important part of the lap and you need to nail the "esses" to get a good time, a car that can change direction well lends to that. Korea is another track Red Bull was able to destroy everyone else in one particular sector to inch out a pole and have the pace to pull a gap to an easy victory. It was sector three where they had their pace that weekend, a part of the track that is basically right left right left. Sebastian was three tenths faster then Mark and was another tenth up on fernando. Sector three in USA was the same way. It had very good turn in and seemed to be just on the edge of rear end grip and then the car would just bite enough after the apex to stay stable on exit but it was a car on the edge, "four wheel drifting". I was reading Autosports august 16th release that had an article in it about the '82 Williams FW08, and it kind of reminded me of the RB8. Frank Dernie the then williams aero specialist was saying that the car was strong on front end grip and had a loose rear end. "...but as you moved the centre of pressure rearwards to balance the aero, you lost a bit. We had an alternative sidepod that moved the centre of pressure backwards and created a better balance, but peak downforce gave you the better laptime...". I think that is something that Newey has tried to create in the chassis of the RB7 and RB8 by giving them as much rake as possible which would make it pointy and just counteract it with the blown diffuser. That rake would give it a similar effect that the FW08 had. That is probably why Red Bull struggled early in the year having not find a way to utilized the exhaust to balance the rear. But back to my argument of the quality of there exhaust set up. They seemed to follow the idea of the exhaust being pushed down by the flow from the top of sidepod and the closer the exhaust is to that flow the more powerful it will be. For example they placed the exhaust exit at the very top of there hump setup so the exhaust is the first thing in contact with the downwash flow. That makes no sense to me, you need as much space you can create from the top of the sidepod to the exhaust exit to have a bigger volume of air pushing down on the exhaust flow, something McLaren has done with their trough exit. Now on there tunnels. They are too limiting because they exit the airflow out of the center of the car to try and blow over the suspension and the beam wing trying to create this double floor thing but there is just to much wasted airflow not going towards the outer edges on top of the diffuser. And I can't help but think that some air would go pass that tunnel when it had too much pressure in it or had spillage if it was building pressure on the outside with too much flow and would go in front of the exhaust flow disrupting it. That would be extremely hard to get the airflow just right.

The McLaren seemed to get it right when they changed to there mk.2 sidepods in hockenheim. They did a whole redesign to the front of the sidepods below the radiator inlet. It was more curved and led the airflow down so by the time it got to the exhaust bulge it was low and would want to stay attached and go under the exhaust bulge. The first iteration of their sidepods was more square and they had problems with the airflow not wanting to go under the bulge but around it and hitting the flow coming out the exhaust trough. Once they got the sidepod airflow working porperly it proved that there exhaust bulge setup would work. With McLaren going with the exhaust bulge setup will allow them to get air to flow more evenly over top of the diffuser. With all the updates by the the end of the year I think they had no problem getting that exhaust flow down on the floor and sealing the diffuser and better then any car. The only place that car lacked was it was more rearward balance making it a bit lazy on turn in compared to the Red Bull and that's when it would beat the McLaren.

I think the McLaren exhaust bulge has the most potential to due to the fact it allows more aiflow to the rear of the car which so important nowadays to create rear end downforce now without the EBD or the DDD. If you look how everyone designed the front wings by the latter half of year they were mostly conditioning airflow to the rear end instead of creating front downforce it was for rear downforce something these current cars lack. Red Bull may have been better at certain races because of its characteristics but there exhaust is not as effective at sealing the diffuser. McLaren have had a lot of time testing with the coanda exhaust and will have an even more powerful exhaust next year that will be better designed.

On a side note it is interesting to see that even though their cars are so different that they were only one to four tenths off of each other depending on the circuit this year, shows how much the regulations have narrowed the field.

[ringo]

Mclaren's solution is inferior.

To the final iteration of the redbull's. The redbull concept was the better one from the start, but it took a while to refine.
It should be observed that the rb8 has separated the two systems definitely, and there is nothing to will cause any mixing due to there being a rigid barrier between the flow over the top and the flow going towards the middle of the car.

The redbull exhuast flow direction is also less dependent on outside factors like the free stream speed. Secondly the exhaust flow direction has less changes than the mclaren. In fact it basically straight shot.
The mclaren has more direction changes ( free stream dependent as well) as the flow comes out the pipes, curves down on the flow then crawls allong it to the edge of the duffuser. The rb8 flow is chuted right where it needs to be, more direct and maybe with less eddies.
It cannot be said that the mclaren solutions has less drag either, we cannot know that for certain.

[flynfrog]

@ the two above. How on earth can you determine the entire performance of a car based on one part of it?

[Spacepace]

@ the two above. How on earth can you determine the entire performance of a car based on one part of it?

I'm only trying to throw ideas around and it's just what I believe what they handled like from what I seen of them and what has been said by others.

[scuderiafan]

I'd take Red Bull's simply because Adrian Newey probably drew it up. I can't determine which works best simply by viewing it.

[raymondu999]

The McLaren design was more effective at getting the exhaust to wash down to the floor and flow between the tyre and side of the diffuser to better seal it. Red Bull had troubles getting it to the right spot and the effect wasn't as powerful.

You have it lopsided IMO

[allstaruk08]

i took a picture of the rb exhaust off google and extended the u tunnel all the way to the side of the diffuser and increased the size of the opening under the tunnel, does anyone know why they didnt do something like this last season.