FIA World Engines gathering momentum

[tok-tokkie]

That is why one of the longest periods of success had almost every single car running a Cosworth DFV.

I posted my dismay at the propsal of a kit engine in a previous post & this fact was given in a reply. It really made me realise how wrong I was. Some simplification and cost saving is necessary & I now sympathise with the need for this proposal.

[Scotracer]

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.

I hate spec engines They need to sound right

Looks like the days of these are over:

All those engines in those clips were "spec" engines... they were built to the specifications laid out by the FIA at the time... as are today's engines.

The first built to a 1.5L spec, the second to the 3.0L NA V-10 spec, and the last built to the 3.5 NA spec.

Nobody (except losing) forced Ferrari to switch from the V-12 to the V-10, they wanted to win so they did what was necessary, it would have been the same for the V-8 had it was required that the spec be 2.4L and not 2.4L V-8 as it is.

and yes the days of 1.5L V-16's are long over... I can find an engine in a honda cvic that makes more power than that one does, regardless of the sound... the sound of Winning is always more important that the sound of the engine.

Restriction is not the same as spec. Having a capacity limit does not make an engine spec - having specific bore centres, V angles, valvetrains, intake designs and rev limits is spec!

F1 has always been as much about the aural sensations as the visual and going to a 2.0 Turbo producing ~500BHP will be about as entertaining as sitting at the edge of a motorway.

Toyota wished to bring a V12 into F1 in 2002 but they the FIA thwarted that attempt by limiting engines to V10 only. That's when it all went down hill. Ferrari choosing a V10 because it was a better engineering solution than a V12 is fine and dandy by my book...but telling them they can't have one is just stupid.

I don't know what they'd be using if they weren't restricted to V8 right now but I'm guessing it wouldn't be a V8 due to the inherent vibration problems at the current running engine revs.

PS That BRM 1.5 V16 produced 600BHP in its final form - that's a lot of ponies.

[modbaraban]

As it is they control everything with air restricters anyway... and the LMP2 catagory is almost dead.

How dead is that:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrKhZSUJeuo[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmbnGM7wC80[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XogKAUDNWTI[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBL_Zxa0U9c[/youtube]
petrols, turbos, diesels, hybrids, V8, V10, V12, B6, R4 etc... and I don't care about restrictors if that's what it takes to save some diversity.

[Scotracer]

In reality, most series have air restrictors - WRC, LMP1/LMP2/GT1/GT2, F3...even Formula SAE/Student! It's an easy way to restrict power outputs whilst still allowing development.

[nae]

just wait till human cloning

then all teams can have the best driver
perhaps with age handicaps

ie schumy at 20 for the top teams
and him again at 65 for the lower
order

[nae]

or with weight additions
kinda like jaun pablo

[Conceptual]

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.

I hate spec engines They need to sound right

Looks like the days of these are over:

The days of those motors was over long before your post.

Even if you allow any type of engine config under a set of regs, all the teams will be using the same engine in a season or two anyways, as the cream always rises to the top, and with computing power now, what it is, most teams will show up with the same engine anyways.

Since there is logically only one "perfect" this statement is very true (and stated by myself before, to much nay saying).

If they uncorked the regs, the machines that test, and iterate the race machines will eventually spit out the same configuration.

The true pinnacle is a single solution. If it was any more than that, it would not be the pinnacle, by deffinition.

[dumrick]

Since there is logically only one "perfect" this statement is very true (and stated by myself before, to much nay saying).

If they uncorked the regs, the machines that test, and iterate the race machines will eventually spit out the same configuration.

The true pinnacle is a single solution. If it was any more than that, it would not be the pinnacle, by deffinition.

Your "logic" ignores that the F1 championship is raced in tracks as different as Monaco, Spa or Monza.
There is no single "perfect" solution and some basic culture about F1 would avoid writing that kind of nonsense.

[Conceptual]

Since there is logically only one "perfect" this statement is very true (and stated by myself before, to much nay saying).

If they uncorked the regs, the machines that test, and iterate the race machines will eventually spit out the same configuration.

The true pinnacle is a single solution. If it was any more than that, it would not be the pinnacle, by deffinition.

Your "logic" ignores that the F1 championship is raced in tracks as different as Monaco, Spa or Monza.
There is no single "perfect" solution and some basic culture about F1 would avoid writing that kind of nonsense.

Nonsense? So, you are saying that there are more than one perfect solution to each of those tracks? My statement could just as easily apply to each track as well as the entire season.

The pinnacle means TOP, and there is only room for one up there. If your nonsense logic believes that there is more, I would suggest you re-take a simple statistics class to come up to speed...

[SpookTheHamster]

There can be perfect results, but that does not mean that there is a single perfect solution to get there. There is more than one way to skin a dead cat

[Conceptual]

There can be perfect results, but that does not mean that there is a single perfect solution to get there. There is more than one way to skin a dead cat

Sure, but only one perfect one...

3. exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose:

[Scotracer]

There can be perfect results, but that does not mean that there is a single perfect solution to get there. There is more than one way to skin a dead cat

Sure, but only one perfect one...

3. exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose:

I wouldn't call the best compromise the "perfect" solution.

[dumrick]

I wouldn't call the best compromise the "perfect" solution.

Exactly. And you must have some simple Formula 1 culture to take the example of the 1979 championship, when Jody Scheckter was champion with the Ferrari 312T4 to realise that even the best compromise isn't that easy to find.

That season, the powerful yet wide and heavy boxer-12, battled with some Cosworth powered cars (and the Renault Turbos) with better ground effects (thanks to the less width of the V's, compared to the boxer, that allowed them larger underbody tunnels) and achieved 1st and 2nd positions on the driver's championship. Their technical solutions weren't clearly the best ones at the time, just observe the disaster that was the 312T5 of 1980, which was an evolution of the multi-championship winning car, but was completely outclassed and was the final iteration of the 312 F1 liniage, utterly defeatef by the same car concepts that were dominated in 1979. Their relative strenghts allowed Ferrari to have an advantage in a particular state of maturation of some techniques that, after development, proved to be paramount for success.

The best solution even depends on other things. If you have a positive breakthrough innovation, you may have an advantage while that innovation isn't used by your competitors. After, the same concept may only grant you to be 4th or 5th team.
But, of course, I'm digressing off-topic about a Formula 1 that no longer exists. Differences in concept between cars aren't anymore possible, given that regulations basically outlaw it. In my opinion, that's also why the sport isn't that captivating anymore.

In topic, I think the idea of World Engines may be a good one, a kind of going back to the days when the same block could power different types of racers and a way to have a pool of constructors building the same kind of engine for specific needs and using them to enter other classes of racing.
... let's just preserve variety in endurance racing, please.

[qw56q]

just wait till human cloning

then all teams can have the best driver
perhaps with age handicaps

ie schumy at 20 for the top teams
and him again at 65 for the lower
order

you could have a older schumy as #2 for the younger one