At what temperatures are f1 engines kept preheated ?

[ACRO]

Hello gents !

F1 engines are never started cold but they get preheated . At what water and oil temperatures are they kept before start and how is that done ? Heating elements inside ? Warm Oil / water circulated thru the engine from an external source ?

Whag was the procedute in the golden atmo v10/v8 times ?

Thanks for any inputs !

Best regards

[CMSMJ1]

Hello gents !

F1 engines are never started cold but they get preheated . At what water and oil temperatures are they kept before start and how is that done ? Heating elements inside ? Warm Oil / water circulated thru the engine from an external source ?

Whag was the procedute in the golden atmo v10/v8 times ?

Thanks for any inputs !

Best regards

They have an external source to pump the warmed fluids through the motors. No ideas on temps, but it'll be relatively warm - 50-60 deg C at a guess.

There's footage of these pre-warmers out there and I suspect you could find a vendor for one in Autosport magaizne for example

[les arcs]

I don’t know what temperature the F1 cars get preheated to, our LMP’s we heat to at least 50°C with an external system plumbed in the water circuit, more if we have time.

Hello gents !

F1 engines are never started cold but they get preheated . At what water and oil temperatures are they kept before start and how is that done ? Heating elements inside ? Warm Oil / water circulated thru the engine from an external source ?

Whag was the procedute in the golden atmo v10/v8 times ?

Thanks for any inputs !

Best regards

They have an external source to pump the warmed fluids through the motors. No ideas on temps, but it'll be relatively warm - 50-60 deg C at a guess.

There's footage of these pre-warmers out there and I suspect you could find a vendor for one in Autosport magaizne for example

[saviour stivala]

A good reference for a start to this subject is to go back to 2011 discussion on F1technical net "FI ENGINE WARM-UP PROCEDURE - 23 POSTS ON 2 PAGES. There are many interesting links to visit/watch on those pages.

[ACRO]

Great input so far gents , especially the info

I unfortunetly cannot find the mentioned thread - can you provide a link ?

One further question : is only the coolant circuit preheated by plumbing it to a heater or is the oil heated also that way ?

[saviour stivala]

Link=''F1 engine warm-up procedure. f1technical.net,". Back than it was generally agreed that the engine cooling water will be preheated at 80 degree C. As also was the gearbox oil. All the links provided in that discussion are interesting to visit.

[hollus]

viewtopic.php?t=9362

[ACRO]

Thanks much again , the link and your hints made it clear now how its done .

This is really an amazing forum !

[Billzilla]

The only thing I can add is that the story of the engines are 'locked solid until heated before starting' is unlikely in the extreme - How would the engine be assembled if it couldn't be turned? I guess it's possible that there's an engineer in a cool suit working a 80° stabilised room assembling the engine but that seems unlikely.

[gruntguru]

Agreed. Anyway most engines have tighter piston-bore clearance when hot. My old Sigma engined Fiesta is a bit rattly (piston slap) when cold but is silent when hot.

[saviour stivala]

The tightness of mating parts of a formula one engine is not in-between the pistons and their bore, this is because the piston is the part that runs much hotter than its bore, as such clearances on assemble have to be bigger than some think. The tightness is in-between crank and cam bearing, off which not being of aluminum expands less than the part they are running in. and so these are the parts that need be preheated when assembling an engine and also before rotating.

[Farnborough]

The only thing I can add is that the story of the engines are 'locked solid until heated before starting' is unlikely in the extreme - How would the engine be assembled if it couldn't be turned? I guess it's possible that there's an engineer in a cool suit working a 80° stabilised room assembling the engine but that seems unlikely.

Often quoted, spurious I believe too, that from training within engineering inspection department that were atmosphere and temp regulated.

In the 1960s Honda for their motorcycle production, were measuring each of their crank journal individually and marking at 5 different levels, along with the line bored crankcase, to attribute a code to each component, then supplying 5 different levels of plain bearing shells to tailor each interface in very fine tolerance. These prominent in their CB 750 engine of that time. They run very tight piston to bore clearance there too, with piston metallurgical characteristic to better match bore and piston paired expansion equilibrium throughout heat range.
Also crank triggered distributor less ignition, plus multplate clutch pack (similar in size to F1 current equipment) triple angle valve seat geometry etc, all within a standard production engine designed and produded from 1960s.

No surprise they are still quite effective at it.

[Tommy Cookers]

NA F1 had very large bore pistons which were correspondingly made to be dimensionally much out of round when cold
(20k rpm uneven mass distrbution & gas loads and exhaust valve side hotter than inlet valve side so piston becomes round)
remember when c.20000rpm Honda motorcycles won lots of races their cylinders were 25cc not 300cc

hybrid F1 has (smaller) steel pistons so the OOR factor isn't so bad
and they are more developed in their oil-spray etc cooling

[Farnborough]

Perhaps not obvious, but was promoting the attitude and outlook of the Honda company in engineering terms, which effectively outstripped most competitors in production engineering through that period.

They also ran pre-chamber combustion propagation in production vehicles of 70s.

Note I'm not saying they were first, unique or any other descriptor of that manner, just willing to chase down to very deep levels of engineering "enquiry " and promote that development in staff.

[ACRO]

The only thing I can add is that the story of the engines are 'locked solid until heated before starting' is unlikely in the extreme

I agree . Its imho even a myth in the opposite direction . The piston rings expand when hot and seal better then , that why we usually get better compression test results when measuring a hot engine .

We see also a phenomena of an engine seizing due to severe overheating and after cooling down sometimes you can turn it over again .

So when the f1 engine would be locked when cold it would seize hot even more .