McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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vall
vall
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Joined: 04 Nov 2008, 21:31

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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gibells wrote:My thoughts from Octogate (haha) is that they took their octopus proposal to Charlie Whiting who rejected it. Scarbs notes that Pyrosic is allowed as a heat deflector, hence the FIA's 'clarification'.
On page 123 I posted quote from the regulation what concerns the materials that can be used to build the car. Fancy materials are not allow, with some exceptions, e.g.:

8) Thermal insulation (e.g. felts, gold tape, heat shields).

But these thermal insulation and coatings are limited to 0.8mm thickness. You cannot make the whole part out of Pyrosic, that's clear.

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Poleman
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Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 19:25

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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Fancy materials...Sounds like typical FIA bs...As someone else posted before whats the problem if its a material expensive as long as the team that uses it is inside the budget limit?A bunch of stupid people in charge of an intelligent sport if u ask me.

Sorry for the off topic.

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godlameroso
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Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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I think macca has dropped the ball on this one, you won't get much aero benefits unless you place the exhausts in the path of air that has both a high and low pressure gradient. The exhaust pulses will separate according to the aerodynamically generated pressure gradient, this helps increase the effect of the respective gradients.
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Shrieker
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Joined: 01 Mar 2010, 23:41

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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Funny that no-one has reposted this since the octopus news came out.

Image


Now we know; and we also know all the exhaust talk on this topic wasn't for nothing. It's now also clear why McLaren were wasting 2 full hours in the middle of a test day; simply put, they had to.

Shrieker wrote:All I know is some folks from McLaren might be reading this thread and having a good long laugh :)
And I stand vindicated (lol)
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volarchico
volarchico
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Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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godlameroso wrote:I think macca has dropped the ball on this one, you won't get much aero benefits unless you place the exhausts in the path of air that has both a high and low pressure gradient. The exhaust pulses will separate according to the aerodynamically generated pressure gradient, this helps increase the effect of the respective gradients.
-1

vall
vall
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Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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Poleman wrote:Fancy materials...Sounds like typical FIA bs...As someone else posted before whats the problem if its a material expensive as long as the team that uses it is inside the budget limit?A bunch of stupid people in charge of an intelligent sport if u ask me.

Sorry for the off topic.
It has been in the regulations for long time. McLaren should have known that. It is not like finding a loophole that allows different interpretations. These materials are not allowed! Period.

It is another thing if this should be the case. If there is a formal budget cap, yes, you may allow teams to use whatever they want. But there is no official budget cap, so, stick to the current regulations.

myurr
myurr
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Joined: 20 Mar 2008, 21:58

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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@vall - if it's so damn clear cut then why have Ferrari been caught out as well. The clarification actually came from a Ferrari request, it's only rumoured to also affect McLaren.

Hardly anything in the F1 rules seems to be 100% clear cut and a huge number of rules are enforced based on the FIA's interpretation of the rules rather than the written letter of the law.

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Holm86
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Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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PyroSic is not allowed to build the exhaust out of right? But it is legal as a heat insulator/deflector.
So as long as it isnt an integral part of the exhaust then what defines that it isnt a heat deflector???

And to me it dosent make sense that you can build the entire upper diffuser out of pyrosic but not 2 manifolds. I dont know the price of pyrosic materials but i can guess they are more expensive than regular CF materials. And the whole car is made of carbonfiber so dont believe that 2 manifolds made from pyrosic will blow the budget. Its not like Inconel or Titanium wich are normal exhaust materials are cheap either.

Just_a_fan
Just_a_fan
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Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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I wonder if these clarifications are a way of forcing the teams to accept a budget cap - "if you agree to only spend £XM then you can use what you like (except for known nasties e.g. asbestos etc.)".

I'd welcome such a stance in some ways, and I reckon a company like McLaren would too...
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vall
vall
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Joined: 04 Nov 2008, 21:31

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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myurr wrote:@vall - if it's so damn clear cut then why have Ferrari been caught out as well. The clarification actually came from a Ferrari request, it's only rumoured to also affect McLaren.

Hardly anything in the F1 rules seems to be 100% clear cut and a huge number of rules are enforced based on the FIA's interpretation of the rules rather than the written letter of the law.
because teams have/are/will always tried/trying/try to go around the regulations to gain performance! If you get caught you pay the price. It does not matter if another team rang the bell or FIA found out. Remember last year McLaren and Merc cried against the RBR and Ferrari flexy wings? At the end the wing were within the regulations.

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Shrieker
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Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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vall wrote: At the end the wing were within the regulations.
No they weren't, passing the FIA deflection test does not mean conforming to the regulations. The reg. says the wing can not flex more than a certain amount. Theirs did.
Holm86 wrote:PyroSic is not allowed to build the exhaust out of right? But it is legal as a heat insulator/deflector.
So as long as it isnt an integral part of the exhaust then what defines that it isnt a heat deflector???

And to me it dosent make sense that you can build the entire upper diffuser out of pyrosic but not 2 manifolds. I dont know the price of pyrosic materials but i can guess they are more expensive than regular CF materials. And the whole car is made of carbonfiber so dont believe that 2 manifolds made from pyrosic will blow the budget. Its not like Inconel or Titanium wich are normal exhaust materials are cheap either.
+1 on that. Who says that the part after the 'ceramic box' isn't for heat diffusion ? I still think McLaren are suffering the after effects of spygate. They're made to pay the price.
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ringo
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Joined: 29 Mar 2009, 10:57

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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feynman wrote:A month ago I was asking about punching exhaust holes in the floor (back when no-one could find them anywhere else) ... the thinking was that as far as the rules go, the floor is regarded bodywork, and the exceptions for closed surfaces allow two (and only two) exhaust exits.

But as we saw with the gills and slits from last year (back when exhausts were where exhaust always used to be), there is a lot of scope for topological tricks and stunts to make "two" exits into multiple exits.
FIA wrote:5.6: Engine exhaust systems may incorporate no more than two exits.

3.8.5: Single apertures either side of the car centre line for the purpose of exhaust exits. These apertures may have a combined area of no more than 50,000mm2
when projected onto the surface itself. No point on an aperture may be more than 350mm from any other point on the aperture.
So that's your limit, 350mm max point to point, and 50,000 mm2 of exhaust outlet.

Mercedes especially had nice exhaust exits with a slit just a mm or two into the shoulder of the exit linking to gills and extra bodywork cooling holes, but having trouble finding an image, so the slightly deeper slitted Ferrari will have to do (you can still just about see the slit doesn't actually reach the exhaust pipe):

Image


... if you employed the same thinking you could easily have numerous distinct underfloor exhaust holes, as many as you want, chaining the individual exit shoulders together with slits etched into the floor/bodywork.

The nice thing, the slits would not have to breach individual exhaust outlets, nor would it need to breach the floor, the slit just being there is enough to break the reference surface and start to be counted as part of a single larger hole
... so from the top your octopus could have lots of exit ports splaying out (within a 350mm circle per exhaust), but when viewed from below, topologically and geometrically speaking, the whole arrangement still only counts as two exits.
there are no holes under the floor. Any hole in the floor in this solution must be on the top surface. Mclaren aren't breaking the regulations on this one.
from what i gather, the pipes go into a chamber, but there is no evidence to suggest the chamber is breaching the floor rules on holes.
If anything it's the vertical transition between step plane and reference plane where the exhuasts are.
Other than that this chamber under the gear box is simply distributing exhaust heat over the vane shaped top of the diffuser and into the gurneys.
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aral
aral
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Joined: 03 Apr 2010, 22:49

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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Shrieker wrote:
vall wrote: At the end the wing were within the regulations.
No they weren't, passing the FIA deflection test does not mean conforming to the regulations. The reg. says the wing can not flex more than a certain amount. Theirs did..
Isn't it nice to know that you are more knowledgable than the FIA. The FIA do state that the wing cannot flex more than a certain amount, but under a specifically designated load, which they test. The wing passed all the tests, so therefore complies.

Steve S14
Steve S14
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Joined: 11 Mar 2010, 02:05

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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gilgen wrote:
Shrieker wrote:
vall wrote: At the end the wing were within the regulations.
No they weren't, passing the FIA deflection test does not mean conforming to the regulations. The reg. says the wing can not flex more than a certain amount. Theirs did..
Isn't it nice to know that you are more knowledgable than the FIA. The FIA do state that the wing cannot flex more than a certain amount, but under a specifically designated load, which they test. The wing passed all the tests, so therefore complies.
They state that it cannot flex more than a certain amount. But their test does not produce the same loads that are seen on track, therefore it is possible to pass the test but then still flex more than the allowable limit.

boci
boci
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Joined: 10 Jul 2008, 00:46

Re: McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

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gibells wrote:My thoughts from Octogate (haha) is that they took their octopus proposal to Charlie Whiting who rejected it. Scarbs notes that Pyrosic is allowed as a heat deflector, hence the FIA's 'clarification'.

McLaren have since then being playing catch up with a botched system because their back end is designed around the octopus. Maybe the poor performance is based on this compromised design.

Also maybe, this is why they have been 'allowed' to design a new tub, because they've been able to argue that this change is due to a grey area interpretation which has been vetoed?
I don't think they would've designed the car around something that was so likely to be banned. They must've talked to Charlie about it back when they were still designing the car in november / december