F1 will see a complete change in engine regulations in 2014, and we're having a closer look at what that means exactly
Below 10500rpm the fuel mass flow must not exceed Q (kg/h) = 0.009 N(rpm)+ 5.5.wuzak wrote:
The flow rate below 10,500rpm is defined by a formula, and is always less than at 10,500rpm. The lower the rpm, the lower the fuel flow allowed.
Webber: It's an engine category next year more than probably a car/aerodynamic category, which is probably not a bad thing for some people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/25344023
Actually there is no limit to what the teams may fuel. The restriction is what you use by the fuel system between lights out and crossing the chequered flag. That amount of fuel is measured by the FiA and if you use more than 100 kg you are illegal.wuzak wrote:The 100kg is a maximum. If they only need 80kg, that is all they need to carry.atanatizante wrote:I apologize but it takes to long to find out trough 315 pages, therefore have some questions.
Now bearing in mind there is a limit of 100kg of fuel per race:
1)they must fuel the cars no more or no less than this amount regardless where they have to race e.g. Monaco or Spa?
You are defending an undefendable position with many words and circumstantial evidence. In modern, downsized and downspeeded fuel efficient engines all the quoices made by the designers show that a lower cylinder count is the way to go. Just this week it became public knowledge that Porsche have selected a four cylinder design for their 2014 LMP1 petrol turbo challenger. How do you explain that if not by fuel efficiency demands. I'm very confident that Porsche will be the benchmark in engine power of petrol LMP1 engines next year. Toyota will have a hell of a job to beat that with a V8. Unless they come up with a much superior hybrid electric system (Ultracaps) I think they will have no chance to compete on performance.Reca wrote:The V12 was more thirsty because it was more powerful and that was because was revving higher (which is possible, amongst other factors, exactly because of lower losses at a given rpm).WhiteBlue wrote:This opinion on the friction losses is not consistent with all the experiences we have had for 20 years in F1. V12 engines were not competitive with V10 because they were too thirsty. Each generation of F1 engines with fewer cylinders became more fuel efficient and in the general automotive industry downsizing and downspeeding is always improving efficiency of the engine. The participants of the EWG were by no means noobs with no understanding. One of the guys who made remarks I remember was Audi's top engine man Baretzki and I also remember Tim Routsis of Cosworth giving several comments about the process in the group.
For confirmation go ask Schumacher what he found after he drove the 412T2 at Fiorano, how he was impressed by the power of the V12 compared with the Renault he won the WDC with.
For some more technical information though you can read this SAE paper if you have access:
Boretti, A. and Cantore, G., "Comparison of V10 and V12 F1 Engines," SAE Technical Paper 983035, 1998,
or this one
http://not2fast.com/engine/sae1998-3036.pdf
which is publicly available and has a short summary of the results of the other in the introduction.
Just couple of examples of papers showing that result, you can find more by yourself.
BTW, the fact that evolution in F1 moved to less cylinders is pointless to this debate, few years after all went to V10 (some moving down from 12, like Ferrari, some moving up from 8, like Cosworth) the number of cylinder became fixed in rules.
And that was, just so you now, because Toyota wanted to enter with a V12 thinking that at that point the technology was improved enough to allow to fully exploit its advantages without suffering disadvantages.
For fear they could be right, which would have forced everybody else to design new engines, other manufacturer decided to preventively impose the V10.
The passage to V8 then was simply a matter of convenience, reduce total displacement (to reduce power, nothing to do with fuel at the time) but maintaining same unitary displacement pretending it would reduce cost of the transition.
Worth also mentioning that the above comparisons are about 10 vs 12, law of diminishing returns applies, the gains I mentioned are way more relevant passing from a 4 to a 6 because the difference is larger so the dominance over other factors is more evident. (incidentally, it's not coincidence if in the previous turbo era all the manufacturer that designed the engine from scratch went for the V6, the I4's were all derived from existing blocks, and were hardly competitive, bar BMW for a short period of time; that's when they used "particular", or should I say illegal, fuel though, not because their engine was really better)
Also some of the packaging disadvantages a 12 has compared with a 10 don't apply to the V6 vs I4, the former for example is shorter, not longer, and better suited from a structural point of view.
Last but not least, the past examples come (almost all) from an unrestricted fuel formula, now will be a regulated consumption one, in the former the advantage of more cylinders was exploited going for more power via doing more cycles in the unit of time thus ending up using more fuel, nowadays the target is different so the mechanical advantages would be exploited differently.
All of that then is about race engines which is was only counts for F1, what kind of choices the manufacturers make for their production engine is not necessarily related to engine performance per se, or best choices for a race unit, as much as marketing would make you think so. For instance the I4 is popular in road cars because less parts needed reduce cost of production and because being narrow and relatively short is well suited to small FWD vehicles gaining cabin room.
Anyway, that's it for me on this matter, if you aren't convinced so be it, maybe someone else found it useful.
For those who didn't, apologizes for going OT.
Pretty much wrong on all counts IMO. If a 2014 downsized LMP1 four cylinder engine proves to be the most fuel efficient and powerful design the same will be true for F1 which uses essentially the same power limiting formula.Tommy Cookers wrote:the 'downsizing for 2014' argument and the '6 or 4 cylinders for 2014' are essentially unrelated
proponents of the '4 is better than 6' position must presumably believe that 3 is better than 4, 2 better than 3, and 1 better than 2 ?
we should remember that the 1987 rules prevented fewer than 4 cylinders
6 cylinders would allow a higher CR than 4 cylinders would
I assume this is only valid for a given total engine displacement?Tommy Cookers wrote:6 cylinders would allow a higher CR than 4 cylinders would
I'm not sure how far the theory goes because in terms of thermal efficiency those gigantic ship engines are by far the most effective. But clearly they don't make 300hp per L either. Based on that alone i'd suggest it always comes to a balancing of objectives.Blanchimont wrote:In the book Motorradtechnik by Jürgen Stoffregen (BMW), one can read that the thermal efficiency is the highest for single cylinder volumes of 0,25 to 0,4 l. The 2013 F1 engine (0,3l / cylinder) and the 2014 one (0,266l / cylinder) are placed it this range. The reasoning behind is that in smaller cylinders the distances from the spark plug to the cylinder walls are smaller, this should help that the fuel is activated by the flame in a shorter time period.
Smaller surface-volume ratios of the combustion chamber can decrease energy losses through the surface.
