Is that written somehow in regulations or just a hint you heard?
I got my wires crossed a bit there, it was in fact the Le Mans rules I was thinking of, I couldn't find anything in the current regs, although I didn't try too hard. I'm sure they'll be similar though.
Murphy's 9th Law of Technology:
Tell a man there are 300 million stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.
The turbo cars didn't need any airinlets as the air was fed in to the engine through an intercooler, which of course is in the side-pod here a great pic so you can see the difference between both the sidepods's coolers:
Or at least this is what I think is the case[/img]
Well, car on your pic isn't F1 but it is 4 cyl turbo with intercooler in right sidepod. That wasn't the case with F1 turbo cars (to have only intercooler in one sidepod and no oil or water radiator too *or both).
How about airbox design - the roll hoop is the best place but where else might work? The West LMP3's run them either side of the cockpit something that must influence the rear wing.
ss_collins wrote:No I think you settled the question though...
How about airbox design - the roll hoop is the best place but where else might work? The West LMP3's run them either side of the cockpit something that must influence the rear wing.
I think that ideal place would be between tub and the floor (below driver's butt/legs) because that's where the air is coolest but it would be difficult to guide it to airbox.
In the seventies the rules were changed to limit the height of the increasingly ridiculous air boxes, this lead to the Ferrari side intakes in the 312T and the shaped McLaren inlets. Over time the teams seemed to forget about air boxes and ran open inlets, presumably for better rear wing airflow. However, some teams did occasionally run air boxes at the higher altitude (south Africa..?). Then turbos became the norm, they often had simple air inlets on the side of the sidepod or hidden within the radiator ducting, this wasn’t such a requirement as the turbo sucks air in and the positive pressure effect of a snorkel was limited. . Later in the turbo era teams did run snorkels poking out the top of the sidepods directly into the turbo inlet. (by the way turbos DO need air inlets, the air goes into the turbo first before routing through an intercooler and into the intake plenums). When the 3.5l NA rule kicked in teams were slow to create effective snorkels and air boxes. Recall the first Ferrari 3.5 V12 which had naca ducts around the side of the roll hoop, later to become a proper scoop. These developed to a stage where the FIA stepped in an specified a maximum cross section for the inlet, this seems to have passed out of the rule book now (but may still be enforced?). Then in 94 after Sennas death the air boxes had to feature a opening of a specific size (but not location or orientation) to cut engine power. This folly of this hasty rule was soon realized and dropped.
Since then the only development was teams desire to create a lower engine cover spine, which lead to FIA responding with the sponsor friendly toblerone rule, which means the team have to have bodywork touching certain points in side view, this is why al the teams engine covers now look the same with the straight edge along the spine…
manchild wrote:Well, car on your pic isn't F1 but it is 4 cyl turbo with intercooler in right sidepod. That wasn't the case with F1 turbo cars (to have only intercooler in one sidepod and no oil or water radiator too *or both).
Ohhh, how very wrong you are, this is an F1 car! This is the RAM-Hart used in 1985 by Alliot
