Ferrari Power Unit Hardware & Software

[ENGINE TUNER]

Doesn’t Ferrari reach top speed before Mercedes, but can’t keep it as long as them? Wouldn’t that be a sign of some kind of an MGU-related advantage?

And/or better traction, lower drag, lower gearing, etc, etc. Too many factors to easily pinpoint it.

[Dr. Acula]

As speculation goes, porosity is mentioned. I mentioned leaking hydrogen or methane before, You can dissolve hydrogen and methane in oil, also an hydrogen molecule is the smallest one. Due to porosity of the intercooler this leaks int the air intake Result no oil depletion or oil leak indicators and more power.
Are there materials where Oil can’t pass and hydrogen can?

Well, a lot of materials would be possible because hydrogen diffuses through nearly everything if thin enough. The question is thouhg, how much hydrogen would that be? Because, the engine does suck in 500+l/s or 0.6kg/s of air at WoT and typical rev ranges. They would need to generate quite a lot of hydrogen to make a difference and i don't think they have enough oil with them to do that for longer then a lap.
Because, sure you can get hydrogen out of oil, it's a hydrocarbon compound after all. But doing this changes the property of the oil severly over time. Because basically you turn it more and more into pure carbon.

[Tommy Cookers]

.... Because, sure you can get hydrogen out of oil, it's a hydrocarbon compound after all. But doing this changes the property of the oil severly over time. Because basically you turn it more and more into pure carbon.

hydrogen that's dissolved in oil isn't the hydrogen that's combined with carbon to be oil
so removing hydrogen that's dissolved in oil doesn't stop the oil being oil

[Big Tea]

Can I ask a stupid question (again)? What stops the dissolved hydrogen from gassing off until it is required?
Would it require the whole system to be pressurized? and would that not cause internal problems, or do you envisage it being produced in the storage tank and 'vented' to the intake from there?
I know there are rules for what is fed into the gas flow, but if it was down stream of the cylinder could some power be recovered from the 'refreshed' charge?

[Dr. Acula]

.... Because, sure you can get hydrogen out of oil, it's a hydrocarbon compound after all. But doing this changes the property of the oil severly over time. Because basically you turn it more and more into pure carbon.

hydrogen that's dissolved in oil isn't the hydrogen that's combined with carbon to be oil
so removing hydrogen that's dissolved in oil doesn't stop the oil being oil

Can you provide a number of how much hydrogen you can dissolve in a litre of oil at ambient pressure and temperature?

[PlatinumZealot]

As speculation goes, porosity is mentioned. I mentioned leaking hydrogen or methane before, You can dissolve hydrogen and methane in oil, also an hydrogen molecule is the smallest one. Due to porosity of the intercooler this leaks int the air intake Result no oil depletion or oil leak indicators and more power.
Are there materials where Oil can’t pass and hydrogen can?

It would be very sneaky. But it is easier and safer to store more fuel than hydrogen!

You would need a high pressure supply to squeeze the oil through the pores. This may be seen as injection.

In the space industry we use "ablative" materials. Coatings that evaporate in some sort of fluid stream. Ferrari could pre-load the walls of the air box with fuel that evaporates as air passess. Yes it could be semi porous walls. Or a pre-loaded air filter with an F-duct bypass.. Without needing any injection device.

[wuzak]

As Ferrari has more power in straight line and one lap power, why it is not available for other customer teams like, Alfo, HASS? Why there are struggling?

I may silly to ask these question sorry.

1. Why customer team not getting the same benefit from Ferrari? Is there a rule or policy that restrict customer team not to use the same component with same tuning as ferrari?

2. If customer team also has same engine component then the speed of ferrari come from Chase?

You don't honestly think other teams get the same software, do you?

Yes, they do get the same everything. FIA makes sure customer teams have engine performance parity with works teams. Althought the fuel is not the same. Every team is free to choose the fuel supplier.

Ferrari's teams all use Shell fuel and lubricants. I believe there is a limit to how many fuel specifications each supplier can bring to a race weekend. It may even be one.

[IvailoStefanovBG]

I think we all agree that Ferrari has more energy...So if energy generated from K is regulated and excessive amount of energy can only come from ICE than this energy has to be present 1. in fuel or 2. in some sort of additive (oil, hydrogen, ozone, etc. ). Ok - let`s now think about possibility №1. Let`s say we are Ferrari engine developers and in 2018 Shell gave us fuel that has 20% more energy in it. What we should have done? Keep current engine architecture and use the maximum of this fuel only for party modes and in overtakes or develop new PU around the new fuel and use all of it`s advantages like less consumption or a lot more power? Let`s not forget we have all the fuel what is regulated (100kg/h in qually and 105kg / per race ) and not only limited amount of it which we can use in special occasions only and we are completely inside rules and everything is legal. i think a year should be enough to develop new engine around the new fuel. So let`s now think about possibility №2 - we know we can put some additive in combustion process (hydrogen, ozone, oil from inter cooler ) which is with limited amount and not completely inside rules (gray area). What we should do? We can`t use it all the time so changing engine architecture is nonsense.. May be the best possibility is use it in party modes in qually, get pole positions and construct our car in this way so it`s very hard to overtake on straights because we can use the same party mode on overtake / protect from overtake and make this same car descent on medium on slow corners....Now the question is - which version is more close to current Ferrari F1 car? And one more thing - isn`t this the same thing Mercs were doing for 4 years - they were oil burning, taking poles and had a car very good on straights. Now they decided to change their aero philosophy with new rules because oil burning is regulated and they no more have engine advantage?

[jumpingfish]

Ferrari's teams all use Shell fuel and lubricants. I believe there is a limit to how many fuel specifications each supplier can bring to a race weekend. It may even be one.

AMuS 2018: molecular additive is so rare and difficult to produce that only Ferrari can use it, so Haas and Alfa maybe don't have money to buy it.
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... ri-benzin/

[Wouter]

Ferrari's teams all use Shell fuel and lubricants. I believe there is a limit to how many fuel specifications each supplier can bring to a race weekend. It may even be one.

The limit is two fuel specifications for a race weekend.

[jumpingfish]

I think we all agree that Ferrari has more energy...So if energy generated from K is regulated and excessive amount of energy can only come from ICE than this energy has to be present 1. in fuel or 2. in some sort of additive (oil, hydrogen, ozone, etc. ). Ok - let`s now think about possibility №1. Let`s say we are Ferrari engine developers and in 2018 Shell gave us fuel that has 20% more energy in it. What we should have done? Keep current engine architecture and use the maximum of this fuel only for party modes and in overtakes or develop new PU around the new fuel and use all of it`s advantages like less consumption or a lot more power? Let`s not forget we have all the fuel what is regulated (100kg/h in qually and 105kg / per race ) and not only limited amount of it which we can use in special occasions only and we are completely inside rules and everything is legal. i think a year should be enough to develop new engine around the new fuel. So let`s now think about possibility №2 - we know we can put some additive in combustion process (hydrogen, ozone, oil from inter cooler ) which is with limited amount and not completely inside rules (gray area). What we should do? We can`t use it all the time so changing engine architecture is nonsense.. May be the best possibility is use it in party modes in qually, get pole positions and construct our car in this way so it`s very hard to overtake on straights because we can use the same party mode on overtake / protect from overtake and make this same car descent on medium on slow corners....Now the question is - which version is more close to current Ferrari F1 car? And one more thing - isn`t this the same thing Mercs were doing for 4 years - they were oil burning, taking poles and had a car very good on straights. Now they decided to change their aero philosophy with new rules because oil burning is regulated and they no more have engine advantage?

I think there are 3 key points used for Ferrari's advantage: 1) Battery. Charlie Whiting in 2018: "It was difficult to explain exactly what we were seeing. That's why we kept going through it with Ferrari, because it's a very complex and totally different system to everybody else's"
If Ferrari uses best unique battery in 2018 and have no problems with rules and gains advantage there, they will develop it more and more.
2) ICE and special unique fuel from Shell. Shell produces something powerful that sometimes smells like grapefruit. We know about 2strike oil that should be added into fuel for motocycles etc, no need to have oil bottle for that. Can it be something in fuel for Ferrari that isn't an oil but adds a lot of energy? Why not? Also it must be legal because Ferrari doesn't affraid to use it. Maybe they use special fuel only for Qualify?
3) Aero philosophy. If Mercedes has top downforce and more drag than Ferrari, Italians must be faster on straight with same engines. So combination of all those can add them a huge advantage on straights, imho.

[Just_a_fan]

And one more thing - isn`t this the same thing Mercs were doing for 4 years - they were oil burning, taking poles and had a car very good on straights. Now they decided to change their aero philosophy with new rules because oil burning is regulated and they no more have engine advantage?

Ferrari were also oil burning so this seems like a blind alley for comparison.

[.poz]

You can get small oxygen condensers, my mother had one light enough to use a shoulder strap that produced several ltr a min flow. Is this inside the rule outs side the rule or in a gray area? Could it be used for some other reason and just 'wasted' into the system?

That gave me an idea...
How does ozone do in combustion?
Ozone generators are small devices easy to integrate in an oxygen stream and works well under high pressures.

Could Ferrari be running an ozone generator?? Here is an abstract for diesle engine but likely affect SI engines too.

The effect of ozone addition to the intake air on combustion in compression ignition engines was examined using a Diesel CFR engine. The experimental results show that ozone addition improves the combustion characteristics. Addition of 500 ppm ozone, for example, increases cetane number by 2 to 4 and lowers the compression ratio of the ignition limit by 1 to 2, depending upon the kind of fuel used and the operating conditions. Regarding exhaust emissions, a small decrease in CO, hydrocarbons, and particulates and a small increase in NOx have been observed with ozone addition under the fixed operation condition.

Removing it from air then stil using it to cool, or drawing it from beneath the plank?

how much flow would be worth while? This sort of thing gives 10l a min without storing


https://www.oxygenconcentratorstore.com ... entrators/

and that is a cheap off the shelf unit. A small bottle of compressed could be 'said' to be used in something else though and just waste vented in the airstream of the intake.

Ozone is O3 molecule, so with ozone your add more oxygen (O2) in less volume.

But PU are fuel limited, what is the point of adding more oxidant if you haven't fuel to burn ?
The only advantage is that you need a lower turbo pressure to reach the wanted amount of oxygen (and so you need less energy from turbo and from ice to compress air)

But you need a very capable ozone generator: at 12000 rpm with a turbo pressure of 3.5 bar a F1 engine use (1,6x 12000x3,5/4) 16.800l of air every minute or 280l of air per second

BTW Antonini (former Ferrari PR) wrote that Ferrari advantage came form hybrid
https://www.formulapassion.it/motorspor ... 62846.html

[.poz]

As speculation goes, porosity is mentioned. I mentioned leaking hydrogen or methane before, You can dissolve hydrogen and methane in oil, also an hydrogen molecule is the smallest one. Due to porosity of the intercooler this leaks int the air intake Result no oil depletion or oil leak indicators and more power.
Are there materials where Oil can’t pass and hydrogen can?

H2 at ambient pressure has a energy density of 0,01079Mj/l, gasoline 27,7 Mj/l... they need a lot of hydrogen to make a difference !

BTW if Ferrari have found a method to store huge quantity of H2 in oil they can patent it and make billions...

[Polite]

And one more thing - isn`t this the same thing Mercs were doing for 4 years - they were oil burning, taking poles and had a car very good on straights. Now they decided to change their aero philosophy with new rules because oil burning is regulated and they no more have engine advantage?

Ferrari were also oil burning so this seems like a blind alley for comparison.

oil burning was everywhere... but the Mercs. Pu needed more for the race! O,9lper300km while Ferrari pu only 0,6L per 300km (from Monza 2017 ). I think that Mercs was on top for ICE and ERS till 2017. But in 2017 and 2018 Ferrari Pu was the best for ERS, not for the ICE. Now Ferrari has an ICE on par with Merc and the advantage of the ers is more under the sun.
then in 2019 Ferrari just is the car with the best Cx: if u have the best Cx, the best ERS for qualimode, a good traction and u dont lose too much in slow corners, now u have the best car for poles.