Should F1 learn from Gordon Murray's T.50?

[JordanMugen]

Perhaps Murrary is indeed stuck in the past with a V12 engine obsession, when both Ford GT and Honda NSX engineers instead arrived at the V6 twin-turbo being the optimal supercar engine...

Too bad, I wanted a 4 banger twin scroll single turbo engine which sounds way better.

I see!

Are these [Super GT/Super Formula] a twin-scroll turbo (or is twin-scroll unnecessary on a racing engine)? The wacky cam-cover to mount the inline 4-cylinder engine as a structural member is very unusual indeed! I'm pleased to the traditional attractive crinkle-red paint though.



Would you compromise on a 919-type V4 for F1 due to it's better torsional structural properties? I can certainly envision 1.06L V4 (i.e., chop two cylinders off the current engines, given they are already 90 degrees and suitable for a V4 firing order) hybrid with a much bigger electric power output as the next generation of Formula One motor.


It's a rather ugly engine with all the usual modern messing wiring and plumbing, but it does the job.

One wonder why Murray fitted his supercar with 8 unnecessary efficiency-robbing cylinders, when as Porsche shows, a V4 turbo would have been a fraction of the size and weight!?


Where is the ugly mess of wires and hoses that are supposed to adorn a modern engine!!??

[strad]

that Cosworth is pure engine porn.

[JordanMugen]

that Cosworth is pure engine porn.

No love for the jumble of hoses and vacuum lines that passes for a Porsche V4 racing engine?

[Just_a_fan]

Murray, along with half the posters on here, is stuck in the distant past.

It's a limited edition special with 100 being made. It's a last hurrah for the old days of real engines etc.

Allow us our crumbs of happiness in these dark day.

[hurril]

Eventually Formula One will realize that is has more or less zero relevance to the automotive industry, and that is 100% about entertainment.

It exists to spend money, consume resources and be wasteful, all in the name of fun.

When F1 figures this out, we will have high revving V12 engines once again. I really believe this. Or at least hope this.

The change will come, most likely, when F1 is dying and facing extinction. As long as the sport is healthy, they will stubbornly try to do it their way.

I've been a fan since the mid '80s; F1 has never been more "sick" than right now.

I think you're wrong here. F1 is so much more than simply macho men duking it out with huge sacks of money. It does not exist to spend money, consume resources and be wasteful in the name of fun. It's all marketing on different levels. Advertising their competitive brand souls, their technical prowess and such things.

Tractor pulling, etc, is exactly what you describe (and personally: I love it!)

Why would Mercedes spend literally billions of dineros marking a flippen 30 year old V12-engine now in 2020? Who would consume such a marketing message? You? (Well: and I, nice sounding beasts.) But we're two, man, and we're not going to spend money anywhere relevant to pay Mercedes back.

It's also funny how you, as is always the case, pick the 80:ies as the time when things were the way they're supposed to be like. When you started. Funny how that's _always_ the case.

Want to bet that in the 80:ies, there were other old farts that told you that you should've seen the 70:ies or 60:ies because that's when cars were awesome and men were real.

[Tommy Cookers]

@ hurril (and F1 commentators etc)
didn't John Wayne DOOK it out ? .... 'put up your dooks !' being a call for a fist-fight

@ JM
how many crankpins does the V4 ideal have ? ... (4 ? or 2 ? ... or 1 even ?)

@ anyone ...... wasn't/isn't the hot/winning/magic NA engine a V10 not a V12 ?

btw Honda did a winning 125cc 5 cylinder job (that's a 3 litre via 120 cylinders)

[3jawchuck]

....
@ hurril (and F1 commentators etc)
didn't John Wayne DOOK it out ? .... 'put up your dooks !' being a call for a fist-fight
....

No, it is "duke it out". It's just pronounced dook in some parts of the world.

These days, spelling it dook means something a little different.

[jjn9128]

Murray, along with half the posters on here, is stuck in the distant past.

F1 has to move forward, not look back.

I don't think this is particularly fair. For me F1 shot itself in the foot showing old races from the V10 era on it's youtube during the Covid break. Those cars were better looking/better sounding/more exciting in corners because they looked hard to tame/and despite what we thought at the time could actually be raced without DRS drivebys - a lot of what modern F1 is missing. Modern F1 is a horrible sort of corporate compromise between massive OEMs, most of whom have already got Formula E programs for their road relevant "we're so good for the environment" campaigns (I love Formula E btw).

F1 is a sport then entertainment, why does it have to push anything forward? Especially if it's not exciting. It's not like anything in F1 really reaches road cars anyway (I know Merc are putting an ERS-H on a car but it's not exactly a car for the masses). It's about doing the best within a set of rules. The current spec of look after tyres/look after power unit/manage gearbox is pretty dull - though maybe it would be more interesting if other teams had done a better job.

[JordanMugen]

Why would Mercedes spend literally billions of dineros marking a flippen 30 year old V12-engine now in 2020?

It wouldn't be a '30-year-old' V12 engine if it still had the turbulent jet injection, ultra-lean combustion and other high efficiency techniques on it from the current F1 engines!

I don't think this is particularly fair. For me F1 shot itself in the foot showing old races from the V10 era on it's youtube during the Covid break. Those cars were better looking/better sounding/more exciting in corners because they looked hard to tame/and despite what we thought at the time

It's rather ironic! At the time it was commonly thought that F1 was boring because Schumacher always wins and overtaking is too difficult.

[hurril]

Why would Mercedes spend literally billions of dineros marking a flippen 30 year old V12-engine now in 2020?

It wouldn't be a '30-year-old' V12 engine if it still had the turbulent jet injection, ultra-lean combustion and other high efficiency techniques on it from the current F1 engines!

I don't think this is particularly fair. For me F1 shot itself in the foot showing old races from the V10 era on it's youtube during the Covid break. Those cars were better looking/better sounding/more exciting in corners because they looked hard to tame/and despite what we thought at the time

It's rather ironic! At the time it was commonly thought that F1 was boring because Schumacher always wins and overtaking is too difficult.

It would have about a million Hp though, unless you made it 1.6 liter or less like today.

[ENGINE TUNER]

Gordon Murray's T.50 hypercar (to all intents and purposes a racing car, but one that comes with a 50,000 mile warranty and some level of road legality) features his philosophy of:

- Fan-extraction underbody downforce
- Active aerodynamics
- A naturally aspirated high-revving 3.9L V12 engine
- A H-pattern manual transmission
- A cable-operated throttle
[ source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT8PMXCMrsM ]

Should Formula One's regulators learn from Murray's ideas, or is Gordon Murray just an old bloke stuck in the past?

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/im ... bqsslo.jpg

Murray, along with half the posters on here, is stuck in the distant past.

F1 has to move forward, not look back.

I also think fans have rose tinted glasses about the old F1. It wasn't that great.

Very much agreed, it's like listening to my 80 year old uncle tell me about how much better carburetors are than fuel injection.

[wesley123]

Eventually Formula One will realize that is has more or less zero relevance to the automotive industry, and that is 100% about entertainment.

It exists to spend money, consume resources and be wasteful, all in the name of fun.

When F1 figures this out, we will have high revving V12 engines once again. I really believe this. Or at least hope this.

The change will come, most likely, when F1 is dying and facing extinction. As long as the sport is healthy, they will stubbornly try to do it their way.

I've been a fan since the mid '80s; F1 has never been more "sick" than right now.

If only this money could come out of nothing instead of from lucrative business deals from brands which have an image to uphold and really can't show up not being 'clean' anymore.

[strad]

@jjn9128

I don't think this is particularly fair.

You nailed with this one.

[JordanMugen]

Very much agreed, it's like listening to my 80 year old uncle tell me about how much better carburetors are than fuel injection.

Well at least the car manufacturer can't stop you from buying a replacement carburettor at the wrecking yard and fitting it to your vehicle when your carburettor fails, whereas they can stop you from being able to feasibly buy a second-hand ECU from the wrecking yard and fit it to your vehicle when your ECU fails.

Even though the wrecking yard can sell the ECU, and you can fit it and it plugs in, and even though it it's theoretically capable of running the identical engine with all the same sensors and electronics -- it simply won't work because a chip has been hard-coded to the immobiliser of the original vehicle when the ECU was originally paired to the car at the factory.

Specialist hardware & software is required to reprogram it. That it could feasibly work but doesn't because of a catch, because of the manufacturer being all too clever -- that's annoying.

The intention was perhaps to stop the theft of vehicles, but instead has almost been perverted to damage the trade of second-hand car parts from written-off vehicles and encourage buying brand new replacement parts from the dealer or forcing people to have to go to the dealer to get even trivial replacement modules (like comfort or body control modules) programmed to the VIN.

Thankfully, purely mechanical parts (including carburettors) do not have those limitations on them!

[jjn9128]

@jjn9128

I don't think this is particularly fair.

You nailed with this one.

Not sure if you're agreeing with me or being facetious...