Mandatory coldstart NO preheated oil or coolant allowed

[g-force_addict]

What about a regulation banning ALL oil and coolant preheating?

Cars must park in their starting grid positions with their engines off for at least a predefined amount of time to allow their engines to cool off.

Then they must start their engines with NO outside assistance.
Allow their engines to warm up for some time (maybe even a formation lap then return to the starting grid) and start the race with the lights as usual.

This would make engine technologies more road car related.
Nobody would drive a road car requiring external heaters every time you coldstart the engine.
Even if the heaters were internal nobody would like waiting 15 minutes preheating, not even 5 min.

[peteskar]

True except no one drives a car which engine is only designed to last 4-6 races roughly 1200 miles, and revs their car to 18000 rpms. Also living in northern usa I have a block heater in the winter time so my oil and coolant is warm.

[hardingfv32]

This would make engine technologies more road car related.

This is a clearance issue. Colds starts would require more clearances generally. Probably require higher hot oil viscosities and/or variable rate oil pumps. Easy enough to do, but a loss of some power.

Brian

[flynfrog]

This would make engine technologies more road car related.

you have posted this statement a few times over now. None of your ideas have a single thing to do with road relevancy. A F1 car is built to go around a track as fast as possible to a set of rules. Tweaking the rules will have no effect on developing road relevancy unless they require using a production stock car.

[Dragonfly]

If not anything else, cold engines pollute the environment more than engines working at normal temperature.
Also it's irrelevant to try to compare a standard road car engine to a tuned up to the limit F1 racing one.

[Belatti]

You "road relevant" streer car revs 6000rpm probably. But you "cold start it" and only rev it till 2000rpm for a while till you see the water temp reach the appropiate level. F1 is like having to start your engine a winter morning and rev it instantly till 6000rpm, something no one likes to do.

[marcush.]

in Russia -Oimjakon - they never stop their engines from late September till march next year...roadrelevant,anyone?

[spacer]

If not anything else, cold engines pollute the environment more than engines working at normal temperature.
Also it's irrelevant to try to compare a standard road car engine to a tuned up to the limit F1 racing one.

^agree. The Prius even has some kind of warm-water reservoir that stores coolant heat up to three days to avoid cold starting. So why make F1 road-car relevant when production cars can be more F1-relevant?

[elmerfud]

nah man! bring back qualifying motors that hit the dust bin after 1hr, more exotic is NICE!!!

[Dragonfly]

nah man! bring back qualifying motors that hit the dust bin after 1hr, more exotic is NICE!!!

I know it's a dream now, but I like it

[Lurk]

Renault recently reveals some F1 engine particularity on a public web note (maybe it was only in french?). They said that F1 engine cannot do cold start physically. Piston is slightly oval while cylinder is round and so the piston is stucked in the cylinder. When heated up & due to thermal dilatation, piston & cylinder get their "working" shapes and engine can be started. If I remember well, minimum temperature was 50°C.

A shame the website I saw it do not keep a lot of archives, I cannot retrieve it

[bill shoe]

Renault recently reveals some F1 engine particularity on a public web note (maybe it was only in french?). They said that F1 engine cannot do cold start physically. Piston is slightly oval while cylinder is round and so the piston is stucked in the cylinder. When heated up & due to thermal dilatation, piston & cylinder get their "working" shapes and engine can be started. If I remember well, minimum temperature was 50°C.

A shame the website I saw it do not keep a lot of archives, I cannot retrieve it

Interesting. If there is an interference fit between cylinder and piston at ambient temp, this implies the pistons must be assembled into the engine when the block and pistons are warm (~50C).

[hardingfv32]

I think stuck in the cylinder is an exaggeration. There is little reason to expect a large expansion differential with an aluminum block and aluminum pistons. Even less likely if a steel sleeve is used. The whole point of the tight clearances is the assumption that the cylinder is going to expand more than the piston and provide the desired 'hot' clearance. This is the case with the main bearings, where the aluminum block expands more than the steel crank, as much as .001". Not sure about the expansion to Ti rods and rod journal clearance. With steel rods the clearance is pretty much the same as the 'hot' setting.

Assembling a block that requires warming seems completely impractical. I have never seen any reference to such a requirement before.

Brian

[bigpat]

I can state for a fact that the engines are not assembled at an elevated temperature.....

You can physically move the pistons by hand, but they not designed to run at idle (2000-3000 rpm) like that, as it causes uneven wear on the cylinder bore, and rings, until everything expands to correct clearances.

The issue is not with piston clearance as such, but rather bearing clearance on the crank, conrods, and camshafts etc, There is physically no gap to allow any lubricant to circulate, until they reach their working temperature and expand. Tappet (and cam follower), valve guide clearances would also be an issue I would think

As mentioned, making engines cold start doesn't make it more road relevant. These are precision racing machines, not production cars.

Our cars would run cleaner, be more powerful, and smoother if we didn't have to design them for cold starts, but its a necessary evil.

[Jersey Tom]

There is no road relevance for F1 cars. Never has been, never will be, so let's dispense with the bull.

Maybe that should be my sig.