95 - 02 F1 Tech
Discussion
red_duke said:
Are the carbon brake disks assigned to the bin when they drop below a minimum weight? I have CCMs on my street car and always wondered how they can loose mass without showing any obvious signs of wear.
You're confusing big heavy carbon ceramic road car brakes with carbon/carbon race car brakes. There is no ceramic in our brakes, they are primarily pure carbon..... and they wear just like a steel disc does. CCM (Carbon Ceramic Matrix) are a different thing entirely and don't operate at temperature in any where like the same manner. The loss of mass is due to the carbon in the matrix oxidising at very high temperatures which leaves the ceramic matrix remaining. The matrix size doesn't really change as ceramic is very hard but the net result is the loss of carbon from the matrix results in a disc which is now lighter. The minimum weight is based on the amount of acceptable carbon loss for the disc to still meet minimum performance/safety spec as determined by the OE.
Tomorrow is hydraulics day again. We have to rebuild this with a lower KM pump, test the Moogs and replace as required, replace the wiring loom and generally clean and fettle.
This last saw action at Spa in 2000 so it's been in a box a while.... The old one currently on the car will go off for US cleaning and eventually be rebuilt as the spare. The pump failed on this one which is VERY rare.
I'm going to mail everyone back re discs once I've got home this evening and we'll sort something out
This last saw action at Spa in 2000 so it's been in a box a while.... The old one currently on the car will go off for US cleaning and eventually be rebuilt as the spare. The pump failed on this one which is VERY rare.
I'm going to mail everyone back re discs once I've got home this evening and we'll sort something out
Hey all. Firstly apologies for not updating for a while! We are absolutely flat chat at the moment getting the cars ready for test. Our calendar has also been confirmed for this year and it's going to be a mental one, three events in May alone so yet again we're running more often than the current F1 teams do.
The workshops are full of not only cars but pit gear at this time of year as well. We need to check, repair, update as required and repack all of the support gear and as you can imagine there is a metric f**k load of it to run the cars. So far we've got all our tyre warmers ticked off and made good for the work to come.... that doesn't sound like much but when you have 27 sets (108 individual warmers + spares) it's quite a task to make sure they all achieve temp and are in spec as well as all the fueling and warming gear. Few more starters to build as we're updating them all to our new 5.5KW units as well!
Next job is to sort through our small spares i.e this lot (well this is about 50% of it as you can't take a photo of a whole room at once
):
and replenish the stock in the pit trays and cases. These are essentially our primary use stock which travel to events with the cars for use when "live", in the workshop we draw from the stock in the parts stores. At the last stock take we are over 120,000 individual parts..... stock control via Excel, it's a wonder any of us are still sane
The workshops are full of not only cars but pit gear at this time of year as well. We need to check, repair, update as required and repack all of the support gear and as you can imagine there is a metric f**k load of it to run the cars. So far we've got all our tyre warmers ticked off and made good for the work to come.... that doesn't sound like much but when you have 27 sets (108 individual warmers + spares) it's quite a task to make sure they all achieve temp and are in spec as well as all the fueling and warming gear. Few more starters to build as we're updating them all to our new 5.5KW units as well!
Next job is to sort through our small spares i.e this lot (well this is about 50% of it as you can't take a photo of a whole room at once
):
and replenish the stock in the pit trays and cases. These are essentially our primary use stock which travel to events with the cars for use when "live", in the workshop we draw from the stock in the parts stores. At the last stock take we are over 120,000 individual parts..... stock control via Excel, it's a wonder any of us are still sane
Steve7777 said:
Really interesting thread, thanks. Can you give any insights into the approximate buying and annual running costs for an F1 car of this era?
That really is a how long is a piece of string question! It depends massively on marque, pedigree and parts availability. For example you can have a Lola T97 for £60K when a similar vintage Williams will be three to four times that. If you buy a car with a large spares package then your running costs are obviously reduced accordingly. An unpopular car with limited pedigree that you have a boat load of bits for you can run for maybe as little as £15K a year if you are only doing a few hundred KMs. The big expense is engine, gearbox and suspension relife/rebuild and things like brake discs, clutches and tyres.
So last 6 months have been pretty busy! Apologies for not keeping you all more updated. Firstly the thread title is now incorrect as we've got a couple of 2011 cars and an 06 with us.
Anyway back to what we've been up to/what we can share, first we went old school and did this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA9LtZBDV9Q
Bit of a shame they didn't let us run quick as we had all the boost available (and I do mean ALL the boost).
Then it was back to our usual gig of V10s (mostly), only this time a shed load at once as we fired up most of the Minardis for the Zandvoort Italia festival (and melted the track side noise limit mics ):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_SMI84mrLM
A good day out was had by all and just to keep it as it was back in the day the PS04 stopped on circuit when it ran out of air (we're pretty tight on our AVS pressures and as this engine is well up on KMs it's air consumption is pretty high, hence the ECU took the decision to turn it off when the air consumption rate went above what we allow).
Finally we used the Brands Lotus festival as an opportunity to shake down the M198#1, this hadn't ran on a circuit for 16 years so it was three slow shake down laps only. Very nice of them to let us run it and a big thanks to the other guys on the demo for letting us get in the way!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIhuO3bjquQ
We've got five more demos and a couple more tests to do this year and on some of those the M198 will be running at speed following a further high speed shake down next month.
All in all a productive year so far and another year of keeping the technology alive and available outside of the teams.... and adding some new tech to play with!
Oh and if anyone fancies a toy we've a couple of Super Aguris for sale....
Anyway back to what we've been up to/what we can share, first we went old school and did this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA9LtZBDV9Q
Bit of a shame they didn't let us run quick as we had all the boost available (and I do mean ALL the boost).
Then it was back to our usual gig of V10s (mostly), only this time a shed load at once as we fired up most of the Minardis for the Zandvoort Italia festival (and melted the track side noise limit mics
):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_SMI84mrLM
A good day out was had by all and just to keep it as it was back in the day the PS04 stopped on circuit when it ran out of air (we're pretty tight on our AVS pressures and as this engine is well up on KMs it's air consumption is pretty high, hence the ECU took the decision to turn it off when the air consumption rate went above what we allow).
Finally we used the Brands Lotus festival as an opportunity to shake down the M198#1, this hadn't ran on a circuit for 16 years so it was three slow shake down laps only. Very nice of them to let us run it and a big thanks to the other guys on the demo for letting us get in the way!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIhuO3bjquQ
We've got five more demos and a couple more tests to do this year and on some of those the M198 will be running at speed following a further high speed shake down next month.
All in all a productive year so far and another year of keeping the technology alive and available outside of the teams.... and adding some new tech to play with!
Oh and if anyone fancies a toy we've a couple of Super Aguris for sale....
gwm said:
Have any of your customers asked you to give them a timescale of how long they can realistically run their cars for? Have you had to tell any of them about real/potential show stoppers?
We can realistically run them for as long as required. There are no show stoppers beyond destroying the car in a very big accident - significant tub damage is the end of the car for all intense and purpose apart from those for which we own the tub tooling. Everything else we can rebuild time and time again, many of the base components (pumps, valves etc.) are still available to purchase from the original suppliers, wishbones and suspension parts generally we try to either have an awful lot of good spares ex team or own the tooling to make them, gearbox internals are mostly standard bearing sizes and gears, barrels, motion shafts etc. are reproduceable and in some cases the OEM is happy to continue producing for us with a nod from the team. Engines wise we have a program running to produce the parts required to rebuild them to useable spec so are now manufacturing liners, pistons, rods, cranks, valves, air valve parts etc. as required. The only show stopper with engines is castings damage as we are very short on blocks, heads and sumps so we tend to be extremely careful with our limits and give the ECU the option to turn the car off if certain limits are reached or exceeded. Consumables wise we can have discs and pads manufactured as required, it's just very expensive (20K+ a car set). Brake bells, rockers etc. are simple Ti machined parts and easy to replicate, dampers are rebuildable many times over. Rads, coolers etc. we manufacture as required.
Electronics are the big thing as we are running highly complex control systems which in some cases are over a decade and a half old. We have a very good electronics lab so at the moment they aren't posing a problem and replacing surface mount components is doable (if nerve racking). A lot of time is spent reverse engineering software or working with aged code to turn ex dyno controllers etc. into working race car controllers. Realistically there is still nothing out there in the aftermarket that is sufficently powerful to run these cars so there's no option but to run original electronics.
As all the cars were essentially low volume (but highly complex) there is very little that can't be manufactured again if required.
BrownBottle said:
Glad to see you back posting again.
Sounds like a top quality operation, amazing that you can reproduce so many parts including engine internals yourselves.
We can't take all the credit for it, generally we may have to redraw the component but most of the original manufacturers are still going and they actually produce them for us. We use the same materials spec etc. so the engines we are running today are extremely similar if not the same as the last evolutions that ran back in the day.Sounds like a top quality operation, amazing that you can reproduce so many parts including engine internals yourselves.
Soov535 said:
Just to say what a fantastic thread. Thanks.
How much are the Super Aguris?
Beween 195 and 220K GBP depending on what engine you would like in it. Asiatech is the least expensive and to be honest better option as it has a lower rebuild/replacement cost as there are 22 new engines waiting for a home.How much are the Super Aguris?
Megaflow said:
What '11 car have you managed to get hold of? Very unusual to see such a relatively modern machine in private hands I would think.
I can tell you all with pictures in about three weeks time. Until the new owner has opportunity to make an announcement if they wish to it's not my place to steal their thunder. This is the newest F1 which has ever been sold into private hands and the newest car run by a Privateer/None F1 Team outfit. It involved us negotiating an engine deal for the original engine as this was originally a lease deal with the team and writing some software in house to replace that which couldn't be placed in private ownership. Also a lot of work on tooling and process to support it moving forwards. Really is a very big deal for us as it's a huge vote of confidence for the abilities of our little team.
The later cars actually make a lot of sense for private ownership as even though the upfront costs are higher the running costs in terms of chassis and gearbox are much lower per KM due to the engine and box lifes being so much greater than the earlier cars.
Bit of gearbox work today as it was time to have a check over.
All good in here but a bit of wear of 1st and 5th gear dogs which will be replaced to ensure all stays healthy.
Dog wear in these boxes is pretty high but you have to remember they were designed to get the change done absolutely as fast as possible and last for 400KMs. We get pretty good life all things considered!
All good in here but a bit of wear of 1st and 5th gear dogs which will be replaced to ensure all stays healthy.
Dog wear in these boxes is pretty high but you have to remember they were designed to get the change done absolutely as fast as possible and last for 400KMs. We get pretty good life all things considered!
jsf said:
I find that a surprising statement when you can purchase systems that are capable of running modern LMP1 cars from aftermarket suppliers. What is it about the current offerings available that you cant achieve compared to the kit in the car?
Modern LMP1 cars don't generally run Moogs. From 97/98 everything on an F1 was hydraulicaly actuated due to the power density possible with hydraulics. LMP1 generally has a bit more room than we do to play with and as such air based systems and similar are generally employed for gear control etc. On our stuff the clutch, gearbox barrel actuation, throttle, brake bias control, differential pre load and fuel filler flaps are all driven from the same hydraulic pump - can't really run that lot with the strats available on Motec, Pectel or Life ECUs Also we write/rewrite a lot of our own code. Things like Marelli STEP and TAG/MES provide us the ability to write our own software for execution on the platform which gives us much more options and ability - F1 ECUS are really very much like industrial control platforms where essentially you get the hardware and an SDK with maybe some base strategies onto which you develop your "software" - this is why very often with V10 era cars when this was a major use of man power you will see things like "Marelli STEP10 with XXX Team names Software" on the spec.Additionally we have lumps doing 18,000RPM + on complex triggers with per cylinder fuel control (including phase), ignition control and multiple layers of failure control/handling to deal with everything from a sensor failure to a processor over temp on one of the ECU boards (in a STEP8 there are several boards making up the ECU) - a 15 year old F1 ECU still has more processing grunt than most things you can buy off the shelf today for engine control, which makes sense as it's running the chassis, gearbox and data system as well.
jsf said:
Those dogs look mint compared to the ones I often see out of the earlier manual shift F1 cars I race prep. 
Those are fooked in our era LOL We generally achieve a none d-on-d upchange in 14MS or so with a d-on-d in 23 - 28ms depending on what the control system does to get off the dogs (generally we'll engage the clutch very slightly so drag in the pack spins up the input shaft and gets things off contact). We'll have a d-on-d change about 10% of the time which still means our average upchange time is less than 18ms Downchange we don't worry about as much time wise as we do all sorts of bits on the way down like engine RPM target holding to make sure the downchange has no impact on the balance of the car under braking. Dog wear really hurts our up change time and as the barrel is powered by 240bar of hydraulic pressure it's always a worry that we'll get stuck dog on dog for sufficent time to bend the shift forks!
jsf said:
so its mainly the hydraulics systems then. Are the current major players not interested in working with these systems?
No experience of it, Pi/Pectel did have Moog support in T10S at one point but only two valves. Motec and Life have never done an ECU with Moog drive capability in it to the best of my knowledge. Bosch have but it's not current. Only guys these days with Moog off the shelf are TAG/MES and MM - we use both of those anyway Moog control is current based, generally as a variable drive between -10ma and +10ma based off a PID loop as such the kit required to drive them is not easily implemented in place of normal PWM drives etc.
scubadude said:
What a fantastic thread, thank you for posting it :-)
The drive train stuff is fascinating, do you also deal with the bodywork and chassis side, if so any curious, funny, naughty bits hidden away where we wouldn't have seen?
Yep we do everything really. As for naughty bits there is always loads of stuff going on. RBs front floor from a few years back which worked as a mass damper via flexing of the front strut... years after they'd been banned. Lots of balast in odd places like front wings which weight 40 kilos etc. The drive train stuff is fascinating, do you also deal with the bodywork and chassis side, if so any curious, funny, naughty bits hidden away where we wouldn't have seen?
garycat said:
If you could put together a "dream car" using the various components of all the the different cars you worked on, what would it consist of? (assuming all the bits from different cars and different years fitted together )
Hmmm interesting question. Engine would have to be one of the last Toyota V10s with the "water cooled" exhausts as these went to 19K pretty much and the noise is not of this world. Chassis would have to be Minardi PS04B or similar just because I am very Minardi biased, gearbox probably last of the Jags 7 speed, control Marelli STEP10, Aero Brawn - think that would be a pretty good package, shame none of it will bolt to each other really )
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