More engine talk!

More engine talk!

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Scuffers

Original Poster:

20,887 posts

273 months

Monday 10th November 2014
quotequote all
I realise this is all posturing etc, but this did make me raise and eyebrow

Niki_Lauda said:
Mercedes' team chairman, warned that bringing back the V8s would have other drastic consequences. "If V8 comes back," the F1 legend said, "Mercedes will be gone."
http://www.f1today.net/en/news/if-v8-engines-return-mercedes-will-be-gone--lauda

how about letting teams choose? they can have either, and if they go V8, give them a lower min weight to make up for the extra fuel load and inferior engines.

(actually, rather they went back to the V10's, with the 8 speed boxes we now have they would be awesome!)

Scuffers

Original Poster:

20,887 posts

273 months

Monday 10th November 2014
quotequote all
Your not wrong, hut at this rate, F1 may not make it to 2020


Scuffers

Original Poster:

20,887 posts

273 months

Monday 10th November 2014
quotequote all
Gaz. said:
Scuffers said:
Your not wrong, hut at this rate, F1 may not make it to 2020
I'm sure they said in 1982 that F1 wouldn't make it to 1983.
There were more teams to start with in 1983.

andyps

7,817 posts

281 months

Monday 10th November 2014
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There really only seems to be one person who has a significant issue with the rules as they are, and have been for many years in terms of engine development and that is the very poor loser, Christian Moaner. It does him no favours that he was so against any change in terms of blown diffusers when Red Bull had a clear advantage through their design in conjunction with that of Renault in terms of engine mapping but now Mercedes have a clear advantage he is desperately calling for changes, even to the extent of saying that he would rather have a situation which would see F1 implode (no freeze) than accept that Renault will just have to work extremely hard to improve the engine they have in the openings available.

What seems pretty crazy to me though is that he talks about closing a gap as if Mercedes won't have any ideas about improvements to their own engines - I do recognise the law of diminishing returns, but suspect we are probably a long way from that.

And a return to V8s, that really would be the death of F1 as the pinnacle of the sport, if it is even there now.

revrange

1,182 posts

183 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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andyps said:
There really only seems to be one person who has a significant issue with the rules as they are, and have been for many years in terms of engine development and that is the very poor loser, Christian Moaner. It does him no favours that he was so against any change in terms of blown diffusers when Red Bull had a clear advantage through their design in conjunction with that of Renault in terms of engine mapping but now Mercedes have a clear advantage he is desperately calling for changes, even to the extent of saying that he would rather have a situation which would see F1 implode (no freeze) than accept that Renault will just have to work extremely hard to improve the engine they have in the openings available.

What seems pretty crazy to me though is that he talks about closing a gap as if Mercedes won't have any ideas about improvements to their own engines - I do recognise the law of diminishing returns, but suspect we are probably a long way from that.

And a return to V8s, that really would be the death of F1 as the pinnacle of the sport, if it is even there now.
Surely the return of the V8 is the joke, why not run cosworths DFV and really save some money.

Merc & honda would quit.

The problem is Renault are behind and kicking up a fuss, the rules allow development but they want more because they are losing.

andyps

7,817 posts

281 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
quotequote all
revrange said:
Surely the return of the V8 is the joke, why not run cosworths DFV and really save some money.

Merc & honda would quit.

The problem is Renault are behind and kicking up a fuss, the rules allow development but they want more because they are losing.
yes

Pwig

11,956 posts

269 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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They mentioned in the coverage on Sunday that Merc apparentally know where to find another 60bhp straight away in the closed season!


Scuffers

Original Poster:

20,887 posts

273 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
quotequote all
revrange said:
Surely the return of the V8 is the joke, why not run cosworths DFV and really save some money.

Merc & honda would quit.

The problem is Renault are behind and kicking up a fuss, the rules allow development but they want more because they are losing.
DFV's are far from cheap...

if cost was the objective, pick an OEM off the shelf production engine, it's not like your struggling for choice, and the whole grid could be supplied for less than $1M easy.

Now, I (jokingly) suggested using LS7's (basically because they are up there in HP terms and really cheap/reliable), but there are Ferrari V8/V12's, Mclaren's own V8, VAG have V6/8/10/12's, Porsche have V8/10's, Toyota V6/8/10's, etc.

the marketing department could then make a big deal about it (like Merc did years ago with stock block indy engines).


scubadude

2,618 posts

196 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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Pwig said:
They mentioned in the coverage on Sunday that Merc apparentally know where to find another 60bhp straight away in the closed season!
Which means with effort they could find more, Renault will be furious if they get the unfreeze and find an amazing amount only to still be well down on the Mercs :-)


Anyone want to gamble on where Honda will arrive?
Barring reliability they should be close to the Mercs out of the box given the hype and what Mclaren have no doubt asked for/told them.

Doink

1,652 posts

146 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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Pwig said:
They mentioned in the coverage on Sunday that Merc apparentally know where to find another 60bhp straight away in the closed season!
Exactly this ^

This new engine formula was Ferrari's idea, Renault went along with it while merc I believe weren't that keen but did it anyway. Turns out Ferrari underestimated what was involved, Renault did a poor job with integration with a red bull while Merc got every single element spot on, can you blame them for not wanting to cut the others some slack, I can't.

But as has been mentioned IF Merc decided to allow for the engine freeze to be lifted then they already have 60hp to bolt on while the others who might have the same will just be bolting it to what they already have so how is the gap closed up? All it means is the Renault and Ferrari customers will have to pay a chunk of the R&D

Smacks of sour grapes

GroundEffect

13,818 posts

155 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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I kind of hope it does open up because 60BHP over the already ~800BHP they are doing right now at peak...yikes!

Doink

1,652 posts

146 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
quotequote all
scubadude said:
Which means with effort they could find more, Renault will be furious if they get the unfreeze and find an amazing amount only to still be well down on the Mercs :-)


Anyone want to gamble on where Honda will arrive?
Barring reliability they should be close to the Mercs out of the box given the hype and what Mclaren have no doubt asked for/told them.
Honda have an advantage in that they now know who's got what including Mercs split turbo and while they're not technically a competitor in F1 they're not bound by the engine freeze, you can bet they unbolted what they'd already thought of and started designing their own split turbo, I imagine they'll be the closest to Merc come next season


Edited by Doink on Tuesday 11th November 12:12


Edited by Doink on Tuesday 11th November 12:14

Doink

1,652 posts

146 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
quotequote all
Going back to the noise (or the lack of it) if they are going to unfreeze the rules then why don't they allow more revs (I know they allow 15 now but the engines stop at 12) and give them more fuel, surely revs = noise and more revs would require more fuel, surely if the freeze is lifted then now's the ideal time to do something with the noise

Henry Fiddleton

1,581 posts

176 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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Out of interest, whats stopping say Renault, sticking to the freeze, but then setting up a new engine supplier name, say Nissan, and basically going to town with the new engine.

Renault, sorry Nissan, now supply certain teams the new engine?

Same for Ferrari I guess, Maserati engines now supply the Ferrari team. Split turbo as well.

If there is any fight from Merc, the team could liquidate the existing company engine supplier name or basically they could keep running, but the teams have a new engine supplier...


mistakenplane

426 posts

119 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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This is why F1 needs a dictator. The teams couldnt organise a piss up in a brewery. In fact if they were at a brewery theyd probably sit in opposite corners and complain the other ones had more beer and less head on their pints...

Leithen

10,799 posts

266 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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mistakenplane said:
This is why F1 needs a dictator. The teams couldnt organise a piss up in a brewery. In fact if they were at a brewery theyd probably sit in opposite corners and complain the other ones had more beer and less head on their pints...
A fact that a certain man called Bernie realised several decades ago....

BritishRacinGrin

24,602 posts

159 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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Doink said:
Going back to the noise (or the lack of it) if they are going to unfreeze the rules then why don't they allow more revs (I know they allow 15 now but the engines stop at 12) and give them more fuel, surely revs = noise and more revs would require more fuel, surely if the freeze is lifted then now's the ideal time to do something with the noise
I believe they're getting even fewer power units in future so reliabilty is of too much importance to start increasing revs again.

Scuffers

Original Poster:

20,887 posts

273 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
quotequote all
Doink said:
Honda have an advantage in that they now know who's got what including Mercs split turbo and while they're not technically a competitor in F1 they're not bound by the engine freeze, you can bet they unbolted what they'd already thought of and started designing their own split turbo, I imagine they'll be the closest to Merc come next season
way too much is made from the split turbo, it's not the reason they have more power, it's more to do with packaging.

Honda do have an advantage as they know what the goal posts are now, and will have some pretty decent data to work of, as well as not having to homologate their engine yet.

rohrl

8,711 posts

144 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
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Merc could make some easy horsepower by swapping to an equal-length tubular exhaust manifold but it would be at the expense of packaging. Raw horsepower isn't always the most important consideration.

andyps

7,817 posts

281 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
quotequote all
Gaz. said:
As Honda agree with Renault with the thaw, I shall assume that the performance rumours are true and they are thirsty and under power. As Mclaren are not going to run the 29H at the YDT out of 'respect for Mercedes' I shall also assume the engine isn't ready. Mclaren also said they would run the 29 and not the 30 in Jerez.
You may be right, but it could also be as simple as the fact they won't really know until the engine is installed in a McLaren and driven on a track so having the chance to make some modifications once they have learned from that would be very helpful for them.