Engineered rule bending
Discussion
Chipchap said:
In SA we rode "standard production motorcycles" in the early 80's. In 1982 I bought an ex Shell Suzuki Katana 750. The level of ingenuity was astonishing.
The GSX had a massive alternator so ground clearance was an isuue
Solutions:
1] Mill away the inside of the top triple clamp [yoke] so that it sits lower, then when the forks are sitting flush the whole bike is higher.
2] Fit 1100 mounting plates which cant the front of the engine up a few mm
Another good one was to fit the cam sprocket bolts with slightly milled shanks allowing a few degrees of movement. No one looked at the bolts they always looked to see if you had slotted the cam sprockets to gain more accurate cam timing !
Also the suzukis had layered head gaskets which scrutineers generally gave only a cursory glance to. The teams heated them up, opened the rivetts and seperated the layers, threw a few away and rerivetted and annealed them again. = Extra compression.
I am sure that there were many others but just these few things provided the 1 sec difference between those on the "factory bikes" and privateers with one from the showroom.
A
I remember an article on this, in Superbike magazine i think, way back in the 80's, and that's what they said, the level of sophistication involved in the bending of the rules was unbelievableThe GSX had a massive alternator so ground clearance was an isuue
Solutions:
1] Mill away the inside of the top triple clamp [yoke] so that it sits lower, then when the forks are sitting flush the whole bike is higher.
2] Fit 1100 mounting plates which cant the front of the engine up a few mm
Another good one was to fit the cam sprocket bolts with slightly milled shanks allowing a few degrees of movement. No one looked at the bolts they always looked to see if you had slotted the cam sprockets to gain more accurate cam timing !
Also the suzukis had layered head gaskets which scrutineers generally gave only a cursory glance to. The teams heated them up, opened the rivetts and seperated the layers, threw a few away and rerivetted and annealed them again. = Extra compression.
I am sure that there were many others but just these few things provided the 1 sec difference between those on the "factory bikes" and privateers with one from the showroom.
A
snowy slopes said:
I remember an article on this, in Superbike magazine i think, way back in the 80's, and that's what they said, the level of sophistication involved in the bending of the rules was unbelievable
If you haven't, you should read 'Stealing Speed'. Not so much about cheating, but charts the birth and growth of two-stroke race bikes. Utterly incredible, especially a chap from Walter Kaaden who discovered the whole 'resonance' thing, but was doing it all behind the iron curtain with no tech or money etc etc. Espionage stuffs too.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kaaden
MrKipling43 said:
If you haven't, you should read 'Stealing Speed'. Not so much about cheating, but charts the birth and growth of two-stroke race bikes. Utterly incredible, especially a chap from Walter Kaaden who discovered the whole 'resonance' thing, but was doing it all behind the iron curtain with no tech or money etc etc. Espionage stuffs too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kaaden
Hmmmmm i might see if i can track a copy of that down, sounds like my sort of book,cheers for thathttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kaaden
IanUAE said:
n3il123 said:
There was a case of a car that when the headlights were on it seemed to be much quicker than all of the others around it, seemed that when the headlights were on it (illegally) changed the ecu map to non standard.
Corvette in the USA? Didn't they flash their headlights when entering the pits to switch back to a legal engine map. not sure how but they got caught. 350Matt said:
one from the TWR days when they were running the SD1 touring cars, you had to make the cam from a production blank - naturally TWR were a bit quicker than the rest so the engine was stripped in the presence of an inspector who took the cam off to be measured
however when the tech was pulling out the cam he 'accidentally ' dropped it into the oil tray under the engine stand ( this tray was full of oil)
'oh sorry let me get that' reaches in under the oil and withdraws cam and passes to inspector
all legal
naturally the dodgy cam was still hidden in the oil
That is priceless - That takes engineering rule bending into the realms of the street magician however when the tech was pulling out the cam he 'accidentally ' dropped it into the oil tray under the engine stand ( this tray was full of oil)
'oh sorry let me get that' reaches in under the oil and withdraws cam and passes to inspector
all legal
naturally the dodgy cam was still hidden in the oil
This is a fantastic thread, however Mr Walkinshaw seems to be to root of a large number of these tales ...... Any educated guesstimates as to what proportion of these are based on fact, and which ones are urban myth?
mat205125 said:
Any educated guesstimates as to what proportion of these are based on fact, and which ones are urban myth?
Most are fact. I spent a lot of time with Denny Hulme in 1992 at the Nurburgring one weekend and we spoke about a number of the wheezes Tom used to pull and optional extras on the cars.Back in the days of the ETCC almost everyone was pulling a fast one to a greater or lesser degree.
The only things I would question a bit are the number of people who produced 7/8ths cars, I only know of one and some of the things I have seen on this thread were dodges I though had originated elsewhere.
At the end of the day though with one set of rules and a number of teams of very bright motivated people there is sure to be occasions where 2 come up with the same way to skin the cat (see dry ice), although one might be better at keeping it QT!
snowy slopes said:
mmmmm i might see if i can track a copy of that down, sounds like my sort of book,cheers for that
Linky: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stealing-Speed-Biggest-Sca...Regarding the Touring car rule bending on the scale of the car i'm pretty sure that in the Super Touring days the rules allowed the cars to be something in the region of 1-2% bigger than the road going version.
This was then exploited to the maximum by the teams to get extra track width. They may have also reduced the height of the roof a little and possibly the rake of the windscreen to help the aero (hence standard windscreens not fitting) but never heard of anyone building a smaller car.
Think about the Vectra BTCC car vs. the Vectra Challenge cars which were road car shells - the BTCC car appeared to be visably bigger and not just due to the extended arches.
This was then exploited to the maximum by the teams to get extra track width. They may have also reduced the height of the roof a little and possibly the rake of the windscreen to help the aero (hence standard windscreens not fitting) but never heard of anyone building a smaller car.
Think about the Vectra BTCC car vs. the Vectra Challenge cars which were road car shells - the BTCC car appeared to be visably bigger and not just due to the extended arches.
MrKipling43 said:
snowy slopes said:
mmmmm i might see if i can track a copy of that down, sounds like my sort of book,cheers for that
Linky: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stealing-Speed-Biggest-Sca...IanUAE said:
Didn't the FIA find some funny additives in the "water" for the water injection system as well, which also resulted in a ban?
Could be. I know that you couldn't keep your eyes open if you were behind the turbo cars and they were running. When the fuel they were using is described as rocket fuel, they probably weren't far off.It clears your sinuses out though!
Life Saab Itch said:
IanUAE said:
Didn't the FIA find some funny additives in the "water" for the water injection system as well, which also resulted in a ban?
Could be. I know that you couldn't keep your eyes open if you were behind the turbo cars and they were running. When the fuel they were using is described as rocket fuel, they probably weren't far off.It clears your sinuses out though!
It wasn't methanol used by the F1 cars. It was real exotic stuff. A few mechanics from that era ended up with long term health issues linked to it. I have a feeling they mixed high RON fuels with toluene if my brain is working right...
We warm our dragster up without gas masks, you get used to it. I like the smell too, especially when we add the cherry lubricant to it!
We warm our dragster up without gas masks, you get used to it. I like the smell too, especially when we add the cherry lubricant to it!
Edited by Flying Toilet on Thursday 7th July 14:07
According to Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toluene
Toluene can be used as an octane booster in gasoline fuels used in internal combustion engines. Toluene at 86% by volume fueled all the turbo Formula 1 teams in the 1980s, first pioneered by the Honda team. The remaining 14% was a "filler" of n-heptane, to reduce the octane to meet Formula 1 fuel restrictions.
Toluene can be used as an octane booster in gasoline fuels used in internal combustion engines. Toluene at 86% by volume fueled all the turbo Formula 1 teams in the 1980s, first pioneered by the Honda team. The remaining 14% was a "filler" of n-heptane, to reduce the octane to meet Formula 1 fuel restrictions.
Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff