Engineered rule bending

[freedman]

Brabhams famous 'water cooled' brakes

Water all dumped out before the end of teh pit lane, and of cours ethen the rules allowe dreplenishment of all fuilds so they saved x kg whilst the car was actually running

[Conian]

freedman said:

The original 917

The ACO said it broke the rules so they modified it. Hardly cheating was it

it was working within the rules but not in the spirit, the rules were modified to include it i believe, i thought it was the 917 but was too lazy to google it, sorry

[petergb]

I heard once that the factory Walkinshaw Dolomites had 2" cut out of their bodies to reduce the 'top-heaviness' of the car. Don't know how true though.

[freedman]

Conian said:

it was working within the rules but not in the spirit, the rules were modified to include it i believe, i thought it was the 917 but was too lazy to google it, sorry

The 917 was Homologated with the rear stabilisers being 'active'.

Problem was the CSI had just banned moveable aerodynamic devices. The cars practiced with them in place in 69 whilst discussions took place between the interested parties.

Ferrari, Matra and Lola refused to agree that they could run,a nd Porsche threatened to withdraw saying the car was unsafe without them

Rolf Stommelen even drove the car with fixed stabilisers in practice to prove the point. (he did so, but because he chose to make the car to look undrivable )

Eventually it was agreed they could run with movable flaps, but the 908s were forced to run their version fixed

[anonymous-user]

Two of my favourites are "lofting" cams to avoid max valve lift rules and WRC cars running huge air tanks in the boot and wedged behind bumpers to help negate the effect of the inlet restrictor.

But my absolute fav is a certain manufacturer in WRC, who was using "rocks" that just happened to have there mass stamped into them to ballast their car.


(lofting valves: where the lifter is deliberately "lofted" off the top of the cam by a mega agressive opening profile, then, (if you get your sums right!) lands and is caught nicely by the closing ramp. So when the scrutes measure your cam it is within the valve lift limits, but actually, your valves are being opened more, sometimes MUCH more......)

(WRC airtanks: basically with very aggressive antilag, you fill these tanks up with pressurised air any time the engine is not using it all (like during braking etc). Then this air is availible for a short period during the next accel zone before it is used up and the inlet restrictor once again limits power (very handy for "on/off throttle" events like the WRC rounds.......)

(rocks: get to end of stage, and on road section, stop in pre arranged place and jam these rocks into any availible gap in the wheel arches and bumpers to get over the min weight penalty........)

[CO2000]

All this talk of concealment reminds me of Vic Lee Touring Cars

[Mr_Thyroid]

Mr_Thyroid said:

BAR's extra fuel tank is the most recent one from F1 I think

Use Psychology said:

and that wasn;t even really cheating, just a sensible way to design your fuel system. half the f1 team needed to redesign their tanks after BAR were disqualified.

That's not what the FIA said; they were banned for two races.

[freedman]

Tyrells fuel tank shenanigans that led to a seasons exclusion

[Sam the Mut]

Tom Walkinshaw Racing adjusting the rear strut mount points on the Rover 3500. When they got caught they tried to claim the bodyshell was a standard, but export-only, variation.

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=14...

Edited by Sam the Mut on Friday 1st July 20:56

[dudleybloke]

remember.... its only cheating if you get caught!!!

[Conian]

more details please folks! sure we could google it but lets make this thread a jolly good old read what

[Crafty_]

Not racing per say but I once read a story about homologation rules in rallying. This was the group B era, I cant remember if it was the 6r4 or the RS200.. either way the inspectors turned up to ensure that the correct number of road cars were being built as per the rules. They were shown to a storage building where sure enough there was a number of road going homologation specials. They were then invited to a nice lunch off premises, when they returned they were shown to another storage building where the other half of the cars were. All well and good right ? not really - the first storage shed was empty as they didn't have enough cars so moved them all during lunch!

[freedman]

Crafty_ said:

Not racing per say but I once read a story about homologation rules in rallying. This was the group B era, I cant remember if it was the 6r4 or the RS200.. either way the inspectors turned up to ensure that the correct number of road cars were being built as per the rules. They were shown to a storage building where sure enough there was a number of road going homologation specials. They were then invited to a nice lunch off premises, when they returned they were shown to another storage building where the other half of the cars were. All well and good right ? not really - the first storage shed was empty as they didn't have enough cars so moved them all during lunch!

Same with Porsche and the 917

Rules said they need to make 25 cars, which they did, but 24 of them didnt work (at the time of the inspection) and had been cobbled together by office staff etc

I think the inspectors were so astonished that anyone had actually gone ahead and built them they looked no further than the only running car

[Rat_Fink_67]

Crafty_ said:

Lots of stories about concealed nitrous bottles in drag racing - in the sump or fuel tank, even hidden around the car and plumbed in to the rollcage.

In relation to my previous post, one of the main racers who had his suspicions about the Dodges using nitrous was a wily veteran with 10 world titles to his name. Thing was he couldn't prove it so didn't want to come out and outright accuse them, which didn't sit so well with his son. He was so adamant that his Dad's rivals were using nitrous that he decided to do it himself to show how it could be possible. Now his Father wanted no part of this so he went and got another team owner with an old, outdated chassis to put the theory to the test. Sure enough the car suddenly picked up it's performance and even won an event. It was after this he went and showed the NHRA tech officials how easily he's concealed the nitrous system in the front end. When the car was tech'd the first thing they did was to remove the front end and place it to one side....instant scrutineering pass!

[turbotim43]

TankRS said:

as far as i know its never been confirmed or proven, but in the Group B and later Group A Lancia Deltas, there were reports of it having Nitrous plumbed in, but hidden through parts of the rollcage and the use of a 'dummy' fire extinguisher bottle in the co-drivers footwell.

but then again it could just be one of those, 'it must be cheating' acusations due to the cars being so good

Brother in law watched Lancia changing the "fire extinguishers" on these during the RAC rally and my brother met a team member some years later who also confirmed they were running nitrous

Sam the Mut said:

Tom Walkinshaw Racing adjusting the rear strut mount points on the Rover 3500. When they got caught they tried to claim the bodyshell was a standard, but export-only, variation.

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=14...

Edited by Sam the Mut on Friday 1st July 20:56

They also used solid lifters in the engine rather than the hydraulic lifters it should have had.

Others I have heard of are putting some methanol in the tank, this (apparently) drops to the bottom of the tank and into the carbs, put in just enough for a couple of laps boost then leaves no trace.

Production bikes used to have twin wall exhaust downpipes, removing the inner pipe gave you a bigger bore exhaust, against the rules and very difficult to detect, they also used to grind the base circle of the cam and build up the lobe, gives more lift but stock measurements.

[Egg Chaser]

Great thread, interesting stuff

[Conian]

a simple one from older days of bike racing.... to get through noise checks some bikes were fitted with thin guage metal in the exhaust with a hole drilled smaller than the bore of the pipe, it would quiet down the noise for a while until the hot gases melt away the metal giving a full power full noise bike for the race.

i also like the old F1 story about how some cars were using very light body parts for qualifying, and when the wind suddenly gusted at 1 track, most of the teams spare nose cones blew away.

[Superhoop]

petergb said:

I heard once that the factory Walkinshaw Dolomites had 2" cut out of their bodies to reduce the 'top-heaviness' of the car. Don't know how true though.

I'm sure I read something similar about the BTCC Nissan Primera - when the cars were sold on, the new owner tried to fit a new standard door, only it was too tall to fit the appeture

Not cars, and not at the time cheating, but there's a fairly well known story about a race team at the IOM TT who asked if there was any penalty for swapping a fuel tank during the race. The rules said no - the team worked out it was quicker to swap an empty tank for a full one, than it was to fill the empty tank with fuel

The rules were then changed to say that if a tank was swapped, it also had to be refuelled afterwards

[thunderbelmont]

Where do I start...

Master Hetherington - the long fuel lines was Smokey Yunick. After a post race inspection, where they removed the fuel tank, he fired up the car and drove it back to their garage/truck. Allegedly it held about three gallons.

TWR - Volvo Rockers with BL stamped on them in Rover V8's. Increased rocker ratio to increase the lift on the valves.
TWR - Rover SD1 wheel arches - over-sized to accommodate bigger boots, oddly enough a car was found at a "local" dealer to the track that had the same arches. Probably delivered there earlier that week......
TWR - Volvo 245T chopped/small scale (just like the Smokey Yunick NASCAR)
TWR - Volvo 245T - adjustable boost - the infamous sunvisors!
TWR - Bennetton Refuelling - removing the filter to improve the flow, then claiming that the FIA said they could.
TWR - Jaguar Gp.C - Lots - and lots - Rear wings, engines, etc....
TWR - Jaguar XJS Fuel tanks - with the air inflated bladder in the box to make them meet the max capacity when tested post race.
TWR - Volvo S40 - I know someone who worked for the engine builders, and his diagnosis on some of the engines that were returned for rebuild was that "an external oxidant" was used because of the classic tell-tale signs of the piston crowns (use of either Nitrous, or some whacky fuel!).
TWR/HRT - breaching team ownership regulations

I could go on.......

[Conian]

thunderbelmont said:

I could go on.......

please do, this is good stuff