Engineered rule bending

[The Rustman]

Or was the fuel making up the weight it was something like that ...any way two tanks.

[MrQuick]

Use Psychology said:

i thought the renault thing was sensors in the front wing that detected the sensors in the grid, which detect a jump start, turning off. good idea to add the reaction time thing. I don't think it was actually illegal when they ran it, though.

Was it really Renault?

The one that I've heard from time to time is the one about McLaren.
When launch control was banned, but traction control was still allowed, the engineers at McLaren came up with that induction loop system.

Before the lights go green, theres a small current going through the induction loop under the car to see whether there is a jump start. When the car pulls up to the grid after the warm-up lap, another loop of wire on the bottom of the car picked up on the current, and because ECUs weren't standardised, the loop triggered a setting on the ECU that dialed up LC.
And hey presto, you had a perfect launch every time.


There are seriously so many stories about the TWR cars. I think someone has covered this before but an ex-TWR volvo had a chipped windscreen, and the team decided to just go an buy a windscreen from the dealership. Funnily enough it didn't fit, found out that the whole car was exactly 7/8s scale.


And I think it was the McRae era rally cars, (i.e. 555 Subaru) that had the compressor system. Under heavy braking the compressor tanks filled up with air, and coming out of hairpins, under full throttle and low revs, the system would engage and the air would be released on the exhaust side of the turbos, effectively spooling them to very high RPM like a rudimentary anti-lag system and finally circumvented the whole restrictor plate on the intake side of things and delivered something like 400hp @ 1500 RPM for a few seconds.

[Life Saab Itch]

The Rustman said:

Or was the fuel making up the weight it was something like that ...any way two tanks.

I think it was more to do with the lead shot that was in the fluid being replenished.

[joewilliams]

Life Saab Itch said:

The Rustman said:

Or was the fuel making up the weight it was something like that ...any way two tanks.

I think it was more to do with the lead shot that was in the fluid being replenished.

Tanks for the water cooled brakes were filled with water & lead shot, bringing up the weight of the car.

[norman156]

kiteless said:

IIRC, the Chaparral 2J "fan car" had its downforce enhancing fans powered by a two-stroke snowmobile engine operating at all times. Following complaints from other Can-Am teams, a ruling was introduced whereby "no engines were permitted to be installed in a car that does not directly power the wheels".

Personally, I'd have outlawed the car on purely aesthetic grounds.

You have a point, it is a bit of an ugly cretin, like a car crossed with a household appliance... I recall seeing it at Goodwood a few years ago and thinking much the same.



Bit of a contrast to the other, much more famous example of a racing car using a downforce enhancing fan, the Brabham BT46B. 'It's just there to cool the engine, honest guv....)

[Ranger 6]

bdx said:

Audi, Michelle Mouton's quattro developed engine problems and was expected to retire.
She started the next stage with mechanic Braun's chase car in tow.
Losing a lot of time, Mouton emerged from the stage but no sign of Braun's car.

Audi indicated that the problem was not a damaged cylinder head but an oil pump, which had been replaced by one from Braun's car. A perfectly legal action.

Rumours indicated that Mouton's car was actually Braun's car and body panels changed.

Mouton withdrew from the rally claiming that the car was unsafe.

Chase cars aren't allowed into stages so more work needed here

[JB!]

Was told that WRC Corolla Rollcage just so happened to hold some funny gas, don't know if it's true or not.

[VeeFour]

A lot of these posts sound like urban myth and couldn't in any way be true. Especially the stuff about chopping sections out of roof pillars or building cars at 7/8th scale!

[Life Saab Itch]

VeeFour said:

A lot of these posts sound like urban myth and couldn't in any way be true. Especially the stuff about chopping sections out of roof pillars or building cars at 7/8th scale!

The roof chop on the Nissan Primeras that I said about has been in print written by Tim Harvey who was team manager for Matt Neal at the time. In the same article was a story about TWR selling 3.5 litre rover V8 engines with capacities varying from 3.5 litres to 5.0. I can't remember what magazine it was, but I'm sure someone else will be able to point you in the right direction.

The 7/8ths Volvos are partly urban legend. Whilst undoubtably some subtle modifications were done, to produce a whole car in 7/8ths would have been too noticable. I suggest that a beauty chop was done and therefore a standard windscreen would not fit.

[VeeFour]

I think Tim Harvey probably said it as a wind-up and it has subsequently become gospel.

There's absolutely no way they'd get away with it - and even if they could have done, the benefits would have been so negligible, it just wouldn't have been worth the risk.

[Life Saab Itch]

VeeFour said:

I think Tim Harvey probably said it as a wind-up and it has subsequently become gospel.

There's absolutely no way they'd get away with it - and even if they could have done, the benefits would have been so negligible, it just wouldn't have been worth the risk.

I don't think so, but I'll agree to disagree. I used to work with a guy who fabricated for RML. He said they did "all sorts of body modifications. Getting the proportions to look right was a right bd."

There's an easy way to find out. Next year at goodwood, get a tapemeasure and measure from the top of the door to the bottom. Then do the same to a standard road car.

[mfmman]

Ranger 6 said:

bdx said:

Audi, Michelle Mouton's quattro developed engine problems and was expected to retire.
She started the next stage with mechanic Braun's chase car in tow.
Losing a lot of time, Mouton emerged from the stage but no sign of Braun's car.

Audi indicated that the problem was not a damaged cylinder head but an oil pump, which had been replaced by one from Braun's car. A perfectly legal action.

Rumours indicated that Mouton's car was actually Braun's car and body panels changed.

Mouton withdrew from the rally claiming that the car was unsafe.

Chase cars aren't allowed into stages so more work needed here

This was on the Ivory Coast Rally of 1985, it was more of an open road event than a conventional stage rally and chase cars followed essentially the same route as competitors

[mfmman]

MrQuick said:

And I think it was the McRae era rally cars, (i.e. 555 Subaru) that had the compressor system. Under heavy braking the compressor tanks filled up with air, and coming out of hairpins, under full throttle and low revs, the system would engage and the air would be released on the exhaust side of the turbos, effectively spooling them to very high RPM like a rudimentary anti-lag system and finally circumvented the whole restrictor plate on the intake side of things and delivered something like 400hp @ 1500 RPM for a few seconds.

This is a new one on me, what was the compressed air system supposed to be for.

The intake air storage system as used on the later Focus (2002-3ish maybe)is mentioned earlier in the thread.

[motorsportbeng]

apparently the rs500 touring cars used to have a cage inside the boost pipe on the inlet side which would be filled with some sort of dry ice for the race. the first handful of laps the charge temps would be around single figures obviously equalling more grunt, come the end of the race it just looked like some sort filter

[StevieBee]

MrQuick said:

There are seriously so many stories about the TWR cars. I think someone has covered this before but an ex-TWR volvo had a chipped windscreen, and the team decided to just go an buy a windscreen from the dealership. Funnily enough it didn't fit, found out that the whole car was exactly 7/8s scale.

Think this one's been proven wrong though.

Was privy to discussion on the subject some years back with a couple of auto blokes who pointed out that a) there was (and as far as I know) only small number of companies that make automotive glass so finding one willing to be complicit in the ruse would be unlikely, and b) the cost of tooling and manufacture to accommodate a very small run of glass would be been prohibitive.

This would also have applied to front and rear light clusters that would have looked odd but didn't.

[Chipchap]

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

[The Wookie]

VeeFour said:

I think Tim Harvey probably said it as a wind-up and it has subsequently become gospel.

Not according to what he said to me at an awards dinner earlier in the year, unless he was perpetuating the wind up!

[thechosenfamily]

kiteless said:

IIRC, the Chaparral 2J "fan car" had its downforce enhancing fans powered by a two-stroke snowmobile engine operating at all times. Following complaints from other Can-Am teams, a ruling was introduced whereby "no engines were permitted to be installed in a car that does not directly power the wheels".

Personally, I'd have outlawed the car on purely aesthetic grounds.

Wasn't there an F1 car that had downforce fans that were banned after the one season.

Sorry just seen the post about the Brabham.

Edited by thechosenfamily on Tuesday 5th July 12:26

[Chassis 33]

JR told me of one of the Tuscans in the old RV8 days of the series that had a straight line advantage over the other cars in the series, cant remember who's car but I could take a guess , spent the season trying to figure it out and eventually ended up lining all the cars up for a photoshoot only to find the fast car had a higher bonnet line...with a double skin underneath it creating a ram effect into the carbs at speed.

Oh, and then there's Audi in the 1992 DTM where the cranks had to be production items, when asked by the powers that be why they were using a flat plane crank as opposed to a cross plane, they replied (hopefully with a Michael Palin-esque smirk from the Dead Parrot Sketch) that is was a production crank, just un-twisted. Which in effect was true, they'd missed out a stage in the forging of a production crank. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4amaa6MpVY

Regards
Iain

Edited by Chassis 33 on Tuesday 5th July 13:13

[rev-erend]

Bespoke race cylinder heads lurking under a standard rocker cover .. can't say where as it's still being used