95 - 02 F1 Tech
Discussion
Bill Carr said:
Which cars were running tech that contravened the rules?
It depended entirely on the teams interpretation of those rules. So somewhere between none of them and most of them! There were strategies in place for start line performance etc. post TCS ban that could have been viewed as outside of the rules e.g. gear dependent crank acceleration limiting strategies.For the most part though the cars and teams were legal and had every intention of being legal... apart from a few occasions
Eric Mc said:
Do you have access to all the original engine management software?
We have what is essentially the electronics lab (HIL rig etc.) from a mid 2000's F1 team along with the legacy kit required to support most mid 90's onwards forms of MM STEP electronics. We also support some Cosworth and TAG stuff but generally due to the cars we work with it's MM for the most part. It should be noted that our mission is not to develop new strategies or systems but rather keep these pieces of history running in as close to their original GP spec as possible so our priorities and use of things like HIL etc. are primarily geared towards validation of correct operation rather than exciting new clutch control strategies etc. In the day the cars would have for all intense and purpose 200 people working on/with them at any one time. 10 years later we may have much better technology available but no where near the man power which means further development is generally not a priority or a need unless we need to replace components or subsystems due to obsolescence e.g. none availability of spec PWM driven hydraulic valves on mid 90's cars. Some Gump said:
If you drove an early 90's f1 car upside down in a tunnel with a conveyor belt in it, would it take off?
As it's wheel driven rather than relying on wheels as just a supporting structure with thrust for forward motion acting on the body I'm going with it'd fall off the ceiling. Even early 90's stuff at circa 650KG had sufficient aero to drive inverted though (sans conveyor belt anyway).....Eric Mc said:
I was thinking that you might be able to find buried in the code the final and definitive proof that Benneton were cheating in 1994 and 1995.
I've never understood why this was made such a big deal of. Benetton weren't the only team with TCS code still in the boxes but hashed out, if you've done a full software validation test you don't really want to have to start again especially if your code is relatively proven and a couple of seasons old. There was some code that was used in testing where LCS was allowed and used to provide data on the "perfect launch" the driver then had to learn to match this manually. The LCS code had been hashed out in the race software but with the right combination of dicking around you could get the menu to display on the laptop by scrolling all the way down past the actual menu options - this wasn't anything sinister just some laptop side code that hadn't been hashed out. You have to remember the software in these instances is written by two or three guys on tight timscales it is all buggy as hell and random bits of menus that do nothing or appear only in some areas of the software are common. Were they cheating, no I don't think so, could they have - yes but then every team had the ability to cheat if they wanted.
What the B194 "scandal" really did was made sure that all the software guys were under strict instructions that if something had a remove request made it was REMOVED not just hashed out to become none functional. Which lead to even bigger software teams and more cost.
The refueling rig tampering was dodgy as hell though
willthisnamework said:
Lots of pictures please. How advanced were the diffs of a F1 car of that era?
There are a few pictures I can post of components etc. but the cars are not for us to place in the public domain. That's the owners choice/discretion.
One of our JD engines freshly rebuilt and on the dyno for run in and test. We downspec these from back in the day to a 14,500RPM rev limit (from 16K+) at which they are still making well north of 600bhp. Life is IRO of 850KM with 1000KM available if 13K RPM is used but they're pretty close to done at that!
Replacement bag tank, the original was 14 years old and had seen better days! The original tank was used as a template to create a card template of the new tank which was test fitted before the final tank was produced.
European VJ engine trumpets. Note butterflies rather than barrels for better transient response.
The diffs in the late 90's were moving towards hydraulic actuation via a Moog to allow active control. The none active diffs are pretty simple and conventional. The 98 Minardi ran active in testing but passive in competition.
red_duke said:
Fascinating thread, thanks for offering your time to respond.
I'd like to know which of the cars you are responsible for are the most expensive to maintain and why?
None of them are expensive for what they are. In fact owning a working F1 car is in most cases a lot cheaper than buying and running a new supercar once depreciation etc. is taken into account. Most of the F1s have static values or are appreciating slowly.I'd like to know which of the cars you are responsible for are the most expensive to maintain and why?
Some maintenance is expensive for example the tanks need replacing every 5 - 7 years. Extinguishers every 5 years(and often they are carbon cased and built specifically to fit the tub). Wheels, uprights and wishbones need crack testing every year. Engine life is IRO 800KMs with the revs turned down, gearboxes need a check every 200KMs and a rebuild every 800KMs. Brakes are expensive but we have considerable ex F1 team stock so rarely have to buy new. Most other stuff has life IRO 2000KM. Many of these cars do exhibition and charity work so only cover 150 - 200KMs a year meaning year on year cost is pretty reasonable.
The cars were designed to be stripped quickly and for component changes to be fast and difficult to cock up so actual labour costs are fairly reasonable. It's around 500hrs for a decent level rebuild on a typical car which provides some idea of how easy they are to work on.
Gaz. said:
I don't have a technical question as such, but when & why did the cockpits change from having the steering wheel fully under the bodywork to exposed like today:
It's a function of the changes in driver packaging and tub height more than anything else. The more you can reduce the tub height the smaller the front area and the more 'slippy' the car is. Hence drivers now for all intense and purpose lying down in the cars. 
Also with the addition of power steering there is now less requirement for a large moment on the column meaning wheels can be physically smaller also aiding tub height.
Ozone said:
Are there any parts that are too expensive to replace?
For example a '98 Arrows CFRP gearbox case, or is it that you can get CF parts made cheaply these days.
Great thread by the way
The Minardi cast titanium boxes are the real bFor example a '98 Arrows CFRP gearbox case, or is it that you can get CF parts made cheaply these days.
Great thread by the way
ds to replace but we still have spares for these at the moment. They were rapid cast with the tooling produced via rapid prototyping in a full loss form so no tooling exisited once the casing was cast. Generally carbon work is pretty simple, even down to gearbox casings but only if you have one that can be copied e.g. direction of weave, thickness, resin etc. or engineering drawings. If the budget is there then realistically there is nothing we can't replicate.
Ozone said:
Have you come across anything that is a bit of an engineering revelation?
The cars are. That's no exageration, the number of people who worked on them and how the team developed year on year is clear to be seen in all the cars. Even things as simple as sensor mounts are a work of art and would only happen in this engineering enviroment due to the priorities differing so much from traditional race car or road car derived engineering.Markytop said:
With you working on different cars, do you see uniquely designed parts that appeared on one car (for example a Williams) that then appeared on a different team (eg Benneton)in a later iteration of their car?
Just wondering how much blatant copying goes off between teams? Obviously we all see Adrian Newey always walking up and down the grid at the start of race, but do things get picked up from such simple observations?
Generally the pace of change was so fast that one component which provided an advantage on one chassis would be so out of date the following year it would be better to have designed from scratch. There are some components such as hydraulic pumps, control valves etc. etc. which are common across nearly all the cars and were produced by one manufacturer so you see common installations between cars quite often, especially if they ran common engines.Just wondering how much blatant copying goes off between teams? Obviously we all see Adrian Newey always walking up and down the grid at the start of race, but do things get picked up from such simple observations?
Mid season upgrades were for the most part aero related so this is what Newey and the rest of the bunch go spotting for, specifically who is changing what where to give an idea of any issues they may be attempting to resolve. Current F1 teams are essentially running different cars race on race with guys at the factory working flat out between (and during!) races to maximise performance.
To suggest that any blatant copying goes on is really doing a disservice to the hundreds of dedicated guys that are responsible for designing and developing these cars. Yes there has been the odd scandal but honestly the chaps would rather compete than copy!
Eidolon said:
Have you looked after two cars from the same team from the same year, and if so did you see any differences? For example, Vettel has been light years ahead of Webber for the last couple of years and there is the suspicion that Vettel's car might have extra/different bits on it (something that was muttered during Schumacher's early career). Are team mate cars always exactly the same in your experience?
Yes we run a 98 and 2000 two car team. The cars are for the most part identical but were originally built and run by two different teams of engineers, as such there are always little differences in working practices etc. that you spot. Some like to mark fasteners differently, some will cable tie etc. in a certain way, there are quite often differences in loom and hose runs due to the engineers personal preference. They are surprisingly personal things when you get into them and a lot of the personality of who was number 1 on it back in the day comes over.In competition it is not unusual for two cars to run different setups/aero etc. to suit driver preference or if you have a "B" seat to test a component/take a flyer on something. The cars do generally remain pretty similar though.
Vaud said:
Many thanks for this posting, great insights.
Are there many engines that use very exotic materials - I'm thinking of the increased use of things like beryllium/boralyn in the later 00's - but was there much in the 95-02 era? Anything you have to be really careful with?
Not from our point of view as our engines are still built and supported by the same guys/companies that did them back in the day so we keep away from the internals - you really do need specialised kit to look after them so there is no point taking a flyer on anything! BC valve seats etc. became necessary due to Ti valves requiring the "compliance" in the seat to avoid work hardening etc. but for the most part they're pretty normal materials wise. Cast ally blocks and heads, most covers and pump castings are magnesium or carbon. Fluid transfer is usual carbon on the engine and carbon or mandrel bent ally on the car side. Are there many engines that use very exotic materials - I'm thinking of the increased use of things like beryllium/boralyn in the later 00's - but was there much in the 95-02 era? Anything you have to be really careful with?
Generally when they're static they're nice easy things to get along with, it's only when they're running that they try to kill you
Our new coffee tables/power for 2014 arrived this morning:
phil1979 said:
Great thread!
My question...
Have you worked on any cars which, at the time, were running far down the field, but in reality should have been doing a lot better? Or to put in another way, are there any cars that you have worked on and thought "This car looks ahead of the game compared to the others - why did it do so badly?"
Some of the Minardis - okay I'm biased but the M01 and M02 were brilliant cars, excellent packaging and truly nice designs but hampered with old Cosworth power and very little wind tunnel testing (they had days to the other teams weeks). The M02 with more aero development and a current or works engine package would have been extremely competitive. Without a doubt the most impressive cars we work with are the Minardis because we know just how little budget they had compared to everyone else and to achieve what they did with that is seriously impressive. Many teams had budget and designed a "bad" car, Minardi never had budget yet consistently designed a "good" car. Plus GC is genuinely a lovely guy - and you can't say that about many other TO's/TP's!My question...
Have you worked on any cars which, at the time, were running far down the field, but in reality should have been doing a lot better? Or to put in another way, are there any cars that you have worked on and thought "This car looks ahead of the game compared to the others - why did it do so badly?"
The BARs do leave you occasionally thinking 'should have done better' because elements of them were very clever indeed. The Toyotas are an interesting thing as well because they had budget, all the budget the could ever want, yet because they shunned established F1 suppliers to produce as much in house as possible essentially went through an awful lot of money whilst still being months behind everyone else who phoned Brembo for some calipers and AP/Sachs for a clutch
It's admirable to try that but sometimes you do just need to call the British people in an industrial unit because you may have more budget but they have 200 years of combined experience making "widget A"Having spent a day refurbishing hydraulics today I thought I'd pop something up regarding the amazingly complex and quite frankly BAD ASS use of hydraulics in F1.
Here's the complete hydraulics system from a car I've been working on today. It's in the box waiting to go back on the car having been cleaned, Moogs tested and a few other bits replaced/resealed/generally fettled:
At the top right of the photo is the hydraulic pump, this tiny bit of kit is produced by Parker Aerospace and is very similar to that fitted to various jet engines etc. blatting about above us all. We hate it when one fails as they're north of £15K quid and take months to arrive. Directly on the back of the pump is the accumulator/fluid resoirvoir - in an F1 where weight is the enemy we run tiny fluid capacities 300 - 500ml whereas in an aerospace application this may be 5L - 25L! As such heat management is a real issue which I'll come to in a bit.
At the bottom of the pump and accumulator assembly is a two way servo valve which provides hydraulic pressure directly from the accumulator to the clutch slave - this works as part of the neutral finder/recovery circuit and uses pressure stored in the system to disengage the clutch/find neutral if the marshalls need to move the car post off.
Connected to the accumulator/pump assembly by flexible hose is the valve block assembly. This contains two more two way servo valves and three Moog valves which in turn control the fuel cat flap actuator and hydraulic power to the power steering system. The three Moogs control the throttle, clutch and gearshift. All positional hydraulics i.e. throttle, clutch and gear actuator are Moog controlled. The valve block assembly also contains various pressure and temperature sensors used to monitor the system and provide compensation for system temperature or pressure drop off.
The gear actuators are a work of art and are essentially a small steering rack bolted to the front of the box which directly drives the barrel to the position of next/previous gear engagement. Closed loop control of barrel position is provided by a hall effect type pot connected to the front of the barrel which the ECU monitors to determine how far outside of ideal the barrel position is. The PID control is amazing to watch on the sim as the amount of error is tiny and the speed at which the system is capable of engaging a gear stunning (circa 20ms). The junction box is also visible to the right which acts as the connection interface between the sensors/actuators on the pump and valveblock assemblies to the rest of the car electrical system. In this box power, ground etc. is split out from single feed ins and allows a single AS connector to carry all the control and sensor signals to the car ECU.
Above is the front end of a 90's F1 gearbox showing the hydraulicaly driven barrel actuator (with the two hydraulic lines extending from it).
Earlier I discussed heat as in an aircraft of industrial application the hydraulic system can use the thermal mass of the fluid for cooling and with a large fluid capacity excess heat is rejected through the storage medium or line lengths. In an F1 you have fk all fluid capacity and extremely short line lengths to minimise response times at the actuator. This means cooling becomes a serious issue as you want the hydraulic systems to operate around 150 degrees - to this end an air/hydraulic oil heat exchanger is used. Here is one Docking have US cleaned and pressure tested for us:
This tiny rad is designed to operate at pressures inexcess of 200bar with end tanks that are actually machined from billet. The dry breaks are visible which are used to bleed the system or provide external hydraulic pressure to the system for actuation engine off. This rad sits in the rear of the airbox and uses excess air from the box for cooling. It is this alone which keeps the hydraulics operating when the car is on circuit performing hundreds of throttle, gear and PS actuations per lap.
In the earlier cars the hydraulics were generally mounted on the bell housing which eased access but in the later turn of the millenium cars where the oil tanks moved forward and boxes became more compact they migrated down to the side of the engine, usually as single or dual assemblies which bolted directly to the ancillary drives on the PTO side of the engine. Here's a bell housing mounted system which we rebuilt eariler this year:
One question many race car engineer people ask is why hydraulics when phneumatics are so common in rally, LMP, Sports car etc. The answer is power density. The whole hydraulics system above weighs less than 3KGs and can run all the actuation requirements on the entire car. In short it weighs less than the air compressor in most phenumatic systems. The downside of course is cost. The Moogs are £3500 each, pump £15,000 the valveblocks and actuators are all bespoke and the engineering time in them is terrifying. Even the dry breaks used on the clutch and barrel actuator to alow the box to be quickly removed without dropping fluids or requiring bleeding afterwards are £600 a pop! But then F1 priorities are very rarely dictated by cost!
What is hugely impressive is the reliability of these systems. We run the valves to 2000KM between refurb and 10,000KM replace, the pumps to 10,000KM replace etc. Essentially once built with the distance we run these are for life.
Most people think the engine is the heart of a race car. On an F1 its the hydraulics, nothing works without them!
Here's the complete hydraulics system from a car I've been working on today. It's in the box waiting to go back on the car having been cleaned, Moogs tested and a few other bits replaced/resealed/generally fettled:
At the top right of the photo is the hydraulic pump, this tiny bit of kit is produced by Parker Aerospace and is very similar to that fitted to various jet engines etc. blatting about above us all. We hate it when one fails as they're north of £15K quid and take months to arrive. Directly on the back of the pump is the accumulator/fluid resoirvoir - in an F1 where weight is the enemy we run tiny fluid capacities 300 - 500ml whereas in an aerospace application this may be 5L - 25L! As such heat management is a real issue which I'll come to in a bit.
At the bottom of the pump and accumulator assembly is a two way servo valve which provides hydraulic pressure directly from the accumulator to the clutch slave - this works as part of the neutral finder/recovery circuit and uses pressure stored in the system to disengage the clutch/find neutral if the marshalls need to move the car post off.
Connected to the accumulator/pump assembly by flexible hose is the valve block assembly. This contains two more two way servo valves and three Moog valves which in turn control the fuel cat flap actuator and hydraulic power to the power steering system. The three Moogs control the throttle, clutch and gearshift. All positional hydraulics i.e. throttle, clutch and gear actuator are Moog controlled. The valve block assembly also contains various pressure and temperature sensors used to monitor the system and provide compensation for system temperature or pressure drop off.
The gear actuators are a work of art and are essentially a small steering rack bolted to the front of the box which directly drives the barrel to the position of next/previous gear engagement. Closed loop control of barrel position is provided by a hall effect type pot connected to the front of the barrel which the ECU monitors to determine how far outside of ideal the barrel position is. The PID control is amazing to watch on the sim as the amount of error is tiny and the speed at which the system is capable of engaging a gear stunning (circa 20ms). The junction box is also visible to the right which acts as the connection interface between the sensors/actuators on the pump and valveblock assemblies to the rest of the car electrical system. In this box power, ground etc. is split out from single feed ins and allows a single AS connector to carry all the control and sensor signals to the car ECU.
Above is the front end of a 90's F1 gearbox showing the hydraulicaly driven barrel actuator (with the two hydraulic lines extending from it).
Earlier I discussed heat as in an aircraft of industrial application the hydraulic system can use the thermal mass of the fluid for cooling and with a large fluid capacity excess heat is rejected through the storage medium or line lengths. In an F1 you have f
k all fluid capacity and extremely short line lengths to minimise response times at the actuator. This means cooling becomes a serious issue as you want the hydraulic systems to operate around 150 degrees - to this end an air/hydraulic oil heat exchanger is used. Here is one Docking have US cleaned and pressure tested for us:
This tiny rad is designed to operate at pressures inexcess of 200bar with end tanks that are actually machined from billet. The dry breaks are visible which are used to bleed the system or provide external hydraulic pressure to the system for actuation engine off. This rad sits in the rear of the airbox and uses excess air from the box for cooling. It is this alone which keeps the hydraulics operating when the car is on circuit performing hundreds of throttle, gear and PS actuations per lap.
In the earlier cars the hydraulics were generally mounted on the bell housing which eased access but in the later turn of the millenium cars where the oil tanks moved forward and boxes became more compact they migrated down to the side of the engine, usually as single or dual assemblies which bolted directly to the ancillary drives on the PTO side of the engine. Here's a bell housing mounted system which we rebuilt eariler this year:
One question many race car engineer people ask is why hydraulics when phneumatics are so common in rally, LMP, Sports car etc. The answer is power density. The whole hydraulics system above weighs less than 3KGs and can run all the actuation requirements on the entire car. In short it weighs less than the air compressor in most phenumatic systems. The downside of course is cost. The Moogs are £3500 each, pump £15,000 the valveblocks and actuators are all bespoke and the engineering time in them is terrifying. Even the dry breaks used on the clutch and barrel actuator to alow the box to be quickly removed without dropping fluids or requiring bleeding afterwards are £600 a pop! But then F1 priorities are very rarely dictated by cost!
What is hugely impressive is the reliability of these systems. We run the valves to 2000KM between refurb and 10,000KM replace, the pumps to 10,000KM replace etc. Essentially once built with the distance we run these are for life.
Most people think the engine is the heart of a race car. On an F1 its the hydraulics, nothing works without them!
t1grm said:
Fascinating thread. Do you know this car and is it a good buy?
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C87241
I don't know it as it's a bit old for our era of F1 but the rule of thumb is that anything 80's with a Judd in it is going to be as cheap an F1 car as you'll ever find to run. At that age it will be ally tub, H Pattern etc. so a much easier thing to look after and drive than 95+ cars. http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C87241
You could realistically look after that in a double garage with a decent tool kit and a crack test kit
entropy said:
Can you spill the beans on traction control? Other than software, one of the known systems doing the rounds was via the fuel system.
Which era? It is all software though! I'd love to see some KERS harvesting data from the current cars and exactly where the throttle is when they're harvesting Gassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff