Tuesday 8th November 2011

Lotus To Help Equalise BTCC Engines

Boys from Hethel brought in to help find a base boost line for NGTC motors

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The senior management of Lotus Cars might give every impression that they are as mad as bats, but it seems that Lotus Engineering is still plugging quietly away, fiddling about (in a good way) with all things automotive.

Its latest gig is to make sure that the British Touring Car Championship's new generation of turbocharged engines have a roughly even baseline boost pressure for the 2012 season.

Lotus's job will be to conduct an independent engine flow-test programme of all the new 2.0-litre turbo engines built to NGTC spec and report their findings to the BTCC's Engine Technical Review Panel.

BTCC boss Alan Gow is keen to point out that the test is not intended to create absolute parity between the turbo engines, but merely to broadly level the playing field.

"The purpose of this programme is not to make every race engine perform in exactly the same way," he says. "It's only right that the best engineering, the best design, the best teams and, of course, the best drivers still see their efforts related to their on-track performances.

"The test programme is simply to reduce any wide performance variances resulting from significant differences in the fundamental port/valve designs of the original production engines. It will identify and quantify those that produce superior airflow through the cylinder head and those that don't, in order that their baseline turbo boost pressure is set accordingly."

The BTCC's statement also revealed that the championship won't rule out further tweaks to the rules to help keep the performances of the turbocharged and non-turbo S2000-spec cars on a roughly equal footing.

[jp-speed-triple]

All that for glorified bumper cars.

[GrahamFarthing]

Sounds like Plato's been taking Alan out for dinner...

[Kong]

This is good news. Last season was a joke, the NGTC cars left the S2000 cars for dead on every straight - no competition at all.

Right at the end of the season they changed the restrictions so the S2000 cars were faster, much to the annoyance of Matt Neal (who seemed to forget his car had the huge advantage for most of the season beforehand?!).

Hopefully this will lead to closer racing.

[CocoUK]

Kong said:

Hopefully this will lead to closer racing.

Cripes, how close do you want them to get

Mind you, Neal & Plato didn't actually touch... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFklQNKt2Kw&fea...

Oh yeah, good news Lotus!

[andrewmorpeth]

Bumper cars?Its still one of the best four wheel motorsports out there!Grand prix!If you want to watch people going round in a circle go to youre nearest roundabout and then off to kwikfit to watch people swapping tyres!Btcc was great,again, this season.Yes the racing could have been closer.There was nothing stopping chevrolet using the new generation?? turbo engine??Plato gets knocked by everyone but without his enthusiasm it would be the matt neal touring car championship!

[Frimley111R]

[quote=CocoUK]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFklQNKt2Kw&fea...
quote]

Blimey, no love lost there! Didn't know they got so heated!!!

[Johnspex]

Why does Plato get knocked by everyone?

[Merp]

Frimley111R]ocoUK said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFklQNKt2Kw&fea...
quote]

Blimey, no love lost there! Didn't know they got so heated!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXBvSgqseL0&feature=related

This is better!

[Beefmeister]

Johnspex said:

Why does Plato get knocked by everyone?

It's the other way round isn't it?

[Caractacus]

Good news

Well, it will be good news if it stops the bleating idiot and his gripes about a lack of parity...after all, all the turbo cars wiped the floor with everyone else from the start of the season, no?

[CTE]

I do not understand why there should be parity...obviously there must be regulation to limit the degree of modification (for cost reasons) and agreed that the closer the performance the more entertaining the racing, but surely the best of the best should prevail. If you restrict the development you might aswell give everyone the same car (which would be entertaining) etc. How do you make progress?

[Allyc85]

I dont see the problem with this myself, engine equality tests and restrictors dont seem to be a problem on here with GT/le mans racing...

[MG CHRIS]

This is to only regulate the turbo engines nothing has been said about parity between turbo and n/a which could idicate nobody would run n/a cars next year. For people who say why shouldn't they let them do what they like is that we will end up like the end of the 90s with only manafactures could afford to run cars that is what we don't need. The rules are there to try to cut spending for teams and get new teams into the btcc it has already done that, RAR, dyno-jet, speedworks, welch motorsport, thorney and so on wouldn't be on the grid without the new rules.

Anyway must be a slow news day for pH this was issued last week.

[PabloTeK]

andrewmorpeth said:

Bumper cars?

Yes, I've seen short track races with less wrecking!

[AlexKing]

Bah, it's all been rubbish since the mid 90s. Don't remember them fannying about with turbos and all that nonsense then - just 2.0 normally aspirated engines with about 300bhp, and there were a dozen different manufacturer-supported teams. Nowadays it's just Neal vs Plato every year with pantomime whinging and incomprehensible ballast systems, grid orders and multiple mid-season goalpost moving. It feels like WWF wrestling with cars - plenty of action and fun for the knuckle draggers, but little in the way of pure unsullied racing. </inmydaygrumblegrumble>

[Welshbeef]

andrewmorpeth said:

Bumper cars?Its still one of the best four wheel motorsports out there!Grand prix!If you want to watch people going round in a circle go to youre nearest roundabout and then off to kwikfit to watch people swapping tyres!Btcc was great,again, this season.Yes the racing could have been closer.There was nothing stopping chevrolet using the new generation?? turbo engine??Plato gets knocked by everyone but without his enthusiasm it would be the matt neal touring car championship!

Ahem may I introduce you to Ozzie V8 racing.
Fast
Competitive
Big field
Amazing tracks
Long races plus sprint races
Their noise
The punters who watch have cars they would aspire to owning vs BTCC most already do and they are mundane. I mean a chevy Cruise wtf Honda civic yuck

[MG CHRIS]

AlexKing said:

Bah, it's all been rubbish since the mid 90s. Don't remember them fannying about with turbos and all that nonsense then - just 2.0 normally aspirated engines with about 300bhp, and there were a dozen different manufacturer-supported teams. Nowadays it's just Neal vs Plato every year with pantomime whinging and incomprehensible ballast systems, grid orders and multiple mid-season goalpost moving. It feels like WWF wrestling with cars - plenty of action and fun for the knuckle draggers, but little in the way of pure unsullied racing. </inmydaygrumblegrumble>

WTF are you on about. The 90s destroyed touring car racing it was good before alfa turned up but after that say 97-98 season the money invlovde to race them was stupid thats why 2 years later there were only 3 teams left and a year latter btc spec introduced. This is why there is rules to equalise to a certain extend the engines of the turbos and some standared parts being used to stop the cost sky rocketing. Look around use we are in a recesion teams cant afford to spend millions going racing, manafactures are not intrested in racing now and for its just neal vs plato if you acctually watch the racing is a lot more than neal and plato.

What i don't understand is that if i don't watch/like something i don't comment on it, so why do people post of topics about things they don't lke/watch.

[Welshbeef]

Why not just race the actual road going versions with safety equipment.

GTI v VXR v Renault sport etc.
Dead cheap and highly relevant to buyers

[MG CHRIS]

Theres already such a series dunlop sport max cup its st. A field full of 12 car most are vxrs. It will not work in the btcc it is meant to be the top race series in the uk and for it to run around with road going cars with safety equipment it doesn't look good does it.

[PabloTeK]

MG CHRIS said:

Theres already such a series dunlop sport max cup its st. A field full of 12 car most are vxrs. It will not work in the btcc it is meant to be the top race series in the uk and for it to run around with road going cars with safety equipment it doesn't look good does it.

Oh I dunno, it could mean we end up with some pretty awesome machinery on the road, par exemple the Americans when they tried it...