95 - 02 F1 Tech
Discussion
LaurasOtherHalf said:
Right, embarrassingly this is probably really simple but.......
When it rains, what stops the air box taking in water?
Nothing at all! Nearly all have the hydraulic coolers in the back of the airbox so it exits here over the top of the gearbox, the filters stop the bulk of it being inducted and the bit that gets through just drops the EGT a little When it rains, what stops the air box taking in water?
Is the Silverstone Classic in 2030 or whenever going to have lots of late 90s F1 cars run by privateers? I imagine it's night and day compared to running a 1970s DFV or Group C car.
Thanks very much for taking the time to do this.
If you have any contacts at the Donington Collection, please ask them to remove the bodies on their cars occasionally so we can see some of the technology involved.
Thanks very much for taking the time to do this.
If you have any contacts at the Donington Collection, please ask them to remove the bodies on their cars occasionally so we can see some of the technology involved.
nsa said:
Is the Silverstone Classic in 2030 or whenever going to have lots of late 90s F1 cars run by privateers? I imagine it's night and day compared to running a 1970s DFV or Group C car.
Thanks very much for taking the time to do this.
If you have any contacts at the Donington Collection, please ask them to remove the bodies on their cars occasionally so we can see some of the technology involved.
The only real similarities is that they're mid engined and have four wheels Thanks very much for taking the time to do this.
If you have any contacts at the Donington Collection, please ask them to remove the bodies on their cars occasionally so we can see some of the technology involved.
the amount of additional tech and know how required to run a later car is huge! I don't know about Silverstone classic but you can see the cars of our era racing in BOSS (http://www.bossgp.com/) it's a magnificent sight and well worth getting to a race, multiple years of F1s tweaked and fettled competing against each other, screaming V10s, sparks off gearboxes etc. etc. basically like good F1 was in the day!Might be off topic to the general engineering of the cars themselves..
Is it possible to get hold of the original spec tyres made by the manufacturers of the day (goodyear,bridgestone etc)
Or do you have to make do with the most suitable compromise.. say avons?
I saw the Ferrari Corse Clienti were running 2000s cars on Pirelli slicks.
Is it possible to get hold of the original spec tyres made by the manufacturers of the day (goodyear,bridgestone etc)
Or do you have to make do with the most suitable compromise.. say avons?
I saw the Ferrari Corse Clienti were running 2000s cars on Pirelli slicks.
What a fantastic thread! Thanks so much for taking the time to post the pictures and details.
I have a question;
When one acquires one of these gems how much do you get in terms of technical documentation? I imagine it is considerably more than a driver's handbook and a Haynes manual.
Also what level of detail does the documentation go into and is it regularly updated to reflect small changes in design on the car?
(Can I please have a copy for some bed time reading?)
I have a question;
When one acquires one of these gems how much do you get in terms of technical documentation? I imagine it is considerably more than a driver's handbook and a Haynes manual.
Also what level of detail does the documentation go into and is it regularly updated to reflect small changes in design on the car?
(Can I please have a copy for some bed time reading?)
Streps said:
Might be off topic to the general engineering of the cars themselves..
Is it possible to get hold of the original spec tyres made by the manufacturers of the day (goodyear,bridgestone etc)
Or do you have to make do with the most suitable compromise.. say avons?
I saw the Ferrari Corse Clienti were running 2000s cars on Pirelli slicks.
Generally no it's not possible, the tyres were so specialist the manufacturers can't keep lines in operation just to supply us lot. We run a combination of suppliers who work best for the specific chassis, Avon are one and Bridgestone with their FN tyre is close enough to spec for a lot of our needs - as many of ours cars were Bridgestone originally this even keeps the name on the sidewall right.Is it possible to get hold of the original spec tyres made by the manufacturers of the day (goodyear,bridgestone etc)
Or do you have to make do with the most suitable compromise.. say avons?
I saw the Ferrari Corse Clienti were running 2000s cars on Pirelli slicks.
Corse Clienti is a wonderful operation that really does show how an F1 team can maintain it's history, however it's not a profit making operation even at the costs involved to the customer so the smaller teams are can't be expected to do it.
TheExcession said:
What a fantastic thread! Thanks so much for taking the time to post the pictures and details.
I have a question;
When one acquires one of these gems how much do you get in terms of technical documentation? I imagine it is considerably more than a driver's handbook and a Haynes manual.
Also what level of detail does the documentation go into and is it regularly updated to reflect small changes in design on the car?
(Can I please have a copy for some bed time reading?)
We generally get nothing, like absolutely nothing. To get a complete car we consider a win and that has only happened once in half a decade! The cars leave the teams after doing duty as PR/Show car and various other roles and hardly ever (if at all) leave with an engine, electronics, gearbox etc. This is why you need a very special orgainsation and a very special set of people and it's the main reason why so few companies in the world are able to support privately owned F1s in their original GP spec. We have one of the best and most extensive privately owned technical archives in the world and some really smart, commited people with exceptional backgrounds and even we can spend weeks identifying exactly what spec a missing component is and if it's still sourceable. I have a question;
When one acquires one of these gems how much do you get in terms of technical documentation? I imagine it is considerably more than a driver's handbook and a Haynes manual.
Also what level of detail does the documentation go into and is it regularly updated to reflect small changes in design on the car?
(Can I please have a copy for some bed time reading?)
There are some exceptions, Ferraris customer program (as above) will 100% support the cars including parts but there is no opportunity to race the cars in this program. Some F1 teams will sell a complete car with the required support gear and in some cases even specific brews of software and IT kit to allow basic maintanence and running but generally speaking if you buy an F1 you're on your own, especially if it's V10 era from a smaller team. One needs to remember that some of these cars are 10 - 15 years old and the teams that built them no longer exist, or don't exist in the same form anymore.
It's a huge challenge as orignally there was north of 200 people comitted to these cars working at the weekend. Rebuilding an F1 from the state we usually get them is as much a reverse engineering process as it is a build process and it takes many weeks of studying photos, speaking to guys who worked with it at the time and trawling archives for videos, press releases etc. to piece together exactly what it had.
The running joke is we could build a current F1 car but it's much more of a challenge getting our old ones to work
So I did a bit of a run down on hydraulics earlier but this afternoon I thought we better look at some suspension related bits as I was working on this yesterday. Specifically wishbones. Now that might sound a bit of a easy topic as it's just a triangle between the tub and upright... right? Well no not really as with all things F1 it's never that simple.
The earlier cars, up to the late 90's ran aero profiled steel wishbones with a fairly conventional spherical type joint at each corner. Various teams experiemented with carbon wrapping and other forms of aero/stiffness enhancement on the wishones but for the most part it was all fairly convenstional stuff.
The 2000 cars stepped the game up a bit though and I LOVE what they came up with. Chapmans "simplify and add lightness" has never been more apt and it's a wonderful setup that when you look at it brings home how simple, light and effective you can make some components with a bit of thought:
Spot what I mean.... where's the inner joint to allow compliance in the wishone? Short answer there isn't one! The later wishbones rely on an amount of designed compliance in the inner wishbone to tub mounting to provide the flex in the wishbone required for sufficent wheel travel, these are commonly termed flexures. To simply that a specific bit of the wishbone is bendy in one direction It sounds mental but actually works exceptionally well. The wishbones of this era where a machined Ti structure with a bonded carbon wrap to provide the aero profile and stiffness enhancement. On the upright end is a conventional spherical bearing mount that carries a plate attached to the upright but on the tub end the Ti ends of the wishbone are machined with a specific shape and to a specific thickness to allow deflection in the verticle plane. The amount of deflection only has to be small because due to the nature of anything with length a small amount of movement at one end = a large amount of movement at the other.
This very neat system does away with a lot of bulk and mass i.e. there is no longer a requiremente to have spherical bearing carriers or the fasteners for such at the end of each wishbone. The wishboned to tub fastener count drops to two or four depending on the design of the wishbone and any damage to a wishbone means it can be quickly swapped.
Obviously we need to be pretty careful with these as Ti work hardens so the flexures are crack tested after every time the car is used. We know back in the day they would have a new set of wishbones ever other race but also that in testing they have run nearly 3000KM on them without an issue so with our useage we should be fine for a long time to come.
What is interesting is the impact this has on the suspension design as each flexure has an amount of spring rate (albeit very small), it is not a zero friction or energy store free part of the suspension so as such the "rate" of each flexure needed to be taken into account with regards the spring rate of the torsion bar when calculating or simulating suspension spring rates.
Clever hey
The earlier cars, up to the late 90's ran aero profiled steel wishbones with a fairly conventional spherical type joint at each corner. Various teams experiemented with carbon wrapping and other forms of aero/stiffness enhancement on the wishones but for the most part it was all fairly convenstional stuff.
The 2000 cars stepped the game up a bit though and I LOVE what they came up with. Chapmans "simplify and add lightness" has never been more apt and it's a wonderful setup that when you look at it brings home how simple, light and effective you can make some components with a bit of thought:
Spot what I mean.... where's the inner joint to allow compliance in the wishone? Short answer there isn't one! The later wishbones rely on an amount of designed compliance in the inner wishbone to tub mounting to provide the flex in the wishbone required for sufficent wheel travel, these are commonly termed flexures. To simply that a specific bit of the wishbone is bendy in one direction
It sounds mental but actually works exceptionally well. The wishbones of this era where a machined Ti structure with a bonded carbon wrap to provide the aero profile and stiffness enhancement. On the upright end is a conventional spherical bearing mount that carries a plate attached to the upright but on the tub end the Ti ends of the wishbone are machined with a specific shape and to a specific thickness to allow deflection in the verticle plane. The amount of deflection only has to be small because due to the nature of anything with length a small amount of movement at one end = a large amount of movement at the other. This very neat system does away with a lot of bulk and mass i.e. there is no longer a requiremente to have spherical bearing carriers or the fasteners for such at the end of each wishbone. The wishboned to tub fastener count drops to two or four depending on the design of the wishbone and any damage to a wishbone means it can be quickly swapped.
Obviously we need to be pretty careful with these as Ti work hardens so the flexures are crack tested after every time the car is used. We know back in the day they would have a new set of wishbones ever other race but also that in testing they have run nearly 3000KM on them without an issue so with our useage we should be fine for a long time to come.
What is interesting is the impact this has on the suspension design as each flexure has an amount of spring rate (albeit very small), it is not a zero friction or energy store free part of the suspension so as such the "rate" of each flexure needed to be taken into account with regards the spring rate of the torsion bar when calculating or simulating suspension spring rates.
Clever hey
rhysenna said:
Is that joint more likely to cause damage to the tub than a conventional spherical joint in an accident? Also, are there any cars that you are hoping to work on in the future to see what clever engineering they have on them? Great thread, thanks.
Not really, the loads involved and support of them means the wishbone itself, usually at the upright end is the weakest link by far. It'll bend/break before the tub sees anything like enough load to damage it.We're happy to take anything on that falls in our age range and is of interest to us. We've covered most things over the past years but it's always intersting to see anything new. I'd quite like to do an SA05 and see how much Arrows was left in it really.
nsa said:
Will your company have a stand at Autosport?
For us mere mortals; if you like this, the Haynes Red Bull RB6 Owners Manual is an eye opener. There's a lot more in it than I expected. I'm getting the Lotus 72 book next.
No we won't I'm afraid. There wouldn't be much point in us doing it as we're a very niche company with very niche customers. Private F1 is a very small village so those that we are useful to find us pretty quickly. Doing Autosport etc. would only be us showing off/ego boosting and we don't really go in for that For us mere mortals; if you like this, the Haynes Red Bull RB6 Owners Manual is an eye opener. There's a lot more in it than I expected. I'm getting the Lotus 72 book next.
We do some OEM engineering for low volume vehicle manufacturers which I suppose would justify it but again those that need us have found us already LOLSlightly off topic but there seems to be a knowledgable crowd here.
I was given these a few years ago and they are said to be from a Honda F1 car... never having seen any internals I am grateful for them from a pure "nice piece of engineering" perspective but curious as to if they are of F1 use.
They came in box with no team markings, just "2.5 degree", "Ratio 17/19", Life No L60 and KMs with a green sticker next to it.
I was given these a few years ago and they are said to be from a Honda F1 car... never having seen any internals I am grateful for them from a pure "nice piece of engineering" perspective but curious as to if they are of F1 use.
They came in box with no team markings, just "2.5 degree", "Ratio 17/19", Life No L60 and KMs with a green sticker next to it.
Vaud said:
Slightly off topic but there seems to be a knowledgable crowd here.
I was given these a few years ago and they are said to be from a Honda F1 car... never having seen any internals I am grateful for them from a pure "nice piece of engineering" perspective but curious as to if they are of F1 use.
They came in box with no team markings, just "2.5 degree", "Ratio 17/19", Life No L60 and KMs with a green sticker next to it.
They are a gear ratio, primary and secondary pair manufactured by Xtrac most likely. Depends on what drop gears are fitted but 17/19 is likely to be near the top of the box. L60 will be an internal reference to the lifing from new of the component. KMs is KMs run on that component. The 17/19 refers to the number of teeth, 17 on one and 19 on the other to give a calculated ratio of 0.8947 i.e the speed of one shaft with the gear attached is 0.8947 times the speed of the other shaft with the gear attached. I was given these a few years ago and they are said to be from a Honda F1 car... never having seen any internals I am grateful for them from a pure "nice piece of engineering" perspective but curious as to if they are of F1 use.
They came in box with no team markings, just "2.5 degree", "Ratio 17/19", Life No L60 and KMs with a green sticker next to it.
Hope that's of interest.
poppopbangbang said:
Any requests on what bits you'd like to see/discuss next? I'm in work until the end of the week and we have two cars in component form at the moment so plenty to see. Uprights are always nice as they're a very intricate casting?
Any shots of dampers/springs/torsion bars/third dampers/etc?Vaud said:
Slightly off topic but there seems to be a knowledgable crowd here.
I was given these a few years ago and they are said to be from a Honda F1 car... never having seen any internals I am grateful for them from a pure "nice piece of engineering" perspective but curious as to if they are of F1 use.
They came in box with no team markings, just "2.5 degree", "Ratio 17/19", Life No L60 and KMs with a green sticker next to it.
I regonise the part numbering system, the gear set you have are from a 2001 BAR003 F1 carI was given these a few years ago and they are said to be from a Honda F1 car... never having seen any internals I am grateful for them from a pure "nice piece of engineering" perspective but curious as to if they are of F1 use.
They came in box with no team markings, just "2.5 degree", "Ratio 17/19", Life No L60 and KMs with a green sticker next to it.
As mentioned the L60 denotes a unique 'lifing no' to keep track of how many KM's each part has covered.
The mileage of various high stressed parts are recorded so that they can be inspected, serviced and replaced before failure. Sometimes a part won't reach the designed mileage which is not such an issue as this can be managed by limiting the mileage.
Very informative thread,even though I was there from 97 on I'm learning too, OP thanks for posting.
Edited by marine boy on Tuesday 17th December 20:33
Gassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff