Mansell's FW14B 'Red Five' to be auctioned
Discussion
JoeDix said:
Ok Shibby, let me see what I can do:
Does it run?
Indeed, see my video link / YouTube for further evidence.
What sort of power does it have? Tuned down?
We didn't actually need to run the chassis on a dyno in the end. I did look to get it run, but came up against various limitations in terms of liability insurance combined with a lack of experience in physically strapping it down with any level of confidence. In the end we decided it wasn't worth the risk.
I'd need to go and look the figures up to be completely accurate, but from memory the original engine ran to something like a 22,000 rpm limit. In this instance, we had to make some decisions that balanced the originality with reliability - obviously in the cars heyday a great deal of the powertrain would have been considered somewhat disposable. We started out with an 18,000 rpm limit and I think this may have increased towards 20,000 rpm for Karun. The bhp figure in the article of around 700 would be accurate.
Part of the reason for slowing the engine is mentioned above and the other is in ensuring the safety of the gear shift - there's a lot of potential for damage in shifting at competition timings, made worse with "inexperienced" drivers.
What did the private owner do with it?
I can't comment on this.
How difficult would it be to take this to track - would the owner need a whole team of mechanics just to get it started?
Yes and no. Part of the work was to ensure that the car was as original as possible, whilst ensuring that we maintained more modern reliability and usability characteristics. In the video I posted you can see how we start the car after the fluids have been warmed with an external heater, the engine can be cranked and you will notice it is cranked for quite a long time - this is so we can monitor the engine parameters on the laptop and establish positive oil pressure. Once this is confirmed we essentially modify the engine map to enable fuel and spark. You can see this is done with a single key press. If you don't do this you could very easily write off the engine.
To answer your question more concisely: yes you need a whole team of mechanics, but now that team only needs 3 people rather than the original 20.
What do most owners of these cars do with them?
Sadly, most owners would store them as appreciating investments / art pieces. Although a reasonable number of them race the cars either on "rich people" track days or compete in things like Boss GP. Weirdly, the owners themselves are sometimes unable to get adequate amendments to their life insurance policies - they are factually too rich to race!
If the owner broke a wing, or bent an engine. How difficult would it be to repair?
I understand your question but it's obviously dependent on what they damage. If you stuff the whole car into the barrier at speed then you're not going to have much left to salvage. Things like engines and gearboxes can be reconditioned and refurbished, but that's more of preventative maintenance rather than repair. You're in a new ballpark for what people would consider 'economical' so a specialist of any kind can be brought in to repair something original rather than replace it.
There is a famous story that I can't remember the details for (which makes it less interesting), I think it was when the race winning Porsche 917 was brought to Goodwood with it's race winning rubber and dirt still intact. Some idiot spectator wrote his name in the dirt, so Porsche sort out an expert in restorative spray painting to paint the dirt back on! The point is, money is no object in the pursuit of perfection.
General servicing?
Just refer to the Haynes Manual..... joke! There is no such thing as general servicing. All of the data is analysed after each run, any consumables are replaced and the mantra of preventative maintenance is practised. It also depends on what's happening to the car next - you might want to schedule an engine rebuild earlier than necessary if you know the car won't be used for the rest of the year.
Tyres?
Again, it really does depend on where it's running and who is driving it. Most amateur drivers would need to run the wet tyres in the dry in order to get any temperature in them at all - and these amateur drivers are not the kind of people you want to be partly responsible for falling off the track!
Exhibition laps it doesn't really matter too much, but there are plenty of compounds around for whatever you need. There is a reasonable amount of business for historic cars. It mainly comes down to the anticipated corner speeds, power output, track temp and stint length.
Your rpm figures are miles out, but the easiest way of turning an engine down is to rev limit it. They were using extremely dangerous fuel in 1992 also, so much so several people died handling it. Power output in 92 was quoted as 750 bhp@ 13000 rpm. Available data for the ultimate iteration of the 3.5l engine in 1994 according to Renaults website is 790bhp at 14300rpm.Does it run?
Indeed, see my video link / YouTube for further evidence.
What sort of power does it have? Tuned down?
We didn't actually need to run the chassis on a dyno in the end. I did look to get it run, but came up against various limitations in terms of liability insurance combined with a lack of experience in physically strapping it down with any level of confidence. In the end we decided it wasn't worth the risk.
I'd need to go and look the figures up to be completely accurate, but from memory the original engine ran to something like a 22,000 rpm limit. In this instance, we had to make some decisions that balanced the originality with reliability - obviously in the cars heyday a great deal of the powertrain would have been considered somewhat disposable. We started out with an 18,000 rpm limit and I think this may have increased towards 20,000 rpm for Karun. The bhp figure in the article of around 700 would be accurate.
Part of the reason for slowing the engine is mentioned above and the other is in ensuring the safety of the gear shift - there's a lot of potential for damage in shifting at competition timings, made worse with "inexperienced" drivers.
What did the private owner do with it?
I can't comment on this.
How difficult would it be to take this to track - would the owner need a whole team of mechanics just to get it started?
Yes and no. Part of the work was to ensure that the car was as original as possible, whilst ensuring that we maintained more modern reliability and usability characteristics. In the video I posted you can see how we start the car after the fluids have been warmed with an external heater, the engine can be cranked and you will notice it is cranked for quite a long time - this is so we can monitor the engine parameters on the laptop and establish positive oil pressure. Once this is confirmed we essentially modify the engine map to enable fuel and spark. You can see this is done with a single key press. If you don't do this you could very easily write off the engine.
To answer your question more concisely: yes you need a whole team of mechanics, but now that team only needs 3 people rather than the original 20.
What do most owners of these cars do with them?
Sadly, most owners would store them as appreciating investments / art pieces. Although a reasonable number of them race the cars either on "rich people" track days or compete in things like Boss GP. Weirdly, the owners themselves are sometimes unable to get adequate amendments to their life insurance policies - they are factually too rich to race!
If the owner broke a wing, or bent an engine. How difficult would it be to repair?
I understand your question but it's obviously dependent on what they damage. If you stuff the whole car into the barrier at speed then you're not going to have much left to salvage. Things like engines and gearboxes can be reconditioned and refurbished, but that's more of preventative maintenance rather than repair. You're in a new ballpark for what people would consider 'economical' so a specialist of any kind can be brought in to repair something original rather than replace it.
There is a famous story that I can't remember the details for (which makes it less interesting), I think it was when the race winning Porsche 917 was brought to Goodwood with it's race winning rubber and dirt still intact. Some idiot spectator wrote his name in the dirt, so Porsche sort out an expert in restorative spray painting to paint the dirt back on! The point is, money is no object in the pursuit of perfection.
General servicing?
Just refer to the Haynes Manual..... joke! There is no such thing as general servicing. All of the data is analysed after each run, any consumables are replaced and the mantra of preventative maintenance is practised. It also depends on what's happening to the car next - you might want to schedule an engine rebuild earlier than necessary if you know the car won't be used for the rest of the year.
Tyres?
Again, it really does depend on where it's running and who is driving it. Most amateur drivers would need to run the wet tyres in the dry in order to get any temperature in them at all - and these amateur drivers are not the kind of people you want to be partly responsible for falling off the track!
Exhibition laps it doesn't really matter too much, but there are plenty of compounds around for whatever you need. There is a reasonable amount of business for historic cars. It mainly comes down to the anticipated corner speeds, power output, track temp and stint length.
Personally seeing this car farting and spluttering at goodwood and silverstone is an insult to the team who designed it. Like seeing a race horse trotting around. Either run a programme with original spec engines or use the car as a giant paperweight and stick it in a museum. It can't be that hard with today's resources, I'm sure Renault could build a few crate engines, given its now ancient tech. If these cars could do a full race distance back then, a few demo laps at full chat wouldn't be beyond them.
JoeDix said:
I recently went to assess a Jaguar R5 which was described as being in complete condition.... which it was, as a result of a number of Jaguar R4 bits (including the steering wheel!).
The R4 steering wheel was run on MAWs R5s for the first few times until the R5 wheel was redesigned to provide a bit more clearance between tub and wheel rim, so that could have technically been correct depending on which chassis it was. There was quite a bit of R4 in R5, I've probably still got a carry over list somewhere if you need it....LotusOmega375D said:
To those in the know, the FW14B was the apogee of F1 technology and dominated the season. Someone will be very lucky. It may not sell for as much as many think, since it's not Ferrari red or ex-Senna!
Until the following years FW15C, Prost won the title with relative ease (well except for the European GP at Donnington), and it made Senna initially offer his services for '94 to Williams for free.JoeDix said:
Ok Shibby, let me see what I can do:
Does it run?
Indeed, see my video link / YouTube for further evidence.
What sort of power does it have? Tuned down?
We didn't actually need to run the chassis on a dyno in the end. I did look to get it run, but came up against various limitations in terms of liability insurance combined with a lack of experience in physically strapping it down with any level of confidence. In the end we decided it wasn't worth the risk.
I'd need to go and look the figures up to be completely accurate, but from memory the original engine ran to something like a 22,000 rpm limit. In this instance, we had to make some decisions that balanced the originality with reliability - obviously in the cars heyday a great deal of the powertrain would have been considered somewhat disposable. We started out with an 18,000 rpm limit and I think this may have increased towards 20,000 rpm for Karun. The bhp figure in the article of around 700 would be accurate.
Part of the reason for slowing the engine is mentioned above and the other is in ensuring the safety of the gear shift - there's a lot of potential for damage in shifting at competition timings, made worse with "inexperienced" drivers.
What did the private owner do with it?
I can't comment on this.
How difficult would it be to take this to track - would the owner need a whole team of mechanics just to get it started?
Yes and no. Part of the work was to ensure that the car was as original as possible, whilst ensuring that we maintained more modern reliability and usability characteristics. In the video I posted you can see how we start the car after the fluids have been warmed with an external heater, the engine can be cranked and you will notice it is cranked for quite a long time - this is so we can monitor the engine parameters on the laptop and establish positive oil pressure. Once this is confirmed we essentially modify the engine map to enable fuel and spark. You can see this is done with a single key press. If you don't do this you could very easily write off the engine.
To answer your question more concisely: yes you need a whole team of mechanics, but now that team only needs 3 people rather than the original 20.
What do most owners of these cars do with them?
Sadly, most owners would store them as appreciating investments / art pieces. Although a reasonable number of them race the cars either on "rich people" track days or compete in things like Boss GP. Weirdly, the owners themselves are sometimes unable to get adequate amendments to their life insurance policies - they are factually too rich to race!
If the owner broke a wing, or bent an engine. How difficult would it be to repair?
I understand your question but it's obviously dependent on what they damage. If you stuff the whole car into the barrier at speed then you're not going to have much left to salvage. Things like engines and gearboxes can be reconditioned and refurbished, but that's more of preventative maintenance rather than repair. You're in a new ballpark for what people would consider 'economical' so a specialist of any kind can be brought in to repair something original rather than replace it.
There is a famous story that I can't remember the details for (which makes it less interesting), I think it was when the race winning Porsche 917 was brought to Goodwood with it's race winning rubber and dirt still intact. Some idiot spectator wrote his name in the dirt, so Porsche sort out an expert in restorative spray painting to paint the dirt back on! The point is, money is no object in the pursuit of perfection.
General servicing?
Just refer to the Haynes Manual..... joke! There is no such thing as general servicing. All of the data is analysed after each run, any consumables are replaced and the mantra of preventative maintenance is practised. It also depends on what's happening to the car next - you might want to schedule an engine rebuild earlier than necessary if you know the car won't be used for the rest of the year.
Tyres?
Again, it really does depend on where it's running and who is driving it. Most amateur drivers would need to run the wet tyres in the dry in order to get any temperature in them at all - and these amateur drivers are not the kind of people you want to be partly responsible for falling off the track!
Exhibition laps it doesn't really matter too much, but there are plenty of compounds around for whatever you need. There is a reasonable amount of business for historic cars. It mainly comes down to the anticipated corner speeds, power output, track temp and stint length.
Are you in that video as all I can see are Dickie Stamford and Steve Salmon firing up the car. I used to work at Williams with these guysDoes it run?
Indeed, see my video link / YouTube for further evidence.
What sort of power does it have? Tuned down?
We didn't actually need to run the chassis on a dyno in the end. I did look to get it run, but came up against various limitations in terms of liability insurance combined with a lack of experience in physically strapping it down with any level of confidence. In the end we decided it wasn't worth the risk.
I'd need to go and look the figures up to be completely accurate, but from memory the original engine ran to something like a 22,000 rpm limit. In this instance, we had to make some decisions that balanced the originality with reliability - obviously in the cars heyday a great deal of the powertrain would have been considered somewhat disposable. We started out with an 18,000 rpm limit and I think this may have increased towards 20,000 rpm for Karun. The bhp figure in the article of around 700 would be accurate.
Part of the reason for slowing the engine is mentioned above and the other is in ensuring the safety of the gear shift - there's a lot of potential for damage in shifting at competition timings, made worse with "inexperienced" drivers.
What did the private owner do with it?
I can't comment on this.
How difficult would it be to take this to track - would the owner need a whole team of mechanics just to get it started?
Yes and no. Part of the work was to ensure that the car was as original as possible, whilst ensuring that we maintained more modern reliability and usability characteristics. In the video I posted you can see how we start the car after the fluids have been warmed with an external heater, the engine can be cranked and you will notice it is cranked for quite a long time - this is so we can monitor the engine parameters on the laptop and establish positive oil pressure. Once this is confirmed we essentially modify the engine map to enable fuel and spark. You can see this is done with a single key press. If you don't do this you could very easily write off the engine.
To answer your question more concisely: yes you need a whole team of mechanics, but now that team only needs 3 people rather than the original 20.
What do most owners of these cars do with them?
Sadly, most owners would store them as appreciating investments / art pieces. Although a reasonable number of them race the cars either on "rich people" track days or compete in things like Boss GP. Weirdly, the owners themselves are sometimes unable to get adequate amendments to their life insurance policies - they are factually too rich to race!
If the owner broke a wing, or bent an engine. How difficult would it be to repair?
I understand your question but it's obviously dependent on what they damage. If you stuff the whole car into the barrier at speed then you're not going to have much left to salvage. Things like engines and gearboxes can be reconditioned and refurbished, but that's more of preventative maintenance rather than repair. You're in a new ballpark for what people would consider 'economical' so a specialist of any kind can be brought in to repair something original rather than replace it.
There is a famous story that I can't remember the details for (which makes it less interesting), I think it was when the race winning Porsche 917 was brought to Goodwood with it's race winning rubber and dirt still intact. Some idiot spectator wrote his name in the dirt, so Porsche sort out an expert in restorative spray painting to paint the dirt back on! The point is, money is no object in the pursuit of perfection.
General servicing?
Just refer to the Haynes Manual..... joke! There is no such thing as general servicing. All of the data is analysed after each run, any consumables are replaced and the mantra of preventative maintenance is practised. It also depends on what's happening to the car next - you might want to schedule an engine rebuild earlier than necessary if you know the car won't be used for the rest of the year.
Tyres?
Again, it really does depend on where it's running and who is driving it. Most amateur drivers would need to run the wet tyres in the dry in order to get any temperature in them at all - and these amateur drivers are not the kind of people you want to be partly responsible for falling off the track!
Exhibition laps it doesn't really matter too much, but there are plenty of compounds around for whatever you need. There is a reasonable amount of business for historic cars. It mainly comes down to the anticipated corner speeds, power output, track temp and stint length.
markcoznottz said:
Your rpm figures are miles out, but the easiest way of turning an engine down is to rev limit it. They were using extremely dangerous fuel in 1992 also, so much so several people died handling it. Power output in 92 was quoted as 750 bhp@ 13000 rpm. Available data for the ultimate iteration of the 3.5l engine in 1994 according to Renaults website is 790bhp at 14300rpm.
Personally seeing this car farting and spluttering at goodwood and silverstone is an insult to the team who designed it. Like seeing a race horse trotting around. Either run a programme with original spec engines or use the car as a giant paperweight and stick it in a museum. It can't be that hard with today's resources, I'm sure Renault could build a few crate engines, given its now ancient tech. If these cars could do a full race distance back then, a few demo laps at full chat wouldn't be beyond them.
Hello Mark,Personally seeing this car farting and spluttering at goodwood and silverstone is an insult to the team who designed it. Like seeing a race horse trotting around. Either run a programme with original spec engines or use the car as a giant paperweight and stick it in a museum. It can't be that hard with today's resources, I'm sure Renault could build a few crate engines, given its now ancient tech. If these cars could do a full race distance back then, a few demo laps at full chat wouldn't be beyond them.
The RPM figures were from memory so could well be incorrect - I'll check when I get back to work tomorrow.
You're correct regarding the fuel. In fact, a lot of things in Motorsport were horrendous in that era. The car was running more or less the same map as it originally did for a race on equivalent fuel for Silverstone. I've also seen the data and can confirm that Karun was (on the later sessions) running at WOT so I can only apologise if you felt it was badly mapped.
I'm not sure on your background but with regards to it being an insult to those that designed it - Paddy made a point of thanking us personally and certainly didn't seem offended. The only thing we didn't implement in an especially sophisticated way was traction control and Paddy had various suggestions of how to improve it (anything is possible when you have the time, which we didn't).
Furthermore Nigel M, Mark Webber, Massa, Karun, both big and little Rosbergs, David C etc all seemed very pleased to see it running so apologies again that you didn't enjoy it.
If you're at an event where it's running again in the future I'd be pleased to show you what we've done in more detail - definitely don't want you thinking we've done a bad job!
I am normally asked to stop talking about cars as most people find them quite boring, but given that there are a few interested people here I can share some more info.
I said that anything is possible with these cars but sadly that's not always true. We weren't able to drive the original display with the new ECU, and also saw an opportunity to give some further safety to the operation - so we replaced it with the same display you would see in a current LMP2 / Indycar Steering Wheel.
This gives several benefits as it's completely configurable - firstly you can use demure colours to try and make it look old, you can set various alarms for the driver (one of the most critical being air bottle pressure) and also set some specific pages for warming the car up (called mechanics pages).
It's a shame to have to do this as it detracts from an important part of the cars originality, but it carries so many benefits to its operation it's a no brainer.
The image upload wasn't working for me, so a link to a photo here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/FoF7j1JCf2ewVgUH7
If anyone can advise on how to get images into my posts I have more I can share.
I said that anything is possible with these cars but sadly that's not always true. We weren't able to drive the original display with the new ECU, and also saw an opportunity to give some further safety to the operation - so we replaced it with the same display you would see in a current LMP2 / Indycar Steering Wheel.
This gives several benefits as it's completely configurable - firstly you can use demure colours to try and make it look old, you can set various alarms for the driver (one of the most critical being air bottle pressure) and also set some specific pages for warming the car up (called mechanics pages).
It's a shame to have to do this as it detracts from an important part of the cars originality, but it carries so many benefits to its operation it's a no brainer.
The image upload wasn't working for me, so a link to a photo here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/FoF7j1JCf2ewVgUH7
If anyone can advise on how to get images into my posts I have more I can share.
JoeDix said:
I'd need to go and look the figures up to be completely accurate, but from memory the original engine ran to something like a 22,000 rpm limit.
Hmmm, didn't Honda have a 21,000 rpm engine ready to go in 2006 -- before the 19,000 rpm limit was introduced in 2007? Hard to believe they were hitting 22,000 rpm in 1992.JoeDix said:
markcoznottz said:
Your rpm figures are miles out, but the easiest way of turning an engine down is to rev limit it. They were using extremely dangerous fuel in 1992 also, so much so several people died handling it. Power output in 92 was quoted as 750 bhp@ 13000 rpm. Available data for the ultimate iteration of the 3.5l engine in 1994 according to Renaults website is 790bhp at 14300rpm.
Personally seeing this car farting and spluttering at goodwood and silverstone is an insult to the team who designed it. Like seeing a race horse trotting around. Either run a programme with original spec engines or use the car as a giant paperweight and stick it in a museum. It can't be that hard with today's resources, I'm sure Renault could build a few crate engines, given its now ancient tech. If these cars could do a full race distance back then, a few demo laps at full chat wouldn't be beyond them.
Hello Mark,Personally seeing this car farting and spluttering at goodwood and silverstone is an insult to the team who designed it. Like seeing a race horse trotting around. Either run a programme with original spec engines or use the car as a giant paperweight and stick it in a museum. It can't be that hard with today's resources, I'm sure Renault could build a few crate engines, given its now ancient tech. If these cars could do a full race distance back then, a few demo laps at full chat wouldn't be beyond them.
The RPM figures were from memory so could well be incorrect - I'll check when I get back to work tomorrow.
You're correct regarding the fuel. In fact, a lot of things in Motorsport were horrendous in that era. The car was running more or less the same map as it originally did for a race on equivalent fuel for Silverstone. I've also seen the data and can confirm that Karun was (on the later sessions) running at WOT so I can only apologise if you felt it was badly mapped.
I'm not sure on your background but with regards to it being an insult to those that designed it - Paddy made a point of thanking us personally and certainly didn't seem offended. The only thing we didn't implement in an especially sophisticated way was traction control and Paddy had various suggestions of how to improve it (anything is possible when you have the time, which we didn't).
Furthermore Nigel M, Mark Webber, Massa, Karun, both big and little Rosbergs, David C etc all seemed very pleased to see it running so apologies again that you didn't enjoy it.
If you're at an event where it's running again in the future I'd be pleased to show you what we've done in more detail - definitely don't want you thinking we've done a bad job!
JoeDix said:
If anyone can advise on how to get images into my posts I have more I can share.
www.imgur.comThis site will enable you to upload pics to a private album. Then use the drop down for ‘BBC Code’ and post that link.
Avoid the imgur App however as that doesn’t offer the ability to use bulletin board code to the best of my knowledge.
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