RE: Ecoboost-Powered Radical Revealed

[The Black Flash]

RobM77 said:

If you look at the lap times, the Radical is a lot faster for a given bhp, which is down to grip, mainly mechanical but with mild downforce;

I'd imagine that drag is considerably lower than the caterham as well, which I'd have thought would make quite a difference?

And drive-by-wire throttle? Yuk.

[Dave J]

@scuffers
no I didn't know they are not connected but I was just referring to the Eco name thing...

if the emissions are not related to eu5 compliance why then has the ctr etc been delisted from jan 11 on the quoted basis of emissions ? - genuinely interested to learn

[RobM77]

The Black Flash said:

RobM77 said:

If you look at the lap times, the Radical is a lot faster for a given bhp, which is down to grip, mainly mechanical but with mild downforce;

I'd imagine that drag is considerably lower than the caterham as well, which I'd have thought would make quite a difference?

And drive-by-wire throttle? Yuk.

Depends how the DBW is tuned. I've never driven a racing car with one, but I'm hoping they'd tune it properly. Bike magazine recently got a WSB rider to try a road going R1 and he complained about the laggy throttle, which he said wasn't present on his race R1. Mind you, Wookie on here races a Carrera Cup car and apparently that's got a cable throttle conversion, whereas the standard 997 car is of course a DBW throttle.

[chuntington101]

RobM77 said:

rhinochopig said:

chuntington101 said:

rhinochopig said:

No thanks - NA or SC engine please.

Why? Any 2.0 N/A engine will be VERY highly strung at these power levels, and the power band will be very narrow. Not good for a track day car that will be able to be driven on the road! As for driverability (including lag with turbocharged engines), direct injection allows much higher comp. to be run with boost. This helps to eliminate most of the lag that you would normal feel in a turbo car.

Most but not all. For a race car its fine, for a track day car - where fun and predictable handling maketh the car - a turbo engine is not as good as an NA engine in my opinion. The problem is when you're trying to control the yaw of the car on the throttle, a turbo will always - no matter how good it is - add an element of lag, especially one running 300bhp out of 2 litres. That elasticity in the power delivery makes balancing harder IMO.

The other thing to factor in is that a modern N/A 2 litre will give you 220-250bhp without the added weight of a turbo, plumbing, IC, etc., which is also generally mass quite high in the car.

Anyway, it's a matter of opinion - I prefer N/A cars on track for the way they deliver their power. I just don't like the elasticity that a turbo introduces - and my current drive is an Evo RS so I'm not totally anti FI.

I've owned a couple of turbocharged cars and driven a few on track, and I must confess, the turbo does tend to dominate the experience when it comes to sorting out the right lines and acceleration points etc. For me, that is to the detriment of the whole experience. As for the narrow power band of a tuned engine, that's also frustrating at times, but nowhere near as much as turbo lag.

Also, I don't know much about the technicalities of engines, but I'm a bit confused how an engine is "eco" because it's got a turbo, if it's always going to run flat out with the turbo on full song? Doesn't the turbo effectively just increase the capacity by forcing more air in per unit time, and an equivalent amount of fuel is required to maintain the fuel/air ratio? I suppose the frictional losses are a bit less?!

Nice to see Radical trying a less stressed engine though, and perhaps one that will require fewer engine rebuilds to race. Comparisons with Sports 2000 cars are inevitable of course...

Good points guys. I guess alot is done to what you are affter. But the new engines are getting VERY good these days.

Also i think this is car is trying to emulate the LMP2 and prototype cars. THese have used turbos for a long time. I remeber reading an article in EVO about someone driving the Aubi R8. They said there was enough mechanical grip (or software intervention) that you could do a full bore standing start and there would be NO wheel spin! with that kind of grip you dont have to worry about the turbos spooling and braking traction mid corner! lol

Chris.

[Scuffers]

Dave J said:

@scuffers
no I didn't know they are not connected but I was just referring to the Eco name thing...

if the emissions are not related to eu5 compliance why then has the ctr etc been delisted from jan 11 on the quoted basis of emissions ? - genuinely interested to learn

EU 2/3/4/5/6 tests are all about pollutants such as NOx, CO, etc. originally EU emissions tests were introduced to clean up engine emissions, (same time CAT's became mandatory and leaded fuel phased out)

CO2 as such is not a pollutant per say (as it won't kill you).

Now, one of the 'outputs' from this test is CO2 in terms of g/KM, some bright spark then though this would be a good thing to tax us on cause CO2 is bad (apparently if you believe all this climate change bks)

to answer your question on the CTR, it was certified against EU4, no reason they could not re-certify it to EU5 (limit's are not that different) but I suspect the costs to do this was not worth it when the car is already close to end of life has something to do with it.

Bigger issue is EU6 is on the horizon, and (in practical terms) is going to kill off just about all high-performance NA engines, combined with the Euro fleet average legislation, means no more mainstream fun NA cars.

[Dave J]

ta

when does EU6 come into force ?

[Antj]

good to see radical back at it especially the new V8

Who wants to bet we'll see a 6:45 in 2011 from the little british car, and it will drive to the track again...........

[HundredthIdiot]

Scuffers said:

Bigger issue is EU6 is on the horizon, and (in practical terms) is going to kill off just about all high-performance NA engines

But for petrol passenger Cars, EU5 = EU6, according to this:

http://www.dieselnet.com/standards/eu/ld.php

[Scuffers]

HundredthIdiot said:

Scuffers said:

Bigger issue is EU6 is on the horizon, and (in practical terms) is going to kill off just about all high-performance NA engines

But for petrol passenger Cars, EU5 = EU6, according to this:

http://www.dieselnet.com/standards/eu/ld.php

seen that, not sure the tables right (although same one in Wiki?)

[juansolo]

edb49 said:

About time Radical stopped trying to flog the dead horse and used a decent engine. 260bhp out of a 10k rpm stroker bike engine never made sense in a race car that's always at high revs.

675kg though, how come a Caterham R500 is 175kg lighter with a 2ltr Ford engine?

Caterkilos, plus the Radical is bigger in just about every dimension and has a lot more bodywork.

[juansolo]

edb49 said:

Take your points, but not sure it should add up to 170kg? I've just bought a Juno, which is pretty comparable to this new Radical. Same size, aero, 2ltr NA engine, F3 transaxle, etc etc. It's 580kg. So there's 100kg in the Radical, can't just be down to a turbo and intercooler!

Interestingly I've never heard of an SR3 weighing in at <600kg, and that's with a bike engine.

Interesting. Our Juno was 633kgs with all fluids and 25ltrs of fuel on board. With a full tank (80ltrs) it'll be tipping the scales at 680+ kgs.

Edited by juansolo on Monday 20th December 18:12

[Scuffers]

juansolo said:

edb49 said:

Take your points, but not sure it should add up to 170kg? I've just bought a Juno, which is pretty comparable to this new Radical. Same size, aero, 2ltr NA engine, F3 transaxle, etc etc. It's 580kg. So there's 100kg in the Radical, can't just be down to a turbo and intercooler!

Interestingly I've never heard of an SR3 weighing in at <600kg, and that's with a bike engine.

Interesting. Our Juno was 633kgs with all fluids and 25ltrs of fuel on board.

I would assume yours does not have the pre-peg body?

[juansolo]

Scuffers said:

juansolo said:

edb49 said:

Take your points, but not sure it should add up to 170kg? I've just bought a Juno, which is pretty comparable to this new Radical. Same size, aero, 2ltr NA engine, F3 transaxle, etc etc. It's 580kg. So there's 100kg in the Radical, can't just be down to a turbo and intercooler!

Interestingly I've never heard of an SR3 weighing in at <600kg, and that's with a bike engine.

Interesting. Our Juno was 633kgs with all fluids and 25ltrs of fuel on board.

I would assume yours does not have the pre-peg body?

Nope just good old GRP.

[Oppressed Mass]

I think the Ecoboost Tag comes from Ford being able to use a lower capacity / high efficiency turbo engine giving the same levels of power / torque as previous generations have needed i5 / V6 units hence the eco element from using turbo boost.

[Simon T]

[quote=edb49]About time Radical stopped trying to flog the dead horse and used a decent engine. 260bhp out of a 10k rpm stroker bike engine never made sense in a race car that's always at high revs.quote]

Oh Yeh?

Simon

www.tillingmotorsport.com

[edb49]

juansolo said:

Scuffers said:

juansolo said:

edb49 said:

Take your points, but not sure it should add up to 170kg? I've just bought a Juno, which is pretty comparable to this new Radical. Same size, aero, 2ltr NA engine, F3 transaxle, etc etc. It's 580kg. So there's 100kg in the Radical, can't just be down to a turbo and intercooler!

Interestingly I've never heard of an SR3 weighing in at <600kg, and that's with a bike engine.

Interesting. Our Juno was 633kgs with all fluids and 25ltrs of fuel on board.

I would assume yours does not have the pre-peg body?

Nope just good old GRP.

What year is yours? Mine is 2008 with pre-preg bodywork. The weight is with no fuel or driver, but all other fluids. (I guess yours would be about 613kg with no fuel, so it's quite easy to see 580kg being sensible.)

[ZesPak]

The "RX" appendix made me think for a second that they would use the Mazda Renesis engine.

Wouldn't that be nice in such a car? Low cog, high power/weight ratio, smooth power delivery and very compact?

Or am I missing something why it wouldn't suit such a car?

[edb49]

Simon T said:

edb49 said:

About time Radical stopped trying to flog the dead horse and used a decent engine. 260bhp out of a 10k rpm stroker bike engine never made sense in a race car that's always at high revs.

Oh Yeh?

Simon

www.tillingmotorsport.com

Let me rephrase... when I say it "never made sense," I mean it was always going to have reliability and/or longevity problems. Radical quote 30hrs between rebuilds I think. The VdeV engine is a 250bhp Honda K20a, totally standard spec inside, just blueprinted and remapped.

I'm sure a 1585cc oversized Busa engine would be great fun until you looked at the running costs and reliability.

[Donkey62]

It looks like Focus ST/RS engine in stock form which means it will most likely be EU5 compliant even with mild modifying of the engine it’s still likely to obtain similar emissions. Going by many carefully tuned Focus ST running leaner at high boost ratios uses the same amount of fuel for more power therefore I believe the ECO name is valid.

The other thing I don’t agree with is turbo race cars today are nothing like anything from 90’s or even 2 years ago because the huge progress in turbo technology. The weight and extra’s for a turbo engine is so little now that the difference is negligible few kg, certainly not like the extra passenger weight it used to be.

[RobM77]

Donkey62 said:

It looks like Focus ST/RS engine in stock form which means it will most likely be EU5 compliant even with mild modifying of the engine it’s still likely to obtain similar emissions. Going by many carefully tuned Focus ST running leaner at high boost ratios uses the same amount of fuel for more power therefore I believe the ECO name is valid.

The other thing I don’t agree with is turbo race cars today are nothing like anything from 90’s or even 2 years ago because the huge progress in turbo technology. The weight and extra’s for a turbo engine is so little now that the difference is negligible few kg, certainly not like the extra passenger weight it used to be.

Out of interest, has the FIA cc scaling factor for turbocharged engines changed over the years?