Engineered rule bending

Engineered rule bending

Author
Discussion

CO2000

Original Poster:

3,177 posts

208 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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Any good stories on rule bending (cough cheating!) on Cars ? (+ bikes?)

A few I can think of are the tilting mechanism than linked to the brakes (each side/rear ??) of DTM E30's & was only found after they were sold on, Toyota's expanding inlet on GpA Celica's & the 3rd pedal + seccret traction control in F1.

Edited by CO2000 on Friday 1st July 17:12

RenesisEvo

3,602 posts

218 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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Type 'Smokey Yunick' into Google.

Lord Pikey

3,257 posts

214 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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RenesisEvo said:
Type 'Smokey Yunick' into Google.
Just did.

And now i am annoyed that his biography is rather pricey and out of print frown

TankRS

2,850 posts

153 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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as far as i know its never been confirmed or proven, but in the Group B and later Group A Lancia Deltas, there were reports of it having Nitrous plumbed in, but hidden through parts of the rollcage and the use of a 'dummy' fire extinguisher bottle in the co-drivers footwell.

but then again it could just be one of those, 'it must be cheating' acusations due to the cars being so good

MonkeyHanger

9,198 posts

241 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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Benetton and the infamous "Option 13".

Nothing was ever proven of course rolleyes

Great Dane

2,719 posts

165 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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bar and the hidden tank tyrrell leadshot and heavy rear wing

TonyHetherington

32,091 posts

249 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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The chap who ran 100ft of fuel line in the car to increase full capacity (for the life of me can't remember his name - pretty sure it was NASCAR)

Sam the Mut

774 posts

175 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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TonyHetherington said:
The chap who ran 100ft of fuel line in the car to increase full capacity (for the life of me can't remember his name - pretty sure it was NASCAR)
yeh It was nascar

I have made driver down 3 or 4 litres of water to make sure the cars above the weight limit not really cheating.

Edited by Sam the Mut on Friday 1st July 17:16

Rat_Fink_67

2,309 posts

205 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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There's quite famous one (or infamous!) in the world of drag racing from the mid 90's. The factory backed Chrysler pro stock team (strictly normally aspirated 500ci pushrod V8 class for full bodied cars, kind of like touring cars for drag racing)were sweeping all before them and well on their way to dominating a second successive season. Eye brows began to raise when the two cars started suffering mysterious backfires on the start line and fingers began to point in the direction of hidden nitrous oxide systems being used on the cars. This led the governing body, the NHRA to issue a statement reminding teams that nitrous oxide was strictly prohibited and anyone using it would be dealt with accordingly. The following weekend, the workshop of the Dodge team was mysteriously "broken in to" and they had all of their equipment "destroyed", yet nothing was taken. This saw them sit the rest of they year out due to lack of funds, despite being bankrolled by Chrysler. Legend has it that Chrysler big wigs demanded the "break in" to save face and ensure the cars weren't caught out cheating. It took the best part of a decade for the Chryselr engined cars to become competitive again after that, needless to say that Wayne County Speed Shop who were responsible for fielding the cars never entered the class again.

Alfa numeric

3,021 posts

178 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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I remember reading about a "gentleman racer" in a Ferrari series that suddenly gained a turn of speed. The series rules dictated that the car's ECU was randomly allocated to the car on the race weekend to avoid a car being "chipped" to gain an advantage- his car was tested and passed. After a few more questionable races his car was checked more thoroughly and they discovered a second ECU under the driver's seat that was activated when the seatbelts were fastened.

Frik

13,542 posts

242 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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There was the launch control system that Renault were allegedly employing that intercepted the start light radio signal, in order to get the perfect start.

The driver would get to the line and press a button, the launch control system would receive the signal that the lights had gone out, add a sensible driver reaction and random time element to make it less suspicious and then give them the perfect start.

CO2000

Original Poster:

3,177 posts

208 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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Fantastic stories, keep em coming biggrin

Northern Munkee

5,354 posts

199 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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Indeed, this is a good thread OP. [hat off]

Conian

8,030 posts

200 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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One of Porsches 60s or 70s race cars had a rear wing that was linked into the rear suspension struts, so when the suspension compressed it pushed the wing up giving more downforce in the corner, got banned soon after of course

Use Psychology

11,327 posts

191 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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i thought the renault thing was sensors in the front wing that detected the sensors in the grid, which detect a jump start, turning off. good idea to add the reaction time thing. I don't think it was actually illegal when they ran it, though.

55allgold

519 posts

157 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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Use Psychology said:
i thought the renault thing was sensors in the front wing that detected the sensors in the grid, which detect a jump start, turning off.
smile I remember reading Jackie Stewart's autobiography. Mr Fairplay personified, surely, you'd think?

He used to do the low-tech equivalent of this in the days when the tracks had a red light to hold, switching to a separate green light to start. He said he would ignore the green light and only watch the red and go as soon as it dimmed. He reasoned that his reaction time would never be faster than the time between red-off and green-on, so he wouldn't ever actually jump the start.

ISTR, he was surprised that few other drivers did it. I even nicked the idea for the karting I was doing in the '90s, and it does work.

(and now back to engineered trickery...)

Mr_Thyroid

1,995 posts

226 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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BAR's extra fuel tank is the most recent one from F1 I think

Use Psychology

11,327 posts

191 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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and that wasn;t even really cheating, just a sensible way to design your fuel system. half the f1 team needed to redesign their tanks after BAR were disqualified.

Crafty_

13,248 posts

199 months

Friday 1st July 2011
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Smokey Yunick was the master at this.

One time he had a car in inspection and they were nitpicking, finding minor things (he'd become a bit of a target for this).. they had the fuel tank out of the car to check its capacity. The inspectors told him they'd found 9 infractions, he lost patience, told them "better make it ten", withdrew his entry, jumped in the car car drove back to his workshops near by. The fuel lines were 2" wide and there was something like eleven feet of it in the car.

He found the bellhousing on his car had positive pressure when the car was at higher revs - managed to seal it apart from a hole to let in air and a feed to the intake, rudimentary supercharging.

The rules at the time mandated that the engine sit central to the chassis. To gain an advantage he built a chassis and offset it to the left, one side had longer suspension arms.

There is a folklore story that he once built a 7/8ths scale car, whilst this wasn't true (the car had factory wheelbase and length) many panels had been subtley altered to improve airflow. Smokey made a "template" that matched the outline of his car and offered to show inspectors that the template also matched a car in the parking lot - which it did. What they didn't know is Smokey also owned the car in the parking lot.

In Smokeys time they used to strip engines after races to ensure the parts inside were all factory items. Smokey got round this by making his own parts (cams etc) with factory numbers on them, was good enough to pass inspection.

In NASCAR one car always seemed to be low to the ground, frustrated by another fruitless inspection an inspector shouldered into one of the crew stood by the car as he stormed off.. the crew member yelped in pain. He was wearing steel toecap boots, the car was resting on them to make up the extra height, he wasn't able to step back when the inspector barged past him.

At one time the GT40s in le mans racing had wooden blocks in the springs to pass ride height inspection, once out on track the driver would hit a few kerbs, the wood would break and the car would sit lower.

I was just reading about Penske "road racing" cars from the late 60s early 70s. They used to run vinyl roofs, the story put about was it created an aero advantage (like dimples on a golf ball). Cynics said it was to hide alterations made to the body. What they all missed were lots of other changes to the car, like a wedge cut out of the front fenders to make the front end slimmer.

Lots of stories about concealed nitrous bottles in drag racing - in the sump or fuel tank, even hidden around the car and plumbed in to the rollcage.
Tyres filled with concrete to pass weight inspection that were later changed, or a lead lined helmet left in the car to do the same.
A bit more scary, roll cages were made from exhaust tubing to save weight. Inspectors got wise to this and mandated drill holes in the cage so they could check the thickness of the tubing... so the racers would drill a hole, then whack the hole with a hammer to create a small dent, this was then filled to bring the level up, hey presto exhaust pipe now looks like thickwall tube.

In classes with restrictions on engine size several people tried sleeving a single cylinder to bring it under the regs - the others had a larger bore/stroke. With V8s sometimes they did a whole bank and always took that head off for inspections.

I'm told that Group N rallying in the late 70s didn't allow teams to carry parts as the cars were meant to be standard - if they wanted a part they were to go to the local dealer and buy them. Rumour has it some factory teams would dispatch a consignment of spares to the nearest dealer for a given rally.. the parts were for their use only..

freedman

5,395 posts

206 months

Friday 1st July 2011
quotequote all
Conian said:
One of Porsches 60s or 70s race cars had a rear wing that was linked into the rear suspension struts, so when the suspension compressed it pushed the wing up giving more downforce in the corner, got banned soon after of course
The original 917

The ACO said it broke the rules so they modified it. Hardly cheating was it