34 replies to this topic

[Christiaan]

Just some information here.

Prost's engine weighs 120kg, but Peogot was reluctant to release the performance figures. Its also almost 1½ times bigger than the Mclaren engine. Ilmor weighs 105kgs if I remember correctly. I think Macs weight reduction comes from the Al/Be alloy which is allegedly extensively used in the engine. That alloy was banned for 2001 so now you have to wonder what will happen in 2001.

[Sash]

The Berrylium alloy used in the Mercedes V10 is only on the cylinder lining, to reduce friction. Its not used in any major (weight-wise) component.

[smarty]

Christiaan, do you know the figures for other engines? I thought that Peugeot will be lighter this year. Remember Prost had a problem to assemble the smaller new engine to the car in the last race of 1999.

[Ruud de la Rosa]

Wasn't that problem during testing?

[Christiaan]

Sorry, I only know the Merc stuff coz we have a 199 engine on display at work. The peogot stuff I got from the frankfurt motor show.

[Ray Bell]

Those are incredible figures if correct. The engines used in Formula Junior in the early sixties (1100cc prod based) weighed more than that! Frankly, I think we need some clarification.
The Peugeot 304 engine is an all aluminium 1300cc 4-cyl with no surplus weight anywhere, and it weighs in at around 85kg. For a V10 there is so much more crank, so many more rods, three times as many cams, then there's camshaft drives and tensioners, oil pumps and a bucketload of other lighter parts. Twice as many heads, too. How can it be?

[Christiaan]

Ray, a 306 engine doesn't cost DM500,000.

[Ray Bell]

So what are the cranks and rods made of? I just can't see an engine of 3 litres with ten pistons & rods, 40 valves, the airboxes for the valve return system, four camshafts and at least three oil pumps weighing so little.
I guess what I'm saying is "Please confirm the figure, authoratively."

[Christiaan]

I will post a pic of the two engines when I have found them (in my untidy room) and scanned them. In the meantime check out www.formula1.com, and click on "teams" then check out the stated weight for the Stewart engine. I don't think theres an F1 engine today that weighs more than 130kg

[f1speed]

I read in Race Tech last year that McLaren spent millons on Berrylium pistons. You mean this is only on the cylinder walls ? Friction reduction seems a bit of a waste for an element surpased in lightness only by Hydrogen and Helium. I heard that it has been banned, if so, when was it banned ?

[f1speed]

Sorry, Lithium is also lighter than Berrylium.

[Christiaan]

Ray, here is a statement from Sauber's website confirming the weight of the engine. http://www.sauber.ch/v10.html

[HK]

Lithium melts at 453K beryllium melts at 1551K, Lithium would not be much use near the combustion process...good for the car if its suffering from manic-depression (one of Li many uses)

[Ray Bell]

Unbelievable, the F1 V10 of these days weighs less than the Formula Junior engine of 1963!
4 cyls, 110bhp max versus 10 cyls & 750bhp!
And who said F1 didn't bring progress?

[Ursus]

To gain a bit of perspective: Does anyone know the wheight of a 3l F1 engine in the 60's or 70's, like the Ford DFV? It would be nice to compare with an engine of the same capacity to see just how far they have come over the years.

------------------
Ursus
Trust me, send money.

[Christiaan]

Ray, I say F1 doesn't bring progress because as I said, your engine doesn't cost €300 000.

Check out my arguement

[Janzen]

Friction might not be the only reason for using lightweight metals in pistons. I seem to remeber reading that the lighter you can make the parts that constantly move accelerates and deaccelerates. The faster you can make them move with out braking them so it is a question of Weight-size<durability> and RPM. So if you can make something lighter stronger<wich this alloy seems to be> then you can rev the engine more.
It was an interesting article Racetech maybe a year ago.

[Fredd]

Something i found on Racefax:

---
Germany's Sport Auto reports the following F1 engine weights and vee angles, almost all of which we've seen confirmed either by the teams involved or by reliable sources close to them. Interestingly, Ferrari has the widest V10, and its vee angle has been confirmed by the team.

In order of weight:

kilos/pounds/vee angle(degrees)
Cosworth-Jaguar . . . 97 213.9 72
Mercedes. . . . . . . 98 216.1 72
Ferrari . . . . . . . 100 220.5 90
Peugeot . . . . . . . 109 240.3 72
Honda-BAR . . . . . . 110 242.6 88
Ferrari-Petronas. . . 114 251.3 80
Mugen-Honda . . . . . 115 253.6 72
Renault-Supertec. . . 118 260.2 71
BMW . . . . . . . . . 120 264.6 72
Cosworth-Fondmetal. . 122 269.0 72

---

Look at the difference between the Jag (Cosworth) engine and the Cosworth of two years ago that Minardi are getting!

[Ray Bell]

That stuff is stunning! Technology races ahead!

[f1speed]

Thanks Fredd! Very interestring! Now if sombody could find some horsepower figures to go with that it would be like icing on cake.

[CVAndrw]

F1speed, I think you should feel perfectly free to specify whatever horsepower figures your imagination dictates; they would doubtless bear just as much relation to reality as anything the teams might divulge.

By the way, don't write off that BMW lump just yet- their early stock block F2 engine was so tall and bulky the teams referred to it as "The Monument", and yet by 1983 it had evolved into a reasonably effective piece of power generating machinery. Ask Alain Prost and Bernard Dudot!

[Pacific]

Hmm, some teams report things differently.

Sauber reports the Petronas at 110 kg. Hard to know who has everything correct or who might be lying. Could Ferrari really chop 14 kilos off of the 048 to the 049.

Secondly, wasn't beryllium banned in F1? I thought that was mentioned once somewhere and that it gave Sauber a few concerns about the engine. The reliability was no longer a given.

Prost has the Peugeot at under 120 and that's it. If they were really 109 you'd think they'd say under 110 to be impressive.

Just today I was doing research trying to find the dimensions of the engines along with the weights and Arrows and Benetton have differing numbers on the width of the Supertec. They both confirm the length is 623 mm and that the height is 393 mm. Arrows has it at 393, Benetton at 395, close enough. Arrows has the width at 517 mm, while Benetton has the width at 542.

Here are some other figures I got from each team's web pages.

Peugeot-
Length: 583 mm
Width: 544 mm
Height: 393 mm
Weight: <120 kg

Jordan
Lenght: <620 mm
Widht: <520 mm
Height: <400 mm

I discussed the Supertec, other than that, no major information. I also was trying to gain the specs on all the cars as far as their overall length, overall width, height, front track, rear track, and wheel base. For engines I was looking for displacement, weight, degre, valves, length, width, and height. All the engines have 40 valves I believe and of course all cars end up weighing 600 kg after the chassis, engine, driver, fuel, liquids, etc, are combined. Pretty light when you consider it all.

If Prost's figures are correct, then the Peugeot really has improved it's center of gravity BIG TIME. That's very important. All these figures are important to know. The various numbers I got for the car specs were interesting. The Arrows is listed as WAY longer than any other car. Of the ones that released specs, Ferrari was the shortest at 4387 mm while Arrows was at 5140 mm!!! I imagine most of the F1 cars will be between 4400 and 4600 in length more or less. Width looks pretty set between 1790 and 1800 mm. Doubt anybody is going to be taller than a meter. Sauber is listed as such. Jordan is listed at 950 mm. The other odd thing about Arrows is that they had the shortest wheelbase at 2995 mm. Ferrari was next at 3010. Williams, of the teams that released specs, was 3140. The only teams that had all the chassis specs I wanted were Ferrari and Sauber. No engine had all the exact specs. Peugeot was the closest, but their weight wasn't exact.

[desmo]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about this point so allow me to clarify. Beryllium alloy internal engine parts are legal for the 2000 season. At the conclusion of the 2000 season, they will be banned entirely.

[davo]

I think there are two reasons there is confusion over engine weights and dimensions.

The first is because it suits the teams, and their suppliers.

The second is that what is included in engine weights and dimensions is not a "given". Do you include exhaust, clutch, air box etc? Presumably teams are consistent within their own figures year on year? But then consider reason one

[Yelnats]

Question, Do they weigh F1 engines at rest or when reving at 18k? The reason I'm asking is that at those revs wouldn't relativistic effects begin to distort weight measurements? Perhaps F1 cars are under weight when running top revs due to Einstien's second law of relativity? };-> (or was it the first?)

[Ray Bell]

Funny thing, I actually heard that some of the top teams have found a way to have the bottom of their tyres (the contact patch) stationary. The penalty they pay is that the top of the tyre is doing twice the car's speed, which must do no good for the aerodynamics and the laminar flow...

------------------
Life and love are mixed with pain...

[FordFan]

Yelnats, as fast as everything moves at 18K RPM, they'd have to go a lot faster to have any significant relativistic effects on mass show up. Plus, if there were any effects, it would be an increase in mass, as mass increases with velocity. Also, I'm sure they weigh it empty of any fluid (I think the head of Peugeot development said as much recently), which would obviously be impossible if it were running. One of the wild cards seems to be if the wiring should be counted or not as part of engine weight.

[This message has been edited by FordFan (edited 03-05-2000).]

[Yelnats]

Ford Fan, Glad you cleared that up for me as I was quite concerned that Ferrari would be using this as a basis if protest if McLaren is faster than them again at Australia this year. ];->

[FordFan]

Sorry Yelnats. Couldn't quite tell if you were joking or not. (Din't pay close enough attention to the smiley face, I guess).

[Yelnats]

Ford Fan,

Gotcha! };->

[CVAndrw]

Sorry, I just couldn't resist sneaking in- didn't I say not to dismiss that overweight, oversized, underpowered and unreliable BMW quite yet? I'd say the results at Melbourne could be interpreted as a small amount of handwriting on the wall for manufacturer badged but tuner built engines, versus the real factory efforts (we'll just forget about Ford for a while, so as not to spoil my argument!)

Can't wait to hear the spin M-B's publicity flacks try to put on this one.

[Billy Gunn]

C V Andrw,

Sounds like the underweight, underpowered, unreliable, underfinanced Yamaha engine (built by Judd) was a leader then, where it has gone others have followed. It seems it would still put the Cosworth and Ilmor in the shade for weight, and size! (93Kg I read in '97!)

Where did BMW find the engineers to make their engine work? Do you think they may have recruited some from Judd's, Cosworth, Ilmor, and Hart's? Or do you think they went to the main Engine Drafting Office in Munich and asked for volounteers????

Cosworth is a 'Tuner' owned by a manufacturer (Ford), Ilmor is a 'Tuner' owned by a manufacturer (Merc - Benz), Mugen is a 'Tuner' related by birth to a manufacturer ......

Maybe they went to a NASCAR outfit like Rousch!!!

Billy G

[desmo]

"A complete OX11A engine, without ecu and loom, was 99kg."

John Judd 1998

[Billy Gunn]

Desmo

The Ecu on the Arrows A18 was mounted on the RH side of the sidepod in a cut-away drawing I have got, along with the Ignition Ecu. So that should have been shipped with the car?

The 93Kg was shipping weight - now granted this would almost certainly have been without airbox, headers, Hydro pack, and possibly clutch too. Like someone said earlier its difficult to judge like with like when we don't know how people are weighing these things. The OX11A still has to be regognised as the trend setter. I wonder if they resorted to super light alloys - my bet is that on the tight budget they operated on they didn't have anything exotic.

What are folks spin on the reasons for Yamaha being in F1 with no gain - were they there as a front for someone like Toyota, just keeping a watching brief but not exposing the paymasters????

Lookinanlearnindivinanaduckin!

Billy G

[desmo]

According to Judd, the OX11A was constructed entirely of Al alloy and steel with the sole exception of the valves and con rods which were 6Al4V Titanium alloy. The "secret" to it's outstandingly low mass was primarily due to it's use of liners which thread into the heads which allowed short studs around the outside of the head. These didn't intrude into the water jacketing around the liner, which in turn allowed smaller bore centers, which allowed a smaller block, shorter, stiffer crankshaft etc.