Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2017 i Racecar Engineering

‘We needed to understand if these regulations would allow us to run with a high rake philosophy’ When asked about his favourite feature of the 2017 Force India, the small Silverstone-based outfit’s technical director, Andy Green, jokes ‘the colour!’The VJM10 is, indeed, one of the most distinctive cars in Formula 1. But it’s not only that bright pink paint job, it also has an eye-catching design with a unique nose treatment, but more eye-catching for most of the team’s rivals is its solid fourth place in the constructors’ championship. Design work on the VJM10 started before the 2016 season got underway but still perhaps later than Green would have liked. This was due to a lack of clarity over the 2017 regulations, which only started to be really firmed up…

The new engine is adapted to suit the increased inlet restrictor diameter, meaning combustion chambers and pistons are different Hyundai’s time-scale for setting up its motorsport operation was nothing if not ambitious. Announced at the Paris Motor Show in October 2012, the budget allocation was in place when team principal Michel Nandan joined the company in January 2013. At that time building work was just under way at the Alzenau, Germany HQ. An i20 World Rally Car had already been designed and built at Hyundai’s Research and Development Centre in Samyang, South Korea, and, as more Hyundai Motorsport employees were taken on at Alzenau, major revisions to evolve this car took place in Germany; ostensibly to improve reliability and component access, but also to aid its competitiveness. But the Korean…

This year’s 50th running of the world’s oldest, longest and continuously held desert race, will get more attention and up-close coverage than ever. On top of this a new movie about the race has been made by noted Hollywood director Dana Brown. He returns to the desert with Dust2Glory, a documentary film project as a follow-up to his original 2005 Dust to Glory film. Qualifying for the Trophy Trucks takes place on October 31, 2017, at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, during the annual SEMA Show in Las Vegas, which attracts over 150,000 attendees. The race itself starts in Ensenada BC, Mexico on November 16, 2017, and concludes in La Paz BCS, Mexico with awards presented on November 18, 2017.…

Car manufacturers are now no longer using motorsport purely for their brand awareness The competitive nature of Motorsport provides the perfect platform to develop innovative technologies which, once proven, filter down into other industries. One of the most successful examples of this is the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS). First introduced in F1 in 2009, recovered braking energy was used to generate an extra 80bhp for the driver to deploy throughout six seconds per lap. Four years later in 2013, Volvo reported that KERS improved fuel consumption by 25 per cent on its S60 model. Today’s Formula 1 Energy Recovery Systems (ERS) are now even more efficient, with the MGU-K and the MGU-H combining twice the power whilst improving fuel consumption by 35 per cent. The spectrum of transferable technologies…

You have to always remember that it is the damping rate as opposed to the magnitude of the damping force that drives damping behaviour With the quarter car, given a damping ratio we can then calculate the damping rate Since I have been contributing to Racecar Engineering one of the subjects I’ve covered that always gets a response is damping. Given that damping is a critical but very poorly understood area of racecar engineering this is not surprising. However, one thing that I have not yet addressed is what part of the damper do you need to adjust to get a desired result. This is what we will be discussing at length in this article. Before we begin we need to deal with one great myth about dealing with racecar…

‘The cars must be able to follow each other and race, that is the key aim with the aerodynamics’ One of the longest serving open-wheel racecars of recent years will be officially retired at Abu Dhabi in late November. Dallara’s GP2/11 is to be replaced in the FIA Formula 2 championship by an all new design from the Italian constructor, called the F2/18. Formula 2 was relaunched by the FIA at the start of 2017, essentially a re-branding of the existing GP2 Series. But when the tender for a promoter for the ‘new F2’ was first announced in 2015, the proposed technical regulations were very different to that of GP2. Indeed, it called for a multi-chassis, open wheel series using hybrid powertrains. ‘The tender had to change, it needed to…

Hyundai’s Alzenau-based in-house engine department comprises engine engineers and designers and, of course, engine builders. Building a complete new engine requires about a week’s work, but then post-event rebuilds can take around the same time. In addition to the dedicated engine build team, engine department staff at Alzenau remain on-site during tests and rally weekends constantly monitoring and analysing the performance of the power units. These people deal with any real-time issues arising, while also feeding back to colleagues on the event any improvements that may be of benefit to the team. Sometimes there are just two weeks between WRC rallies, so post-event engine rebuilds must be both swift and methodical. The process is a full strip-down, a check, and then all the consumables are replaced. Here, liaison between the…

The regulations should have been designed to attract manufacturers Following Porsche’s announcement that it will withdraw from the World Endurance Championship, the ACO has finally announced its ‘Plan B’ for the future of LMP1 regulations. Gone is the plan to complete 1km on electric power only at Le Mans, and crucially gone too is the necessity for a manufacturer to compete with a hybrid in the top class. The new-look LMP1 cars will run in one class, and will be balanced for lap time only, with the expectation that hybrid will be used for economy rather than power, and so will go longer on each fill of fuel. That means that any incident or delays that occur early on in an endurance race will be easier to mitigate than later…

European Formula 3 to go single-make in 2019 The FIA has confirmed that the flagship Formula 3 European Championship is to be a spec series from 2019 onwards. This long-expected change was voted in at a World Motor Sport Council meeting in late September. Although it has not yet been confirmed, it’s believed the new single-make category will take its place on the Formula 1 support bill alongside F2, probably replacing GP3, in 2019. The car will be powered by a 350bhp engine, a big hike on F3’s current 200bhp, and the FIA has invited racecar constructors to tender for the chassis contract. While Formula 3 has always nominally been an open formula it’s effectively been a Dallara lock-out for many years now, with the occasional interloper such as Mygale,…

Once again the Performance Car Show area will feature a range of tuning industry-leading exhibitors who will showcase the latest products and technology, including numerous companies new to the event. Among the companies attending is Knight Industries, which is the first UK company to offer both performance tuning and body styling upgrades for the MG3 and MG6. Meanwhile, Newquay-based Celtic Tuning specialises in the development of engine management software, and will also be at the show, while joining it in the new show area will be Steeda UK, which provides performance parts, tuning and upgrades for the Ford Mustang, Focus ST and RS, Mondeo and Fiesta. Also exhibiting is Magic Motorsport, from Italy, one of the world leaders in electronic programmers for ECU and TCU repair and tuning. Keep up…

Racing these heavy stock cars on the Indianapolis track has always proven to be a challenge It was an overcast Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 22, a welcome break from the usual scorching temperatures for the annual summer NASCAR race at the track. On the grid 40 cars prepared to roll off for the start of the race, while five nervous NASCAR R&D engineers and fabricators huddled near the centre of pit road. As the cars started their engines, a procession of NASCAR officials came by to collect a curious looking package with carbon fibre bits protruding from each end of the bubble wrapped exterior – the back-up ducts. Once finished, the officials took their posts and the R&D staff returned to the office of NASCAR Xfinity series…

‘When it became clear that we were going to do new bodywork we said that we should work to improve the side impact structure’ The process of remodelling IndyCar’s Dallara DW12 with new bodywork for 2018 goes well beyond a beautification project that was long overdue. For hidden beneath the new panels that surround the 2012-era tub, wholesale changes to driver protection materials and methodology have also been made. Externally, a reversal of the DW12’s sidepod layout with the upcoming UAK18 (universal aero kit 2018) has produced a proper ‘Coke bottle’ profile. Unlike the stock Dallara DW12 sidepods (2012-2014) and custom Chevrolet and Honda aero kits that replaced it (2015-2017), the UAK18 will now employ a wide structure alongside its drivers that provides ample structure to crush. IndyCar aerodynamic director…

Lights and sirens are often lost in the huge dust clouds and engine noise Some accidents change a competitor’s attitude to motorsport safety forever. Here’s the incident in 2010 that did it for Roger Norman, then a Trophy Truck racer in the Baja 1000: ‘I was running at 120mph and he [a motorcyclist] was going about 25mph. I was getting ready to pass two other Trophy Trucks. He thought it was clear because two trucks went by, and he didn’t realise that there was a third truck that was going way faster than the first two. And I hit him … I only saw him for maybe a half second, not enough time do anything on a narrow dirt road … [I] knew he was dead.’ A sobering incident, but…

Pit equipment Gunning for fast wheel changes Sector expert Paoli has brought a new wheel gun on to the market, called the Hurricane. The company says:‘The partnership with highly skilled technicians and top racing teams has allowed the development of an innovative, greatly performing and technologically advanced product.’ The Hurricane has been designed using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), which, Paoli tells us, has allowed it not only to sharpen up the performance of the motor, but also to create a unique, fresh and well-finished design. There’s some nice attention to detail, too, particularly in the use of new technologies in the production area, such as in precision casting, which is intended to assure internal channels dimension repeatability and to guarantee homogeneity in performance. Performance on loosening nuts has increased by…