How does a Formula One engine work?

[GT Pro]

GTPlanet, how are today's Formula-One engines capable of up to 20,000rpm and able to push out around 1000hp (960 BAR, 333hp per l. ) from 3l?

Is it the genius of their physical design and/or is the engine's exceptionable capabilities supported by special processes that any engine could perhaps be improved by using?

 

[a112]

AFAIK 80's F1 had engines with 1.5L and 1000+HP,but again,turbos that were used were probably same size as half of the engine

Answer to your question probably has something to do with materials that are used to produce those engines,and also invested money in researching that are too expensive to use in stock car manufacturing.Ferrari uses quite a lot F1 technology in producing their own cars.Also F1 engines are not intended to cover a lot of mileage like normal stock car.

 

[Blake]

Today F1 engines are only 2.4L V8 units that are rev limited to 19,000rpm. Last year, with no rev limits, the 2.4L V8s were apparently pushing out upwards of 750bhp at over 20,000rpm. This year the engine mapping is being adjusted to try and get all of that power output back at 19,000rpm.

F1 engines are capable of such high rpm because they use extremely light materials and I believe the cylinders have an extremely short stroke (correct me if I’m wrong, someone) which makes higher RPM easier to achieve.

They are also not designed to last for very long. Engines must last for two race weekends (~610km of racing, plus Saturday practice and qualifying).

 

[Sureboss]

Due to the extreme ammount of money in F1, you can afford to replace parts fairly regularly (whole engines in many cases) you couldn't do that with a road going car or many lower class racing types.

Racing cars and teams often go say speed-reliability-cost.
Road going cars go - reliability-cost-speed.

Or something like that, I'm sure most git the jist of it.

 

[Der Alta]

And lets not discount the engineering involved in these engines. They are not mass produced. They are not built on an assembly line. THese are polished, sculpted, massaged and aligned with tolerances that are fantasticly tight.

The guys building these engines aren't union rednecks. They aren't in off the street. They're engineers that are one step shy of a doctors fanaticism and procedures on making the engines as smooth as possible. If you spent $100k working over a hondas engine, you'd have an astonishing machine. However, you're placing it in a $10k car.

The engine management system on these engines aren't run of the mill either. The tolerances and design of the system, allows it to play songs. I'm drawing a blank on which one it was, but two that comes off the top of my head are "Saints go marching in" and "We are the Champions" are two of them.

 

[Boundary Layer]

The tolerances and design of the system, allows it to play songs. I'm drawing a blank on which one it was, but two that comes off the top of my head are "Saints go marching in" and "We are the Champions" are two of them.

Minardi before the buyout and Renault, respectively.

And yes Blake, I think they typically have a stroke of 4cm or so and a (relatively) large bore to make up the displacement.


@GT Pro - In general, no you can't make your engine a F1 engine - for the money you might spend trying you'd might as well buy an F430 and settle for that.
Oh, but you can rip out your starter for free! That'll put you one step closer.

Apart from what has been mentioned, a large part of what allows the engines to turn at such high speed is the valve actuation. I believe all F1 engine manufacturers run with hydraulic or pneumatic valves, not your typical cam lobe and spring type stuff that you'll see on a street car. The reason is that you could not build a reasonably sized spring stiff enough tolerate the stress and to close the port before the face of the piston came crashing into the valve when the engine is doing 17-20k rpm.
I think Renault was looking at use electromagnetism to somehow open and close valves electronically, thus negating the need for camshafts altogether.

They also use a ridiculously small flywheel to reduce the drivetrain losses that always come with an increased rotational mass. But as a result, they can't idle below something like 5k rpm or they lose the momentum necessary to keep turning.

 

[Kylehnat]

I'm not sure which magazine this came from...

 

[backspace]

I'd recommend this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1859609996/?tag=gtplanetuk-20 which pretty extensively covers everything from aerodynamics to engine design.

 

[Wolfe]

The engine management system on these engines aren't run of the mill either. The tolerances and design of the system, allows it to play songs. I'm drawing a blank on which one it was, but two that comes off the top of my head are "Saints go marching in" and "We are the Champions" are two of them.

 

[Dougboy]

I'm not sure which magazine this came from...

One thing i do no understand from this article is the V angle. It explains that as the angle increases, there is more vibration but lower center of gravity. But what about boxster engines? They have the lowest center of gravity and low vibrations?

 

[skip0110]

One thing i do no understand from this article is the V angle. It explains that as the angle increases, there is more vibration but lower center of gravity. But what about boxster engines? They have the lowest center of gravity and low vibrations?

In a 4 cyl or twin configuration, boxers have perfect first order balance but the worst possible second order balance. The crankshaft continually accelerates and decelerates because the pistons reach the end of their stroke at the same time. This leads to the left right rocking motion typical of a boxer engine (you'd know if you've ever seen one run). Also because of the physical width of the con rods, the cylinders cannot be exactly opposed, and there is a torque placed on the crank perpendicular to the plane containing it and the motion of the pistons (looking down on a flat-4, that would be clockwise/counterclockwise rotations). This basically is trying to twist the crank into an S-shape and putting shear loads on the mains and flywheel...devastating at high rpms.

In a flat 6 I think there are split crankpins or something that remedy this somewhat, but I am not sure if you can do this in all engines.

 

[Boundary Layer]

One thing i do no understand from this article is the V angle. It explains that as the angle increases, there is more vibration but lower center of gravity. But what about boxster engines? They have the lowest center of gravity and low vibrations?

You mean boxer engine. Boxsters have boxers.

edit: explanation removed. skip beat me, and provided a better explanation overall.

Ferrari experimented with 180* V12's in the 70's, but boxers disappeared from the sport in the 80's. In addition to the shortcomings skip mentioned, a boxer engine (of approximately the same mass as a lesser angle V engine) is structurally weaker, and not strong enough to be used as a stressed member in the car's structure.


I may be wrong about this next point, I'll have to check the FIA reg's to be sure, but I think today's V8's must be 90*. You can't adjust that angle anymore.

edit2:

From the 2007 Formula One Technical Regulations:

ARTICLE 5: ENGINE
5.1.4 All engines must have 8 cylinders arranged in a 90º “V” configuration and the normal section of each cylinder must be circular.

 

[Dougboy]

You mean boxer engine. Boxsters have boxers.

Yea thats what i meant. Thanks for the explanation from the both of you

 

[wfooshee]

Ferrari experimented with 180* V12's in the 70's, but boxers disappeared from the sport in the 80's. In addition to the shortcomings skip mentioned, a boxer engine (of approximately the same mass as a lesser angle V engine) is structurally weaker, and not strong enough to be used as a stressed member in the car's structure.

Ferrari 312T, T2, T3, etc, used the boxer-12 as a stressed member, as did the Brabham-Alfa Romeo. Don't know about earlier Ferraris, but I know those did, as I have Tamiya's 1/12 312T and 312T4, and the 1/20 Brabham BT-46:





One thing the boxer engines weren't very good at was accomodating ground effects tunnels as that technology developed in the late '70s.

 

[inferno]

It all comes down to the rpm that these engines run at. But that breaks down into two parts.

One, yes F1 engines are built using top grade materials and countless hours of tooling to make sure everything is just so. thats what allows these engines to turn the speeds they do.

Part two is the benifits of those revolutions. F1 engines arent big, 2.4 liters as someone said earlier. bottom line, you can only squeze so much air and fuel into a certain area. This is moreso true when you consider that these engines are naturaly asperated which means that they only have the force of the ambient presure to move air into the cylinders. typicaly speaking the torque curve is relative to the amount of fuel and air being ingested. torque is raw force, the bigger explosion you have the more torque you have, but hp is a measure of both torque and inertia. the inertial force of the rotating masses in the engine contribute to the overall output of the engine just the same way a brick hitting the ground at 100 mph has more force than one hitting at 20 mph. Think of torque as the weight of the brick, and the speed it's falling at as the engines rpm. using the figures you gave, an engine producing 1000 hp at 20,000 rpm is only producing about 260 ft-lbs of torque at 20,000 rpm. Thats just 260 ft-lbs worth of fuel and air being fed into the cylinders. looking at that figure, getting that much power out of a 2.4 liter seems much more feasable.

 

[GT Pro]

Thanks for the info on that book backspace, I'll order it soon at pitstop.net.au

Wolfe, that sound coming out of those F1's is truly terifying to say the least, but amazing they are.

So from what I've gathered from all of this, the possibility of $500,000, lots of spare time, a small team of experts and a chance at rebuilding an F20C engine using similar production methods is looking less hopeful than I initially thought...

 

[Perfect Balance]

F1 Engines don't use valve springs. Instead, they use pneumatic valves. In order to go to 20,000 rpms on a valve spring stiff enough to keep valve float from happening, they would have to be VERY stiff, which would cause extreme wear to the camshaft lobes. With pneumatic valves, they can do the same without the wear and tear to the cams. They also have VERY high compression, part of the reason why they can get so much power out of a naturally aspirated 2.4 liter V8, also the reason that in GT4, in first (and maybe second) gear, if you let go off the gas, the compression braking is strong enough to lock the wheels.