We’ve all received them at some time in our lives. That invitation to so-and-so’s wedding that spreads mild panic in the household. A new outfit for the wife, a few modifications to the waistband of that old suit of mine, and the prospect of being away from the workshop for a whole weekend. At the bottom of the card the letters ‘RSVP’ demand an almost immediate reply and so inspiration for damage limitation has to come - and come quickly. Read more…

The world of Formula One is a special case in the technology of engine lubrication. With formulations closely guarded and reputed to be radically different from those found on the service station forecourt, the philosophy behind them is to generate the minimum amount of friction commensurate with adequate component life. But when at one time engines could be changed between practice and the race, now with only eight engines allowed for the whole season the pendulum has moved away from minimising friction to enhanced durability, before - as will inevitably be the case - Read more…

To many, the words ‘fuel’ and ‘economy’ have no real place in the motorsports world. After all, and as everyone knows, to save fuel the driver has to be delicate on the throttle, avoid braking and keep in as high a gear as he (or she) can. And with these actions seemingly totally at odds with the concept of travelling quickly, I might find it hard to do anything other than agree.

Nevertheless, there are times when race organisers wish to restrict the amount of fuel carried on board and therefore stipulate a maximum tank capacity to which all competitors must comply. In such cases, in order to finish the race and assuming refuelling is not allowed (or even desirable), it will be necessary to eke out the fuel supply in some way or another. Read more…

As the world awaits the new, expected to be revolutionary, engine rules for Formula One, last winter an altogether much quieter revolution was taking place. For tucked away on pages 56 to 58 - towards the back of the 67-page F1 Technical Regulations document - was Article 19, relating to the fuel used in the formula.

To claim it is a revolution is no hyperbole. For while in both sets of regulations - the 2009 version and its updated 2010 successor - the purpose of the Article is “to ensure that the fuel used in Formula One is petrol as this term is generally understood”, the thinking behind the changes goes much Read more…

The use of fuels other than gasoline is nothing new in motorsports, yet somehow when teams first make their selection known it always takes us by surprise. So when the Team Aon Ford Focuses of BTCC drivers Tom Chilton and Tom Onslow-Cole finally admitted that they were forsaking the traditional BTCC-spec gasoline and fuelling up on LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) it took some time for the news to sink in.

But LPG is nothing new in tin-top racing. Twelve Read more…

Maybe I’m getting old but when I see racers the world over spending thousands of pounds (or dollars) on their winter engine rebuilds and then running them on ordinary pump fuels, I simply begin to wonder. By the time they have prepared the car, transported it to the circuit, paid the entry fee and fed and watered their little army of helpers, with any of the budget still remaining, you would have thought that they would have planned to fuel the engine on something just a little bit more suitable than pump fuel? OK, they might have Read more…

I guess you could say that the first decade of the 21st century, in the world of motor sport at least, were the years of the alternative fuels. Diesel (yes, we’re talking motor sports here), bio-ethanol, RME (rape methyl esters) and even CNG (compressed natural gas) have all been used during the decade for one kind of motor racing or another but there was one type of alternative fuel going back to the eighties and which didn’t quite make the headlines, for obvious reasons - and that was toluene. C7H8 to give it its Read more…

Mention the word bioethanol to most people, even the ones who have little interest in our industry, and the chances are they will at least know that you are talking about alternative fuels. Added to gasoline fuel in amounts up to 98% of the total, the process of adding ethanol derived from bio sources to spark ignition fuels can reduce the so-called ‘carbon footprint’ making our sport, or so we try to convince others, more politically acceptable to all. The real benefit to us performance types, as we all probably know by now, is that with higher detonation resistance and richer mixtures Read more…

I think it was the great Liverpool F. C. manager Bill Shankly who once professed that football wasn’t a matter of life and death – it was more important than that. But strangely enough, the words – ‘football’, ‘life’, and ‘oils’ have all come together recently making substantial improvements to gearbox durability especially those with sequential changes.

Transmission oils are similar, in many ways, to your typical engine crankcase product; they need excellent viscosity/temperature characteristics if at high Read more…

Love them or hate them, the two-stroke engine is in many ways far superior to its 4-stroke rival.

Specific power, specific weight, manoeuvrability, cost of manufacture, ease of maintenance, durability, NOx emissions and even fuel consumption in the case of smaller engines, can be far superior to its less controversial 4-stroke brother, but why then don’t we see more of these engines in competition?

With one strike for power and one to wear it out as Read more…