The veil of secrecy which has surrounded Formula One’s most successful KERS system was partially lifted recently when Zytek Automotive were unveiled as motor and power electronics supplier for the Formula One KERS system as fitted to the 2.4 litre Mercedes-Benz FO 108W V8 engine.
The KERS system was developed and brought up to racing standard in 24 months by Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines in collaboration with Daimler / Mercedes-Benz Research & Development. Read more…
Isn’t it strange how solving one issue in racing can sometimes lead to solving a different problem in production engines many years later. The evolution of the main bearing cap springs to mind.
It was while examining a cylinder block prior to rebuilding a classic engine that made me reflect on how far, in terms of technology modern road vehicle engines have come. The crankcase in question was a five bearing four cylinder unit of 1970s origin and having a relatively undersquare bore/stroke ratio would rev regularly up to 9000 rpm. Read more…
The subject of fuel additives is always a thorny subject in motorsport. As a competitor, there are always concerns associated with the ‘unfair’ advantage but if the vehicle is a historic one and designed to run on fuels that are no longer available, then the issues can run even deeper.
All gasoline fuels contain additives. Whether this is to reduce oxidation in the form of inhibitors or metal deactivators to minimise corrosion, these are added in small amounts to ensure that the fuel reaches the user in the best possible condition and causes as little damage Read more…
Last month, we looked at some basic calculations regarding cyclic loading of fasteners. We must apologise for the recurring errors in printing symbols. The questions marks last month should have been ‘delta’ symbols. For example strain was given as:
e = ?L/L
This month we shall look at the calculation of joint stiffness, and the good news is that the methods and the basic calculations are the same. The combination Read more…
In previous articles on exhausts, we have talked about how these systems are composed of smaller parts, then welded together to form the whole. We further assumed that these smaller component parts would either be small cast pieces, simple bends or perhaps pressed sections. Pressed sections offer the possibility for different shapes and tight bends where required.
In this article we shall look at a technology which is relatively new to motor-racing, although it has been used successfully for decades in the manufacturing Read more…
For those of you who have ever grappled with the art of carburettor ‘tuning’, the invention of the fuel injector must have come as something of a huge relief. The selection of choke sizes, main jets, emulsion tubes and air correction jets was all a bit fraught at times but once mastered and coupled with accelerator jets and something called ‘progression’, would seem to have guaranteed a job for life. Or so we thought. While the theory was always well understood it was only when we were able to view high-speed video that our true skills, or rather lack of them, was realised. Instead of the fine mist we Read more…
Here’s a word of warning for you which highlights the importance of getting the basics right. The author recently visited a company who run a small water brake dynamometer for training purposes.
The company recently came into possession of a brand new 4-cylinder Honda road car engine, donated to them by Honda as the car it had come from could not be sold and therefore needed to be disposed of. Read more…
In the previous article, we looked at the hardening and tempering of crankshafts. This month we shall look at the final and probably most important stage of heat-treatment, namely that of surface treatments, especially nitride hardening, more commonly known as ‘nitriding’. Nitriding is essentially a surface treatment, and its effect extends to a finite distance below the surface of the component.
Before we start, we should note that nitriding Read more…
Last month, we started to look at materials which are being used for con rods. The article looked at the use of aluminium, which finds widespread use in drag-racing. This month we shall turn our attention to engines with less than 5000 hp and con rods in another low-density material: titanium.
Titanium has long been used as a con rod material for racing, and its benefits have been slowly taken up by road car and motorcycle manufacturers in the last couple of decades, although this has only been on very Read more…
Whilst DLC seems clearly to be the favourite coating at the moment, there are some applications where it isn’t necessarily favoured, for various reasons.
One area where ‘traditional’ DLC coatings have struggled is in applications where temperatures are significant. The DLC coating begins to degrade at quite a low temperature in comparison with other coatings, such as titanium nitride (TiN) for example. Many of the more common and traditional coatings were developed years before DLC and were used initially as tool coatings for the Read more…
