It is often said that water is the elixir of life. But when used as a coolant in a high-performance racing engine it can be the kiss of death instead. Let me explain.
Ever since the invention of the ‘heat’ engine, limits to the properties of the metals used mean they have necessitated some kind of cooling. And since water is all around us, it makes sense to use this is a transport fluid to remove heat from the cylinder head and disperse it into the atmosphere. 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…
Continuing the discussion of wire thread inserts in previous articles, this month I’ll consider ’solid’ types of insert. There are at least two varieties of ’solid’ inserts in common use, and these are used mainly for repairs and, less often, in situations where female thread strength is felt to be a problem and that without such an insert, the chances of thread stripping are high.
The ‘problem’ with solid inserts is that they can (and generally do) bias the distribution of load Read more…
Diesel fuel is extremely popular for automotive use, particularly in Europe where, for some manufacturers, diesel vehicles account for more than 50% of sales.
Part of the reason is that, in some countries, diesel fuel is much cheaper than petrol (gasoline). In the Netherlands, for instance, petrol is 30% more expensive than diesel. But even in countries where diesel comes at a premium compared to petrol, such as the UK, diesel vehicle sales continue to Read more…
In the previous article on this subject we looked at the use of Inconel as a valve material. This month I’ll look at an application of another high-temperature valve material, Nimonic alloys.
These are nickel-based alloys which, similar to Inconel materials, maintain a high proportion of their room-temperature strengths at elevated temperatures. As with Inconel alloys they are commonly used in turbocharged or supercharged applications, where the high operating
In these times of political and economic upheavals around the world it seems there is an appetite for change in other areas of life as well. Suggestions for a revamp to the Formula One engine regulations could fill a whole book but it is the latest - including direct injection or gas turbine technology - that have really hit the headlines recently.
For those with long memories, gas turbines were all the rage in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Read more…
Perhaps the most common word used today in engineering is ‘optimise.’ Now, my memory may be a little bit selective, but until about 20 years ago the word was rarely used. But I have a theory. In the past, engineers were probably far too busy concentrating on getting things to work in the first place than working to their optimum, or perhaps it’s because today’s engineering ‘tools’ - and by that I mean software - are far more discriminating, allowing finer degrees of control. Or perhaps it’s a combination of both. Even so, when it comes to Read more…
The previous article looked at the recent trend in crankshaft lubrication commonly known as the ‘nose-feed’ method. In that article, the basics of the concept were explained, along with some of the perceived advantages of using this method of providing lubrication to the connecting rod big ends and possibly the crankshaft main bearings too.
When feeding the connecting rod’s big-end bearings with oil in the ‘conventional’ manner of pumping in oil via the main bearing journals, we Read more…
In last month’s article on connecting rods, I looked at a common way of providing lubrication to the small end of the connecting rod - drilling (or multiple drillings) into the small end of the rod. In many cases this is enough to supply lubrication of the small end. But there are many cases where this might prove inadequate.
The oil entering the small end via these radial drillings has to find its way into the entry of the drilling (hence the generous chamfer provided), and Read more…
In a previous article on polymer coatings, I considered their application to pistons. Using polymer coatings on piston skirts remains popular for reducing friction and improving running-in behaviour. They have also been used for the rapid development of optimised piston skirt profiles, and this has been discussed in peer-reviewed technical literature.
This month we shall look at some of the past and present applications of polymer coatings in racing Read more…
