As can be seen from earlier articles in RET-Monitor on race engine block material, a trend can be seen towards Compacted Graphite Iron as a crankcase material. It has been used occasionally in the past on highly loaded motorsport applications but it now seems to have become more widespread.
The reasons for this are the higher mechanical strength of the material in relation to increasing combustion loads, and a broader availability of CGI 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…
We have, in previous articles, looked at the importance of correct pre-load for fasteners, and this is especially important where there are cyclic loads involved that might causes fatigue failures.
One of the more reliable ways in which we can tighten a fastener is to measure the extension or ’stretch’ of a given bolt or stud, and for a con rod, this is indeed the way that the vast majority of engine builders will work. Knowing the load versus extension relationship of the bolt means we can Read more…
At the recent Monza World Superbike round, I asked Marcus Eschenbacher, crew chief to Cal Crutchlow at Sterilgarda Yamaha, about their choice of exhaust configuration. As many who work in Formula One or study it will know, the exhaust systems on each side of the engine are arranged in a ‘four-into-one’ collector with four primary pipes coming together in a single collector on each side. The arrangement is often abbreviated to ‘4-1′, denoting four pipes converging into one larger pipe. Read more…
If there is one area of engineering that has simply exploded over the past 30 years or so it is that of control. Where once we had mechanical or electrical devices to manage what few systems were around, these days almost all mechanical systems are controlled by some measure of electronics and computing such that a whole new subject has evolved - that of mechatronics.
In the case of a modern race engine, we are all too familiar with the idea of electronics together with a Read more…
The fatigue behaviour of a crankshaft is dictated by the service loads it is expected to cope with, its manufacture and its geometry. In numerous articles concerning crankshafts, surface treatments and materials, RET-Monitor has stressed the critical importance of compressive residual stresses for increasing fatigue life, and it is here that the correct selection of material, heat treatment and further processing is of utmost importance. Read more…
There is wide agreement among racing engine manufacturers and builders that the source of much friction in the racing engine comes from the crankcase. These losses are not entirely due to the amount of lubricant in the crankcase, as I can attest from personal experience. But there can certainly be gains made in reducing frictional losses by minimising the amount of oil in the crankcase and better control of the oil that’s there.
In wet-sump engines the control of oil has Read more…
One of the biggest issues with any machine tool, camshaft grinders included, is that of axis backlash. Defined as the loss of motion when the machine’s axis, either rotational or linear, reverses, it can have a major influence on the precision of the component being made.
With camshaft lobes needing to be ground to accuracies of +/- 6 microns or better, the backlash in the machine is therefore of critical importance. The result of loose or worn components in the Read more…
This is the first occasion where we have covered the use of copper alloys, and we shall look briefly at their main applications. Throughout the article the word ‘bronze’ is used: technically this is a copper alloyed with tin, among other things but bronze has also come to describe many copper alloys such as brasses (copper-zinc alloys) and others.
In terms of four-stroke con rods, most of us will be familiar with the concept of using a bushed small Read more…
RF85 was covered last year in the pages of the May 2009 Race Engine Technology, but in that instance most of the data presented referred to the results of tests on cutting tools such as saw blades and taps.
I spoke recently to the owner of Better Than New, in Tennessee, US, the company which carries out the RF85 surface treatment and which claims to reduce dry friction between metal pairs by around 85% (hence the name RF85).
