djr81

Cool a Lola (Larousse) Lambo. Wonder what Ukyo Katayama is doing these days.

Benetton had a works deal in '94 with Ford. The motors were no longer badged as Cosworth by that stage. In '95 they had Renault motors. I reckon you could reasonably quantify it as a factory eninge deal because the motors were every bit as good a the ones in the Williams. The best I can come up with is McLaren in 1993. Senna won 5 GP's with a customer Ford engine that was always an evolution behind the works Benettons versions. Ron Dennis had to sign a cheque to get them too.

If memory serves Honda were not in F1 under their own name at that point, meaning the Mugen engine was not technically a customer engine. In previous years it had been basically a badged version of obsolete variants of the bespoke motors. I was thinking more along the lines of say the Renault relationship with RedBull, or perhaps Ferrari's with Sauber. Mind you HHF came mightilly close to a drivers crown in '99. If only they hadn't coughed it up at Monza. They were still Mugens in '99 I think.

Love the shot of the Minardi.

Yeah, how many millions of pounds is he paying Frank Williams so he can drive that POS Honda? Prize of undying admiration if anyone can remember the last constructor to win a race with a customer engine - Jordan in South America doesn't count.

News flash: Red Bull (or any customer engine team) will never will a grand prix. Ever. Conclusion: Webber is wasting his time & should be pounding Flava-Flav for a seat at Renault. Before they re-sign Alonso.

Sheesus. You have a thread bung full of mechanical engineers (yes, guilty as charged) banging on about thermodynamcis & heat transfer & you want practical advice on building things?

Yes, see the data log of the two laps for your answer. The calculation was merely indicative The more you compress the air the hotter it will get. This is true irrespective of the inlet air temperature or pressure. It is why compressor maps are shown using a pressure ratio on the vertical axis. As a general rule air doesn't pick up much temperature from being in contact with pipework etc. (take a look inside your intercooler to see how much gear is inside to allow for the heat transfer) But it most certainly does when it is compressed by an inefficient turbo compressor - even the good ones only run to about 80% efficiency ie 20% of the output is just heating the air.

To deal with the second point first. There is only manifold vacuum at idle, so your BOV should be shut & the turbo doing nothing of any note. In any case the intercooler cannot cool air below the ambient air temp. Heatsoak in the intercooler is caused by it ingesting hot air rather than from radiant heat. To deal with the first point second, this may explain things somewhat. Or it just may give you a headache. It is a datalog of a road test with thermocouples hooked up to various points in the car. Pod was unshielded. Conditions: Ambient 15 deg. Drive down hwy at 100 k's, brake and accelerate from 2nd gear throught to 8000 rpm in 4th, cruise for about 30 sec and the accelerate from 3rd gear to 8000 rpm in 4th. Stop and idle for about 45 seconds shortly after. Temps at 8000 rpm in 4th for first test: air filter 48 (blue) after turbo 117 (pink) after I/C 45 (yellow) throttle body 51 (cyan) Temps at 8000 rpm in 4th for second test: air filter 47.3 after turbo 122.6 after I/C 45.9 throttle body 53 Temp at air filter after stationary at idle for about 45sec was 84 deg! Thermo fans switched on and filling engine bay with hot air obviously. So, based on the above results for the second test lets to some 'what if' scenarios based on different inlet temps to see what effect they have on the after I/C temps. Intercooler efficiency = 71 %. Temp rise across turbo = 75.3 deg. Using these figures some calculated and an ambient temp of 15 deg, after I/C temps are: Assumed inlet temp/Calculated after I/C temp 15/ 36.6 20/ 38.1 30/ 40.9 60/ 49.5 80/ 55.3

Have a look at the attached data log. It shows the difference between a cold day (quicker) & a hot day (Slower). You can clearly see at the 37 second mark that in third the rpm trace is falling away in part because the intercooler cannot cool the air as efficiently as on the cooler day. Yet the car keeps up in 2nd gear & when the cooler has a chance to dump some heat (ie when cornering) This is despite a cold air feed & a good sized intercooler. Heat soak in your intercooler is real & something you need to try & avoid. Cold air feed to the pods helps avoid it.

For my 10 cents, if you are going to make one you may as well make it air tight. A few points before I make my, errr, point. 1. Charles law. Put simply this says that temperature & volume (read density for our application) are inversely proportional. So a 30 degree increase in inlet temperatures will give you a 10% DECREASE in inlet charge density. This makes the turbo work harder which adds even more heat. Your intercooler can only remove some of this heat. 2. There is a compensating gain for air density that can be used. If you plumb your air intake into the high pressure area at the front of you can feed the cold air intake at above atmospheric pressure. Obviously this doesn't work on a dyno. My point is simply this. You need to have a substantial constriction in the air feed to get anywhere near the losses incurred by sucking hot air. Calculated approximately a 100mm pipe, plumbed correctly, can adequately feed a 500+hp engine. Lastly the worst effect of not having a cold air feed is when you are at the start line for a hillclimb or at the drags. The hot air will heat soak the intercooler which will give you less horsepower when you need it most.

Well for my 10 cents worth David Richards should concentrate on building a proper WRX for Solberg, Atkinson & Pons. Leave the F1 business for people who want to build their own cars. Customer chassis suck wang.

It is just people showing commitment to their sport.... The important thing is to be able to TOUCH the car as they go past at warp factor nine. It is the reason that they ended up having to stop the WRC going to Portugal. Fans there were just too into rallying. They only went back this year & even then in the arse end of the country to keep people away.

The real Stig (Stig Blomqvist) Plus a proper engine - FIVE cylinders....

37 > Delta. But that is just my opinion.

GTiR = Group A. Also it was a hopelessly uncompetitive understeering pig of a car.

Bring back the group B rally cars I say. Ford, Peugeot, Lancia & the rest were building mid engined turbo charged 4WD rocket ships when Nissan were still pissing about with atmo S12 Silvia's. Oh and all Toyota ever did in World rallying of any note was get chucked out for cheating.

You are all a bunch of girls blouses. www.wrc.com More sideways that drift plus they are airborne half the time. As committed to going fast as circuit racers but with fk off big trees right next to the road. Driving quick is one thing. Driving quick along a road you have only seen once with your brain processing what your co driver is saying about the road after the next corner which is over the current hump is quite another. Beyond the scope of any mere mortals.....

Major loss? Push understeer.

Short answer: yes. Long answer: The GT-R will provide you will a different level of performance. Upgrading an RB26 is not necessarilly massively more expensive than an RB20. It is relatively cheap & easy to get 400rwhp from a stock internal 26 which cannot be said for a 20. If it is a street car you won't be using alot of boost for a long time which causes failures in the stock turbos. If it is street car you will not be doing the sort of launches that cause damage to the oil pump drive on early model 32's. If it is a street car you don't need to do the restrictor. It is only lengthy periods at high rpm that cause problems. Fuel pumps can die on any car at any time. There is no point keeping a GTS-T just because someone reckon the fuel pumps may last longer. I have had my GT-R for four years. The most amount of maintenance it needed was replacing some worn brake rotors & some suspension bushes. Which is to say no different from what you will experience on a GTS-T. The problem with GT-R's is that too many people have bought them & not properly looked after them. Combine this with some wantonly stupid behaviour and in some circles the cars have garnered a reputation they simply do not deserve. They are a very good car. I would recommend you drive one & find out for yourself. If you are in the market buy a good one that has been looked after. The same as any car, really.

A couple of questions: 1. Why do you want to carry so much fuel. 20 gallons is about 90 litres. I can't think why you need so much capacity? 2. You don't necessarilly have to gut the boot & redo everything. I have seen some neat installs without making a complete dogs breakfast down there.

Probably after the FIA work out exactly how much help Ferrari need to win this year.

I don't think the smug look will be what is worrying Alonso. I think the fact that Lewis is faster than him may be somewhat of a concern.

www.noltecsuspension.com Have a search under the GT-R'sGTS's. Specifically they have lots of bits & their replacement bushes are, in a lot of cases, sleeved which will prevent them squeezing out like the Whiteline ones do.