Good to know, I appreciate it.

 

Saw an interesting review on the Discovery Channel. Thought I'd share some
info:

What looked to be an upper A-arm for the front suspension is made of titanium
and carbon fiber.

The A-arm weighed 591 grams!

This was spec'd from a 2002 race car, I'd imagine it's slightly lighter now.

When I see these cars breakup during a crash, I think, "I'd hate to be in such
a machine going 200 MPH".

In fact these parts are designed to break away and dissolve to absorb energy
and remove mass from the car to ease impact forces on the driver.

Also didn't know F1 cars had to pass crash testing?

Very imformative program. Hope it repeats for those who haven't seen it.

 

Back to the trac control question. And this is from memory so..... I thought elect. trac control (for launches) was made illegal a couple of years ago. I think what they do now is with engine management. Prior to launch the driver pushes or holds a button that causes the engine management computer to go into launch mode. Essentially it keeps the rear wheels from spinning to much by controlling the hp/trq/rpm of the engine not the wheels.

 

With 900+ hp available and no downforce at launch, some engine power needs to be managed to prevent wheelspin. I doubt if brakes on the drive wheels were ever the method of choice.

They could control the engine output, the clutch(es) apply, the left/right torque split and maybe some other things we don't know about, all electronically. Think a VERY sophisticated Funny Car or ProStock clutch apply program rather than timers. Add real time wheelspin feedback and the ability to progressively open the throttles on each bank independently to tailor the torque curve, probably VVT, and you have tons of possibilities.

So why does Renault generally get the jump on everyone? static weight distribution? better software? better reaction times? Did Alonzo ever drive a Funny Car?

 

I think the other teams would pay to know. Did you see Michaels Ferrari when they picked it up after the crash in the last race or the one before that. The course workers had to hold up the front end to keep it from dragging on the ground. And the commentators said he'd been fighting understeer the whole race.

 

Yes I saw that. My thought at the time was that the roll hoop pickup point wasn't placed a the normal CG of the car, not that they had shifted the static weight distribution forward. I'd put the hoop where it needed to be aerodynamiclly, etc. unless there was a rule specifying it's exact location.

The flip side is that everyone was speculating why the car appeared front heavy. Someone has analyzed the tape and figured the actual fore/aft CG location, and perhaps the height from that hoisting.

The people to pay (bribe) are the software folks at Renault.

Speaking ot traction control, it pops up every so often in NASCAR Cup racing. If a team was using it, keeping it secret from all but a few employees would be critical. A few of us have given that some serious thought. We're not associated with any of the teams, so we are just speculating. Even if we figured it out, noone would confirm it. It's a fun exercise.

 

The big deal is that they are permitted a certain mass of fuel. That is what is really holding back their power. Formula one cars actually run at about 85% and then they hit "the button" which allows the engine to operate at 100% of its capabilities. They run out of fuel if they hit "the button" more than a few times a race.

Shell and Ferrari got busted a while back for using less dense fuel than the rest of the pack. Shell formulated a special fuel that was less dense which gave ferrari a HUGE HUGE advantage. F1's version of pulling a Smokey I suppose.


Now if someone can tell me anything about the T-rex car, Id be happy.

 

Mine spins up to about 35,000 RPM.... ...i have got the cops called on me before because it is to loud...haha the cops wanted to play with my car...they thought it was cool

 

Hmmm. My read says there are specific gravity limits for the fuel, and that is checked. Ferrari/Shell worked to the lower legal limit of SG, which allowed the car to be lighter with the same quantity of fuel. It was a MINOR MINOR advantage, perhaps a couple of kilos of weight, but a legal one. The only Smokey-thing about it was that maybe no one else used the rules to the max. Maybe you are talking ancient history, not the last few seasons. Enlighten us.

I do not think there is currently a specific limit to fuel capacity in an F1 car. They don't run around at 85% power and then hit the "button" for an extra 125 horses. Well, some of the teams are probably more like 85-90% of the top teams' power, but that's a diferrent matter.

Where are you getting your info, Boost? It doesn't seem to be from the usual resouces. Deep throat? Buddies with Max? Enquiring minds want to know.

 

F1 cars to the best of my knowlege dont have an ulimited fuel supply for a race. They are given X pounds (get outa here with your metric pish posh! )
of fuel before the race and that is that.
The shell/F1 thing was a while ago.

Thinking of that whole making the fuel less dense things just reminded me of smokey's nascar days. Nothing recent.

 

No F1 has whatever amount of fuel they want to run to finish the race... no limits on it anymore. They change the rules about every year but since they were allowed to refuel the cars you don't have a limit. I think in CART and IRL you do have a set amount of fuel for the whole race.

Bret

 

Mine spins to about 32,000, sound really cool don't they
Your neighbors sound like a** holes, these are not that loud
Never got the cops called for anything noise relared...of course there are some advantages to living in the boonies.