Old ads are great! So dated, yet so similar in many ways to todays ads. Heres a favorite tobacco ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdEBgU5WRP8

No more disgraceful than todays McDonalds ads.

I seem to recall that the 1300+ hp claims were based on "flash readings" on the pressure guage. Something that the drivers would see for a split second at the end of the longest straights with maximum rpm and maximum ram-air effect. Not 1300 hp for the entire lap. That might explain how the engines could survive a full qualifying lap.

The point about the flash readings of over 1300hp is that at the time they were flash readings of over 1000hp. McGuire is correct about hp inflation over the years. I will have to see if I can trawl up any articles from the 80s.

Glad you liked the Shell Ad.

It was a wonderland in the '50s and '60s. Advertisers could claim whatever they liked no matter how untrue or absurd. Often the best part of going through a stack of old mags is the advertising.

The link to the old commercials on YouTube from robroy was excellent. Barney Rubble puffing on a Winston is just wrong somehow. My favorite was "more doctors smoke Camels than any other brand."

Thanks for posting it. What are those cars? They look sorta like '63-ish Mercury Comets but in the grainy photos it's hard to tell.

I would guess that they were early Ford Falcons - XM or XP.

Yep Aussie Falcons 1965 XP.

Just been re-reading a book on the 1985 Grand Prix year by Nigel Roebuck. There is a good article on Prost in there and Alain states that he was quite happy that Porsche didnt go chasing qualifying horsepower like "some other manufacturers" and instead just concentrated on a good driveable ( and fuel efficient ) race engine.

In another interview with Nelson Piquet elsewhere, he described what it was like to qualify with a BMW qualy engine.. the gist of it being that he drove around the centre of the corner, waited for the corner to finish, lined the car up completely straight, and then launched the thing to the next corner, braking early so as to make it around the next bend.. the stories of those BMW drivers finishing laps with eyes "like dinner plates" is well documented as well.. as is the fact that just about everything south of the engine was junk after a qualifying run, gearbox, driveshafts etc.

Without checking, I`m sure it was also Piquet, who described the thrust as being akin to sitting in your favourite armchair on a railway track, and then being hit full bore by a freight train..

Whatever the power, its probably worth remembering that these power gains happened over a relatively short period of time, and most of those drivers started in DFV powered cars.

Finally, its always good watching how much suspension movement and body roll those Turbo cars seemed to have, they look quite wallowy compared to the cars of today.

The power output is simply a calculated figure. If they from dyno testing knew that the engine produced 850 hp at 3.6 bar absolute (race power for seasons 85 and 86) they can roughly estimate the power output with no wastegate and a 5.5 bar flash reading to 850/3.6*5.5 = 1336 hp. Naturally, this output can only be produced for a very short time so there aren't any cooling issues, and the compressors used in F1 were not designed for these kind of pressure ratios. The kind of pressure ratio needed for a boost this high are also at about what is theoretically possible from a single turbine turbocharger given reasonable turbine and compressor performance.

Ian Bamsey usually get most power quotes correct, figures printed in more "popular" type of magazines I would be more carful with. Especially in this case as the fuel is said to be developed for german WW2 figher planes which is a bit of a stretch, but at least they didn't quote it as a rocket fuel.

For a performance standpoint it is also very important to look at the usable power output, and the power band of the BMW engine isn't exactly wide. The powercurve from the Honda RA167E in race trim for instance look much nicer with +900 hp in the range 9500-13000 rpm, and 80% of max torque already at 7000 rpm. But with aero performance as a brick I doubt that will help much.



The Ecotecs are indeed in the 1400 hp range with 1450 hp at 9200 rpm and about 4.5 bar. But one should not forget that these run methanol and a compression ratio of about 10.8:1 (as opposed to the six, sevenish figures of the BMW engine), in itself probably worth 10% power. In addition to that they have about 700 cm^3 more displacement to play with.
1450 hp corrected to atmospheric pressure is about 320 hp, not an unrealistic power figure for a 2.2 litre engine. 4.5 bar absolute is also easier for the turbo to handle.

Okay a fair answer, rather than just guess "that it's wrong".
But again we don't know what configuration the engine was in when tested on the dyno. More than fair that the race figures can be accurately (enough) guessed, but we have no idea what they tried on the dyno.
It could have had a 9,500 rpm - 11,500 rpm useful rev range for all we know, to made that 1400hp.
We just don't know.
But the 1300hp odd seems to be quite possible.

In 1985 Nanni Galli tested an Alfa Romeo 185 for Autosprint magazine. He said that he had not really been impressed by anything except the incredible and sudden acceleration.

It seems that with all this discussion about BMEPs everyone forgot that turbo motors have much longer burn cycles to generate power, therefore not generating the theoretical BMEPs a normally aspirated engine would require to make that kind of power.

It also strikes me as odd, that during that era ( 83 - 86 ), when BMW were making these huge HP claims for their turbo F1 motors, they had no cars in production with a Turbo motor...

When you think about it, BMW were always famed for their normally aspirated engines in the 80`s and 90`s... Porsche had a long standing love affair with Turbo`s. Audi also embraced Turbo technology with the Quattro and their 100 range.

I am probably wrong, but even Honda had no Turbo prod cars in the 80`s?? Yet clearly, they had the technology..

BMEP is a calculated figure from torque and displacement, burn duration has no effect.

The burn duration for at least the boost restricted engines were also not that great. The Honda RA168E for instance saw a maximum pressure at peak power of 167 bar at 17 degrees after top dead center with ignition at 35 degrees BTDC. BMEP in that case was 32.3 bar and IMEP was 38 bar. The earlier RA167E produced a more impressive 41 bar BMEP at peak power, while restricted to 4 bar absolute pressure. Unfortunatly, no cylinder pressure diagrams are availible from that engine.

Even today's "19,000 rpms" are flash readings, as is evident from on-board coverage. It's very rare to see the cars stay for more than a split moment at top revs.

My point is that BMEP is a mathematically derived number based on incomplete information. It is not something you can use to predict horsepower accurately or impose horsepower limits.

Rather like pi

?????

Actually pi is a mathematically derived constant. No ambiguity there. Pi is always the same. Its value does not change with the diameter of a circle.

Ah but it is the circle that is constant

BMEP is a simple calculated figure

P[kW] = BMEP[bar]*Displacement[litres]*Speed[rpm]/1200

If an engine with a displacement of 1.5 litres is to produce 1400 hp at 11,000 rpm it has to produce a bmep of 75 bar. Either that or it isn't producing the claimed 1400 hp. You can't blame incomplete information because we have all the information we need. Sure, the above formula is simplified, but non the less physically correct.

BMEP figures themself can't be measured directly, but they are predictable and easily calculated from actual performance (as shown above).

Actually, the value of pi depends on how you define "circle," which in turn is dependent on the notion of "distance." A "circle" consists of all points at the same "distance" from a point, called the "center." Pi is the ratio of the length (i.e. "distance") of this circumference to the length ("distance) of the diameter of the circle.

Nevertheless, for every possible notion of "distance," pi can only take values between 3 and 4 (inclusive).

Interesting. I am only familiar with simple circles as defined in Euclidean geometry, where Pi is a constant. Please give me a detailed mathematical example where Pi is other than conventional value.

Pi is a ratio, a constant of proportionality. So is BMEP.

You don't run an engine at a BMEP, you run an engine at a torque at a speed. The BMEP is a constant of proportionality associated with that operating condition.

That was my point.

Now if McGuire chimes in with his opinion on pi, this thread will really be in trouble!

I didn't know I was entitled to an opinion on pi. It is what it is, isn't it? More or less? Or shall we adopt the typical message board approach in which the most popular view prevails? We could argue bitterly about it for a while and develop a consensus position. Earlier in the discussion DOHC reminded me of Archimedes' approximation of pi. He (Archimedes, not DOHC) determined that for a 96-sided polygon, "pi" is 22/7. True, that is not a real circle. However, it is closer to a circle than any of us can draw without mechanical aids, and rounder than a nylon tire on a cold morning. In the Old Testament (Kings or Chronicles, I forget) it is written that pi is an even 3.0 with no transcendental properties whatsoever, so maybe you irrational sons of bitches are all going to Hell for your blasphemies.

Im sending that last line to my sister for her math exams.

Ok, distance depends on how you measure distance. There is a famous example in mathematics called the "Manhattan distance" or "taxi distance." This measures the distance between two street corners on Manhattan when you travel by taxi. The point is, if you travel from 46th St, 5th Ave to 50th St 6th Ave, you have to travel 1 block in the "x" direction (avenues, or east-west) and 4 blocks in the "y" direction (north-south). The total distance travelled is simply the sum of the two, 1+4=5.

This is unlike the Euclidean notinon of distance which is the way the crow flies. (Naturally, that is not permitted by taxi on Manhattan.) In such a case, you would travel a distance equal to (according to Pythagoras) sqrt(4^2+1^2) = sqrt(17) = 4.123 approximately.

The interesting thing is that the Manhattan or taxi distance satisfies all axioms of a distance in mathematics, so it is a valid notion of a distance, and in fact, it is widely used in mathematics too.

What does a "circle" look like according to the Manhattan notion of distance? Well, a circle of radius 1 consists of all points you can reach exactly 1 block from the street corner you're at.

Let's say you're at the New York Public Library, at 42nd St, 5th Ave. The "circle" then reaches to 4th Ave, 41st, 42nd and 43rd St, and to 6th Ave, 41st, 42nd and 43rd St, right? (Disregard all New York anomalies such as unidirectional streets and named avenues.)

Draw a little map of that "circle".

Now, what is the circumference of that circle? Travelling the full circle, you have to travel from 4th Ave 41st St to 4th Ave 43rd St. That's two blocks.

Then you have to travel from 4th Ave 43rd St to 6th Ave 43rd St. That's two blocks. Now you have travelled four blocks total.

Then you have to travel 6th Ave 43rd St to 6th Ave 41st St. That's two blocks. So total distance is now six blocks.

Finally, you have to travel 6th Ave 41st St to 4th Ave 41st St to complete your "circle." That's another two blocks and now you have travelled 8 blocks total.

Now let's have a look at the "diameter" of that circle. It's simply the distance from side to side of that circle, or 2 blocks.

So there you are: circumference 8 blocks; diameter 2 blocks; hence pi = 8/2=4.

This is not a joke but serious mathematics. Of course, it is set in a day-to.day context, but in fact it is an important way of calculating distances, and it is often used in professional mathematics.

As you point out, in the Euclidean geometry, pi is certainly 3.1415926535 or so, but this is not the only way of measuring distances, and therefore not the only possible value of pi. Although, pi = 3.14 is, of course, the only famous value with any respectable claim to fame.

It's in Kings 1, 7:23. Although that has no mathematical significance whatsoever, as the notion of "round" isn't properly defined.

I'm sure it will eventually progress around something multiplied by its diameter!

Sure buddy, you just keep telling yourself that as you are lowered into your crypt of fire in the sixth circle.

I'm looking forward to it!

This discussion went decidedly downhill and this blasphemous discussion of hell has no bearing on anything, unless of course we can determine what the average ambient temperature in degrees Kelvin is in the sixth circle. As for the definition of a "Manhattan" circle, does this sample hold true everywhere, or is it this math confined to New Yorkers?

I use this exact figure for Pi

(not really)

Neat.

BTW is this an example of what some term "mental masturbation?"

You may not have caught the spirit of this discussion.

But to answer your question, yes: taxicab geometry holds true everywhere. Euclidean geometry is based on the presumption that you can always get there from here, which is not entirely warranted.

To answer your other question, hard to say. Denizens of the Inferno have perfect knowledge of the past and future, but no knowledge of the present; meanwhile, someone has to hold the thermometer. We can say the sixth circle it is hot enough to scourge the flesh of the wicked, but evidently not hot enough to disinfect the Stygian marsh one floor above. So as a rough guess, approximately 160 degrees F.

Well I think I prefer to have my cylinder bores based on geometric shapes rather than taxi cab mathematics. But as for the spirit of this discussion, I would guess that current F1 cars would be able to walk away from 80's turbo cars based on twenty years worth of tire technology, traction control and aerodynamics to start with. But the best comparison is lap times. Not completely accurate, because track surfaces have changed and track shapes have changed. All the horsepower in the world means nothing if you cannot put it to the ground. And I would imagine this to hold true for the V-10's as well as the current V-8's.

I don't think there is any real question about that. I would just add that the one apparent advantage of turbo-era cars, great freakish gobs of horsepower, is largely mythology. That is my conclusion anyway. It is extremely doubtful that anyone ever had more than 900 hp or so in race trim, and even then the driveability was laughable by modern standards. The various claims of qualifying hp are all of the "as much as" variety, and that is the absolute best you can say for them. The BMW claims are especially specious.


The dyno link kindly provided by J. Edlund is especially illustrative. The engine makes good power at the peak, but 1000 rpm lower it is making half that. Peak torque is bugger all of 1000 rpm below peak hp. Your classic light-switch engine, all or nothing. The driver had to roll off the corner, square the car up and aim it at the next apex, and then power down. If Nelson Piquet can't even drive it, what good is it.

To be totally accurate about it, there are no Euclidian shapes in an engine. No such things exist anywhere. The ideal cylinder is as fabulous a conception as Dante's Inferno. What is the true circumference of a cylinder bore? We may as well ask how long is the coast of Norway. If we could make ideal cylinders we wouldn't need piston rings.

Holds everywhere, whenever needed. Widely used in math.

In beehives though, because of the hexagonal shape of honeycomb as opposed to the squarish blocks on Manhattan, a "circle" is a regular hexagon whose sides have length 1. So the circumference is 6, and as the diameter is 2 (by definition), pi=6/2=3 in a beehive.

3 and 4 are the smallest and biggest possible values of pi, for all conceivable ways of measuring distance.

Not quite. The Euclidean way of measuring distance is influenced by and adapted to our simplistic geometrical perception of the 3D real world. Many, if not most, mathematical objects, including real world objects such as Manhattan and beehives, have special geometries where the Euclidean approach is unsuitable or plain wrong. Hence the need to use more advanced topologies.

I would say that an eighties F1 car could not beat a contemporary F1 car around any of today's tracks. I believe that tyre technology has improved to the extent that any advantage an eighties car may have in power or downforce, it would be irrelevant.

We're surely confusing distance and displacement here? Displacement is the way the crow flies, distance depends on the route taken, even in Euclidean geometry?



Surely by this definition 4th Ave 41st Street is actually 2 blocks from 42nd St, 5th Ave and so not part of your 'circle'? Your circle in fact only consists of 4 points. I suppose arguably you could drive in various slightly diagonal lines down 4th Ave and so there may be a set of points at the junction with 42nd St rather than just one.

Either way, if you measure circumference by adding the distances between these points, in either manhatten distances, or as the crow flies, you travel through points that are not 1 block from 42nd St 5th Ave, and are therefore not in your circle, so you're not measuring the circumference of the circle, but the circumference + the distance to a load of other points. By my reckoning the circumference of this 'circle' is 4 'points' but how long is a point?

In addition a circle is supposed to be a curve, which is continuous - the 4 points are not continuous and therefore not a curve and not a circle. Plus one of the properties of a circle is its symmetry - every line through the centre of a circle has reflectional symmetry, and it has rotational symmetry about the centre for every angle - that doesn't apply to the four points either.

So, fundamentally it seems like circles, and therefore circumferences, and I suppose pi, just don't exist in Manhatten maths??

Engines such as the Honda RA167E produced 1010 hp in race trim, and did so with a quite good powercurve. But those engines was most likely one of the better designs seen during the turbo years with engines in the series winning the 1986, 1987 and 1988 constructors championship.

The decreased amount of fuel that could be used during a race; 220 liters in 1985 and then 195 liters from 1986 also meant that the maximum power could rarely be used during the race if you wished to finish before you ran out of fuel.

The turbo engines are also heavy by modern standards. Yet the Honda engine with its ca 140 kg was light in comparison to the BMW engine with its 170 kg.

Just to add to this thread, I made this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBuH1M0eIFg

I know one is a race lap whilst another is a quali lap...but the 2007/8 cars are pretty much the same in race spec as quali.

Displacement is not a mathematical concept. Distance is however, but distance does not depend on the route taken, as it would then be non-unique. Distance is the shortest way between two points.



2 blocks yes. A circle of radius 1 has diameter 2. The 2 block distance is equivalent to the diameter. The 8 block circumference is 4 times the diameter, hence pi=4.



...plus the streets and Avenues that connect those four points in the shortest possible way (=distance) between those points.



Don't forget the streets/avenues that connect the four corners. That makes a square, whose perimeter is a continuous curve.



But it applies to the square, which we are talking about here.

The difference is striking! Thanks for the comparison.

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

After further review, you can't compare laptimes with an actual manual transmission (Nakajima's car had a clutch pedal, correct?) and paddle shifters.

Yeah, it isn't really fair to compare then to now. But...as seems to be the theme of this thread, we shall

Listen to Nakajima downshift at Eau Rouge...quite a change from the flat-out F2007!

I never thought the cars would be so significantly different around a lap, but they are.

Plus, the 2007 is smoking the Lotus in a straight line. There's just no comparison.

So I can't help but conclude that the modern cars generate far less drag then the 99 era cars.

What about a side-by-side comparison with 2004 and/or 2005?