Anybody know where to find a good photo of the LeMans winning Renault sportscar from the late seventies?
I've seen a few photos, but none that capture the car from the front.
Didn't it have an odd sort of driver compartment?

It's not a very good one, but it does show the front (I think this is the 1978 car):

Talking of Renault - are we allowed to become nostalgic over the Régie's F1 comeback announcement from this afternoon?

Then again, a works Renault without the sound of a wailing turbo engine won't be the same to me...

R.D

Do turbos wail, or just go bang.
The best sounding engines are always naturally aspirated or supercharged - no turbos...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

Ray

Disregarding my promise, I made :

I'm a technically virgin. What's the difference between supercharged and turbo?

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E.T.

A supercharger is a usually a positive displacement pump driven by the engine - via a pulley, a chain or gears. Some centrifugal superchargers have been used, but not so often on racing cars (the BRM V16 was one, also some Indianapolis racers used them, including the McCulloch unit that was popular on Ford V8s before the war). The centrifugal supercharger found its greatest acceptance in aircraft. They suffer less from wear than the positive displacement types, be they vane or rotor styles. (Please don't ask me to explain all of that, someone can come up with diagrams, I'm sure)
Turbochargers are driven by the exhaust pressure acting on a drive turbine which is just like a centrifugal supercharger's turbine, but working in reverse. They in turn drive another centrifugal blower, but at huge speeds.
Whereas the BRM's turbine was quite large, the turbo blower-turbines are small and run up around 80,000 rpm.
It is because the turbo has the exhaust driving it that the exhaust sound is changed. In road cars they can become quite quiet.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[This message has been edited by Ray Bell (edited 03-17-2000).]

Ray: what is your definition of 'best' when speaking of engine sounds?

I agree on the fact that normally aspirated engines ('no substitute for cubic inches', right?) make an impressive amount of noise. It's just that I can't help associate a works Renault car with that turbo sound, which is, well, interesting in its own right.

BTW, I don't know if turbos wail or if they don't. I'm no English native speaker so I'm hardly to judge the subtle nuances in your language. In that respect, the Anglosaxons will always have an advantage on forums like these.

I just thought it was a nice word to go with 'turbo'. Maybe they hum or bark instead...

Cheers,
R.D

I'll try to post a picture, hope it will work:

Is it this one you wanted?






[This message has been edited by AUSTRIA (edited 03-17-2000).]

Thanks for the responses - all this time I thought the Renault had some sort of roof!

Austria - you lost me there man....

Duane,

In one year the Le mans Renaults did have an enclosed cockpit canopy. From memory it was very similar to the Protos designed by Frank Costin in the mid 1960s in that it was a fully enclosed clear plastic cover with a rectangular slit at the front to aid driver vision and breathing.
As I recall it was only tried in practice and not used in a race, due to the obvious difficulties associated with heat buildup and driver fatigue. I have seen pictures of Pironi driving it but i will have to hunt them down to confirm this.

In the early days of using turbos on road race cars, the driver had to cope with something called turbo-lag which was as its name says a lag time from when you stepped on the go pedal and the power kicked in. I remember seeing the Porsche 935 turbos run and hear the turbos starting to spool up in the center of a turn and the driver hopeful that he would be pointed in a semi-straight position when the power came on. Renault might have one the first to tame this effect.

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"Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go?"

The best engine sounds are exhaust noises not cut to ribbons by turbos. Important, too, are the number of cylinders firing into the pipes, and the sound of the individual firings.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[This message has been edited by Ray Bell (edited 03-18-2000).]

As I recall Renault tried a version of the aerodynamic cockpit bubble as seen on the winning car on their F1 car shortly after.

That win by Renault still stands (I think) from a drivers point of view, as they were the youngest (Pironi) and the oldest drivers to win Le Mans....

Go on, tell me I'm wrong

http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/2299/Re...pine-A442B.html

http://www.gtdreams.com/_Atelier/Renault_288.jpg

Only the Pironi/Jaussaud A442B ran with the cockpit canopy in the race. They won, although Pironi, who drove the last stint, collapsed on the podium with heat exhaustion. If you look at the side view on Ultimatecarpage you'll see holes drilled in the door and what looks like a nozzle at the top of the side inlet (in more recent photos, such as at Goodwood, it's now just a hole!), presumably to ventilate the cockpit. The top of the canopy was silver, to reflect the heat. There would also have been issues with visibility, although I don't think it rained throughout the race, but it was hinged at the front and could have been easily enough removed. I believe the Jabouille/Depailler A443 practised with the canopy but the drivers rejected it for the race.

KzKiwi: you're right, it was just like the Protos - you wonder if that's where the Renault Alpine aerodynamicists got the idea from. Or was it just a question of 'great minds think alike'?!

http://forix.autosport.com/8w/varia/bh-d67.jpg