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#101 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 16:37

I worked for a time as a picture researcher in publishing, I think mainly because I could remember photos so well.

For instance this is the first image of the PC28, confirming the rumours of it looking like no other car in the series

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However it actually ran in early December at Firebird in Arizona

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And just before Christmas at a test attended by AAR, Penske, Newman-Haas, and PPI. Or given how their seasons went, the voyage of the damned.

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Edited by Ross Stonefeld, 07 August 2012 - 16:40.


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#102 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 16:39

And for thoroughness, our ex-Hogan Reynard-Mercedes?

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#103 biercemountain

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 16:54

When a Penske car wins the '500' or any other significant event it is rebuilt as a runner at the end of the season in that specification and setup using as many of the parts as were used in the race - i.e. the same engine, gearbox, uprights and so on.


I thought Indy 500 winners are purchased by the Speedway for their museum. :confused:

#104 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 17:03

I thought Indy 500 winners are purchased by the Speedway for their museum. :confused:


With the exception of the '81 Bobby Unser car and the '72 Donohue car, Penske owns all of the winners.

#105 Tony Matthews

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 17:56

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Front of the PC27 tub.

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Underneath view of front RC/SO wing and nose.

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Inside the front of the tub as seen through the front access hatch.

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The PC27 steering wheel with machined ali paddles.

Edited by Tony Matthews, 07 August 2012 - 18:03.


#106 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 18:19

Now you're just showing off :love:

#107 biercemountain

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 18:55

Now you're just showing off :love:


And he's getting all "artsy" with his B&W pics. :cool:

#108 alansart

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 19:07

And he's getting all "artsy" with his B&W pics. :cool:


I hazard a guess in those days it's a 35mm Camera loaded with FP4 :)

What a brilliant thread. Thanks everyone :clap:

Edited by alansart, 08 August 2012 - 06:34.


#109 Tony Matthews

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Posted 07 August 2012 - 21:33

T-Max 400, Alan! I think there should be a dedicated CART technical thread, what Patrick and Nigel have revealed so far has been com-letely absorbing.

@Ross, I worry that it might look like that, but it's just enthusiasm for the subject. :)

#110 Repco22

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 01:59

I like a challenge!

Tony, it's been said many times but I have to repeat that your work is simply mind-boggling!

#111 Patrick Morgan

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 07:43

If only races were won on looks. The PC-27 has got to be one of the best looking race cars of all time.

For anyone interested there is a PC-27 showcar (and it is a show car) in the Donington museum. It sits next to the wind tunnel model which is pretty neat.

#112 roger.daltrey

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 08:12

Wow - the PC28 - is that a photoshop or did it run for real ?

I guess it didnt perform otherwise we would have seen more

Sort of looks like what an old indy roadster could have been if they'd kept the engine upfront !!

I worked for a time as a picture researcher in publishing, I think mainly because I could remember photos so well.

For instance this is the first image of the PC28, confirming the rumours of it looking like no other car in the series

Posted Image

However it actually ran in early December at Firebird in Arizona

Posted Image

And just before Christmas at a test attended by AAR, Penske, Newman-Haas, and PPI. Or given how their seasons went, the voyage of the damned.

Posted Image

Posted Image

Posted Image



#113 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 09:51

The front engine car is a joke. But there's a segment of the Indycar fanbase that wishes the rear engine revolution never happened. I'd mock them, but I think it'd be entertaining if the cars ran on bias-ply tires...

#114 Repco22

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 13:29

The front engine car is a joke. But there's a segment of the Indycar fanbase that wishes the rear engine revolution never happened. I'd mock them, but I think it'd be entertaining if the cars ran on bias-ply tires...

I thought it was designed by someone who wanted to distance himself from an accident. :well:


#115 Patrick Morgan

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 13:32

Tony,

Do you have any photos of the cooling system? The engine and gearbox oil intercoolers were combined in the same core in the PC-27 which was pretty wild.

#116 Tony Matthews

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 18:07

This is the only shot I can find of the intercooler - I thought they were heat-exchangers, is that wrong, or does it mean the same thing? - I had decided beforehand which side I would do the cutaway from, and I regret that I concentrated on that, rather than photographing every aspect of the car. There may be another shot hiding somewhere, I'll check the neg. sheets.

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Edited to add:- It looks to me that you can see one water inlet/outlet (dunno which direction the water would flow through it) and two oill connectors, engine and gearbox.

Edited by Tony Matthews, 08 August 2012 - 19:48.


#117 Magoo

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 19:40

This is one of the greatest message board threads in the history of the Internet. It's really something special when the principals involved tell their stories. :up:

#118 Tony Matthews

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 19:44

I thought it was designed by someone who wanted to distance himself from an accident. :well:

...except from the rear! A central driving position fro me please, Rod.

#119 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 20:37

This is the only shot I can find of the intercooler - I thought they were heat-exchangers, is that wrong, or does it mean the same thing?


Well, engine guys are the heat energy specialists so Patrick may have a different comment, but we called this component the heat exchanger. Indeed, by definition a conventional "radiator" is a heat exchanger too, since it exchanges heat energy between two fluids. In the PC27 / 28 both gearbox and engine oil were cooled by engine water which was obviously subsequently cooled by air.

On a turbo- or supercharged racing car the term "intercooler" is usually applied to a heat exchanging device which is arranged to cool the air or charge which has been compressed, prior to entry to the engine. These were proscribed in the CART rules.

I have to say that Modine were a great company to work with - enthusiastic, efficient and reliable. The engineer we used to work with, Greg Hughes, was super smart and ever so slightly eccentric in that nice boffiny way. He used to ride to Elkhart Lake from Racine, WI on a hard tail Harley chop whenever we were at Road America. About a 180 mile round trip...

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 08 August 2012 - 21:09.


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#120 Tony Matthews

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 21:13

I always thought that the item in question was called a heat exchanger because it worked two ways - raising the oil temperature if it was low, then stabilising it, lowering it when necessary. However, it must be a rare occurence for it to be low! The first time I recall seeing one was on the PC17, and I didn't appreciate that the PC27 had a combined engine and gearbox heat exchanger. If I'd done the cutaway from the other side I'd have realised!

#121 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 08 August 2012 - 21:26

Well, they were nice because in the days before dedicated off-car heaters they got the engine oil and gearbox oil (and by extension the engine and gearbox casings) nicely up to temperature when warming up the static car at the truck or in the pits.

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 08 August 2012 - 22:40.


#122 Patrick Morgan

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 08:30

My understanding is that the terms intercooler and heat exchanger refer to a system that uses one medium to cool another. In the case of a turbocharged racing car where the inlet air is cooled it's generally referred to as an air to air intercooler. The Merlin engine also had an intercooler but used engine water to cool the charge air. I've had a look in the Bosch book but there is no definitive definition of either term.... I'll happily go with heat exchanger if you wish!

As Nigel says there are several advantages to running a heat exchanger including less plumbing and positioning in terms of not being locked into getting it in the airflow. The down side, which in Indycars of the time was not an issue, is that you are pretty much locked into a set temperature split between water and oil. On an indycar in the CART era this was about 5 degrees centigrade - 95C water 90C oil. On the current generation of Formula 1 cars you couldn't live with this as they run a massive split - 130C water temp and 95C oil for aerodynamic reasons - i.e. run the smallest water coolers you can get away with.

Having said all that the biggest headache we get with running indycars at an event like Goodwod is keeping the car at the right temperature. Indycars do not do standing starts and only ever sit stationary during pitstops - 10 seconds or so. F1 cars pre 2000ish seem to be able to cope with not cooking themselves much better - this would lead you to believe they are slightly over cooled to cope with standing starts but my guess is they are not. I've always been at a loss to know why the engine bay of an F1 car is so big with the rads not being properly ducted. The ducts were such an intrinsic feature of Indycars for so long... the biggest difference I guess is that the section of an indycar around the engine bay/gearbox area is so much smaller due to the underwing. This area gets really toasty to the point we have to throw wet towels over the bodywork to stop it blistering the paintwork.

The other show stopper is heat soak which can result in the methanol evaporating in the fuel rails causing vapour locking. We use fans that resemble top hats over the pop off valve to try to keep the rail cool. On the PC-27 these would have been a pretty complex shapes the the spine of the car had three distinct ripples. Nigel can probably explain why!

Edited by Patrick Morgan, 09 August 2012 - 08:32.


#123 fan27

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 09:20

Patrick, in this age of teams only being allowed to use 4 or 5 engines per season, could you tell us how many engines Ilmor was supplying Penske per year in the heyday of CART?

#124 Tony Matthews

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 09:23

I was always intrigued with the radiator ducting and header gloves on Penskes, every season the complexity and detailing increased. All the suplementary ducting to the black boxes, the non-return flap-valves, so much of it built in to the tub and underwing, rather than relying on metres of donkey-dick like - er, some other constructors. Lovely stuff, but difficult to show on a cutaway of the complete car, without annotation and often reproduced very small, but I included it every time.

#125 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 09:34

On the PC-27 these would have been a pretty complex shapes the the spine of the car had three distinct ripples. Nigel can probably explain why!


I remember remarking to JT about the blockage on the PC26 in the region of the chassis beneath the roll over hoop - there was structure in the region between the driver's headrest and the ROH mounts which, it seemed to me, added some bluffness and blockage (though it's one of those things that looks more pronounced without the driver in the car). On the PC27 he cut this away. The ripples Patrick referenced were therefore created as a result of these cutouts running aft, along the top of the engine cover.

#126 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 09:41

I was always intrigued with the radiator ducting and header gloves on Penskes, every season the complexity and detailing increased. All the suplementary ducting to the black boxes, the non-return flap-valves, so much of it built in to the tub and underwing, rather than relying on metres of donkey-dick like - er, some other constructors. Lovely stuff, but difficult to show on a cutaway of the complete car, without annotation and often reproduced very small, but I included it every time.


When I went back to Tyrrell in 1995 for a year I recall sitting in on a meeting with Tony Purnell of Pi where he used Penske as an example of how to package, cool and isolate electronic boxes properly. That was really gratifying. Mind you, it was a waste of effort, since the entire car (023) was practically designed before they realised there was nowhere to put the ECU - in the end it got jammed in alongside the driver's seat. At Penske the layout and design of the electronics was considered from the start of the design process.

#127 Patrick Morgan

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 18:55

Patrick, in this age of teams only being allowed to use 4 or 5 engines per season, could you tell us how many engines Ilmor was supplying Penske per year in the heyday of CART?


That's a question I don't think I can answer. As I said at the start of this thread I wasn't really around during this period - I caught the beginning and the end of it but the rest was a bit in and out. Penske built their own engines so their program was separate from the newly established Ilmor Inc build shop. I was periphery involved in the PC-27 and ran a 108E during the 2000 season.

I should say that the new facility in Plymouth MI had a massive impact on the whole 108E program. Up until 1998 all the non Penske engines were built by Franz Weisz at VDS in Midland Texas. In late 1997 Ilmor started the build of the new shop in Plymouth and hired a large proportion of the (very skilled) VDS engine builders. Franz was understandably not very happy about it but being the gentleman he is accepted that it was going to happen at some stage.

I think it is fair to say that the first year or two at Plymouth was very tough on everyone. The engine builders had previously had very little interaction with the trackside engineers and vice versa. The dyno's were new, the tools were new and despite the fantastic facility it took a while to gel. When I came back in late 1999 things had got much better. I don't think there was one reason you could put your finger on, it just took a while to get right.

In terms of engines I know Ilmor were hurting for them during 1998/1999. To highlight one specific example of just how bad it got, in Toronto 1998 (I think) the upshift strategy was changed from a hard spark cut to an aggressive ****** strategy. This caused the charge to light in the exhaust system with such force that it blew the exhaust valves open. This in turn resulted in the lash caps jumping off the valve stems... With out putting numbers on it we failed a lot (as in all engines fitted to cars) in the space of a couple of days. The lash caps got o'ringed on pretty quick after that.

Just as an aside I do remember that we suppled 14 engines per event to McLaren in 2002 - 2003. That's quite a lot for a two car team (and spare car). I would say in 1998/1999 CART it was always a bit hand to mouth but will happily defer to higher authority.

#128 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 19:01

Engine stock in F1 at the turn of the century was absurd. Even now I don't understand how we got to that point. It's like people didn't care how much anything cost.

I didn't know Penske built their own engines. Hell I thought part of the IRL-CART thing was over engine leases vs engine builders.

Patrick am I correct in thinking, and do you have any information about, that there was unbadged Ilmor in 2001 powering the Arciero-Blair car? Would it be over-simplified to think of that as 'just' a previous year's Mercedes-Ilmor continued on as a customer deal? I remember it running at the front for a lot of laps at Cleveland that year, after admittedly a jumbled starting order.

#129 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 19:18

I didn't know Penske built their own engines. Hell I thought part of the IRL-CART thing was over engine leases vs engine builders.


Penske built their own engines in the Ilmor(/Chevrolet, /Mercedes) era, though not necessarily to the same spec as Ilmor recommended.

In the Honda CART era the engines were built by Honda, though Gil's engines came from Japan and Helio's from California.

In the Toyota IRL era the engines were built by Penske, but the spec was closely controlled by TRD.

The engine shop at Reading was full of top class, capable guys. When it was shut down, these individuals were reallocated throughout the organisation, hugely enhancing the quality of the rest of the team.

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 09 August 2012 - 19:24.


#130 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 20:37

Dare I ask about the difference between a Honda from Japan vs California? And was that down to the home office liking CART so much they wanted to be involved?

#131 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 09 August 2012 - 20:43

Dare I ask about the difference between a Honda from Japan vs California? And was that down to the home office liking CART so much they wanted to be involved?



One had the impression that there were two classes at Honda - the Japanese and then the Americans. That is to say, the latter weren't necessarily briefed on everything that was currently going on with the engines and systems from Japan. de Ferran was Honda's development driver (the "human dyno"), so you've got to assume that his motors were +1 over everyone else's. He is certainly more technically "savvy" than any other driver I can think of, and that would have really appealed to Honda.

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 09 August 2012 - 20:53.


#132 Patrick Morgan

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Posted 10 August 2012 - 08:01

Patrick am I correct in thinking, and do you have any information about, that there was unbadged Ilmor in 2001 powering the Arciero-Blair car? Would it be over-simplified to think of that as 'just' a previous year's Mercedes-Ilmor continued on as a customer deal? I remember it running at the front for a lot of laps at Cleveland that year, after admittedly a jumbled starting order.


The so called Phoenix engine - my Dad came up with that name, I told him I thought it was awful but he liked it! - was very much the 2000 108F. By mid 2000 the teams, Nunn racing more than the others, got extremely vocal about the drivability of the engine. Their specific complaints were that when on throttle the power delivery was such that, in TK's words, you got "nothing.... nothing.... TOO MUCH!". They also complained that when you dropped throttle, particularly on an oval, the resulting boost spike would destabilise the rear of the car. Many of us, myself included, felt that curing the latter was not as important as the former and that it was unlikely to produce much by way of lap time improvement. Steve Miller however took a different view - possibly to pacify what was becoming something of a mob - and a lot of work was done with the 9th butterfly to cure the boost spike within the rules which were quite hard to work around. Most of the development department were tasked with fixing this issue along side mapping the new TAG stream injectors we'ed gone over to after we discovered our previous suppliers injectors could stick open if you squeezed the boot the wire ran from....

The upshot of all this was that quietly in the background Ian Prosser was tasked to design a new cylinder head with a barrel throttle in an effort to make the power delivery more linear with throttle angle. Initially this was billed as the 2001 engine which would have been IC108G. Towards the end of the season there was suddenly a panic to get the new head on to a track. My guess is (and this is pure speculation but would seem to fit the facts) that this was the point when Mercedes decided they did not want to continue beyond the end of the year so the engine needed to get to the track while funding was still available. It definitely ran with the barrel throttle on a dyno somewhere - I think it was dyno 901 at Stuttgart. I remember being shown the torque curves at different throttle angles and from memory they looked like a big improvement over the butterflies. Whether it would have been much of an improvement on the track I don't know.

One engine was shipped to Ilmor Inc. built up ready for track test. It was all pretty exciting and Paul Ray was very keen to get it race worthy before the end of the season. I don't recall why and I don't think we were ever told but that engine was pulled out of the test with less than a week to go. So the 108F continued in an unaltered state into 2001. Michael Krumm did lead one race - much to our amazement. If I recall correctly it was wet and I think we all sat there saying "having less power than anyone else can't be too bad in the wet!!".

A lot changed at Inc. at the end of 2000, there were redundancies which was a first for Ilmor and extremely painful. There was also some redeployment and some leavers, including Jens who was mentioned earlier. A little group was put together to work on the Aurora IRL engine in which I was lucky enough to be included. That engine was agricultural in the extreme but developing it was the most fun I had in proper front line motorsport. Where in 1998 - 2000 everything seemed to go wrong it all came together and every new part worked, made power and was reliable. Tony Sime, who designed the latest Chevy engine, designed a crank, rod and piston package which worked first time out and made plenty of power, Steve Miller came up with a really wild scheme for the fuel injection which we all though was nuts. The really wizzy bit was designed in england and I designed the supporting inlet parts. Quite by accident - as in I messed up - I discovered that while every other engine builder was trying to make the inlet runners bigger in area what the engine actually wanted was smaller i.e. increased velocity. We built that into the new injection package.

I vividly remember sitting with three collages in the Nassau Bar and grill across the road the night before we ran that system. We all took bets on what it would do. One chap, every the optimist said 15BHP, I said 8, another said 3 and the last threw in -8 just for fun. The following morning we all sat with mouths wide open as with no mapping at all it made 25BHP straight off. It was massively exciting, one of those throw your hat in the air moments.

Edited by Patrick Morgan, 10 August 2012 - 08:27.


#133 fan27

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Posted 10 August 2012 - 08:59

Great story, Patrick.

Nigel, the California vs. Japan Honda engine story is interesting and leads me to the following question: Do you think that this type of programme would have happened had Greg Moore been in the car instead of Helio? As the more experienced driver would Greg have received the "Japan" engine with Gil getting the "California" engine, or was de Ferran's feedback reputation such that Honda wanted him to develop the new bits, no matter who was in the other car?

#134 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 10 August 2012 - 09:43

Great story, Patrick.

Nigel, the California vs. Japan Honda engine story is interesting and leads me to the following question: Do you think that this type of programme would have happened had Greg Moore been in the car instead of Helio? As the more experienced driver would Greg have received the "Japan" engine with Gil getting the "California" engine, or was de Ferran's feedback reputation such that Honda wanted him to develop the new bits, no matter who was in the other car?


I think it would have been the same arrangement, i.e. Greg would have got engines from HPD in CA. FWIW I don't think many people, outside or inside the team, were aware of the arrangement. After all, it could just have sparked some disquiet, and it was Honda's football to play with however they wanted.

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 10 August 2012 - 09:52.


#135 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 10 August 2012 - 10:04

Was it a situation where an engine specification was birthed in Japan as a prototype and entered the supply chain and was maintained by California? So as you say de Ferran was a +1 on the upgrades but not something that others wouldn't eventually get. Assuming that +1 was the right + So I wouldn't be correct or fair in thinking of it as a special engine but rather a priority engine. And on a somewhat related note, what do you think of claims that CART used a slightly different way of measuring their track lengths and the de Ferran/Penske/Honda-Japan Fontana qualifying record is not actually faster in mph than the Indianapolis record set in 1996 :p

Patrick for someone who is interested in racing engines but doesn't know a hell of a lot about them, compared to you, is there an idiot's explanation for boost spikes after throttle? Overboost penalties are apprently quite severe in the current Indycar engines and I didn't understand reports in 500 qualifying that Honda drivers could not lift on their qualifying laps unless they wanted the boost penalty of their nightmares. Though I'm working on a very bronze age logic of "more boost comes from more throttle".

#136 Tony Matthews

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Posted 10 August 2012 - 10:34

My two-pence worth, before an expert puts us right, is that when the throttles are closed and the turbo is still spooled up, there is a sudden, short increase in pressure in the plenum - I assume before the wastgate has time to reduce the pressure in the exhaust system. Omnce the pop-off valve opens it takes a while to close again. I liked the neoprene tubing that was run from the valve to the cockpit, near the driver's ear, to give audible warning of the valve opening - so agricultural compared to the rest of the car!

#137 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 10 August 2012 - 10:34

Was it a situation where an engine specification was birthed in Japan as a prototype and entered the supply chain and was maintained by California? So as you say de Ferran was a +1 on the upgrades but not something that others wouldn't eventually get. Assuming that +1 was the right + So I wouldn't be correct or fair in thinking of it as a special engine but rather a priority engine. And on a somewhat related note, what do you think of claims that CART used a slightly different way of measuring their track lengths and the de Ferran/Penske/Honda-Japan Fontana qualifying record is not actually faster in mph than the Indianapolis record set in 1996 :p


I'm sure it was the case that they were trying stuff out with de Ferran before it entered the supply chain.

I've never heard of controversy surrounding the Fontana record. Without my knowing any facts whatsoever about it, I suppose people are going to line up behind whichever case they want to support, at least until someone presents some proper track length data to support whatever it is they're trying to prove. The only way to solve this definitively would be to obtain Pi data from the runs concerned, and look up the actual distance travelled by each car as it made its lap. Of course, that's never going to happen.

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 10 August 2012 - 17:53.


#138 Patrick Morgan

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Posted 10 August 2012 - 12:54

Tony is quite right - the order of the inlet system goes - impeller, 9th butterfly, plenum (which housed the pop off valve) and lastly the 8 mechanical butterflies. So when the driver lifts and the 8 butterflies close the turbo which will have some inertia, will still be pumping air that has no where to go. This blows the valve if you can't shut the 9th butterfly fast enough. The wastegates are largely helpless during this phase.

The problem with an electronically controlled butterfly is two fold - 1. you have to be able to move it fast enough mechanically to stop the boost spike blowing the valve and 2. you have to identify very positively that the driver is really going to drop the throttle. If for example he was wheel to wheel with a competitor and was doing something unusual with the throttle like a fast lift to only half throttle you don't want to trigger the drop throttle strategy otherwise he's going to get less power than expected and if the butterfly fully closes with the mechanical throttle half open you have broken the rules which prohibited such things on the grounds they constituted traction control.

There was also a complication that manifested itself and we never really worked out the mechanism - under certain conditions on a drop throttle, particularly if the driver performed an off throttle up shift to settle the rear of the car the fuel would ignite inside the plenum. This plenum fire could last anywhere from mili seconds up to Luiz Garciia's record which was 42 seconds at Elkheart lake. Plenum fires were sporadic, not repeatable and impossible to put out using software as far as I remember.

Going back to the boost spike the F1 cars of the 1980's suffered the same thing. Honda eventually put a pair of butterflies in the inlet tracts between the intercooler and the plenum. Renault however came up with a very different solution - they made the throttle butterflies around 1mm too small which gave the air somewhere to go upon lift. Obviously this meant the engine was at around 10% throttle all the time which is why those engines have that funny hunting idle. The idle strategy in the electronics allows the engine to ramp up then cuts it and pick back up when it has fallen to a certain rpm. At the end of the unrestricted era in 1986 Renault were qualifying at a barely believable 5.7bar so a lift was a fairly significant event... and they would remove the wastegates for qualifying.

Just a final note on Gil - he was very much Honda's development driver when he was at Walker Racing so he had held his position in that respect for some time before arriving at Penske.

Edited by Patrick Morgan, 10 August 2012 - 13:20.


#139 pacificquay

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Posted 10 August 2012 - 21:55

Great story, Patrick.

Nigel, the California vs. Japan Honda engine story is interesting and leads me to the following question: Do you think that this type of programme would have happened had Greg Moore been in the car instead of Helio? As the more experienced driver would Greg have received the "Japan" engine with Gil getting the "California" engine, or was de Ferran's feedback reputation such that Honda wanted him to develop the new bits, no matter who was in the other car?



de Ferran was more experienced than Moore in any case...

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#140 Risil

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Posted 12 August 2012 - 12:45

I wish I had something substantial to add, but I want to say anyway that this is an amazing thread and I've saved every page onto my computer. :up:

A few months ago I was reading some articles about Penske's entry into the IRL championship, there were suggestions that the team wanted to build its own chassis but the series wouldn't allow it. Was there any substance behind these rumours, or was it just "common sense" that a team famous for having designed its own cars might want to be competing with Dallara and Panoz? There was something in the rules about having to be an approved builder, but Penske had sold chassis to other teams before.

Edited by Risil, 12 August 2012 - 13:01.


#141 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 12 August 2012 - 18:04

I wish I had something substantial to add, but I want to say anyway that this is an amazing thread and I've saved every page onto my computer. :up:

A few months ago I was reading some articles about Penske's entry into the IRL championship, there were suggestions that the team wanted to build its own chassis but the series wouldn't allow it. Was there any substance behind these rumours, or was it just "common sense" that a team famous for having designed its own cars might want to be competing with Dallara and Panoz? There was something in the rules about having to be an approved builder, but Penske had sold chassis to other teams before.


This is substantially true - in 2002 John Travis started the design of an IRL car for introduction in 2003. This featured pull rod front suspension (quite a departure from standard practice of the time), so we were somewhat surprised / dismayed when the 2003 Dallara turned out to have made the same departure. At the time I was pretty cheesed off that someone must have been indiscreet about JT's ideas, but in truth it was simply a case of great minds thinking alike.

The story of this project and the reasons for its ultimate abandonment runs far deeper than this, but it's too recent and it would be indiscreet to go in to it.

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 12 August 2012 - 18:20.


#142 Tony Matthews

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Posted 12 August 2012 - 19:14

The story of this project and the reasons for its ultimate abandonment runs far deeper than this, but it's too recent and it would be indiscreet to go in to it.

We can wait... It seems superflous to thank you and Partrick yet again for the inside detail Nigel, but ... thanks.

#143 Risil

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Posted 14 August 2012 - 21:53

Thanks Nigel. :) The Penske/IRL business'll be a fascinating story when it's all revealed, no doubt...

#144 JackOffenhauser

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Posted 09 April 2015 - 22:30

Patrick or Nigel... do you know how many PC 27/PC27B chassis were constructed?  Also, do you know if there are any running examples that have been restored?

 

I'm curious as to how one of the cars ended up with the Donnington collection? 

 

Thanks for the fascinating insight on this thread, much appreciated :cat:



#145 Nigel Beresford

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Posted 14 April 2015 - 17:41

At least four chassis - two per driver. That was what we normally took to the track. There may have been a fifth tub made in case one was written off - I can't remember.

 

The car at Donington was used as a show car for Philip Morris. It was kept at Penske Cars in Poole until the company closed down in 2007, when Nick Goozee offered it to Donington on loan, together with the 40% wind tunnel model. 

 

I know there is at least one complete car in RP's private collection at Penske Restoration, Don't know about any others, and certainly no runners. I wish I had a fiver for the number of times someone suggested how nice it would have been to have put a Honda engine and Firestone tyres on that car. 



#146 PatrickRMorgan

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Posted Yesterday, 20:31

Unsure if anyone is interested in resurrecting this thread but I'm restoring a PC27 and happened upon it. I've learned a lot about the car and it's not as straightforward a story as I had understood the last time I posted - years ago I know. Anyway, if anyone is interested I can add a few nuggets.

#147 dolomite

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Posted Yesterday, 21:36

Yes please!