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L'affaire Lotus/von Frankenberg


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#1 Doug Nye

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Posted 06 December 2002 - 16:52

The thought has just occurred to me that it is 40 years since the wonderful Lotus triumph of the von Frankenberg Formula Junior affair - the wager between the German publisher/journalist and Colin Chapman, and Pete Arundell's staggering performance in the Lotus 22 despite the icy patches at Monza.

Perhaps others would care to enlarge upon the story?

DCN

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#2 bill moffat

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Posted 06 December 2002 - 17:20

I'm stuck at work still ...but this story sounds familiar. The German accuses Lotus (rather loudly) of oversize FJ engines (1500 cf 1100). Arundell ain't happy and a challenge is accepted (with a sizeable wager) . An icy Monza in December and Peter stuns with his pace (despite the ice). Subsequently the engine is stripped and is the required 1100cc capacity.

Lotus honour is upheld and Chapman is declared the innocent party...altho' this was not always the case in Lotus history...

#3 David Beard

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Posted 06 December 2002 - 17:42

The story is well covered in both Jabby Crombac's "Colin Chapman -the man and his cars" and Mike Lawrence's very recent "Colin Chapman - wayward genius". ML ends by making the point that the story, with it's Monza culmination, gained far more publicity than the original magazine article by von Frankenberg. Which provides a good challenge for TNF...what EXACTLY did the Frankenberg article say? Transcript anyone?

#4 fines

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Posted 06 December 2002 - 18:15

I have the whole series of articles - it's rather long! Maybe someone with a bit more time on hand...? :blush:

#5 Ruairidh

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Posted 07 December 2002 - 04:28

I cannot remember how the whole thing started (and can't lay my hands on Crombac's book)- was it something Alan Rees said while in a German hospital bed or was it the fact that someone offered to buy an engine from Lotus and Lotus refused?

#6 Milan Fistonic

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Posted 07 December 2002 - 08:10

Originally posted by Ruairidh
I cannot remember how the whole thing started (and can't lay my hands on Crombac's book)- was it something Alan Rees said while in a German hospital bed or was it the fact that someone offered to buy an engine from Lotus and Lotus refused?



Yes, you are right. It did start with Rees mentioning to some German reporters that some competitors were using over-size engines and the reporters assumed he was talking about Arundel.

Von Frankenberg lost his job as result and according to Crombac, from then on he never had a good word to say about any Lotus car he tested.

#7 Rainer Nyberg

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Posted 07 December 2002 - 08:25

A brief story on Arundell at http://www.gpracing..../careers/24.cfm pretty much confirms what has been said in this thread so far.

Arundell won the 1962 British Formula Junior Championship with a level of domination that prompted respected German journalist Richard von Frankenberg to have a brainstorm and accuse Colin Chapman of running an illegal engine in Peter's works Lotus 22. He challenged Colin to bring the car to Monza, have the engine capacity checked and see if Arundell could reproduce the speed he had demonstrated whilst winning the Monza Lottery. Arundell achieved this easily, winning US$3,000 for his smiling boss.



Interesting topic ;) This forum has some previous threads on cheating, but I have not heard about this wager before.

#8 Milan Fistonic

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Posted 07 December 2002 - 09:02

Quote
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Arundell won the 1962 British Formula Junior Championship with a level of domination that prompted respected German journalist Richard von Frankenberg to have a brainstorm and accuse Colin Chapman of running an illegal engine in Peter's works Lotus 22. He challenged Colin to bring the car to Monza, have the engine capacity checked and see if Arundell could reproduce the speed he had demonstrated whilst winning the Monza Lottery. Arundell achieved this easily, winning US$3,000 for his smiling boss.


According to Crombac the idea of the wager was Chapman's. His solicitors recommended that he sue the magazine but Chapman preferred to settle the issue in a sporting way.

#9 Doug Nye

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Posted 07 December 2002 - 09:59

If I can only rediscover the photo series I had of the Monza wager runs when I first thought of posting this thread I will post them soon. :blush:

Pete had to reproduce or exceed the average speed he'd established during his wining drive in the Monza Lottery GP, earlier in the year. He ran for an hour in pretty adverse conditions, very cold, with icy patches under the trees through the Lesmo bends. He bettered his previous race-distance time, and once he'd achieved that he really tigered and lowered his own lap record still further. The Lotus 22's engine was then stripped in the presence of von Frankenberg and its legal capacity was verified by independent scrutineers. Frankenberg seems to have taken the outcome in good part - ACBC trousered the £1,000 bet and received even more orders for the coming year's FJ Lotus - the Type 27 - which promptly proved itself a fairly comprehensive disaster in less than factory hands. Sic transit gloria.

Pete Arundell in his King of Formula Junior era was a superb racing driver, as he went on to prove in his initial F1 outings as Jim Clark's team-mate in 1964 - but the brutal Formula 2 accident he then suffered at Reims that mid-summer ruined him as an effective driver.

DCN

#10 Marcor

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Posted 08 December 2002 - 01:55

I've just bought Motorsport (December 2002) and it included a portrait of Peter Arundell. The affair is explained in 3 paragraphs.

The accusations were published in Auto Motor Und Sport.

#11 LittleChris

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Posted 08 December 2002 - 02:09

Wasn't there something similar involving March , where a privateer demanded that they prove the car was as quick as it seemed ? IIRC Ronnie lapped something like 2 secs under the time set . Might have been Xavier Perrot ?!?

#12 Rainer Nyberg

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Posted 08 December 2002 - 06:44

Might have been Xavier Perrot ?!?



It was the March 701 which was bought by Hubert Hahne.

#13 fines

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Posted 08 December 2002 - 13:28

Must be really depressing, when you think your car doesn't perform, and then some Swede appears and runs like hell. Hahne was quite competitive in F2, but this must have destroyed his confidence! I believe he retired soon after. Later he owned the Maserati brand for a time, and appeared a few times on German TV as an "expert" for F1 broadcasts. I really don't know why, but I never liked the guy... His brother came over a lot more friendly!

#14 Racer.Demon

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Posted 09 December 2002 - 10:54

Originally posted by fines
Must be really depressing, when you think your car doesn't perform, and then some Swede appears and runs like hell.


And then to imagine that Hahne wasn't proved wrong per se - with the later knowledge that Ronnie would become famous for his capability of driving around any problem. :lol:

#15 David Beard

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Posted 09 December 2002 - 12:54

Originally posted by Doug Nye


Pete Arundell in his King of Formula Junior era was a superb racing driver, as he went on to prove in his initial F1 outings as Jim Clark's team-mate in 1964 - but the brutal Formula 2 accident he then suffered at Reims that mid-summer ruined him as an effective driver.

DCN


I can remember watching Arundell in his FJ days...my recollection is that he was very dominant and and I thought that great things would happen when he arrived in F1. With regard to the Monza wager...he must have felt under some pressure to have come up with the goods under those conditions, so the performance was all the more impressive. (there isn't a teeny weeny chance that the car hid some other secret that ensured success that day?)
Chapman must have had a pretty high regrad for him...holding his F1 seat for some time after the Reims shunt.

#16 Ruairidh

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Posted 11 December 2002 - 19:32

Originally posted by Milan Fistonic
Quote
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According to Crombac the idea of the wager was Chapman's. His solicitors recommended that he sue the magazine but Chapman preferred to settle the issue in a sporting way.



Nice article on Arundell in Decembers MotorSport has the idea being Arundell's (he offered to stump uo 1/2 of the UKP1000 if Chunky put up the rest.

There was another nice story in the same article about one FJ race where Arundell was delayed getting to the track, so his mechanic donned Arundell's helmet and togs and posted a second row qualifying time without the officials spotting. I cannot see that happening today!

#17 Mike Argetsinger

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Posted 12 December 2002 - 03:17

Originally posted by Ruairidh


Nice article on Arundell in Decembers MotorSport has the idea being Arundell's (he offered to stump uo 1/2 of the UKP1000 if Chunky put up the rest.

There was another nice story in the same article about one FJ race where Arundell was delayed getting to the track, so his mechanic donned Arundell's helmet and togs and posted a second row qualifying time without the officials spotting. I cannot see that happening today! [/B]



The article points out that the mechanic (Ray Parsons from Australia) was an accomplished driver in his own right. No inexperienced mechanic or otherwise could have done that.

As for the officials not noticing who was in the car - that still happens! On more than one occasion recently I have qualified someone's car for them - it happens more than you may expect.

#18 Ray Bell

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Posted 12 December 2002 - 03:35

Originally posted by David Beard
.....there isn't a teeny weeny chance that the car hid some other secret that ensured success that day?.....


Same thing occurred to me...

Wonder if they weighed the car?

After all, in a race he might have had the benefit of some slipstreaming... though if he was running in a bunch the inevitable tripping over each other would slow them down...

As for Ray Parsons, I didn't know he drove... here he is here, back to camera...

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#19 Mike Argetsinger

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Posted 12 December 2002 - 05:49

Ray - according to the MotorSport article he (Parsons) was a works Cortina driver.

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#20 David McKinney

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Posted 12 December 2002 - 06:32

Originally posted by Ray Bell
As for Ray Parsons, I didn't know he drove... here he is here, back to camera...

The one playing with his ear, not the one with hands on hips (Frank Matich)

#21 Roger Clark

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Posted 12 December 2002 - 06:43

Originally posted by Ray Bell


Same thing occurred to me...

Wonder if they weighed the car?


The car was weighed (and over the limit). What else might they have done? I suppose it's posssible that the engine was more highly tuned, perhaps a 1963 prototype. If it had broken, Team Lotus could hardly be said to have failed to prove their point.

#22 LittleChris

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Posted 12 December 2002 - 22:40

Originally posted by Mike Argetsinger



The article points out that the mechanic (Ray Parsons from Australia) was an accomplished driver in his own right. No inexperienced mechanic or otherwise could have done that.

As for the officials not noticing who was in the car - that still happens! On more than one occasion recently I have qualified someone's car for them - it happens more than you may expect.


Funnily enough, I thought that M Hakkinen (retired ) was qualifying on behalf of M Schumacher the last couple of seasons given Schueys qualifying record over his career !!

#23 Jim Thurman

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Posted 16 December 2002 - 09:10

Originally posted by Doug Nye

Pete Arundell in his King of Formula Junior era was a superb racing driver, as he went on to prove in his initial F1 outings as Jim Clark's team-mate in 1964 - but the brutal Formula 2 accident he then suffered at Reims that mid-summer ruined him as an effective driver.


This brings up a question I've long wondered. Did Chapman hold a spot for Arundell out of loyalty...out of respect for his abilities...or even some other reason, or reasons, alltogether.

Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts on this?


Jim Thurman

#24 Doug Nye

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Posted 12 January 2003 - 15:57

A return to this commemorative thread - which I sparked off in December - 'cos I have just found the pix I had intended to post in the first place, for anyone interested. By the way Colin kept the Team Lotus place open for Pete Arundell from immense respect for his abilities...sadly, they proved to have been badly compromised by the effects of his Reims F2 accident and it did not work out...

Posted Image

Mike Costin - Technical Director of Team Lotus, Arundell in the Lotus 22 ready to go, Colin Chapman.

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Above top to merely above....Ray Parsons - Team Lotus mechanic - blanks off part of the Lotus 22's radiator due to chill December weather - Mike Costin and officials examine the ice patches at Lesmo - and Pete Arundell at speed kicks up cement laid down on the patch.

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Ray Parsons makes early signal to Peter - 1:53 demanded

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PIC 2 - A 2:02 - too slow for success - but it is icy and the Lotus 22 radiator is partially blanked off - PIC 3 - Pete speeds up - a 1:50.8 - and they're running 7secs quicker than the mark - PIC 4- With 4 laps to go they're 12secs quicker than the wager - and Pete's clocked a 50.7 - PIC 5 - Entering the last lap he's just put in a 1:50.5 and they're 16secs ahead - PIC 6 - then with a '50.4 Pete finishes, receives Colin's jubilant thumbs-up and they have completed the wagered distance 17secs to the good.

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Here's the Lotus 22's Cosworth-Ford engine opened up for official verification of its swept volume.

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Richard von Frankenberg and Colin Chapman shake on the result - Gerda von F. looks on...

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Richard von Frankenberg makes friends with Pete Arundell...who doesn't seem too interested....

I have always thought of this event as epitomising motor SPORT in that era at its competitive best...

DCN

#25 Hans Etzrodt

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Posted 12 January 2003 - 16:37

Doug,
Thanks for the telling pictures. I remember this incident well as I was subscribing to the magazine "Auto Motor und Sport" at that time.

#26 Uwe

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Posted 12 January 2003 - 17:24

Hm, I can't see the pictures. Did you take them away already, Doug?

#27 Uwe

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Posted 12 January 2003 - 17:27

Originally posted by fines
I have the whole series of articles - it's rather long! Maybe someone with a bit more time on hand...? :blush:

Michael, if you have them in electronic form, could you mail them to me?

#28 Doug Nye

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Posted 12 January 2003 - 17:51

Originally posted by Uwe
Hm, I can't see the pictures. Did you take them away already, Doug?


Sorry Uwe - I have not cancelled the pictures at all - one of the computer experts may be able to advise you....???? I am NOT qualified in this field...

DCN

#29 baggish

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Posted 12 January 2003 - 18:26

Originally posted by Doug Nye


Sorry Uwe - I have not cancelled the pictures at all - one of the computer experts may be able to advise you....???? I am NOT qualified in this field...

DCN


I hope this works:

Originally posted by Doug Nye

Posted Image

Mike Costin - Technical Director of Team Lotus, Arundell in the Lotus 22 ready to go, Colin Chapman.

Posted Image

Above top to merely above....Ray Parsons - Team Lotus mechanic - blanks off part of the Lotus 22's radiator due to chill December weather - Mike Costin and officials examine the ice patches at Lesmo - and Pete Arundell at speed kicks up cement laid down on the patch.

Posted Image

Ray Parsons makes early signal to Peter - 1:53 demanded

Posted Image

PIC 2 - A 2:02 - too slow for success - but it is icy and the Lotus 22 radiator is partially blanked off - PIC 3 - Pete speeds up - a 1:50.8 - and they're running 7secs quicker than the mark - PIC 4- With 4 laps to go they're 12secs quicker than the wager - and Pete's clocked a 50.7 - PIC 5 - Entering the last lap he's just put in a 1:50.5 and they're 16secs ahead - PIC 6 - then with a '50.4 Pete finishes, receives Colin's jubilant thumbs-up and they have completed the wagered distance 17secs to the good.

Posted Image

Here's the Lotus 22's Cosworth-Ford engine opened up for official verification of its swept volume.

Posted Image

Richard von Frankenberg and Colin Chapman shake on the result - Gerda von F. looks on...

Posted Image

Richard von Frankenberg makes friends with Pete Arundell...who doesn't seem too interested... [/B]


Doug, the problem is that you have put spaces in the picture names e.g. 1962 MONZA LOTUS WAGER-6.jpg. Some browsers can't read spaces, so 1962_MONZA_LOTUS_WAGER-6.jpg would have been better.

Hope this helps!

Jon

#30 hatrat

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 02:59

I wonder if Richard von Frankenberg may have been close to the truth but picked the wrong "improvement" to the Lotus FJ engine when he claimed it was over capacity?

It appears that the Cosworth MkX1 engine used in the 1963 season had a suspect head that evidently had a shallow combustion chamber and possibly altered inlet porting. This would have made the head illegal under period FJ regulations that required standard production castings to be used. The effect of the illegally "improved" head would have been increased performance over a legal FJ engine.

The wager took place in December 1962 so it is possible that the 1963 engine could have been used.

Perhaps canny Mr Chapman was happy to take on the challenge based on the engine being regulation capacity as he knew that was not where the "improvement" was?

#31 bradbury west

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 08:44

It appears that the Cosworth MkX1 engine used in the 1963 season had a suspect head that evidently had a shallow combustion chamber and possibly altered inlet porting. This would have made the head illegal under period FJ regulations that required standard production castings to be used. The effect of the illegally "improved" head would have been increased performance over a legal FJ engine. ..The wager took place in December 1962 so it is possible that the 1963 engine could have been used...Perhaps canny Mr Chapman was happy to take on the challenge based on the engine being regulation capacity as he knew that was not where the "improvement" was?


Presumably there were people there on the day who would know of any obvious changes as they would have the full spec. no doubt, especially as money and pride were at stake, although I do recall Mike Costin's re-calibrated ruler previously........This type of head, IIRC, based on special castings,- see points made by yourself on another thread on TNF- is the basis of some of those used in Hist FJ nowadays. I disagree with the concept as much as you do, but let's not get too revisionist here, please. Let us just recall Arundell as the talent he was.

Quote DCN earlier;
Pete Arundell in his King of Formula Junior era was a superb racing driver, as he went on to prove in his initial F1 outings as Jim Clark's team-mate in 1964 - but the brutal Formula 2 accident he then suffered at Reims that mid-summer ruined him as an effective driver. DCN
Roger Lund

#32 Roger Clark

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 09:08

I wonder if Richard von Frankenberg may have been close to the truth but picked the wrong "improvement" to the Lotus FJ engine when he claimed it was over capacity?

It appears that the Cosworth MkX1 engine used in the 1963 season had a suspect head that evidently had a shallow combustion chamber and possibly altered inlet porting. This would have made the head illegal under period FJ regulations that required standard production castings to be used. The effect of the illegally "improved" head would have been increased performance over a legal FJ engine.

This is the first I have heard of such allegations. What is the evidence? The 1964 SCA, of course, had cylinder heads with a shallow combustion chamber - the chamber was in the piston. Is that the concept you were referring to? I think that any such design would be obvious when the engine was stripped for measurement - as it was after the Monza wager.

#33 hatrat

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 10:12

This is the first I have heard of such allegations. What is the evidence? The 1964 SCA, of course, had cylinder heads with a shallow combustion chamber - the chamber was in the piston. Is that the concept you were referring to? I think that any such design would be obvious when the engine was stripped for measurement - as it was after the Monza wager.


As far as I understand the "improvement" was a shallow combustion chamber and possibly improved inlet port flow. The background relating to the period non-regulation head improvement came about from recent investigation into the basis of the now widely used re-cast head on current Ford FJ engines. It is generally accepted that this re-cast head was based on a period Cosworth FJ head but it has only recently emerged that the period Cosworth FJ head as used on the 1963 MkXI engine was a non-standard casting specially made by Ford for Cosworth and passed off at the time as a standard production head.

#34 Ray Bell

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 12:19

I would be suspicious of that story...

It's a typical kind of story generated by people wanting to justify their cheating.

#35 r.atlos

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 12:44

It definately had nothing to do with the head - it was all around the block. RvF claimed a couple of people had admitted verbally that they had used a 1450 cc block. At some point the discussion derived towards the question whether a 109E block was admitted instead of a 105E block.

It seems this all ended when someone explained that Ford had generalised all Kent blocks to a 109E casting - either with a short-stroke crank shaft to make it a 1098 cc Anglia or a longer stroke crank to take it to 1340 or 1450 cc for the Consul (BTW, I have never checked whether this holds water ...).

I am convinced that was also the trap RvF fell in - drivers may have referred to a "1340 cc" or "109E" block and instead of reading this just as designation of the type of block or casting he immediately sensed fraud and cheating.

RvF was a brilliant journalist who brought motor racing to everybody's living room through a TV series he ran; the dark side of his character was that his ink flowed faster from his pen than he could think. There are many examples in his columns in "Auto Motor & Sport" and this is not even the most serious one. However, it is the one that created serious tribulations, going even into court.

Edited by r.atlos, 02 May 2011 - 12:46.


#36 john winfield

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 13:24

Another very interesting thread regarding an affair about which I'd never heard until a few years ago. Good old TNF.

I wonder who would have written Motor Sport's 'Matters of Moment' in December 1962. Bill Boddy or DSJ perhaps? Anyway, in December 1962, under 'The Lotus Fuss', the magazine says ".....This German writer stated that he had proof positive that Team Lotus drivers have been using 1,450cc engines in Formula Junior races. It seems that Frankenberg claims that Alan Rees refused to sell a Ford engine from his crashed Lotus and takes this as evidence that the engine size was under suspicion. Further, because Frankenberg was told of special Lotus crankshafts (they use steel instead of cast iron) and of oversize Lotus-Ford engines sold to customers (the 20B version of the Type 20 is of 1,500cc for use in F1, Formula Libre and sports car races), he assumes the Nurburgring FJ engines to have been of this size.
In answer, Lotus claim that 'any intelligent observer can detect the difference in exhaust notes even of 1,100cc and 1,340cc engines,'......."

Whether this adds to the debate I don't know but the article's final sentence suggests that RvF's accusation caused at least apoplexy, if not an international diplomatic incident: "..We await with interest complete vindication of the British flag, the Germans having proclaimed that 'it will take a long time to overcome the lack of confidence in the English'...." Perfidious Albion.

Edited by john winfield, 02 May 2011 - 13:26.


#37 nota38

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 14:19

Regarding the engine sizes, a standard 105e bore is 80.96mm, stroke is 48.41mm, giving 996.6cc. The maximum that a 105 or 109e block will bore to is 85mm (and not all blocks will go that far), so with a 48.41 stroke you have a capacity of 1098cc. Therefore the only way to have an over size engine on either of these blocks would be to run a long stroke crankshaft. Any other pre-crossflow block allowing a bigger bore size will have a 5 bearing crankshaft.
As regards the Cosworth head, the original castings were by Ford, with a thicker head face (and possibly a smaller combustion chamber, and larger inlet ports). The reason being that after the combustion chamber was opened out to improve gas flow, a large amount of material has to be removed from the head to increase the compression ratio to something usefull, and when that was done to a standard head the head face was too thin to keep a head/block gasket sealing. The modern heads are produced by Richardson Racing Engines to the same specification as the Cosworth period heads.

#38 D-Type

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 14:49

Regarding the engine sizes, a standard 105e bore is 80.96mm, stroke is 48.41mm, giving 996.6cc. The maximum that a 105 or 109e block will bore to is 85mm (and not all blocks will go that far), so with a 48.41 stroke you have a capacity of 1098cc. Therefore the only way to have an over size engine on either of these blocks would be to run a long stroke crankshaft. Any other pre-crossflow block allowing a bigger bore size will have a 5 bearing crankshaft.
As regards the Cosworth head, the original castings were by Ford, with a thicker head face (and possibly a smaller combustion chamber, and larger inlet ports). The reason being that after the combustion chamber was opened out to improve gas flow, a large amount of material has to be removed from the head to increase the compression ratio to something usefull, and when that was done to a standard head the head face was too thin to keep a head/block gasket sealing. The modern heads are produced by Richardson Racing Engines to the same specification as the Cosworth period heads.

In other words a readily available crankshaft from a 109E Classic giving 1340 cc or from a 116E Classic or Cortina Super giving 1497cc as standard

Edited by D-Type, 02 May 2011 - 14:50.


#39 David Birchall

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 14:55

The "generalisation" of English Ford engines at that time even permitted fitting three bearing cranks in five bearing blocks-with the appropriate oilways blanked off of course...

Edit: I think what I meant was five bearing cranks in three bearing blocks-I am not sure it would work the other way would it?

Edited by David Birchall, 02 May 2011 - 18:38.


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#40 Ray Bell

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 23:56

We are talking about engines that had 3-bearing cranks... so 5-bearing cranks would be possible...

Again, I am still wondering about why this information comes to the fore (the information about Ford having done special castings 'in the day') now that there is a bit of consternation about the modern replacements.

It would not surprise me that Ford did this, but I'd have thought that it would have been pretty much general knowledge at the time had it happened.

#41 hatrat

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Posted 03 May 2011 - 00:25

We are talking about engines that had 3-bearing cranks... so 5-bearing cranks would be possible...

Again, I am still wondering about why this information comes to the fore (the information about Ford having done special castings 'in the day') now that there is a bit of consternation about the modern replacements.

It would not surprise me that Ford did this, but I'd have thought that it would have been pretty much general knowledge at the time had it happened.


The information came about as a result of research we had been doing on the background of the Richardson head and it's derivation from a period Cosworth head. Richardson acknowledge that their modern re-cast head was based on a period head Cosworth used in the 1963 FJ season. I think it is generally accepted that the Richardson head is not a modified standard production head so if it was based on a period head then by deduction that period head must have been non-standard.

The problem was that Cosworth claimed that they used a standard production head for their FJ engines. In Graham Robson's book "Cosworth, The Search for Power", Robson quotes Keith Duckworth talking about modified 105E engines for FJs. Duckworth says "We gradually changed over from 1 litre to 1100 cc, by which time we were having special cranks made, mainly by Laystall ... by the end of the programme ... only the block and the head castings were not special - and that was because the rules didn't allow us to do those". This seems to clearly indicate that Cosworth held out they were using standard head castings as that is what the rules required.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to catch up with Geoff Richardson and we discussed the background to the Richardson heads. Geoff confirmed that despite what Cosworth said in period, they did have a special head surreptitiously cast by Ford for their 1963 MkXI FJ engine and that is what his current re-cast head is based on - of course Duckworth could never admit it. So the information on these "special" period heads comes from someone who I believe would know what actually happened.

#42 David Birchall

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Posted 03 May 2011 - 03:21

BMC were in on the act as well with special blocks cast for the XSP FJ engines that incorporated stronger castings, bigger bores and provision for dry sump.

#43 arttidesco

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Posted 15 November 2011 - 21:42

Approaching fifty years since the famous Monza wager it appears that the, ultimately unfounded, seeds of doubt about the Lotus 22's performance were sown by Kurt Ahrens Jnr who along with Gerhard Mitter who were both banned from racing for six months according to this web page for using over size motors in their FJ machines in 1962. It appears some of the evidence was provided Richard by von Frankenberg.

There is evidence Ahrens Jnr was driving a Ford Cosworth powered Cooper T59.

I gather switching the crankshaft from Anglia to Consul type in the Ford block was a 'relatively' simple way to increase the engine cylinder capacity, however from what I can make out Mitter was driving a 3 cyl 2 stroke DKW powered Lotus 22.

Can anyone confirm or point me in the direction of information that substantiates Mitter was also banned for having an oversize DKW engine and does anyone know how that might have been achieved ?

Answers may be credited and used in a forthcoming blog.

Thanking you in anticipation of your responses.


Edited by Vitesse2, 23 October 2015 - 09:24.


#44 Arese

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Posted 15 November 2011 - 21:58

Art, there was a ban, but the circumstances were more sophisticated than could be said in just a few words. For those who can read German I recommend (and that is from where I have the information): "Rennsportlegende Gerhard Mitter" by Siegfried C. Strasser. There are details about the issue on page 54/55. For those who can't read German or do not have access to the book I could try to translate, but I am not very good at that.

#45 arttidesco

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Posted 15 November 2011 - 22:06

Thanks for getting back to me I have sent you a PM Michael.



#46 Arese

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Posted 15 November 2011 - 22:44

Thanks for getting back to me I have sent you a PM Michael.


You have got an answer.

#47 arttidesco

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Posted 15 November 2011 - 23:02

Thanks Michael :up:

#48 r.atlos

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Posted 15 November 2011 - 23:35

Neither Mitter, nor Ahrens were banned for oversized engines but for arranging the championship.

But: Never trust primary sources - re-invent history if they are in the way of a nice story. The number of people who have been around in 1962, who have a decent period archive AND who post on TNF and elsewhere is limited and you might get away with it.

Edited by r.atlos, 15 November 2011 - 23:39.


#49 arttidesco

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Posted 16 November 2011 - 01:57

(there isn't a teeny weeny chance that the car hid some other secret that ensured success that day?)


I have been wondering if Peter, who was without question in his element with the Lotus 22, had some other secret that helped him win the bet in the absence of any aerodynamic differences and using similar all weather tyres I wondered what the difference in ambient temperature was between June 24th 1962 the date of the Lotteria and December 2nd 1962.

I'd guess we are talking about something of the order of a 10 - 15 degrees centigrade difference in temperature to the advantage of the engines horsepower in December.

Do any boffins amongst us know what % increase in power output that might equate to ?

Presumably the car would have to work against a stiffer wind resistance in the colder conditions but how much stiffer ?

Is it possible von Frakenberg's big mistake apart from making an unfounded accusation also included selecting the wrong track at the wrong time of year ?

#50 arttidesco

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Posted 16 November 2011 - 10:28

Neither Mitter, nor Ahrens were banned for oversized engines but for arranging the championship.


Thanks for summarising the text Michael sent to me Lutz.

If I have understood the extract from "Rennsportlegende Gerhard Mitter" by Siegfried C. Strasser correctly it would appear Mitter had his ban reduced by two months after it was found that his motor was indeed to the correct legal specifications.

There are a couple of questions I have on the text from "Rennsportlegende Gerhard Mitter" by Siegfried C. Strasser

Have I understood correctly that Ahrens jr and Kurt Bardi-Barry won some sort of legal battle and compensation in an action against von Frakenberg as a result of his allegations ? The line of text that is proving difficult to decipher reads "Frankenberg hatte auch noch Klagen von Ahrens jun. und Curt Bardi (-Barry) am Hals, auch sie musste er exkulpieren und finanziel Abbuße tun."

And finally the F2 register shows that Alan Rees DNA the Eifel Pokal Rennen on 30 Sept 1962.

Does anyone have any further confirmation one way or t'other confirming if Alan, who allegedly admitted to using an oversize motor in practice during this meeting, was actually at the event in question ?