75 replies to this topic

[Bonde]

...where might racing car (particularly F1) design have gone instead?

Inspired by the current traffic on the threads about Hill GH2 and Maurice Phillippe, and some TNF members' deep fascination of the cars of the 1970s, I think it would be interesting to muse a bit about what we today would term 'the ultimate pre-ground effect' F1 cars would have evolved into, if that 'Mosquito wing hadn't flown'. In hindsight, I think it is very likely that someone else would have developed a working ground effect system eventually (within a few years) if Lotus hadn't - undercar aerodynamics were being looked at in the early seventies.

Some of those last pre-ground effect cars were mighty interesting and highly individual - Brabham BT46, Ferrari 312T3, Tyrrell 008 were three very different approaches to the same set of problems, and Herd's FW06 somehow distilled the Kit Car into a simple, compact and very effective little gem with a minimum of fuss. Surface cooling was looked at (Murray), fan-assisted cooling to draw air from under the car (Phillippe) and active camber compensation (also Phillippe) were tried (and dropped), tall tubs, flat tubs, sports car noses, chisel noses, blade front wings, radiators in just about every conceivable location, six wheels, rising rate suspension or not, inboard brakes or not etc. were all some of the things that were mixed and matched in the later years before the Lotus T78 and T79. Where might racing car design have gone without ground effect?

Discuss, gentlemen...

[PeterElleray]

Ok, good point. here's a curved ball to play with...

How much 'ground effect' did those early lotii actually produce, on track? i dont mean in the Imperial College Tunnel, but on track?

I pose this one because i can't quite equate the numbers bandied around at the time with what happened on track. I dont suggest that there was nothing there, just that there was less than we may have been led to believe and certainly less than effective use of it - flexing sidepods, chassis etc

Ive recently been fortunate enough to view again most of the GP's on 1977 and all of 1978. How many times did the Lotii produce the sort of superiority that you might expect, given the extra download? Not as many as you might think, (perhaps i will post a list tomorrow)...

If the oppostion had latched onto this, i think we might have seen a few cars that followed the USAC eagle 'blat' car technology - this could almost have been adapted onto FW06 and 008 and M26 and a few others without major rework of the chassis concept, certainly this would have represented a more logical progression of what we had seen from about 1974 on, with the rather crude skirts that some of these cars used to STOP the air from flowing under the car.

Chapman said at the time that he acknowledged that this had been the prevailing philosophy- i have it on film! - , but that his team was pursuing a different approach. I dont think this was hype, i think it was absolutely straight - an alternative , and maybe the 'blat' approach was abandonded a year or two too soon...

one final point - if the FISA had stamped down on sliding, as opposed to flexible skirts , as many belived they ought to have done from the start - the old argument about moving aerodynamic devices - what sort of an advance would the Lotus 79 have represented over the 78? I think we saw enough fully skirted cars dropping performance significantly with either broken or stuck skirts that we should perhaps think about that..

The 78 was competitive with the opposition in 1978 but not consistently faster. without the distraction of designing the 79 (twice -or should that be three times, theres another thread!) it may have been developed but would that have represented a step change in performance from FW06/008 etc?

At the time it seemed inevitable that there would be a grid full of 79's in '79 - in hindsight, i have to wonder..

there you go - a bit of revisionism for you to sign off the day with!

regards

peter

[MonzaDriver]

Had ground effect AND WINGS never happened..............
we would have seen at races like this one on the link here below.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Races like this, where with the camera car, you can almost " see" where and how the drivers loose or gain
tenths of a second, or miles per hours, related to the adversary he is going to overtake.

We would have seen, very good drivers like this two, turning the steering wheel very few, because the bends are approached and made almost with throttle and brake, in searching of a perfect 4 wheel drift, over a perfect designed racing line. The most perfect the you made the bend, the more chance you have to overtake the adversary at the end of the following straight. The real racing, lap after lap, repeated for all the races around the world, in all the circuits, not only in England.

That would be what THEY stolen from us, in the search of GROUNDforce,
and after that, in the search for the money, of some spoiled childs that never understood what they were doing instead of racing.

Ciao to all.
MonzaDriver

[kayemod]

Originally posted by PeterElleray

Ive recently been fortunate enough to view again most of the GP's on 1977 and all of 1978. How many times did the Lotii produce the sort of superiority that you might expect, given the extra download? Not as many as you might think, (perhaps i will post a list tomorrow)...

The biggest problem with the 78 was surely straightline speed, as a first attempt at ground effect, the extra grip came at the expense of a lot of extra drag. Swings and roundabouts, much of what it gained through the corners, particularly on entry, it lost on the straights, obviously more of a problem on some circuits than on others. The forces involved weren't understood too well, and I'd be surprised if some effectiveness wasn't lost through sidepods flexing under load, largely rectified with the 79. Lotus realised all this of course, and the 79 was a big improvement, more grip and much less drag, but given that Lotus had a one year lead, it always surprised me how quickly some of the opposition Williams in particular, caught and passed them.

[David Beard]

If ground effect hadn't happened we would not have had enforced flat bottoms and the plank?

In motor racing it used to be possible to invent things. Because it is impossible to uninvent them, we now have a huge rule book. Thus, inventing is now nearly as difficult as uninventing.

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by kayemod


The biggest problem with the 78 was surely straightline speed, as a first attempt at ground effect, the extra grip came at the expense of a lot of extra drag. Swings and roundabouts, much of what it gained through the corners, particularly on entry, it lost on the straights, obviously more of a problem on some circuits than on others. The forces involved weren't understood too well, and I'd be surprised if some effectiveness wasn't lost through sidepods flexing under load, largely rectified with the 79. Lotus realised all this of course, and the 79 was a big improvement, more grip and much less drag, but given that Lotus had a one year lead, it always surprised me how quickly some of the opposition Williams in particular, caught and passed them.

well, thats the accepted version yes, and in some ways its another good argument for others not pursuing ground effect in 1978...

but then Andretti won at Monza in 1977 and was very competitive at other faster tracks, infact this lack of straightline speed, which certainly did show at Kyalami and at Hockenhiem, with the long straights, but not in Fuji, is a bit of a moving target etc so how big a factor is it - and what part did engines play .. if you watch the 1977/78 videos , and we are talking full race live feed, so you can get a good idea of who is fast - you are hard pushed to see a car exhibiting a quantum leap in cornering speed over the opposition - yes its faster- sometimes -, but not as fast as the numbers would suggest - that was my original point. At other circuits it was only the third or fourth fastest chassis...

if you then consider what somebody who didnt have the enormous pressure on him to 'do our own 79' (like Maurice, who more or less reproduced a blue one - wonder where the pressure to do that came from?...) might have done had he not followed that path.. well that was what i was speculating about and i think infact such an approach might have worked very well . for instance, i think a BT46 brabham with a flat 12 engine and with vestigal tunnels - these would have been about as wide as the 1979 Ferrari's - and with the bt48 inboard rear suspenion lets say, that might have worked very nicely in 1979 - and a lot better than the BT48.. The 46 even had an early front diffuser, with the radiators in it. add a flat bottom and some narrow tunnels and you have the underbody of a current LMP car - and there's a lot of downforce avaliable from that..

Of course when the 48 morphed into the 49 and the tunnels were re engineered that was better again, but that is quite a step from the technology on the original grp podded 79...

i think the 79 actually had less rigid underwings than the 78 - on the 78 they were formed integrally with the underside of the side tanks in aluminium. the 79 pods were in grp if i remember correctly and hung on a series of diaphrams and frames from the side of the narrow sheet aluminium tub. it was certainly acknowledged a short while later that they had been less rigid than required to translate the theoretical downforce into real numbers..

i suspect that a lot of the 79's advances were down to a) clearing the exit of the diffuser by moving the rear suspension inboard and b) the use of sliding skirts. some of the gains were then negated by less than rigid structure - i would be surprised if the 79 chassis or pods were as rigid as those on the 78, which had an early full depth (shoulder height) aluminium tub. the 79 is bueatiful to look at with the body on - take the body off and the 78 is far more satisfying to the engineer.... Ralph Bellamy (designer of the 78) - was quoted recently as saying that the 1978 car should have really been a 78 chassis with the 79 rear end... i would go further and say that the front suspension should have been tidied up aswell. but there is a lot in what Ralph says..

when you say you are surprised how quickly Williams (and Ligier?) caught Lotus - well, i think that tells you a lot about the downsides of the 79...

Revisionism...

Peter

[kayemod]

Originally posted by PeterElleray


when you say you are surprised how quickly Williams (and Ligier?) caught Lotus - well, i think that tells you a lot about the downsides of the 79...

Revisionism...

Peter

No, I wouldn't disagree with any of that, but in the early days of ground effect, the Chapman inspired variety at any rate, everyone was 'flying blind' to a greater or lesser extent, even Lotus didn't understand completely what they were doing. I can't find the quote, but I think that Mario said that where the 78 scored most over the opposition was on corner entry, but he also said that the biggest problem was lack of straight line speed. Be kind here, I'm quoting all this from distant memory.

[PeterElleray]

hi - i remember exactly the same quote - more than once! - nothing wrong with the old grey cells.. and thats really where i'm basing my argument. if the 78 was genuinely too slow in a straight line to exhibit a marked advantage - then why copy it?

over the balance of the 1978 season its true that the 79 seemed less 'disadvataged' in straight line speed, and generally had the measure of the opposition - but was it a quantum leap? I think it caught the opposition on the hop a little when it came out, clearly it was a very competitve car through mid season 1978, but perhaps the opposition was begining to address that towards the end, albeit a bit inconsistently. dont quite know how to fit Jariers performance in Montreal into the picture, he'd done something similar in Brazil in the Shadow in 1975, which was just a good, sensible, conventional car.

Anyway, almost to a man the rest of the field built there own version of the 79 for 1979 - but not all of them were well served by that move, and thats really the second point i was making, was there an alternative? standing back, with 30 years hindsight (!) and knowing what did happen next, i would say yes.

But what would i have done at the time? Build a 79 copy , wonder if i didnt need a stiffer tub and sidepods, and then find out, by about May 1979 that i did....

Peter

[fines]

Also from memory, but didn't the HUGE drop in lap times happen in '79, rather than '78? Tells you something about the Lotus, doesn't it?

This is a fabulous thread idea, even if totally hypothetic. But I guess the "ground effects revolution" put the minds of the designers on the track of aerodynamics, once and for all. Much had been learned in the ten previous years, but "ground effects" clearly showed that aerodynamics promised MUCH, MUCH bigger gains than any other engineering ideas.

Which is pretty much the reason for F1 being as boring as it is, today!

[Henri Greuter]

I also think that the many engine related retirements prevented the 78 to show its true colors and real potential.

I get the feeling that because the 78 was not so outstanding fast, it wrongfooted the opposition for one more year. Meaning: by not following suit and Chapman refining the concept for the next year (the type 79) , he gained a massive advantage that year nobody could match. Except the the BT46B at Anderstorp.


Henri

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by fines
didn't the HUGE drop in lap times happen in '79, rather than '78? Tells you something about the Lotus, doesn't it?

exactly..

Peter

[cpbell]

Originally posted by fines
Also from memory, but didn't the HUGE drop in lap times happen in '79, rather than '78? Tells you something about the Lotus, doesn't it?

This is a fabulous thread idea, even if totally hypothetic. But I guess the "ground effects revolution" put the minds of the designers on the track of aerodynamics, once and for all. Much had been learned in the ten previous years, but "ground effects" clearly showed that aerodynamics promised MUCH, MUCH bigger gains than any other engineering ideas.

Which is pretty much the reason for F1 being as boring as it is, today!

Ironically enough, the new-for-'09 regulations bring-back large diffusers for greater ground effect and less reliance on upper-body winglets, turning-vanes and other such rubbish to encourage closer racing.

[Racer.Demon]

Originally posted by David Beard
In motor racing it used to be possible to invent things. Because it is impossible to uninvent them, we now have a huge rule book. Thus, inventing is now nearly as difficult as uninventing.

A wise observation, David. Sad but true...

[Mallory Dan]

Doesn't Mike Lawrence's 'Purple Pole' Theory have a lot to answer for as to why so many teams made 79s for the 1979 season?

[fines]

There was a lot of smoke screen about the 78 in '77, with rumours about its differential and the like, and also with the little inefficient skirts it didn't work that spectacularly as with the sliding ones of the 79 in '78. True also, the many engine disasters in '77 camouflaged some of the performance, which definitely was there! The 78 was THE outstanding car of '77, certainly with regards to outright lap speed! The 79 then only went to show that the concept was even more viable with thought applied, hence the many clones in '79.

Why does my post read like something Maxwell Smart might have uttered?

[kayemod]

I think that the Lotus 80 was pretty conclusive proof of the widespread lack of understanding of many aspects of ground effect, at Lotus almost as much as the rest. It went off in completely the wrong direction, and in the previous season the 79 was becoming outclassed. I'd left Lotus several years earlier, but I've never forgotten something that Chapman once told me, that he aimed to be right 51% of the time, which was at least 2% better than almost anyone else managed. I'd say that in many respects the 78 and 79 were 51% cars, that were mostly racing against 49% cars, so like I said earlier, everyone was 'flying blind' to a greater or lesser extent.

[Paolo]

Originally posted by MonzaDriver
Had ground effect AND WINGS never happened..............
we would have seen at races like this one on the link here below.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Races like this, where with the camera car, you can almost " see" where and how the drivers loose or gain
tenths of a second, or miles per hours, related to the adversary he is going to overtake.

We would have seen, very good drivers like this two, turning the steering wheel very few, because the bends are approached and made almost with throttle and brake, in searching of a perfect 4 wheel drift, over a perfect designed racing line. The most perfect the you made the bend, the more chance you have to overtake the adversary at the end of the following straight. The real racing, lap after lap, repeated for all the races around the world, in all the circuits, not only in England.

That would be what THEY stolen from us, in the search of GROUNDforce,
and after that, in the search for the money, of some spoiled childs that never understood what they were doing instead of racing.

Ciao to all.
MonzaDriver

Fascinating footage, thanks. I would really like F1 to be THAT breathtaking.

On the other hand, I was personally attracted to F1 as a teenager in 1982 by the curiosity of working out what this magic "ground effect" was.

Something that shaped my subsequent career as a researcher.


About the Lotus 78: I think one of its problem was the brush skirts; they tended to get worn and lose their sealing function towards the end of the race.

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by fines
There was a lot of smoke screen about the 78 in '77, with rumours about its differential and the like, and also with the little inefficient skirts it didn't work that spectacularly as with the sliding ones of the 79 in '78. True also, the many engine disasters in '77 camouflaged some of the performance, which definitely was there! The 78 was THE outstanding car of '77, certainly with regards to outright lap speed! The 79 then only went to show that the concept was even more viable with thought applied, hence the many clones in '79.

Why does my post read like something Maxwell Smart might have uttered?

Just looking back through Autocourse again, whilst the 78 was certainly extremely competitive from about Long Beach on in 1977, its record from the British GP on is quite patchy...

Silverstone - Hunt, Watson Lauda and Scheckter were faster than both Lotii
Hockenheim - ditto
Austria - is difficult to judge, it was of course very wet, Hunt and lauda both outqualified Andretti but in the wet race Mario was infront when the engine, er, blew up, but Hunt was very close..
Holland - Mario fastest in practice, then involved in the infamous 'we dont overtake on the outside in F1' manoeouvre with James at Tarzan. I think the 78 was superior here, and that bit of nonsense and another blown engine disguised this.
Monza- Mario outqualified by Hunt Reutemann and Scheckter, but then went on to win quite handsomely - although the opposition did take itself out..
US GP - Mario qualifies 4th behind Hunt and the Brabham Alfa's, finishes 2nd to Hunt ( a close second but not really challenging Hunt)
Canadian GP - Mario qulifies on pole for the first time since Zandvoort, but cant get away from Hunt in the race, who eventually passes him, and then promptly trips up over team mate Mass whilst lapping him. MArio retakes the lead but the engine , er, blows up, 2 laps from home.
Fuji - Mario comfortably on pole, muffs his start and takes himself and Lafitte off in attempting to make up ground on lap 2

Earlier in the season, from Spain throught to France , on slower tracks, it had sometimes appeared to be markedly superior, but then McLAren sorted the M26, Ferrari unscrambled the T2 and the Brabham alfa was always there , or there abouts. even there we need to factor in relatively poor showings at Monaco and before that in Kyalami.

The 78 was very good indeed in 1978, but that McLaren looks quite handy in retrospect doesnt it? Does anyone remember Jackie Stewarts verdict on the class of 77, after driving the McLaren, Lotus, Wolf, brabham, Tyrrel Ligier and Renault at Paul ricard in the close season?

"At this point i rated the McLaren as the best car i had ever driven. The Lotus was to overtake the McLAren in my estimation a few days later but the McLaren had really impressed me.." His comments on the 78 are very revealing and now that i've tracked it down i will post some quotes. he loves the car, and says that it is the only car from 77 that requires a different technique to the Tyrrell he had driven in 1973 - that should give us a clue.. but he refuses to dismiss the McLaren..

So, i would say that there were plenty of clues in the 78 that this was to be the way ahead, but that it was early days and that it didnt quite show the level of superiority on track that perhaps we now remember. Good?- yes, Very Good even, but a quantum leap - not yet..

(Ducks below hedge outside Ketteringham Hall to avoid rocks..)

Peter

[HistoricMustang]

I just simply wish ground effects would go away.

Henry

[Bonde]

It's interesting how ex-Lotus designers, who'd be expected to have some inside info on the T78 and T79, of 1978-79 didn't have huge success in 78 and 79. Again, I think this indicates that no-one had the whole picture yet - and that Chapman played his cards close to his chest in order to protect Lotus against defectors...

Ligier, who'd always built chassis like the proverbial brick sh*thouse and could thus structurally and mechanically survive the sudden surge of downforce, took a quantom leap forward in early 1979 without a direct T79 copy-approach, but then lost momentum. Herd's FW07 had many features cribbed from the T79, but Patrick knew better than that and improved upon it, not least in the structural department (IIRC, FW07 used a honeycomb lower tub and a double-skinned footwell), improved tunnel shape and reliable sliding skirts to make it the outstanding car of the period; a case, like T72/VPJ4 where Chapman could have said (and I think did) : "The FW07 was the car we should have built for 79, not the curved skirt still flexible chassis T80). Still, 312T4 power and reliability was good enough to give Ferrari both titles - I doubt the T4 had much downforce from those compromised tunnels, but it had power and torque to pull big wings and an upper body reputed to give useful downforce. The T4 tub was a frail-looking oddball, but some of the shunts Gilles and Jody walked away from in 79 and 80 (T5) demonstrated that these clad tubular frames were, if not stiff, then remarkably strong (I've speculated elsewhere in the past that Lauda would have been even more seriously injured in his 'Ring shunt in a B3 or just about any 76 chassis other than the sheet-over-tubes T2).

Even without ground effects, it appears to me that there was a tendency towards convergence in the aero department - front radiators were being limited to an oil cooler and front 'canard' wings, or full-width blades, were becoming the norm, the once popular 'sports car' nose loosing popularity.

I can't remember what Doctor Postlethwaite's reasoning for the constant 'height' shallow/broad tub of the 308C/FW05 was (which I found very futuristic looking at its launch in 75), but at least he'd caused interest by experimenting with rubber springs. For his first, sexy and succesful, WR1 he returned to the wedge shape of the 308C's predecessors, now with a notably shallow front, which to me had the appearance of not being a place you'd want to have your feet in a shunt. 1978 hurriedly done WR5 was boxy with T78 style sidepods, but without the oil cooler high up in the scuttle and blade front wing - rear suspension still conventional outboard. I've never seen photos of the WR5 chassis nude, but from what I can see and remember, it didn't feature much (if any) honeycomb, whereas the neat WR7 of 79 did and really set the thick folded aluminium honeycomb tub precedent. But what was wrong with WR7? I'd expect the chassis to be at least as stiff, and likely stiffer, than FW07, so it must have been aerodynamics?

I'm straying from the intent of 'my own' thread, so back on course: We'd seen aluminium skin/core honeycomb slowly enter the fray prior to the advent of ground effects, so I think its use would have expanded rapidly, even without the increased dynamic loads of ground effects, as people were beginning to understand its advantages for compact stiffness and not least strength (for instance as demonsrtated by the McLaren team mates in Canada in 77). But would structural carbon fibre have come into extensive use as quickly as it did without the necessarily narrow AND stiff (a structural contradiction) tubs needed for ground effect tunnels? I actually doubt it - not least when one considers pioneering Murrays circumspect use of it. Imagine an evolved VPJ4 or M26 with carbon fibre chassis - not for a few years, I think.

Would we have stayed with H-pattern Hewlands? For a while, probably. Paddle-opetrated servo shifting was really a result of Barnard wanting to avoid the cumbersome mechanical linkage from wrist to 'box in a slim ground-effects type of tub.

What we have to keep in the picture also is the concurrent emergence of a number of enabling technologies from the mid to late seventies and onward, combined with the entry of main-stream car manufacturers and ever-increasing commercialism, BCE and all that. Around the inception of ground effects, CAD, CAE and CAM was making huge strides - within a realtively short period of time, F1 constructors had the means, economically and technically, to design, calculate, tool and build complex carbon fibre composite structures, actually leaving the aerospace industry behind. Apart form the requisite stiffness and strength, the chassis structure could now be more freely shaped to accommodate aerodynamic requirements, which wouldn't have hurt, even without ground effects. But would the incentive have been there? That F1 "only" lost Elio between 1982 and 1994 is not only a result of improved safety measures but also a good portion of luck, IMO. Yet the brutality of turbos power AND ground effects downforce actually contributed to vastly increased safety in back-door sort of way: Chassis had to be stronger to endure the increased running loads, which helped impact resistance, and tracks were 'sanitized' to protect public and drivers against wayward cars loosing foothold at huge cornering speeds, and the ground effect tunnels removed the fuel tankage from the ever vulnerable sides of the chassis to a safer place behind the driver. I think without ground effects improvements in the safety department would have been somewhat slower, but with the ever more feminized, commercialized and litigitious socity, and increased TV coverage, there would still have been mounting pressure to minimize the spectre of fire - I think the lateral deformable structures rules would have become ever harsher (thicker, stronger 'pads'), with designers obviuosly exploiting this structurally.

I don't think F1 cars ever looked more different from each other than they did in 1977/78, so even without the advent of ground effects, they would probably have converged again with the next major breakthrough, whatever that would have been. Turbos were coming anyways, so we would still have had the 1000 bhp Grand Prix cars, but with less downforce. Yummy.


Peter,

Excuse my ignorance - was the Eagle BLAT the one also called the 'box' car? (Trevor Harris, wasn't it?) I thought that didn't happen until 1981, but me little gray ones may be fooling me. Time to kip.

[fines]

Originally posted by Bonde
Would we have stayed with H-pattern Hewlands? For a while, probably. Paddle-opetrated servo shifting was really a result of Barnard wanting to avoid the cumbersome mechanical linkage from wrist to 'box in a slim ground-effects type of tub.

What we have to keep in the picture also is the concurrent emergence of a number of enabling technologies from the mid to late seventies and onward, combined with the entry of main-stream car manufacturers and ever-increasing commercialism, BCE and all that.

I think the paddle shift would have happened, regardless. I recall thinking how obvious it was at the time it was launched, some things are simply in the air at a given time. Which may also apply to ground effects, by the way...

I think the other quoted sentence highlights the difficulty in such "what if" scenarios, there are always so many concurrent influences that it's very difficult to isolate but one. Not that I want to kill this thread, au contraire, I think it's fabulous! Go on, all!

[kayemod]

Originally posted by Bonde
Herd's FW07.......

Typo of course, but fortunately we all know what you meant. Good post otherwise.

I think that everything you said just illustrates how little aerodynamic understanding there really was back then, in F1 at any rate, my 'flying blind' analogy yet again. Chapman thought he had the Holy Grail, but Lotus headed up a blind alley, and almost everyone caught and passed him. It all reminds me of some discarded M7 bodywork I saw out the back at Colnbrook many years ago. It was a rear body/engine cover section with an elaborate aerodynamic tray thingy ending in the biggest Gurney flap I'd ever seen, all cobbled up on my lovely orange fibreglass in bare pop-riveted L72. Someone, probably Tyler Alexander, had written on it in large felt-tip lettering, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do!"

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by Bonde
Peter,

Excuse my ignorance - was the Eagle BLAT the one also called the 'box' car? (Trevor Harris, wasn't it?) I thought that didn't happen until 1981, but me little gray ones may be fooling me. Time to kip.

Bonde - correct, one and the same - Boundary Layer Adhesion Technology_... 1980 actually. i'm speculating that if the mindset was not to make a very narrow chassis with 'wing' and then 'tunnel' section pods, that a more natural development might have been a more traditionally wide chassis that grew diffuser ramps alongside the engine, and was skirted off, in much the same way as the fan car - if you like, fan car or 008 as designed for fan but with tunnels replacing the fan. that in turn would probably have meant a move to inboard suspensions, and probably to a gradual narrowing of the chassis structure aswell,as we did indeed see on the Eagle. timescale for this alternative universe in F1 - /78/79 i would think?

I suppose the 78 would never have seen light of day as we know it, and maybe the 77 - possibly with 2nd generation honeycomb tubs, built up like the 78, would have continued into 1977. That would perhaps have run on a par with the Wolf and McLaren, although if we move about further into fantasy land, and speculate that instead of finding the 'mosquito' Lotus's ongoing tunnel programme came up with the BLAT concept i guess this would have been grafted onto whatever the 77 became...

In not trying to chase the non existant Lotus in the first half of the year Ferrari would probably not have tripped themselves up and i wonder if the end result might not have been an easier run to the championship for Lauda with Scheckter looking even stronger in the Wolf than he actually did?

Peter

(PS I will start an FW06 thread later today btw - and PM me on the 008 'project', which actually draws inspiration from it, and its contemporaries rather than directly involves it).

[cpbell]

Can I just say that, as someone who thought he knew a fair bit about that era, I am fascinated by the first-hand experience and technical knowledge in this thread? My only area of confusion is a lack of vocabulary surrouding the construction of aluminium chassis, but I think I get the jist. *Sits back to learn more.*

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by cpbell
Can I just say that, as someone who thought he knew a fair bit about that era, I am fascinated by the first-hand experience and technical knowledge in this thread? My only area of confusion is a lack of vocabulary surrouding the construction of aluminium chassis, but I think I get the jist. *Sits back to learn more.*

You might want to look on the 'Maurice Philippe' thread for more of the same - havent checked if you've posted on it btw.

The point you make about aluminium chassis is interesting, because i think it leads onto another related issue - there are a lot of these cars currently running around in TGP and GP Masters and with the HSCC, and a steadily depleting number of fabricators, and designers - especially !- who know how they go together... we are in danger of forgetting about the application of this technology to the race car .. a bit like NASA suddenly realised they had more or less forgotten how to get to the moon ....

I only just got in at the end of aluminium technology for major structure in the early 1980's, most of my own experience has been with the black stuff. its only when you sit down again, for the first time in 25 years and discipline yourself to forget the methodology that has developed over the last quarter century, and to solve the problem without a 5 axis router, resin tooling block, composite tools , carbon prepreg , honeycomb , syncore and autoclaves (and a budget for one panel that would finance a whole season in TGP) that you can look back with great respect and not a little humility at what was achieved not so long ago with a pair of tin snips, a sheet metal folder, and a rivet gun...

Peter

[Tony Matthews]

Originally posted by PeterElleray


with a pair of tin snips, a sheet metal folder, and a rivet gun...

Peter

Don't forget the glue!

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by Tony Matthews


Don't forget the glue!

ok, and the glue...

but, apart from the tin snips, and the sheets of ally, and the folder, oh, and the rivet gun...

and the glue...

apart from that... what have the romans ever done for us?

and another thing,

if you tell the young people of today that....

Peter

(pleased to see you're tuned in tony!)

[Bonde]

It's great to see you back, Tony! (I know, I haven't posted that doodle of mine on that other thread yet, but there must surely be better ways to revive it). Wot? Me sniff glue?

Peter,

I'll now have to plough my way through my old Autosports late 80, early 81, in order to recap how BLAT actually worked (hint, hint, nudge, nudge), but one thing I recall was that the Eagle's rear spring/dampers were supported by a pair of tubular trusses of remarkable length and slenderness. On Tauranac's genial early RT2/RT3 series, the spring/damper units were likewise outboard, but snug against the upright, with a very slender tension member - I thought this a neat alternative to inboard spring/damper units since it enabled using an existing 'box and bellhousing without stealing tunnel width for an inboard spring/damper, and the installation could be configured for pure tension and compression - simple and efficient. Of course 'remote' spring/damper location provides some other possibilities...

On the subject of boundary layer control, early publicity claimed that the cooling inlet louvres under the rear window of the Volkswagen Beetle were intended to suck in the boundary layer there, to keep the flow attached down past the window and thus helping the Beetle to get, for its day, a very reasonable drag coefficient of 0,435...But, I digress...

On the subject of respect for the past: The sheer complexity of engineering and magnitude of production of aircraft on both sides of the the conflict that was WWII fascinates me no end - it's mind-numbing. And where were the computers then...? BTW: TNF should, IMO, have a 'Python Law' of some sort (a bit like Godwin's Law in political 'net fora) which measures the number of posts before the inevitable Monty Python reference first appears, sober poster or otherwise... Then again, no-one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition...

Kayemod,

Never heard of Robin Head or Patrick Herd?

Actually Peter makes an additiional good point by including Eagle's BLAT here: I think parallel (or slightly staggered (pun intended)) developments in the US showed that ground effects was being interpreted in different ways and didn't immediately cause a quantum leap there either, be that on ovals or road/street courses. Lola T500 had an interesting shape, which I could have imagined evolving into a BLAT configuration, had Barnard's Chapparal and its source of inspiration not appeared when they did...

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by Bonde
It's great to see you back, Tony! (I know, I haven't posted that doodle of mine on that other thread yet, but there must surely be better ways to revive it). Wot? Me sniff glue?

TNF should, IMO, have a 'Python Law' of some sort (a bit like Godwin's Law in political 'net fora) which measures the number of posts before the inevitable Monty Python reference first appears, sober poster or otherwise... :.

Sober, if somewhat cynical...

and whilst we are on python, do you think we are on for the full half hour or the 5 minute argument about how much of an advance the Lotus 78 was ?...

moving on,

Tony S did something very similar with the rear suspension on the Jag in 1985 as i remember it. I think one of the fundamental laws of racing archeology should be 'study what Tauranac did first...".

I will try to put soemthing together on the BLAT car tomorrow - i have the eagle book published a couple of years ago which is good on this car, saves me digging into autosport.

Shame you're not based in the uk - im planning a day at Duxford in the next few weeks looking over the WW2 restorations etc, about an hour from here.

rgds

Peter

[Bonde]

...ah, Duxford! Whenever my travels bring me via Stansted, I try to arrange for a lay-over of at least half a day's length or so, and then sneak up to Duxford. I've had some business with Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge from time to time, so I've been to Duxford quite a few times...Apart from the actually quite frequent flying displays, I like that fact that one can actually get very close to the exhibits - and spend hours in the workshops, which for me really is the best bit! Currently, I have this 'thing' for pre-WWI aircraft, but I never tire of WWII aircraft and the first generations of jets. Hunter and Sea Hawk, and some of the early Douglas and Grumman jets are just sooo pretty, IMO, and what a clever little aircraft the Folland Gnat was...And speaking of clever - the paper projects of the Germans in the last desparate years and months of the war are absolutely staggering...

You mentioned NASA's memories of going to the Moon - they can just ask the Indians for help! Spectacular as it may be, but IMO space exploration using manned spacecraft is an awful waste of money and effort - automated, robotic craft are infinitely more efficient as they can be built to 'live' in space for decades - humans can't even survive a few minutes a few kilometres above sea-level without bulky life support systems...

PS: If I were based in the UK, Denmark wouldn't have a racing car 'industry', would it?

Anyway, my complete derail of 'my own' thread indicates it's time for bed...

[dolomite]

Thanks everybody for a most fascinating thread!

I have a vague recollection of an article a few years ago that I think must have been in Racecar Engineering, or possibly Race Tech, about early instances of people experimenting with rear diffusers on flat bottomed cars. there was mention of a Riley & Scott car that ran at Indianapolis in 1974ish, and also a quote from Patrick Head that they had tried an experimental diffuser during an early test of FW06 and seen a significant improvement in lap time, but then it fell off out on the circuit and they never got round to making another one or developing it futher at the time. Can anyone else corroborate?

[Bonde]

Dolomite,

I suspect that the Indy car you mention could be either a Foyt Coyote or a Wildcat - both were designed by Riley, and certainly on the latter Riley was beginning to look at the airflow (or lack of) under the car, but it may have been as late as 1976.

I, too, have a vague recollection of reading about Head's experiments on FW06, and I also think I have a very vague recollection of a photo somewhere of either a boxed-in rear end, or an additional wing element mounted between the endplates very close to the ground. Speaking of the latter, McLaren experimented with a rear wing in close ground proximity in 1974, IIRC it was used in untimed practise in Belgium, as did March in 1975 and Alpine (Elf-Switzerland) in F2 in 1976. Tauranac had, IIRC, included the option of locating the front wing in close ground proximity on his BT34 'lobster claw' of 1971, but never got round to testing it.

Going back to Peter's early post, It is indeed remarkable that FIA didn't ban sliding skirts immediately, and I even wondered about that at the time. How sliding skirts could NOT be regarded as moveable aerodynamic devices is beyond me, but apparently money and politics spoke louder. I also wondered, and still do, why there wasn't a ban on anything other than the tyres touching the ground, although that is a bit more tricky to police as demonstrated in 1981. ISTR recall there once was (or is?) a rule saying that the car had to be able to run with one tyre deflated without any part other than the other tyres touching the road - if that was still in force it could have been applied?

[PeterElleray]

sliding skirts ...

i'm pretty sure that the Lotus 79 didnt initially have sliding skirts- i have pictures of the initial Ricard test version of the 79 with what looks like a fixed skirt that hinges from the lower pod - just like the skirts that were legal in 1982, but not 1981.. i have done a bit of digging in my archives and find that in late 1977, in an attempt to rationalise the widespread and control the use of flexible skirting on many cars - all of them except the 78 flat bottomed - the constructors lobbied the CSI, as it then was, the formally recognise their legality, previously they had come under the grey 'movable aero device' area. This was done for 1978. However, eyebrows were then raised when one car - and i think it may have been the Fittipaldi but cannot find the reference im looking for at the moment - turned up with sliding skirts. Sliding and felxible are not quite the same thing, flex is flex, relative motion of the complete component is not flex... Anyway, that opened the floodgates. Certainly when the 79 reappeared at Silverstone in april it was fitted with sliding skirts.

can anyone throw any light on any of this?

peter

[kayemod]

Originally posted by PeterElleray


can anyone throw any light on any of this?

peter

Not on that one Peter, I'll leave that to you, but I think there were quite a lot of experiments with ground effect long before the Lotus F1 cars we've been discussing, some have already been mentioned, and some were more successful than others of course. McLaren CanAm cars starting with the 1967 M6A all had shaping on the underside of the nose that created a distinct venturi effect. As most will recall, it was Bruce McLaren's practice to test each new car with no bodywork at all, "To get the feel of the thing" as he used to say. Clearly the full-width bodies on these cars created a lot of downforce, and good aerodynamics undoubtedly played a big part in the overwhelming success that the orange cars achieved. As far as I know, McLaren never did any serious aerodynamic testing, other than a few runs at Goodwood with tufts of wool taped over the bodywork. I'm sure that Peter Jackson tried quite hard to get them to have models tested in the pioneering Specialised Mouldings wind tunnel, by Peter Wright of course, who did much to make Chapman's ideas work on the Lotus 78 & 79, but McLaren got the results they did through long experience and what was really little more than a 'rule of thumb' approach, there didn't seem to be all that many people at Colnbrook with formal engineering qualifications, Bruce included, though that never held them back. Ironically, the most wind tunnel tested CanAm car was almost certainly the Lola T260, I know, as I made most of the models. This car featured extensive mesh venting in the front bodywork, largely a Peter Wright/Eric Broadley idea, the idea being to reduce front end lift without using drag inducing spoilers, though they fairly soon gave up on that and stuck a huge wing on the front, the car's main problem being chronic understeer.

[Tony Matthews]

Originally posted by PeterElleray





but, apart from the tin snips, and the sheets of ally, and the folder, oh, and the rivet gun...

and the glue...

Here we are, somewhere between spaceframes and carbon...

[Jan Holmskov]

Bonde mentions his fascination with WWII aircraft earlier in the thread

In the new book Bernd Rosemeyer Die Schicksalsfahrt german Auto Union expert Martin Schroeder is telling the story of how he 5 years ago found an Auto Union patent application from January 1938.

In the patent application the aerodynamic body of a record car is described. The rear diffusor and skirts and the creation of downforce is explained in detail. A patent was awarded in September 1941.

The name of the inventor was not mentioned in the patent, but von Eberan-Eberhorst was involved in the design of the car.


Jan Holmskov

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by Tony Matthews


Here we are, somewhere between spaceframes and carbon...

tony - very nice shot - i think John Tipler used many more of your 78 and 79 photos in his book some years ago. shots like this of the chassis in construction are priceless - please feel free to post a few more ....

rgds

peter

[Tony Matthews]

[Tony Matthews]

[Tony Matthews]

Hi Peter - and Anders, thank you , I was busy sizing the illustrations whilst you were posting, Peter! I'm not sure how many photos I have of the early (!) days which show the 'un-sung heroes' of motor racing, initially I was so concerned with getting the shots I needed that photographing people at work was not a top priority, and I also felt that they might not appreciate the attention. With the confidence of experience I deliberately took work-shop pictures for my own pleasure. Perhaps I should start a thread devoted to the craftsmen responsible for creating these fascinating machines...

[B Squared]

"Perhaps I should start a thread devoted to the craftsmen responsible for creating these fascinating machines..."

Yes, please do! Jerry Entin does alot on unsung heroes also. Mr. Matthews, & all who are contributing to this & similar threads - Thank you. I don't have the engineering expertise to contribute much further, but it's exciting to read & try to learn from those who know it as you do. The construction photo & the illustrations are beautiful.

Brian

[PeterElleray]

Ah ha!

I've found the same drawings now in Tiplers book - knew i had it somewhere...

Anyway, thanks very much for posting - but am i correct in saying that the 79 did not originally have sliding skirts , but the articulating type?

Peter

[Racer.Demon]

Originally posted by Bonde
Never heard of Robin Head or Patrick Herd?

But Herd did design an 'FW07', eventually.

[fines]

Originally posted by Tony Matthews
Hi Peter - and Anders, thank you , I was busy sizing the illustrations whilst you were posting, Peter! I'm not sure how many photos I have of the early (!) days which show the 'un-sung heroes' of motor racing, initially I was so concerned with getting the shots I needed that photographing people at work was not a top priority, and I also felt that they might not appreciate the attention. With the confidence of experience I deliberately took work-shop pictures for my own pleasure. Perhaps I should start a thread devoted to the craftsmen responsible for creating these fascinating machines...

YES! Please, go ahead!

[Charles E Taylor]

It seems like yesterday.



You may miss things with all the detail.

The photo shows Eric Gray at work on the T78 chassis. A master craftsman.

To see his fully wired flanges in L72 on these cars is to see a work of art and is missed by many.

These generations of Lotus cars had many ground-breaking technologies.

The first extensive use of Honeycomb panels for chassis construction, 4th generation RHP wheel bearings and ultra low friction suspension bearings. The first bellhousing oil tank with co-axial clutch release etc,etc,

There is much, much more in the evolution of these cars than is immediately apparent. I wish I had more time........

The more you look the more you will see.




Charlie

[Tony Matthews]

Charlie, I fully intended to credit Eric Grey but the hold-ups I was experiencing with my scanner nearly wore me out, and having posted the photo and drawings a fortifying glass of wine was called for, then I had to cook...

Was the 78 the chassis that was meant to use the 'queer box'? I remember Arthur G???? cursing the thing during yet another re-build. His name will come to me, I last saw him when he was looking after Neil Corner's stable.

Peter, yes, John copied my drawings, not sure why, perhaps the SAE were reluctant to let him use them. He never mentioned it to me during our numerous chats about the photographs, so it was somewhat of a shock to see them. If he'd asked I'd have willingly done slightly different versions for his book. Oh well...

[Tony Matthews]

Originally posted by Patroller




- but am i correct in saying that the 79 did not originally have sliding skirts , but the articulating type?

Peter

Quite honestly Peter I can't remember, and have not had the chance to check, but the single illustration should have been annotated 'T79' but me stub of pencil broke.This may have preceded the sliding skirt. Or not. Also the sliding skirt that I saw at Classic Team Lotus did not have the brush seals but a sheet of polythene attached at the same points as the outer brush seal and taken up and over the skirt, long enough to accept the skirt at full bump, and fixed to the inner face of the skirt, making a better seal than the brushes. I don't know if this was a one-off modification or common practice.

[Bonde]

Charles,

Thanks for your welcome additions!

I've often wondered how they wired those cutout edges on the scuttle panel of the T79 without overstraining the material. What temper was the L72 in? (And I'm trying to remember what the AA-designated alloy/temper equivalent would be).

On aluminium/aluminium honeycomb sandwich structure: The first major automotive application that I know of was Campbell's early sixties Bluebird LSR car, but aluminium faceskinned sandwich had been used pre-war in Issigonis' Light Weight Special (plywood core, IIRC) and Mallite (end-grain balsa core) was used by Herd (got it right this time, I think) in McLarens first F1 car of 1966. I believe Herd used aluminium/aluminium honeycomb sandwich structure on the Cosworth 4WD, but I haven't been able to spot where in that interesting structure. I believe aluminium sandwich panels with polyurethane foam cores became quite popular in the early days of 'deformable structure' chassis, and that Coppuck's underrated M26 used aluminium/aluminium honeycomb sandwich structure extensively for main chassis panels, predating the T78 lotus by a couple of years.

I always found the T78 tub very interesting - quite a lot of it was actually licked by the airstream. How much of the T78 tub was sandwich panels? I get the impression that the floor and sides up to waiste height were sandwich panels, but where else?

Put all the fuel behind the driver, and the T78 tub suddenly looks pretty much like that of Bellamy's IMO stunningly handsome (in its initial form only) but unsuccesful Fittipaldi F6 (though I doubt the tub contributed to it's failure - a tub like that of the F6 would probably have stood Lotus T79/T80 in good stead in 1979...)

The real artistry in aluminium, IMO, is in bodywork - the panel beater's art and skilful use of the English Wheel to produce just about any compound curvature shape imaginable. And the to see it polished...

I have always suspected that the curved scuttle panel of T78/FW07A/009 was a rolled, ruled surface as I've managed to simulate its shape reasonably well with thin cardboard. But then to have wired edges on the cut-outs...That curved scuttle panel has always mystifed me - although structurally ideal, it's pretty difficult to make, and it makes the bulkheads and formers more tricky to make also - a folded panel as on the T77, with limited unsupported panel sizes, should have been adequate and could have fitted under the bodywork, too, as many others did subsequently - Murray's BT48/BT49 immediately comes to mind. In aerospace, you won't find much aluminium structure with compund curvature unless it's in direct contact with the airstream - for cost reasons alone.

It's interesting to see how compund curvature aluminium tubs began to disappear in the course of the 1970s, a trend accelerated, I think, when deformable structures became mandatory, as largish panel support against buckling could now be provided "for free" by the thick crush pads rather than by compound curvature. With honeycomb sandwich structural panels buckling resistance came with the panel. The fuel bags of cars such as Tyrrell 001-004, BRM P153/P160 and McLaren M19 must have been pretty expensive relative to what came next. Gardner's neat and functional 005 had a flat-panel, straight-fold outer skin, but the cockpit inner skins look quite complex, but it must still have been easier to make than 001-004.


Peter, did you get my PM? (...and what happend to that FW06 thread you promised...? )

[Bonde]

Tony,

The T79 was the one that occasionally used the 'queerbox'. As you may recall, the 'occasional' bit caused quite a lot of double-work for Lotus, as the Hewland and 'queerbox' (German GETRAG internals) back-ends were quite different from each other - for instance, the Hewland carried the twin brake calipers top/bottom, whereas the Getrag casing (which incorporated the inner, porous halves of the twin calipers in the neat otherwise neat housing casting) carried them front/back, with obvious attendant differences in suspension pick-up point bracketry and whatnot.

The 'queerbox' development was interesting, as was differential technology development - the late seventies/early eighties weren't all about aerodynamics, turbocharging and structural materials and methods. Nowadays we take sequential 'boxes for granted, but had someone succesfully introduced a push-pull cable-operated one sooner, the advent of the paddle-controlled electromechanical/pneumatic 'box might have been delayed a bit - after all, a cable (albeit quite stiff) is easier to fit in and sequetial doesn't need lateral shifter movement, something that was growing as 6, and perhaps eventually 7, gears were coming in.

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by Bonde


Peter, did you get my PM? (...and what happend to that FW06 thread you promised...? )

HI, yes, sorry i have just found both of them. the fw06 thread took a back seat to all this activity in ground effect today.. i will pm you monday and get the fw06 thread up then.

cheers

Peter