15 replies to this topic

[schuy]

ciao,
guys, can you please advise me,
how many HP's a F3000 and a F3 car have?
and, maybe, acceleration figures?
thank-you very much,
liran biderman.

[jetsetjim]

Power figures are as follows:

~450 BHP for F3000 3 litre, V8 Zytek Motor

~220 BHP for F3 2 litre, 4 cylinder Honda/Renault/Spiess, etc..

Acceleration figures will vary dependant on the gearing on the car, but Darren Manning recently beat a tweaked Suzuki Hayabusa from 0-60 in a current F3000 car.. So that makes 0-60 time of about 2 secs.

Not sure on F3, but won't be far behind.

[desmo]

Anyone know any more about the Zytek F3000 engine? Zytek's website is pretty scant with the details. Is it a rebadged Judd or the like or is it actually an in-house production? I can't see why Zytek would stint on the technical details for a one-make spec engine, I assume there's nothing particularly secret to hide there.

[schuy]

ciao,
hey jim, you saved me again man!
thanks very much!

ciao,
liran biderman.

[jetsetjim]

I've worked with cars fitted with the engine for the past 2 years.... what would you like to know?

[desmo]

Since you asked, who designed the Zytek engine? What (if any other than the control and FI systems) parts of the engine are actually manufactured by Zytek, and who makes the rest? What is the peak BMEP? What are the included valve angles, valve timings, valve diameters and lifts? Two or three rings? Pin to crown distance? Pin offset? Inverted bucket followers? Etc, etc, etc.

Anything technically interesting or unique about it, or is it more or less a generic DOHC 4-valve flat plane V-8?

[jetsetjim]

Won't be able to help you on most of that Desmo.... I work for one of the race teams, not Zytek... The engines are sealed so we have no idea about internals!

As for who designed the engine.... The basis of the engine is the Judd KV engine, although Zytek now build and maintain the engines totally.

Most of the information you are asking for is not given to the teams...

As for anything trick in the engine.... not as far as I'm aware. The engines first came into service in 1996, and have now down the equivalent of 9 race seasons! They are lifed at 2000 miles, and to consider that they have only had 3 engines blow in that time is remarkable.. In fact at Brazil this year, Zytek were celebrating 1,000,000 miles for the kV engine.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

[desmo]

I should have figured they really couldn't have the teams' mechanics mucking about inside them. The whole point is to have them all equal. Thanks anyway, I get it now. What sorts of seals do they use and where on the engine do they site them to preclude any illicit demon tweaks?

[AndyM]

The Zytek engines are built about 3 miles from where I live, in a small village called Repton. I went to school there and we always saw the trucks returning from races squeezing through the centre of the village...

I went for a brief interview there a couple of years back about doing summer vacation work there. I got the opportunity to ask loads of questions to the guy who interviewed me about their Panoz hybrid car they had recently run at le Mans etc but they were very cagey about the F3000 engines, baffles me why. I asked if I could have a cheeky look around the engine bays there but no luck...


Andy

[desmo]

450bhp for a 3l is really an incredibly low specific output for a "racing" engine. It's hardly better than the Honda S2000 engine which must meet stringent smog and noise standards plus be tractable and smooth enough for the street AND last for 100,000+km without major service. The odds that there is anything worth hiding inside a Zytek/Judd F3000 engine are somewhere between slim and none.

[jetsetjim]

The S2000 actually revs higher than the Zytek motor in F3000 trim anyway. The rev limiter is set at 9000rpm, hence the "relatively" low specific output. I have seen on a website that the engine will spin up to 10,500rpm, where the output increases to 650BHP. This spec engine is only used in Sports prototypes though, so would be fed through a restrictor.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the engines are remarkably reliable. To have only 3 engines scrapped over a period of 9 seasons is outstanding, especially for a race engine.


Moving on to your question about seals.. Zytek have again been very clever with this. The air filter is a bolt on part of the air-box. That is sealed to the airbox, meaning that you can't even remove the air filter. Because you can't do that, it means that you can't get to the bolts to remove the cylinder heads. If I remember correctly as well, there is a seal on the sump to prevent any tampering from underneath.

[desmo]

Shut me up by all means if I am being a pest but are the team's mechanics or drivers allowed to alter the engine control maps to fine tune the engine to the circuit? And can the teams supply their own oil? I am thinking that running an ultra-low viscocity oil for Q session or even in the race, might be an avenue for increasing performance albeit at some potential cost in reliability. I am assuming the fuel is spec.

[jetsetjim]

We are allowed to do absolutely nothing to the engine maps in F3000. This is done totally in the interest of equality. (equality is the reason why we aren't even allowed to use rear wheel speed sensors!)

AS for oil... Zytek recommend that the teams use Mobil 1 oil. However, you can use other oils if you wish. We personally run what Zytek recommend, as it is one less area of debate in the event of an engine problem. Gearbox oil is free, and I would imagine most teams use a lightweight oil.

You are correct in assuming that fuel is a standard spec, supplied by Shell. This only applies for Races and Official tests though. Free practice you can use other fuels, although it is better to stick to the shell fuel, as the FIA carry out frequent fuel sample checks.

[desmo]

Great stuff jetsetjim, thanks! I'm done now.

[jetsetjim]

No problems..... glad to have been of assitance

[ghinzani]

Very interesting info indeed - I sorta lost track of where Zytek and Judd are these days... are they seperate companies then? They seem to be overlapping in sportscars if they are? Judd started off as part of the Brabham/Ralt set up didnt they? I know Judd used to do VW F3 engines and Honda F2 engines - is there a good history anywhere of zytek or judd?