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[WGD706]

The six-wheel Tyrrell P34, as described by Derek Gardner to Nigel Roebuck
(Autosport online, for those who don't/won't/can't get a subcription..........................
To my eyes, at least, the Tyrrell P34 – 'the six-wheeler,' as it was always known – was about the least attractive creation ever to appear on a race track, but then efficiency, not elegance, was uppermost in Derek Gardner's mind when he conceived the car.
Although the P34 was drawn up in 1975, the idea had come to Gardner some years earlier. When first the car appeared, the immediate assumption of most was that the primary aim of four tiny front wheels was to reduce the frontal area, in the interests of straightline speed. Not so, Gardner said.
"No, the starting point had not been the tiny front wheels. The concept really went back to the 1968 Indy Lotus turbine car, on which I was responsible for the four-wheel drive."
By the end of that year, Gardner had come up a design for a six-wheeled Indy car, with two of the four front wheels being driven, plus the two at the rear. Lotus were now gone from Indianapolis, so Derek put a proposal to Andy Granatelli, whose STP company had sponsored the turbine cars, but it came to nothing, and he simply filed the idea away.
By 1970, Gardner had gone to work for Ken Tyrrell, there to design the very first Tyrrell F1 car, 001. The following season Jackie Stewart won the World Championship in an updated car, 003, and in 1973 took it again, this time with 006.
At the end of that year, though, Stewart's team-mate, Francois Cevert, was killed at Watkins Glen, by which time JYS had already decided to retire. Gardner's new design for 1974, 007, was a neat enough car, but the genius and experience of Stewart were gone, and although Jody Scheckter won a couple of races, Tyrrell finished only third in the Constructors Championship. Derek began to give serious thought to 'the unfair advantage'.
"All the top British teams had Ford DFV engines, and Ferrari's flat-12 undoubtedly had more power. It seemed to me that really what we were looking for was another 50 horsepower, but how on earth were we going to get it? Bear in mind that I was associated with a man for whom the Ford Motor Company was the only company in the world...
"I went searching through my files, and came up with the proposal I'd sent to Granatelli. I did some calculations, and concluded that if I had a car with four small front wheels, contained within the width of the bodywork, I could reduce the amount of lift generated by normal front wheels, and that in turn would allow me to back off on the front aerodynamics. And, hey presto, the figure I came up with was the equivalent of 40-odd horsepower!
"Eventually, I showed it to Ken, who said, 'Good grief! What's this?' But actually it wasn't as difficult to sell him the idea as you might imagine. On the way back from the 1975 South African Grand Prix, I talked my way into First Class, to discuss it with Jackie Stewart. Whether it was turbulence, or something in his drink, I don't know, but he had a fit of choking! He'd never seen anything like it before..."
Having got the green light to proceed, the next step was to talk Goodyear into manufacturing tyres of this curious size, for what Gardner had in mind was nine-inch diameter front wheels. He anticipated it might not be the work of a moment to persuade competitions boss Leo Mehl to agree, but in the event Mehl raised no objections: "The only compromise I had to make was to go to 10-inch wheels, but that was all right."
More remarkable even than Goodyear's immediate agreement was that the project remained secret for so long. "In those days," Derek says, "we operated a simple principle, and it's still the most reliable: if you don't want people to know about something, don't tell them!"
Given the need to produce a test car as quickly as possible, the first P34 was very much a 'bitza', completely new from the roll-over bar forward, but standard 007 at the rear. Once running began, the team did repeated back-to-back tests at Paul Ricard with the standard four-wheel car, and found that the six-wheeler's aerodynamics were, in Gardner's words, "Fairly appalling. The car gained nothing there, but was inherently quicker in other ways, notably on turn-in."
Teething problems are inevitable with any new F1 car, and more than normal might have been expected with so radical a design as P34, but in fact Gardner was pleasantly surprised by the early tests. "They went remarkably well, actually, although there was a problem with the tyres. This was before the days of radials, of course, so if you stiffened up the carcass, in order to control the profile at high speed, you also stiffened up the sidewall – you just couldn't separate them.
"The first time I saw the car, coming down the straight at Silverstone, I was absolutely horrified, because I could see the tyres literally being sucked off the rims! As soon as the driver touched the brakes, they collapsed back down on to the rim, and although they never lost any pressure, it was a hair-raising thing to witness. Fortunately the drivers couldn't see it..."
The sheer smallness of the front wheels also made it difficult to keep the brakes cool. The temperature of the brakes was not in itself a worry; the problem lay in keeping that heat away from the fluid. "Once you got above a certain temperature, you just lost your brakes. These days, of course, you'd just pepper the whole thing, and force fluid through it, like they do with the touring car brakes, but all we could do was push more and more air through – which, of course, tended to be counter-productive on the aerodynamics. But we coped."
It was this problem which accounted for the accident of Patrick Depailler in P34's first race, the Spanish Grand Prix of 1976. "The pedal just went to the floor," he reported. "If you pump, you can get the pressure back, but I didn't have time..."
What mattered, though, was that Depailler had qualified third, and had been running third, in a car which had never turned a wheel before practice began. Accidents invariably left Patrick unmoved; even as he described this one, he was smiling, convinced that the car had boundless potential.
Scheckter was Depailler's team-mate in 1976, and Ronnie Peterson would partner him the following year, but Gardner has especially fond memories of Patrick. "He was always far and away the most committed to the concept. Patrick was an absolutely dedicated racer – to be a racing driver was the only thing he had ever wanted to do. He was wonderful to work with, occasionally a bit...mercurial, but you could forgive that. You always got 100 percent from him."
Having run only a single P34 at Jarama, Tyrrell brought a second car, for Scheckter, to Zolder. Jody finished fourth there, but it was at Monte Carlo where the cars' turn-in abilities really showed to advantage, with Scheckter and Depailler second and third, beaten only by Niki Lauda's Ferrari.
Anderstorp, only the fourth race for the P34s, went even better. Scheckter took pole position, Mario Andretti alongside him, and after the Lotus driver had retired, he led to the flag, followed in by Depailler.
"I'm starting to get used to it now," Jody said. "It turns in very well, and then you get a bit of understeer, which goes towards oversteer when you put the power down. And that's good – that's what you want."
Victory so early in its life seemed to herald a boundless future for the P34, but although it was to score plenty of seconds and thirds thereafter, it was never to win again. At Mosport Depailler fought with James Hunt throughout the race, finishing a semi-comatose second after being sprayed in the face, first by alcohol, then gasoline, when his fuel pressure gauge broke: "In the last laps I was completely drunk, driving on auto-pilot..."
At Watkins Glen it was Scheckter's turn to take on Hunt, Jody leading most of the way before being slowed by worsening understeer. And in torrential conditions at Fuji Depailler, battling with Andretti for the lead, had a tyre failure 10 laps from the flag. Often, then, it was a matter of close but no cigar.
In 1977, though, there was not so much as a whiff. By now Scheckter had departed for Wolf, and Peterson was in with Depailler. Again, Gardner says, Patrick was the more committed of the two. "I liked Ronnie as a driver, but in terms of feedback he was hopeless, frankly. He got into the car, he drove it - and that was it! His natural way was to drive around a problem, rather than try to solve it.
"Ronnie always had colossal brake pad wear – 50 percent higher than Patrick's! – and I deduced he must be using the throttle and the brakes at the same time, the old karting technique. So I instrumented the car, to prove it one way or the other, but in fact he wasn't using them together, and I never did find the reason, beyond the fact that he was simply driving so much on the brakes. Jody's pad wear was always higher than Patrick's, too, because he tended to be rougher with a car. The driving techniques of all three were completely different."
Where the P34 had been a front runner in 1976, it was virtually an also-ran in '77, and the problem, Gardner says, lay fundamentally with the front tyres. Goodyear had a monopoly by now, and although development of course continued, the tiny fronts for Tyrrell suffered somewhat. "I don't really blame Goodyear, because it was an enormous task, supplying everyone, but they tended to develop the rears and the normal fronts – and our fronts just got sort of left. So we were dealing with developed rears and static fronts, and by 1977 that was beginning to show up. The advantage of the six-wheel concept was going rapidly out of the window."
Attempting to counteract the problem, Gardner designed a wide-track front for the P34 – which necessarily increased drag, negating one of the advantages of the original design. But new, too, for 1977 was more streamlined bodywork, and quite often the car was significantly quicker than anything else through the traps.
"That winter we spent a lot of time in the wind tunnel, developing as near an all-enveloping bodyshape as possible. It worked beautifully, in terms of low drag, but unfortunately it was very heavy because it was made in fibreglass. Later on we had Kevlar bodywork, and that made quite a difference, but by then the writing was on the wall: either something had to be done about the front tyres, or we had to forget the whole thing."
In 1976, Scheckter and Depailler had finished third and fourth in the World Championship, with 49 and 39 points respectively, but the following year Patrick scored only 20, placing eighth, while Peterson's tally was a mere seven. And before the end of the season, following the Italian Grand Prix, Gardner himself had left Tyrrell.
Through that summer, though, work was in progress on one of those fascinating 'what if' projects. "I'd begun to despair," Derek says, "of getting more horsepower from the Ford, even though the Cosworth people had put away their toys for a bit, and had started to concentrate on development. A much more exciting prospect was Renault's new 1.5-litre V6 turbo, which was originally destined for a Tyrrell. When I saw the power and torque figures on the engine, I couldn't wait to get it in the car. The project was very strongly tied in with Elf, who were Tyrrell's major sponsor, of course. They were behind the whole thing.
"Anyway, the first thing was to put the engine into a six-wheel car, without interfering with the heavy work load we had with the Grand Prix season. I hired Maurice Phillippe for the job, and it was well advanced by the time I left. It was a great shame that ultimately the project fell through. I still think that if Renault hadn't had delusions of grandeur, and had just concentrated on the engine, instead of trying to do the whole car themselves, they would have had success a whole lot sooner than they did..."

[Ray Bell]

Very interesting, but it raises a question...

Tyrrell was always so totally opposed to the turbocharged 1.5 option during the eighties, how does that reconcile with him trying it at that stage?

[WGD706]

Ray
Perhaps he felt the Cosworth had reached the end of it's developmental life and no more HP could be achieved to equal that of the turbo units?
Warren

[Ray Bell]

My point is, however, that he flirted with the idea of going turbo pretty much before anyone else...

Then, by the time, everyone else had a turbo and he didn't he was their most vocal opponent, claiming (along with Cosworth, as I recall) that they were actually illegal.

[conjohn]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
...claiming (along with Cosworth, as I recall) that they were actually illegal.

Wasn't he correct, though, in pointing out that the rules stated supercharging, which, as far as I know (admittedly very little), is not the same as turbocharging...?

[David Force]

In 1970 I was a student at Leeds University and Derek Gardner was a guest speaker one evening. Of course then he was recognised for his gearbox work as he had not yet designed the Tyrrell 001, or at least if he had nobody yet knew.

He was talking about the potential in racing for the constantly variable transmission and I asked if he would agree that the most approprate use would be for a turbo charged engine as the engine would run at constant revs and thus the transmission would, in effect, absorb the turbo lag.

If only we had got together afterwards for a beer, we could have changed the path of Formula 1 racing !!!

Derek is not too well at present with failing eyesight but still very sharp so our thoughts must be with him and his wife. Probably his position in the list of F1 designers is somewhat underrated and it is great to see Tyrrell 001 on the circuits again and being demonstrated by JYS as a tribute to all at Tyrrell not least its designer.

[Henri Greuter]

The thing I wonder about and really want to know:

What kind of engine dit Gardner have in mind for his Indy project for Granatelli?
Anything known about that?

Henri Greuter

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by conjohn
Wasn't he correct, though, in pointing out that the rules stated supercharging, which, as far as I know (admittedly very little), is not the same as turbocharging...?

That really is splitting hairs...

Simply because turbocharging wasn't popular or thought appropriate for road racing, the rules didn't go beyond the generic-type wording and only 'supercharging' was written in. But it was always accepted that it meant any type of compression of the incoming gases.

[Pedro 917]

Here are some pictures of the P34 taken at the Old Timer GP at the Nuerburgring last month.
The driver is Italian Mauro Pane.

[Gary C]

Pedro, have you any idea what chassis this??

[Pedro 917]

No idea, it wasn't even listed. I guess it was a last minute entry. But I'm sure somebody here will know!!

[Gary C]

I'm guessing chassis 5.....

[WGD706]

I can't make out the name on the front tires...Avon? Where are they getting the special tires now?
Tyrrell encountered trouble when the development of P34's unique front tires stagnated as a result of the tire war between Michelin and Goodyear.
In 1977, tire technology moved on and Goodyear decided not to continue developing the smaller tire for Tyrrell (who was the only customer for such a tire). Consequently, the 1977 car struggled to remain competitive on outdated front tire rubber.

[Gary C]

when my friend Simon Bull had chassis 6 restored back in 1999 Avon stepped into the breach to supply tyres (they supply all the tyres for the Historic F1 Championship anyway), they spent a load of time getting the rubber correct. Obviously no moulds were left from Goodyear, so they had to make new ones from twenty year old tyres!!

[Pedro 917]

My brother took these more detailed pictures. Indeed Avon tyres.

[Lutz G]

@Pedro 917

Thanks for sharing these superb p34 pictures!

BTW: I missed the P34 in action - cause the year Martin Stretton raced at the Ring (96?) he was driving the Stewart Tyrrell. Gardner (is he still involved in historic racing?) was impressed of Strettons performance. Does Stretton still have the P34?

He (or Derek Gardner?) was very impressed of the avon tyres. He said something like "with these front tyres back in 77 they would have been front runners"

Lutz

[peterf1]

Not to take anything away from Derek's brilliant and original design, but does anyone know if he ever commented on the AVS Shadow Can-Am car of 1970? Although never developed to be a real success, the car showed that a great reduction in frontal area could be accomplished through smaller tires.

History repeats. . . For that car to happen, Don Nichols had to get Firestone to build the small tires. They did, but I believe quality suffered down the road. . .

Also, logic (well, mine anyway) told me that with all that swept area and rubber on the road, the P34 would have incredible braking ability. Yet, I never read anything to back that up. Thoughts?

Peter

[MarkWill]

Is it an optical illusion, or is there more camber on the front set of tyres vs. the middle set?

[WGD706]

I thought I read somewhere that the front brakes were actually based on the Mini Coopers?

[Hieronymus]

Has anyone perhaps got a photo of the Tyrrell p34 getting air-born over the bumpy sections at the Nürburgring??

I am sure that hard chargers like Depailler and Peterson would have produced spectacular image opportunities for photographers....

[Hieronymus]

[i]....hard chargers like Depailler and Peterson would have produced spectacular image opportunities for photographers.... [/B]

Idiot!!!

Peterson should read Scheckter. Surely Ronnie never had the opportunity to "fly" the p34. The 1977 race (the year that Peterson had the car) was at Hockenheim.

[Gary C]

'Does Stretton still have the P34?'
Simon Bull still owns chassis 6, he also recently sold on Tyrrell 005. Martin drives for him.

[Lutz G]

Originally posted by Hieronymus
Has anyone perhaps got a photo of the Tyrrell p34 getting air-born over the bumpy sections at the Nürburgring??

I would love to see that shot! I'm looking for it for years - but never found any...
Can anybody help?

@Gary C

Thanks. I read (TNF?) that they had some (engine?) problems with that p34?

Lutz

[David Force]

The Tyrrell driven By Mauro Pane in THE FORCE Classic Grand Prix race at Nurburgring is chassis number 5 owned by an Italian collector.

The ex Simon Bull 005 has gone to America.

Find lots more info on these cars, and race reports of Nurburgring by visiting www.forcegrandprix.co.uk

[David McKinney]

Ah, David!
The penny drops

[conjohn]

Originally posted by Ray Bell

That really is splitting hairs...

Admittedly so, Ray, but don't we do that all the time here on TNF ;)

Originally posted by Ray Bell
Simply because turbocharging wasn't popular or thought appropriate for road racing, the rules didn't go beyond the generic-type wording and only 'supercharging' was written in. But it was always accepted that it meant any type of compression of the incoming gases.

I went back to the Yellow Book for 1977, the edition which would be valid for Renault's entry into F1, and looked up the wording of the rule - and I changed my mind.

Appendix 'J' to the International Sporting Code 1977

Art 274 - International Formula No 1

Validity: From January 1st 1966 to December 31st 1977.
Engines with reciprocating pistons:
a) Engine cylinder-capacity without supercharging : inferior or equal to 3,000 cc.
b) Engine cylinder-capacity with supercharging : inferior or equal to 1,500 cc.

The rule states 'supercharging', as you pointed out, not, as I thought, 'supercharger'. That makes the difference to me. One is a method, and the other a device, and I can go along with 'supercharging through the means of a turborcharger'.

However, to save face a little, I am not alone in having had these thoughts. Apart from Ken Tyrrell, there is also Alan Henry - who in his 'Formula 1: The Turbo Era' has this to say:

But Was it Legal?
In the strictest sense of the word, it is virtually certain that 1.5-litre turbocharged Grand Prix engines were never legal and that you could make a strong case for arguing that every race victory and World Championship secured by a turbo F1 car was totally against the rules a written.
Although everybody from the FIA through the F1 Constructors' Association to the teams and engine makers chose to ignore it, turbocharging is not supercharing. Supercharging is a direct-driven, mechanical system and harnessing exhaust gasses to drive a turbocharger is demonstratively not the same thing at all.

[David McKinney]

The FIA rule quoted is a translation, and as we all know, the French wording is paramount
The respective terms in French are sans suralimentation and avec suralimentation, so we're wasting our time defining supercharger/supercharging/turbocharger etc
Can someone provide an exact definition of suralimentation?

[Vrba]

Originally posted by David McKinney
The FIA rule quoted is a translation, and as we all know, the French wording is paramount
The respective terms in French are sans suralimentation and avec suralimentation, so we're wasting our time defining supercharger/supercharging/turbocharger etc
Can someone provide an exact definition of suralimentation?

As I understand it, supercharging means forcing more charge into cylinders than it would enter them by the means of atmospheric pressure. "Super" literally means "high, higher or above", and charging is of course "filling with charge" but the words "supercharger" and "supercharging" doesn't imply the means of achieving the aim. They simply state we will somehow fill cylinders (in this case) with more charge than the usual way. "Supercharger" is in fact not the full name of the device. It's called "mechanical supercharger/compressor/blower", "Roots supercharger/compressor/blower"...you choose. The same way, "turbocharger" is only a short form of "turbo/turbine supercharger/compressor/blower". That "supercharger" and "turbocharger" became the usual and coloquial terms doesn't change the facts: they are both superchargers and differ by what source of power they use. Mechanical supercharger uses an engine-driven belt and doesn't require a turbine. Turbocahrger uses exhaust gases and needs a turbine to convert energy of the gases to energy used for charge compression.

I also have Alan Henry's book and have often looked at his remark ("turbocharging is not supercharging") with many question marks above my head. My only explanation is that he is no engineer and had never set the things straight in his head....

Hrvoje

[conjohn]

Originally posted by David McKinney
Can someone provide an exact definition of suralimentation?

I have just started, this Tuesday, studying French, but so far I can only ask if there is a café nearby And it has to be straight ahead.

From WordReference.com

suralimentation [syʀalimɑ̃tɑsjɔ̃]nom féminin
overfeeding
(techniques, technologie) [d'un moteur] supercharging

It seems then that Ken Tyrrell was barking up the wrong tree, with me and Alan woofing along.

Does anyone know if he ever went through with the protest?

[fines]

I'm with Hrvoje on this, turbocharging is a form of supercharging, no matter what language! As much as I admire Alan Henry, that comment was !

[petefenelon]

Another P34 pic, taken by a friend in the paddock at the TGP race supporting the GP at Silverstone recently...



pete

[MarkWill]

I just checked "Le Petit Robert" (French dictionary equivalent to the Oxforf Dictionary) and, although it isn't the last word in terms of terminology, it gives this definition of "suralimentation":

"Alimentation plus riche, plus abondante que la ration d'entretien. Introduction d'une quantité de combustible superieure à la normale dans un moteur"


i.e. it defines it as feeding the engine with more combustant than the engine normally needs.

[D-Type]

I agree with vrba , fines, et al : turbo charging is simply supercharging (or suralimentation ) that happens to be powered by a turbine in the exhaust. It may not have ben what the rule makers had in mind but it fits the rule as written.

If you say "3 litre normally aspirated or 1.5 litre with forced draught induction" the logic is clear.

I accept thet turbine-powered supercharging has been proven to be more efficient than mechanical supercharging. However, the rule makers recognised this when they increased it to "3.5 litre normally aspirated or ..."

So in summary I reckon turbocharging was legal.

[Gary C]

That last pic is chassis 6 from the historic F1 race from 2001???

[Roger Clark]

The argument against the legality of turbocharged engines was not a lawyer's examination of the wording.

"In a supercharged engine you can affect the weight of the charge getting into the cylinder , albeit at the cost of taking work off the engine to drive the compressor. then you have only the stroke of the piston to do expansion work, which brings its own limits. On the other hand, a turbocharger is an air compressor driven by a turbine, and the turbine itself is an expansion motor. Therefore a tubocharger not only allows you to 'fiddle the books' on the weight of the charge, but it allows you unlimited expansion capacity as well - and that can be a vituous or a vicious circle. It means that the effective capacity of a turbocharged engine has an entirely different meaning from that of a supercharged engine.

"You could also say, as another approach to it, that a tubocharger is a gas turbine which shares its combustion chamber with a piston engine. That means that you have two engines, which is illegal and by the way the rules state that gas turbine engines are illegal.

"At one point Ferrari was actually injecting fuel into the turbocharger, to make it speed up quicker and kill the lag, which rather proves that they were treating their installation as two different engines.

"The limits of the tubocharged engine, therefore, are connected with mechanical strength and thermal problems - the capacity of the engine is virtually meaningless."

Keith Duckworth quoted in Cosworth by Graham Robson.

[Tim Murray]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
"You could also say, as another approach to it, that a turbocharger is a gas turbine which shares its combustion chamber with a piston engine. That means that you have two engines, which is illegal and by the way the rules state that gas turbine engines are illegal.


Keith Duckworth quoted in Cosworth by Graham Robson.

This argument is only valid, surely, if the turbocharger turbine is physically connected to the engine output shaft so that the extra power it produces is transmitted to the driven wheels.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by Gary C
That last pic is chassis 6 from the historic F1 race from 2001???

Can't swear to it as I wasn't there (I don't do the British GP) - I think it's the Simon Bull owned/Martin Stretton driven car. So if that's 6....

[mat1]

I believe the leagalistic argument against the turbo was not the word play about supercahrging vs. turbocharging, but the argument from Duckworth that the tupro was a kind of engine in itself.

And there is something in it, I think.

BTW: I believe tubocharging already existed when the FIA wrote the regulation. So if they didn't think of it when they wrote it, it was shortsightedness.

mat1

[fines]

Originally posted by mat1
And there is something in it, I think.

I don't think so. Okay, so I am no engineer, but this is splitting hairs to the extreme! What if the mirrors were adjustable by a small electrical motor, would that be illegal, too? I don't know the wording of the FIA rules and, frankly, I am not that interested to see if a second engine would be against the rules. Fact is, a turbocharger does not drive the car, so imho it is immaterial if it's an engine or no.

[mat1]

Originally posted by fines

I don't think so. Okay, so I am no engineer, but this is splitting hairs to the extreme! What if the mirrors were adjustable by a small electrical motor, would that be illegal, too? I don't know the wording of the FIA rules and, frankly, I am not that interested to see if a second engine would be against the rules. Fact is, a turbocharger does not drive the car, so imho it is immaterial if it's an engine or no.

I agree that it is a little bit of hair splitting, but ....

A turbo is a device which gets extra power from the fuel burned. In that sense it is a kind of additional engine, whereas a electrical engine for the mirror just uses power form the "normal" engine.

You say a turbocharger does not drive the car. Why not? because it is not directly connected to the driveshaft?

mat

[David Beard]

Originally posted by mat1

A turbo is a device which gets extra power from the fuel burned. In that sense it is a kind of additional engine, whereas a electrical engine for the mirror just uses power form the "normal" engine.
mat

An electrically adjustable mirror would currently be illegal on the grounds that it would constitute a moveable aerodynamic device?

[David Hyland]

Appendix 'J' to the International Sporting Code 1977

Art 274 - International Formula No 1

Validity: From January 1st 1966 to December 31st 1977.
Engines with reciprocating pistons:
a) Engine cylinder-capacity without supercharging : inferior or equal to 3,000 cc.
b) Engine cylinder-capacity with supercharging : inferior or equal to 1,500 cc.

In that case, Renault should have been arguing that turbocharging was not supercharging - then they could have run a 3 litre turbo....

[David Force]

Well Mr McKinney it took you a little while,
I resisted as long as I could knowing it would become addictive, it has...I thought polishing your badge at the Revival ( ! ) might have been a clue...

I seem to recall Keith Duckworths point was that taken to the ultimate the normally aspirated engine would simply become a way of introducing an air/fuel ratio into a giant turbine (not turbocharger) which could then have virtually unlimited power as the rule makers as ever were not as clever as the rule stretchers.

Keiths best idea was a simple fuel flow meter which would then have resulted in many different types and configurations of engines and would have been fantastically interesting for the techies until Honda produced a demon flat twelve two stroke and blew everyone away. As ever with the DFV designer it was an idea based on pure logic.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by David Force

Keiths best idea was a simple fuel flow meter which would then have resulted in many different types and configurations of engines and would have been fantastically interesting for the techies until Honda produced a demon flat twelve two stroke and blew everyone away. As ever with the DFV designer it was an idea based on pure logic.

DKD himself said that it'd be fine until 'some bright spark' worked out how to store fuel upstream of the valve to get momentary increase in power.

Now, bear in mind 'bright' was the ultimate accolate at Cosworth - wonder if he meant himself, Mike Hall, Geoff Goddard, Geoff Johnson, or perhaps a young Mario Ilien or Paul Morgan?;)

[fines]

I, too loved the fuel flow meter idea! IIRC, it was proposed around fifteen years ago, and at the time it struck me as a most sensible and 'futuristic' concept - has some environmental touch, also -way to go!

[esorniloc]

Originally posted by WGD706
Tyrrell encountered trouble when the development of P34's unique front tires stagnated as a result of the tire war between Michelin and Goodyear.
In 1977, tire technology moved on and Goodyear decided not to continue developing the smaller tire for Tyrrell (who was the only customer for such a tire). Consequently, the 1977 car struggled to remain competitive on outdated front tire rubber.

If it was a posibility that they could have used a Renault Turbo engine would that have come with Michelin tyres?
If so could Michelin have not developed the small front tyres for the P34? They had far fewer teams in 77 (just Renault I think, then Ferrari from 78) and could have put more into the small fronts?

[D-Type]

When it comes to engines, who am I to dispute Keith Duckworth's word? But I believe I detect a slight note of bias in his answer.

When I studied thermodynamics one basic concept was that of a closed system. You drew a box, put energy (or fuel) in one end and took work (or power) out of the other. The box in the middle was the engine. It didn't really matter what type it was - steam turbine, steam piston engine, combined cycle gas turbine or whatever - the principle was the same. What we as engineers were interested in was efficiency, the ratio of power out to energy in.

Transpose this to a racing car. The "box" or "engine" is the lump of metal in the space behind the driver, you put fuel in one end and get power out at the other (either the wheels or the flywheel depending on where you drew the system boundary). In simple terms if you attach auxiliary devices to the engine they consume power and reduce the efficiency. If you improve the supply of air to the engine you increase the power and hence the efficiency. If you obstruct the flow of exhaust gases away from the engine you consume power and reduce efficiency.

Now, you attach a mechanically driven pump that pumps air in and you have a supercharger. There is a nett gain in efficiency as the gain from the additional air supply outweighs the loss fromdriving the pump by a belt or by gears.
Instead attach an exhaust driven pump that pumps air in you and you have a turbocharger. There is a nett gain in efficiency the gain from the additional air supply outweighs the loss from driving the pump by obstructing the flow of the exhaust gases.

There isn't that much difference is there? Except that the turbocharged system is more efficient than the supercharged system. The question is "Can you say they are the same?"

Now the Duckworth argument is that you have two engines. Rather than being coupled together mechanically they are coupled by a fluid, either air or exhaust gases. You can't fault that argument either.
It simply depends where you draw the boundaries of your system so you can't argue the case on engineering grounds.

When they wrote the rules, the FIA or CSI obviously had conventional supercharging in mind. "Stick a blower on a V8 Climax, BRM or Ferrari engine". They clearly overlooked the B17 and other turbocharged aircraft and turbocharged diesels. So when it comes to whether a turbocharged engine is within the rules nobody knows. In effect Renault made a car and asked if it was within the rules. the powers that be said "oui" and nobody questioned the decision at that time. So the turbocharged engine was accepted as being equivalent to a supercharged one. Then the Renault became competitive and the sh*t hit the fan. But the precedent had been set. The legal argument overruled Duckworth's engineering argument and that was it.

But to get back vaguely on thread, the Tyrell six wheeler was the same - it was something the rule makers hadn't thought of. Had it been instantly outstandingly successful, either everyone would have followed or it would have been banned.

[mat1]

I am not sure whether I agree with your line of reasoning concerning Duckworth' argument. The question is: is there something in hus reasoning? Of course, the FIA decided, and that is it, but that does not devaluate the argument in itself.

Concerning the six-wheeler; why did they outlaw it anyway? What was the reason? I suspect it had to do with the apparent possibilities of the sixwheeelers with 4 rear wheels, as tested by march and especially Williams.

But why close that road? Esthetics?

mat1

[Lutz G]

Originally posted by Hieronymus
Has anyone perhaps got a photo of the Tyrrell p34 getting air-born over the bumpy sections at the Nürburgring??

I am sure that hard chargers like Depailler and Peterson would have produced spectacular image opportunities for photographers....

I dropped Boris Schlegelmilch a line (son of Rainer W.Schlegelmilch).

Here's what he sent me:



Flying Jody... Nuerburgring '76

Lutz

[Vrba]

Originally posted by D-Type
....
But to get back vaguely on thread, the Tyrell six wheeler was the same - it was something the rule makers hadn't thought of. Had it been instantly outstandingly successful, either everyone would have followed or it would have been banned.

And that exactly what threatened to happen when Williams achieved sensational times with its FW07D and FW08 six-wheelers with 4 smaller driven wheels at the back end of the car. FIA stepped in and banned the concept.

Hrvoje