Turbo F1 engines - How they started, part 1

this is the legendary Dino Ferrari circuit at Imola Italy it's April 1986 I'm Allah is the shrine for these fans were known as the tifosi roughly translated to Farsi means touched by the wind but the tifosi is standby power they are not followers of drivers instead they worship this car the Ferrari 186 the two Fossey know every detail it's brutally powerful engine but Scarlett carbon-fiber fuselage and most of all they love it's spectacular twitchy Shamsi formula 1 is the stuff of Italian enthusiasm the tifosi are literally high on technology especially when Ferrari wins behind the razzmatazz of Formula One is a rarely seen world of skill and inventiveness gone are the oily rags and the flat cap amateurs here computers rubber Metallica synthetics electronics and aerodynamics consume fortunes this team alone confesses to spending seven and a half million pounds a year but probably consumes about twice that Formula One is a technological dynasty a Dueling ground for the big multinationals but for today's Formula one engineers the big question is how to tame the fiery unpredictable turbo Brands Hatch two years earlier this is the 1984 British Grand Prix it was during this season that the high-technology world of Formula one engineering first started to establish a method for taming the tub apart from this normally aspirated 3 liter porn cosworth-powered terrible all the cars are one and a half liter and turbocharged hidden beneath the international sponsors lurk the even bigger automotive manufacturers this Parmalat Brabham is not powered by italian cheese that German BMW and its turbo engine is now mated to this a Bosch onboard computer it is literally the engines brain in 1984 these electronic black boxes are still relatively primitive because for the computer programmers Formula one engine management is a completely new problem this is engine designer Keith Duckworth ductwork is the fallen prince of Formula One his motor racing masterpiece was the now outdated unter Burchard Ford dfv Duckworth is at the British Grand Prix as a mere observer to watch BMW Honda Porsche and Renault rise to take his crown as the most successful Formula one engine designer ever of particular interest is the fast developing Japanese Honda engine in this Williams car even Lotus have newfound power with their French Renault turbo engine controlled by its Bendix computer Maryana fix it but the man with Duckworth is Mike cran OFFIS an affable German American and head of Ford motorsport he shares wisecracks with Duckworth about the influence his designs have had on this new generation of engines more years of seriously thinking they have come to the same conclusion you came or you had arrived at at 67 although the enthusiastic crowd Sun burning in the warm English summer couldn't have known it at the time its of this race the fawn and Duckworth finally agreed to build a new engine but there are many who say that Duckworth distaste for turbocharging will prevent him ever designing another successful engine it's a view until recently shared by many within Ford itself vice-chairman Ford of Europe Walter Hayes I didn't really like I was felt our engine was an old master and turbos were modern art you know and I I don't want to sound like a fuddy-duddy but I think it's a very fair description of where I felt the difference was when our traditional team started to be beaten by the Renner's and what I still think was a distortion of the regulations are not complaining don't believe that one and a half liters turbo charged is equivalent three litres and turbocharged but the rule said that turbo charging was legal and it was another major manufacturer Renault who realized its potential at the 1977 British Grand Prix this small black and yellow car qualified for the first time the engine was based on a normal Road car and simply turbocharged for racing no one took it seriously except of course the unconventional French engineers at Renner probably because motorsports governing body is also French the turbo was allowed to survive this is a road car turbocharger but the principle is the same when applied to a race engine the power of any engine is limited by the amount of air it can breathe in a turbocharger uses energy from the hot exhaust gas which is otherwise wasted to power a compressor this simply pumps compressed air into the engine producing more power the turbo itself consists of a gas turbine connected directly to a compressor by this shaft the exhaust gas spins the turbine and forces the compressor to pump more air the more air the more exhaust gas and the more exhaust the more air theoretically a runaway spiral of explosive power keith Dunkwa i think that in any racing engine the nearer you are to it disintegrating in general the battery's performance will be to combat this excessive turbo powder from such small engines ever decreasing fuel limitations have been imposed on the teams so it's for fuel economy but engine management electronics have become crucial as soon as you get on to economy you can't afford to throw fuel in for cooling therefore you have to try and put in exactly the right amount of fuel then if you have any failure or on your engine management system to provide that right amount of fuel and it goes marginally weak from the weak position that you're already trying to run for economy you can melt your turbine in a second or melt a valve or a piston and you're out of the race I asked can be seen very Vancouver turbocharged racing engines can be developed in two ways start from scratch or like Renault take a ready-made engine block and alter it until it delivers the necessary output anything from seven hundred to a thousand brake horsepower whether developed from an off-the-shelf design or built from scratch there are two basic engine configurations the v6 engine and the inline or straight for the numbers refer to the number of cylinders or pistons and the word straight or V refers to the arrangement of the cylinders or the Pistons in relation to the crankshaft this is an end view of a straight for the Italian Ferrari the French Renault the German Porsche the Italian moto modern II and the Japanese Honda are all v sixes with overlapping throws onto the crankshaft this is the end view of the Honda v6 the German BMW and the British heart engines are straight four units BMW have been particularly successful with this neat if rather asymmetric engine layout but the engine is only part of the story tucked into the car are the radiators for cooling the engine intercoolers for the turbo charges pipes oil coolers exhaust and the red-hot turbochargers themselves so it's the reduction in the size and complexity of all this as well as the reduction in the size of the engine block that is the main engineering challenge compactness and the fact that 4-cylinder engines tend to be more economical than sixes finally LED Duckworth to develop this aging 4-cylinder sports car engine it's autumn 1984 Mike cran AFER's and Walter Hayes of set November 1985 as the deadline for the delivery of a race ready engine by February the 4-cylinder prototype is on the dynamometer the engine is conventional to pull is at the top drive double overhead cam shots the rest is just cobbled together for testing the throttle linkage is operated from within the soundproof control room perhaps the only odd feature is the enormous silver plenum chamber alongside the engine this plenum is where the boosted air is balanced before entering the engine I'm making it big Duckworth hopes to tune in to match the outgoing exhaust pulses for early testing the exhaust is vented without passing it through a turbine boost air pressure is delivered to the engine from this yellow industrial compressor connected to the tests elvira Network and heavy-duty pipes this method of boosting the engine removes the complexity of developing a turbocharger while allowing the designers to vary the air pressure but as Duckworth admits sooner or later this clumsy plumbing must be miniaturized and installed in a racing car today the compressed air is to bar about 28 pounds per square inch the pressure of an ordinary car tire using strategically placed sensors the tedious business of engine mapping begins the hand on the throttle belongs to chief test engineer Alan Morris 25 point three-point ID 86 seven 4.19 fifteen move that's revolutions a minute mapping as the word suggests is the business of recording coordinates all the data input and output at all engine speeds and loads 25 points 1/5 that's engine load hey that's blow by air escaping past the piston no exhaust pressure 21 intake temperature 4.9 - are the milliseconds the fuel droplets take to spread into the cylinder before igniting 10,500 in its original unbustable this modest four-cylinder engine was limited to speeds of 10,500 revolutions a minute beyond this is unknown territory right at 94.5 twenty three point oh five four point five ninety five nine twenty-three 4.7 full-time in episode 4.5 point six five four point four 1995 ah to the blow vigor number a fiber-optic endoscope probes the cylinders as Alan Morris measures the pulleys on the silent engine yeah you will descend to there look that difference between there were just an eco car as the problem is a little bit tight oh the cam drive belt has jumped one notch out of alignment it's the first outward sign of a catastrophic failure now confirmed by the probing of Paul Rankin essence hardened against the valves but it looks like inlet and exhaust crossing god take it off two hours later the engine is in the workshop off comes the cam cover for Paul Skelton this is the start of the routine absolutely methodical process of damage analysis a mechanical postmortem to avoid distortion even on a damaged engine the boats must be released in a set order as the cylinder head and plenum chamber come off the damaged piston is revealed the earlier analysis by endoscope was correct the valves have hit the piston but so far there are no clues why we've got much the rock from money think the exhaust and inlet valves have definitely hit the piston or crossed over but this can be caused by many things at high engine speeds general manager of engineering dicks camera is uncharacteristically nervous about such a dramatic failure so soon because the pistols been hitting there hasn't it and there's been something on the head quite a long time to reform the piston into the canal China scam L knows BMW have achieved remarkable reliability and power with their 4-cylinder engines the next clue is in the oil tiny metal fragments clatter into the drip tray the post-mortem continues on the gutted in film sinister dense in the temporary steel some seem to suggest some kind of internal explosion an overwhelming atmosphere of depression creeps in the chief development engineer Martin waters it looks bad let's begin even now the crankshaft refuses to turn there's quite large chunks of big end bearing begin to Tana what they don't know at this stage is that the entire engine block has changed shape seizing the internal components I'm puzzled why you can't turn the angel this is after the rod two bolts the scattered and broken pieces begin to come together to form a picture of a much larger disease this little cup of scrap metal is all that remains of the big end bearing symptoms of an endemic weakness in the engine designed it's a problem here there isn't as much eat we're thinking normally see when he just lose a bearing Sony come up about this father normally hands get a bit hotter that baby that both wore reversed excessive heat due to lubrication failure makes steel turn glare with no obvious discoloration the search for the cause moves away from lubrication failure to metal fatigue the bearing time they wanna bail a boy the time he cannot bear the first lesson that the Cosworth engineers are learning is that even a familiar engine when it's turbocharged can fail in mysterious and catastrophic ways because that's that side of the pump is that's better I'm happy to go study news of the explosion has reached Jeff Gordon chief racing engine designer I don't know something only but the facts are the price Goddard an expert on metal fatigue has never been happy with the plan to turbocharge this old four-cylinder engine block as the Pistons are forced out one by one it becomes clear that a massive explosion has occurred what's worse is that it all happened well below race boost pressures the omens are not good five more four-cylinder engines fail in the next three weeks eventually the cause is traced to incurable vibration at the crankshaft they are little over a year away from the first sheduled in-car test and back where they started without an engine yes sister Amazon through there are not beer isn't it just got less on the shaft rotating ready piston ring sales we are on piston rings talk to dangers they don't got anything that sale doesn't work one psi forget it 15s max towards the end of 1984 the atmosphere of gloom over the failure of the four-cylinder engine is replaced by optimism funding for the design of a completely new engine has been agreed it will be a Ferrari like v6 keith dunk with the choice of a want the v6 is on the basis that most people are using v6 is who are successful are not therefore whichever way the rules go we feel that they will be to suit v6 is the 120 degree v6 does allow you to fit to standard turbo charges in the conventional position one on each side of the engine and therefore you can in fact join the rest of them in the now established situation and Duckworth has always believed that turbo energy is wasted merely pumping air eventually he intends to take a drive off one large centrally mounted turbo and feed it back into the engine it's the revival of a pre-war idea known as compounding proceed with the compound it'll set up the additional point is that as we have not got a team sorted out with whose engineers we can discuss the layout of the car and the amount of intercooling that you need for the compounded layout and the weight and the whole complexity of it means that an awful lot of discussion with a team would have to take place whereas if we impractical standard ish looking v6 with the twin turbo allows then we know enough about car design and the inter cooling requirements and it's sufficiently near the normal swing of things that we should have a very good chance even if a team isn't selected too late on the choice of which team will have the new engine is a problem for fault to solve for now duckworth designs are in the hands of men whose craft would have been recognized by the great engineers Brunel Telford and Stevenson this is the Zeus pattern and two company in Birmingham here flat blueprints are turned by skillful carving into three-dimensional wooden formers from which molds can be made seasoned Brazilian mahogany is chiseled honed and polished until the grain is a smoother steel this is the crankcase end and this will be the pattern for the main engine block several hundred Formula One engines do not warrant an investment in computer-aided design all that's needed is a calculator a notebook and two centuries of engineering now what's really Gumby Oh in the packaging suggestions error in this blind alley we were ready from the fifteen so now I'm gonna pinch it with a pinch another for you your serve 20 because that's even at this stage flexibility is crucial long and painstaking discussions tease out the best way to solve minor design difficulty of searching a corner LEDs whatever go in there I'm gonna get to do verse toward the flange that's right that funding so that swords accommodate recording Brian's already mark already put that right in here oh yeah yes bigger man understand which I do with two degrees out from that sort of engage on this side we've got those spaces on this side just one low space on the tar with that I don't get none let's only press discuss the flanger for sure within hours of the patent being finished the first cylinder head has been cast in its silicates and mole at a foundry in Worcester the valuable sand is broken away and recycled to be packed again and again around the mahogany former for Formula One this rough lump of cast aluminium marks a rare event the birth of a completely new engine this casting will never be used instead it will be sliced and analyzed to check its strength Chicago based Beatrice is a huge American trading company in February 1985 at the highest level Ford and Beatrice - a deal the result is an aerospace quality engineering company on a windy industrial estate near Heathrow yes Electronics will be the last sort of thing in the fire which when will we get an actual engine as a lump of we metal part it will build a racing car exclusively for the new engine at the other car the first driver is to be X world champion Alan Jones yeah this is there's too much of an angle that way yeah and it's too much of a load on your wrist if you if you're turning if it's on an angle where am I it will in the risk test to go like that let's put in putting a strain on it whereas if the will is more it's up and day on there then it's just a straight move with your ID if you're really up there you're all right right in like a London bus absolutely and you're putting you to swing very work on your wrists whereas if it's more upright you do it with your arms so that's John Baldwin is the chief designer I haven't got any problems with that on the noise that's okay now because that is higher than the other car yeah no it's fine so and if I was to go back further it would make that even better yeah because we've now got the shape of your back here so what we can do is actually design your seat the start of your seat instead of doing it the old way so I can block block up so we can put this shape into the car here and then start the file and make the seat picture and you brought the technical steering wheel another one of broken within weeks the first aluminium castings are ready for machining this 120 degree V six block is turned upside down so that the crankshaft can be eased in careful whether it's gonna hit the side of the block and could cause you know quite a bit of damage to it have to be very careful while stuck locking it in because of Duckworth's obsession with structural strength the engine is not easy to put together and there are many tricks to learn and they've got locating pins at the bottom as well but if trying to feel your way until they fit after every race each engine will have to be rebuilt a year from now Alan Eldridge will probably be able to do this blindfold I think that's about it now special blocks are temporarily fitted to the crankcase studs the studs take short bars which can be expanded with a spanner this spreads the engine block by a few millimeters to allow the bearing cap to slip down and bear on the crankshaft these bearings do two jobs they hold the crankshaft spinning up to 12,000 revolutions a minute and they act as strong bridges or buttresses joining both sides of the engine block before the expandable bars are removed the bearing caps are bolted down the process of spreading the block is repeated for all four bearing caps now the Pistons three in each bank of cylinders a special cup helps Eldridge slip them into the bores these pistons are made in Germany but once the engine is proved Cosworth will manufacture their own the Pistons are very special hollow galleries in the top for the crown circulate high pressure oil the oil will be injected as the piston descends in the ball in effect the Pistons are oil cooled but this first drop of oil is just to help put the engine together the crankshaft is turned this is one of six big end bearings these are the boats that failed on the old four-cylinder engine when the fairing seized they will have to cope with hundreds of tons during a Grand Prix these seals sit on the cylinder bores in this engine the bores like gun barrels are separate tubes known as liners for simplicity oil for the separate cylinder head is forced through external steel tubes cylinder-head boats are angled a typical Cosworth answer to a tricky problem the original reason why we angled our head bolts was to allow you to have them coming through the head and yet missing the camshafts because the most convenient position is in the same line that is what caused a lot of engines to have to be separated with the head bolts below and a separate cam carrier allied to that one we then were looking at lioness situations and the best way of making a head joint and liner and I devised a scheme of a liner which the head was nominally clamped on top of the liners and the liner split was fairly low down but then the stiffness of the top of the liner and its support was not adequate and therefore the angle boat puts in a component squeezing the two sides of the block together and therefore will tie and increase the stiffness at the top of the bore the gas pressure is the highest weighing about 100 kilograms the first engine is complete but another potentially more powerful engine is still proving difficult to finish American Frank Rayo from Motorola and British electronics engineer Steve Taylor are still hunting the bugs from the prototype engine management computer merge this is call eliminate all the noise you possibly can so the engine runs engine runs your stuff gets back at hang on Frank does your bank see it shorts out huh yeah that's the one that's the one is that behind there one of those is not the right one God right yeah we know so much to the circuitry and software yep I just want to prove it right I want to put it back to its original mount okay check the cross now it's 4:00 in the morning they've been working for 18 hours only to discover what many other Formula One engineers already know that electromagnetic pulses from the engine play havoc with the delicate memory circuits in the microprocessor these are all paired aground off got five yeah ten okay just a piece of solder in here this painstaking detective work is the only way to hunt down rogue signals five six seven eight nine ten twelve seventeen twenty five four three five seven twenty eight he done 27.5 it was 27 he should be BSS mo in 728 you've done that okay how about this one the best recibir shorting out zones here is verified it could be twenty nine should be won't you meet around there I could find out which one it is Oh No mmm see right away it's amazing oh yeah there it is right there like five or six or seven twenty nine thirty or thirty years aground oh why is it putting supplied in all right was open he kind of be bad to another one face did it okay so that's all set we have a big round path almost pens just said of a grounded right yes no nice ignition diagnostics IDM we're not using it wrong okay so uh when you're an engine per appreciate all these Kluge's grounded anything on the way looking good from good the final test is run of this piece of wire to case crown is that the last one yeah fantastic that's what you'll bond the minister known as a tub because the driver sits in it as if in a bath this main part of the racing car is a composite made from carbon fiber Formula one engineers are world leaders in the use of this strong ultra light aerospace technology the two halves of the tower are bonded together this steel jig will hold the two halves in place until the bond has said perhaps the first driver owing his life to carbon fiber was Britain's John Watson after this 150 mile an hour crash at the 1981 Italian Grand Prix he climbed from his MacLaren's composite tub without a scratch Peter Toland built that tub for what spawn takes about 3/4 no to go off this tub is for Jonas but the engine is still so secret even he isn't sure of the specification an engine plate on the top which lays along at the angle of the engine which is probably 45 degrees I think it's 45 degrees on this one not quite sure actually and then it's hooked to those two points there or that one in that one the v6 turbo is on the dynamometer in Northampton Frank Ray arrives with his engine management black box bug boost also yes yes - yes as reference our mega man Steve Taylor and Ford software expert Jim Coates from the states set up the monitors okay it's that much that's about 1 that's on the current probe as well good yeah this planet initially yes please just to verify I just want to set this up on our injection no pepper top yeah stop start with injection from the tongue very headphones yeah I'm the Dino this is this is the most liquid place for that to happen to from Ford electronic engine development in the states Bobst elmer zach has watched over the program for a year now the final minutes tick by yeah all right that's it we're ready can you certainly have you more than happy because the engine map is incomplete these two manual controls will override the computer the left-hand dial controlled spark advance the right controls the fuel injector pulse width exactly 20 years ago Duckworth's legendary dfv engine was fired up on this same dynamometer the new turbo seems reluctant to follow Yeah right so we can clean it out before we here for a moment there's confusion still music asks whether he should expand or reduce the fuel pulse yeah we should find out what the pulse width is in this state is running in to find out of here I mean I I got to find out what pulses with the Knicks out of ink I can't see if you can you guys get in there Commissioner I love a second are we tricking anything out that's not picking up an appropriate signal forced Elmer Zack this first encounter with the frustration of Formula One technology is infuriating back in the States his boss Mike cran of us will want good news right now there isn't enough we have to find out what we're doing this isn't going well

Channel: RWHP

Views: 1,470,155

Rating: 4.8953133 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, pipes, low, v8's, engineering, revolutionary, bmw, turbo, boost, honda, f1, tools, brabham, cars, rpm, engine, velocity, v6, mclaren, pressure, formula

Id: xbB1qwhKaaE

Length: 52min 7sec (3127 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 09 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/matt88888]

Cool video. Funny seeing a young Ross Brawn.