F1 engine technology

[C_Spray]

When I worked for Holman Moody in 1971,2,3, we had the 'Holman Moody Honker' Can-Am in the hangar with the original 496 SOHC all ally monster engine. It was driven by Mario Andretti, and would break the tires loose (and the half-shafts) at the far end of the long straight in Laguna Seca. We also had the Ford 40's from Daytona and Le Mans. Sold them for peanuts.

That car was painted in a hideous lavender/purple color and carried Paul Newman's name on it as a sponsor. Reportedly, it handled so badly that Mario asked to be allowed to put his name on it and make Newman drive it.

It was a mess when I took it on a trade. It had been on the bottom- maybe more than once.

It may have been the one that wound up belonging to Jay Signore of Penske/IROC, who hired me in 1978. There was a Cigarette out back of the Penske Racing shop for several years, although I never looked under the tarp. There was also a pair of gray Traco-built smallblocks stored in the back of the shop. Rumor had it that it was an open-cockpit style boat that had been swamped from behind in Manesquan Inlet. Sound correct?

 

[Brownie]

Right on all counts, Chuck. Most of the first 28' opens took a dive (as did the first three 28' Magnums). Holman Moody didn't have a wind tunnel. They did their aero work with John Holman standing in front of the car and talking.

 

[Chris]

You actually saw one of these run.. Lucky F'r.

I was at Laguna Seca and it was "Porsche" year at the historics. Mark Donahue ran the car and it was just a swoosh as it went by.

Extremely fast, it was leaving the period F1 cars way behind as well as everything else.

When my dad stopped racing, he went to work for Firestone in the racing tire division. My uncle worked at Goodyear- ran their race effort over there. I got the chance to tag along quite a bit.

The 917 had the horsepower of a Sterling 1550- in a car that weighed less than a ton. They were monsters.

 

[Chris]

When I worked for Holman Moody in 1971,2,3, we had the 'Holman Moody Honker' Can-Am in the hangar with the original 496 SOHC all ally monster engine. .

My neighbor (as a kid) was a millwright at Goodyear. They had a test stand that was designed to simulate the immediate acceleration an aircraft tire experiences on landing. They'd spin the tire up then bring it into contact with a drum dyno. They used a pair of Holman & Moody Boss 429 NASCAR motors to drive the tire. It had to accelerate almost instantaneously. But the engines weren't enough- they replaced them with some gigantic electric motor. Goodyear sold him the engines for $1,000 a piece after they sat for about a decade. There were 3 of them- and a pile of parts. He offered them to me for $6k. I was short on dough at the time and passed.

Ah, the things I've let slip through my fingers...

 

[Dude! Sweet!]

I think one of my all time favorite quotes comes from Mark Donohue... I'm sure most of you guys know this one... When asked whether the 917-30 had enough horsepower, he replied that you don't have enough hp until you can spin the rear tires, in top gear, at the end of the longest straight. You guys should pick up a copy of Unfair Advantage (Donohue's book). I'm sure a lot of you guys have read it, but it's a great read.

I grew up in the IMSA era... GTP gets my vote as the sexiest of the sexy.

 

[glassdave]

When I worked for Holman Moody in 1971,2,3, we had the 'Holman Moody Honker' Can-Am in the hangar with the original 496 SOHC all ally monster engine. It was driven by Mario Andretti, and would break the tires loose (and the half-shafts) at the far end of the long straight in Laguna Seca. We also had the Ford 40's from Daytona and Le Mans. Sold them for peanuts.

I bought some parts from a guy up in Antioch Ill that is restoring the Miles/Gurny GT-40. Got to check it out when he just started the project several years ago. What a great piece of history. Also this summer on the way back from a race we parked the rig next to a transporter in one of the turnpike stops. Driver let us in the trailer and he had a 917 as well as a birdcare Masarati, wayyyy coool!

 

[ILMORdude]

Bada$$ video..............

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF0ON3oKbZg&feature=related

 

[Chris]

The 917-30- at Talladega near the end

 

[C_Spray]

Without the Sunoco and CAM2 paint schemes, it would be hard to classify the 917/10 and 917/30 as "pretty" cars. I always thought that the M8_ series of McLarens looked nice, but in the end, racing is war, not a beauty contest. Teddy Mayer is a good friend, and told me that McLaren's Can-Am budget never exceeded $500,000 for the entire season! Amazing.

ILMORdude (Lebowski?): Pretty "peppy" throttle response there! Do the headers always glow like that even at low loads? I've always associated high EGT's with late timing.

If you were around for the turbo days, you can probably relate to how obnoxious those engine fumes would get halfway through the warm-up process, just as the condensation started to disappear from the tailpipes. The heavy doses of formaldehyde (by-product of methanol combustion) were way worse than nitro!

A little something I have sitting around: 1994 Ilmor "Indy" V8. (The "Mercedes-Benz" on the coil covers is incorrect and will be changed.) This is the 4-cam, 161 c.i. version that we ran throughout the CART season, not the 209 pushrod engine we ran at Indy. It's a dyno-fresh unit that's going into a 1994 Penske Indy car that I'm having restored. We tested it at 700 hp at 10,000 rpm, but I recall racing them at about 760 @ 11,800 or so. ABout 280 pounds, if I recall. The parts in these engines are jewelry; I can't imagine what's inside a current F1 engine.

 

[Anchored]

Without the Sunoco and CAM2 paint schemes, it would be hard to classify the 917/10 and 917/30 as "pretty" cars. I always thought that the M8_ series of McLarens looked nice, but in the end, racing is war, not a beauty contest. Teddy Mayer is a good friend, and told me that McLaren's Can-Am budget never exceeded $500,000 for the entire season! Amazing.

ILMORdude (Lebowski?): Pretty "peppy" throttle response there! Do the headers always glow like that even at low loads? I've always associated high EGT's with late timing.

If you were around for the turbo days, you can probably relate to how obnoxious those engine fumes would get halfway through the warm-up process, just as the condensation started to disappear from the tailpipes. The heavy doses of formaldehyde (by-product of methanol combustion) were way worse than nitro!

A little something I have sitting around: 1994 Ilmor "Indy" V8. (The "Mercedes-Benz" on the coil covers is incorrect and will be changed.) This is the 4-cam, 161 c.i. version that we ran throughout the CART season, not the 209 pushrod engine we ran at Indy. It's a dyno-fresh unit that's going into a 1994 Penske Indy car that I'm having restored. We tested it at 700 hp at 10,000 rpm, but I recall racing them at about 760 @ 11,800 or so. ABout 280 pounds, if I recall. The parts in these engines are jewelry; I can't imagine what's inside a current F1 engine.

C_Spray

Do you happen to know what the typical max engine speed would be for a '98 vintage champ car?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[ILMORdude]

Without the Sunoco and CAM2 paint schemes, it would be hard to classify the 917/10 and 917/30 as "pretty" cars. I always thought that the M8_ series of McLarens looked nice, but in the end, racing is war, not a beauty contest. Teddy Mayer is a good friend, and told me that McLaren's Can-Am budget never exceeded $500,000 for the entire season! Amazing.

ILMORdude (Lebowski?): Pretty "peppy" throttle response there! Do the headers always glow like that even at low loads? I've always associated high EGT's with late timing.

If you were around for the turbo days, you can probably relate to how obnoxious those engine fumes would get halfway through the warm-up process, just as the condensation started to disappear from the tailpipes. The heavy doses of formaldehyde (by-product of methanol combustion) were way worse than nitro!

A little something I have sitting around: 1994 Ilmor "Indy" V8. (The "Mercedes-Benz" on the coil covers is incorrect and will be changed.) This is the 4-cam, 161 c.i. version that we ran throughout the CART season, not the 209 pushrod engine we ran at Indy. It's a dyno-fresh unit that's going into a 1994 Penske Indy car that I'm having restored. We tested it at 700 hp at 10,000 rpm, but I recall racing them at about 760 @ 11,800 or so. ABout 280 pounds, if I recall. The parts in these engines are jewelry; I can't imagine what's inside a current F1 engine.

Very nice piece you have there sir........... That vid is pretty recent of the current Mclaren team car. We're only in IRL land now. Spray, ive only been around since '04.

 

[TrippM]

Very nice piece you have there sir........... That vid is pretty recent of the current Mclaren team car. We're only in IRL land now. Spray, ive only been around since '04.

Ilmor in IRL? I thought they used Honda spec engines. Is Ilmor doing rebuilds? I've lost a lot of interest after the CART/IRL battle reduced the series to a shadow of it's former self. I used to love the diversity of multiple engine and chassis manufacturers that CART provided.

 

[C_Spray]

C_Spray

Do you happen to know what the typical max engine speed would be for a '98 vintage champ car?

Thanks,

Jeff

Cripes - I should remember (He!!, I was in charge of Penske Racing in those days), but that was s-o-o-o long ago... depending on the engine manufacturer, I'd suspect low-to-mid 12,000's. Those were the "nuclear-weapons-at-close-range" days, when Mercedes, Ford, Honda and Toyota were all going at it big time. (See TrippM's post.)

Our fatal mistake was chosing to stay with Goodyear tires instead of Firestone. The tire war was in full swing, and the gap was enormous. It was like trying to run an Unlimited on aluminum props...

 

[Dude! Sweet!]

My buddy and I just made a bedframe for my 3 year old son... Thought you guys would get a kick out of it. We call it the "M20B-ed". Little dude digs it!

 

[ILMORdude]

Ilmor in IRL? I thought they used Honda spec engines. Is Ilmor doing rebuilds? I've lost a lot of interest after the CART/IRL battle reduced the series to a shadow of it's former self. I used to love the diversity of multiple engine and chassis manufacturers that CART provided.

The engine was designed by Ilmor. Our facility performs about 90% of the work for the IRL engines i'd say.

 

[TrippM]

The engine was designed by Ilmor. Our facility performs about 90% of the work for the IRL engines i'd say.

Yeah, I started thinking about it after I posted and remembered that Ilmor did a lot of design work for the series. I think Penske do their own rebuilds? Not sure anymore. Used to be a rabid fan and had friends in the CART organization but like I said earlier, the split and war just took it's toll on the series and the fanbase. I was pleasantly surprised to see some people connected to open wheel posting here. Small world

 

[Maximus]

Ok to keep the brain cells from freezing up here in the great white north lets have some fun... someone should build a light mystic with 4 of these hooked to about a 10 speed tranny can you hear that coming into key west harbor? look out over hyped blow tourch class.... http://mfmglabs.com/F1 article.htm

We opened the new Unlimited class WIDE open for that exact reason. You or anyone else can build an engine/boat combo and come kick our ass (bring your stainless set). The Class 1 Lambos and Illmors sound sick when they run and you can put the illmores in a poker run boat tomorrow. Team Victory has multiple sets of 12000rpm BMW marine engines sitting in their engine room (old Class 2).

I'm a huge F1 fan and there has been strong rumors of your exact "dream" scenerio in development. can't tell you more than that.

btw..All the mystics are light......

Regard's

Over Hyped Blow Torch

 

[C_Spray]

Yeah, I started thinking about it after I posted and remembered that Ilmor did a lot of design work for the series. I think Penske do their own rebuilds? Not sure anymore. Used to be a rabid fan and had friends in the CART organization but like I said earlier, the split and war just took it's toll on the series and the fanbase. I was pleasantly surprised to see some people connected to open wheel posting here. Small world

I might know some of your friends; I was on the CART team for Penske from 1980-1998 (ran it from 1989-1998) and still work for RP.

Our engine program shut down in 2001 through the Honda years, then re-opened for a while in the early IRL days (2002-2005??) for the Olds-based and Toyota engines. It closed for good when the team went back to Hondas a few years back, and then the whole operation (car preparation and all) moved out of Reading, PA to the stock car shop in Mooresville, NC in the fall of 2006. There is no engine shop at all down there. The stock car engines are built at Penske-Jasper in Concord, NC, Porsche handles all the work on the Daytona Prototype engines and the very same Ilmor guys that do the marine engines handle 100% of the Penske engine work, as the do for all the IRL Honda engines for every car in the series.

Ilmor's history is on their web site to read, but it's an enormously cut-down version of all that has gone on. Trust me - Ilmor has the credentials to hold their own within any racing category.

It would be interesting to see a true high-tech engine application in offshore racing. A couple years after we retired the one-off 1994 pushrod engine, I heard that Gary Garbrecht was trying to get two of them to install as a pair in a 7 liter boat of some sort, since two of them represented a total of 418 cubic inches. Without boost limitations, they could have made 1,200 each on methanol, maybe a little less on gas. Since they made 530 lb-ft of torque each, they wouldn't need to many (if any) gears to run well. Too bad it didn't happen.

 

[boostbros]

miss geico no offense but i just don,t like the turbines they killed the unlimited class that used to be called thunder boats now we watch the unlimited lite class with the blown alky engines nothing comes close to a supercharged engine working its heart out to make the hair on your neck stand up! anyone here remember the old Dirty Laundry or INXS there have been many but i remember the sound of those 2 ....theres enough room in a mystic hull to get at least 3 engines per side....ilmore dude how come we never see a good old 16-71 blower sitting on top of one of those beauties? will they take boost i would think 1000hp ought to be pretty easy?

 

[Rik]

A couple years after we retired the one-off 1994 pushrod engine, I heard that Gary Garbrecht was trying to get two of them to install as a pair in a 7 liter boat of some sort, since two of them represented a total of 418 cubic inches. Without boost limitations, they could have made 1,200 each on methanol, maybe a little less on gas. Since they made 530 lb-ft of torque each, they wouldn't need to many (if any) gears to run well. Too bad it didn't happen.

I remember that race well. Unser, Fittipaldi and Tracy had those cars. Tracy had a crash in testing and had to sit out first rounds of Qualifying and thus Unser got the Pole.

I always wondered how much they were sand bagging back then. It didn't take Tracy long to catch up to the front of the pack before his went Poof.