New member - Bought an RA107

[marcush.]

hey to send the tools and adapters is a nice gesture and (for sure) a good start .
(No I´m not Jenson B...)
the Porsche LMP2 powerplant crossed my mind ,but that is also prohibitive(at 322000$!!! ) and maybe to long + crankheight also not ideal..
the porsche Gearbox fitting to it is huge...and expensive at 200.000$!!!





Have you measured the input shaft height at the gearbox? this will tell you were you need to aim for crankshaft height...
I heard that Brawn had to design a stepgear set for the adoption of the Merc engine in 2009 ..so was the Honda or the Honda engine the one with the lower crankshaft height?

[Formula None]

OH GOD YES.



Roughly how misaligned was the crankshaft centerline from the input shaft?

I love that you have a spare Viper V10 lying around in your garage. Aside from its length it looks pretty good really, the compact nature of OHV design illustrated well.

Can you post some detail shots of the engine attachment bolts sprouting off of the monocoque?

[marcush.]

the dude wearing the black suit is the chief mechanic?

[F1snake]

Marcush, Dang, I thought you was Jens.....

Thats a fantastic looking engine, with errr....a fantastic price tag included. I'd love one, but way, way beyond what we can do.

I haven't done the mesuring yet, but I'll come back to that and let you know. I don't know the Honda engine's crankshaft height, I'm afraid(sorry, still have so much to learn)

The black suited 'dude', Raven aka 'The Wooly Poof' is there to annoy the chief Mech.......

Formula None,

I agree, 8.3ltr Viper engine is rather nice looking, if a bit misplaced here......It belongs to the red GT2 Viper sharing garage space with the Honda, and this one is as powerful as an F1 engine, but weighs as much as the whole F1 car does!

I'll take some detailed photos of the bolts in the monocoque for you next time I'm in the garage, and post them here shortly.

[djones]

The earth graphics...

Is it painted on, or is it a vinyl wrap??

[EAKMotorsports]

wow I wish to buy an f1 car too...nice nice...congrats m8.

[F1snake]

The earth graphics...

Is it painted on, or is it a vinyl wrap??

The blue and white colour on the car is painted, the rest is vinyl. Just heard from Mercedes GP today, actually, that they are able to supply a complete replacement. This means we can do a new and fun livery, and still be able to return it to the Earth Livery as per original, or the '08 livery that the car is wearing at the moment.

[mep]

Good to hear that you got support form Mercedes GP. Was it based on your attempts to contact them or did they send you the stuff by themselves? I can imagine there are already some Mercedes GP engineers observing this topic.


Is the above picture with the viper engine photoshoped or real?

In my previous post I mentioned the wheelbase of the car.
Will you keep the original one? So how much space do you have for the engine???
You can measure this out in a few minutes including the gearbox input shaft height and the mounting points. Before you have done that its just speculation if some engine will fit or not. Getting an engine into the car is the most important point to finish this project successful.

[flynfrog]

on the same line as the viper engine but a little shorter.



maybe back end the whole car use a vette transaxel

http://www.factoryfive.com/gtmhome.html

I think the wheel base will grow. Maybe just a plain turboed busa motor use the bike gear box. Not as fast as an F1 car but parts would be cheaper. Its not like you are going head to head with other F1 cars.

[ESPImperium]

Great news regarding Mercedes GP on them being able to support you in your project.

Is your friend able to show pics of his RB2 chassis and the Sauber he has??? As they would make a massive addition to the forum as well as your RA107-05 project.

[F1snake]

Hi there mep,

My better half wrote a nice letter to Ross Brawn, and got a nice packet in return from Mercedes GP today......Very kind and helpful of them indeed.

The Viper engine pics are genuine. The engine has just been rebuilt, and will be put back in the car this week. I hope!

We will attempt to keep to the original wheelbase, as we want the bodywork to fit nicely. And handle nicely! I have already mesured, but I can't remember of hand exactly to the mm what space I have. The H1V8 will fit with a cm or two to spare. I'm afraid I've locked up the garage for tonight(bit awkward to open, with many locks and alarm. And its cold and wet outside!)but I'll do some re-mesuring tomorrow and let you know.

ESPImperium,

I'll ask my RB friend, but I'm not sure if he's that keen on public forums, as he is currently working for RB. Apparantly its all very hush-hush! I do have some photos of his cars, but I'll have to ask if he's ok for me to post. He also owns the 2001 ex Villeneuve BAR Honda 004, which I believe he wants to sell as a rolling chassis.

[n smikle]

This is off topic snake, but... Can your wife write another letter asking Ross if the Mercedez W01 F-duct was driver activated or not? That would sure help put the W01 thread to bed.

[marcush.]

(the JensonB. thing is a running joke about my habit to write "for sure"...there was an inofficial forsure contest between F1 drivers going on a few years ago...
I´m not quite sure if they even knew about it... )

about crankshaft height.bottom of gearbox face to input shaft centreline should give a good figure for crankshaft centerline of the Honda...
engine length:longer is not really the big issue methinks in terms of mechanical things (all you need is elongate the brakelines all the rest will be a custom job anyways .the big concern is:the volume of the new engine is likely to break through the original bodywork at some places ,as modern f1 engines are just so tiny little things and tightly elaborate packaging of the lot ..
I guess the H1 could fit .

why not ask the producer of it for a mockup of the H1 engine and a set of CAD data?
any serious builder would ask this and so i think there will not be many issues to get hold of it.(Before forking out the moneys for the complete thing not knowing if you can use it)

[nae]

What a fantastic project, thank you so much for sharing your good fortune and pictures, I (and I assume many others) look forward to seeing how you progress with this.

all the very best in your venture

[mep]

marcush
I don’t really get why you think a longer engine is no issue? For me this inevitably leads to a longer wheelbase and therefore your bodywork will not fit anymore. Not to speak about changed car characteristics now. For me the engine is the biggest problem in the project. The Honda engine was designed to fit into that chassis. High power output from a small engine with a low CoG but with bad mileage/reliability. Even when you find a engine with the same length you still have to mount it. When your mounting points or shafts don’t fit you need to make construction to connect the tube, engine and gearbox. When you are lucky you get this with 2 Aluminium plates (maybe 10mm thick) done. So you lose another 20mm. Depends if you have space for the screw heats otherwise you will need even more space. You can easily lose around 40mm by this. When your shaft height doesn’t fit you get even more trouble.
This is probably one of the main reasons why the car is sold so cheap. On the other side when you find a engine you can sell the car for a much higher price so it can be OK to spent 200.000€ for the perfect engine.