What will come after the 2.4 V8?

[ISLAMATRON]

they dont use "standard" unleaded fuel now... AFAIK all the fuel is synthetically derived.

Why do you think 16K rpm? any particular reason?

God please dont give them the idea of shortening races.

[paulonorcatto]

By standard unleaded i meant the same fuel we use in our road cars.

Well I can see the 18000rpm limit going down to 17000rpm in the next few years anyway. I just think 16000rpm should be the lowest they go down to. More to do with making the engines lasting longer.

Oh and believe me I don't want the races any shorter than they are but I can truthfully see if happening down the road.

Like I said before, I don't want any of this stuff to happen but I forsee F1 going down this route.

[ISLAMATRON]

By standard unleaded i meant the same fuel we use in our road cars.

Well I can see the 18000rpm limit going down to 17000rpm in the next few years anyway. I just think 16000rpm should be the lowest they go down to. More to do with making the engines lasting longer.

Oh and believe me I don't want the races any shorter than they are but I can truthfully see if happening down the road.

Like I said before, I don't want any of this stuff to happen but I forsee F1 going down this route.

I believe the current F1 fuel is around 6% bio-fuel and the rest is synthetic, derived in a lab and not really petroleum distillates, low weight(density I should say) high energy and almost nothing like what we run in our vehicles.

If they were to lower the RPM that low they might as well go down to like 13K and get rid of the pneumatic valving that costs alot of money and have very little road relevance.

[Ciro Pabón]

I think Paulonorcatto wishes in respect to fuel are already satisfied by current fuel specifications (welcome to the forum, Paulo! ).

Actually, what I understand from regulations is that the fuel is fairly ordinary and that the regulations are in place precisely to guarantee that the mixture is very similar to what is used in regular vehicles.

Synthetic fuels are explicitely prohibited, but they could be included in the future. These are the articles I think are relevant:

ARTICLE 19 : FUEL
19.1 Purpose of Article 19 :
19.1.1 The purpose of this Article is to ensure that the fuel used in Formula One is petrol as this term is generally understood.
19.1.2 The detailed requirements of this Article are intended to ensure the use of fuels that are composed of compounds normally found in commercial fuels and to prohibit the use of specific power-boosting chemical compounds.

...

19.4.5 A minimum of 5.75% (m/m) of the fuel must comprise oxygenates derived from biological sources.
19.4.6 Synthetic hydrocarbons or mixtures of synthetic hydrocarbons, which have been produced from biomass, will be considered for future inclusion into Formula One fuel, provided that a suitable analytical procedure is available to verify their biological origin.

[ISLAMATRON]

hmmm, I thought i remembered a Shell press release I read stating that their fuel was synthetically made in a lab... thanks for that clarification Ciro... although the rules you quoted does not "explicitly" prohibit synthetic fuels.

[wrcsti]

By standard unleaded i meant the same fuel we use in our road cars.

Well I can see the 18000rpm limit going down to 17000rpm in the next few years anyway. I just think 16000rpm should be the lowest they go down to. More to do with making the engines lasting longer.

Oh and believe me I don't want the races any shorter than they are but I can truthfully see if happening down the road.

Like I said before, I don't want any of this stuff to happen but I forsee F1 going down this route.

I believe the current F1 fuel is around 6% bio-fuel and the rest is synthetic, derived in a lab and not really petroleum distillates, low weight(density I should say) high energy and almost nothing like what we run in our vehicles.

If they were to lower the RPM that low they might as well go down to like 13K and get rid of the pneumatic valving that costs alot of money and have very little road relevance.

I cry every time I think of something like this. Can't see a world were F1 doesn't have super high revving engines making that beutiful "I'm ABOUT TO BLOW UP!!" noise of 19k rpms.

[WhiteBlue]

I respect the noise lovers but I am personally more impressed with the Audi Le Mans engines. If and when F1 can make a move to a new engine formula I hope they will fix engine output and direct all development effort to fuel efficiency. With better aerodynamics they should be able to keep current performance level at a total output of 700 bhp from engine, HERS and KERS. Perhaps the engine will be radically optimised to fit with HERS and KERS and will have two Turbos and run on combined bio diesel and natural gas. RPM, sweep volume and combustion chamber configuration will be purely optimised to generate the legal power limit with the lowest weight and energy utilization. I could imagine that there would be much more technical freedom like we currently have with KERS. I would also like to see different fuels which would be equalized by energy content. Teams could use petrol, diesel, bio diesel, natural gas, bio gas or whatever would suit them.

[ISLAMATRON]

I cry every time I think of something like this. Can't see a world were F1 doesn't have super high revving engines making that beutiful "I'm ABOUT TO BLOW UP!!" noise of 19k rpms.

13K is not high revs?

What is the most you've ever driven at?

My highest is 10K rpm and that is a rotary... I cant even imagine 13K rpm.

We've heard 21K before and it aint that much more audibly impressive than 19K or even this years 18K.

If they had to take it down to 13K to give us back a full grid I would gladly take it. I really think turbo's would have a problem operating at much past 13 or 14K anyway, but I could be wrong.

Whiteblue: they might make the engine/KERS combo output about 700hp or so... but with a higher level of KERS they will probably lower the designed allowed of power from the engine. I think it would be wrong to limit the max power of the motor other than by displacement/fuel flow/boost level or rev limit.

[xpensive]

The energy-equivalent formula WB, is to my mind as brilliant and engineerish as it gets.

However, when the energy content of my beloved cellulose derived methanol is 30% less per mass-unit than petroleum destillate, some kind of correction-factor forweight must be made. Perhaps a minimum weight including fuel?

[safeaschuck]

Just going back to where paulonorcatto/ciro were.
The Fuel regs, it seems are open to as much interpretation as every other rule. I can't remember where I heard this I know it was about 3-5 yrs ago now but it was since the 'pump' fuel regs came into force.

There are many sources for pump fuel, crude oil from different sources i.e. Brent or Arabian light produces fuel with different characteristics. These characteristics are most commonly grouped together and defined by octane ratings which for road car purposes are an accurate enough indicator. This incidentally is one of the main reasons why different countries have different octane ratings for fuel, different oil source's give different fuel. New Zealand even get a lot of theirs from gas due to a local abundance of it, this makes it very difficult to economically achieve good octane ratings, hence 91 octane pump fuel even with additives.

Anyway, when you get to F1 levels it is clear that simply having the highest octane rating is not necessarily the way to achieve the best engine output, it is only a measures of one characteristic of the fuel, resistance to detonation, a clean burn, lower temperatures for similar output can all help (O.K. The temperature thing I might be reaching on??? there are others) So the F1 fuel suppliers end up blending the constituent parts of 'pump' fuels from all over the world in varying ratios to achieve the best overall characteristics, whilst rightfully claiming that all fuels used are available at the pump. This is obviously frightfully expensive fuel by the time they are done and certainly in the case of Shell they have mobile labs at the races to keep a constant watch on the performance of the batches.

P.S. I just tried to google and wikipedia et al to clean up this article and ended up confusing myself with all the details so I'll let it stand pretty much as It came to me, error's and all. Thanks for your understanding!

[ISLAMATRON]

I'm pretty sure octane rating is a quantitative scale of "resistance to detonation"

funny thing, my rotary gets more power when I run lower octane fuel.

[MinacciolMotors]

How about this.

3.0 liter flat 6 bi-turbo engine running on pure ethanol. KERS and solar energy should both be used.

Solar energy is definitely a possibility. It is possible to take photovoltaic cells and make them nano-sized. If you can do that, it then becomes possible to mix them into paint. Combine that with an electrical lattice set into the Carbon Fiber bodywork (carbon fiber is a great insulator) and that all leads to a battery and you have a way of creating large amounts of energy with no effort. This would be incredibly effective on hot circuits like Bahrain. Additionally, KERS should be able to produce less power for longer. The greatest thing about a car designed like this is that the flat 6 keeps the COG waaaay down and the ethanol has significantly decreased temp at which it burns. Furthermore, if you limit the amount of fuel that flows into the cylinder per minute, then teams would be forced to increase the efficiency of the engine to get higher output, rather than just finding ways to pump in more fuel. All of these things are directly imputable to a road car. Cooling becomes less of an issue, you are using an environmentally friendly fuel, the cars are able to focus on efficiency, and the entire engine package itself becomes more able to race.

[WhiteBlue]

http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=353260

This sounds like the FIA "World Engine" is going to be 2,0 L. Would VW be developing it if they had no iron clad assurances of the spec?

[mike]

-limited energy input (petrol and diesel) road grade.
-minimum weight of 120kg
-no refuelling
-10k rpm max
-maximum of 6 cylinders
-1 engine mode allowed

higher the efficiency, the more power there will be

[flynfrog]

I'm pretty sure octane rating is a quantitative scale of "resistance to detonation"

funny thing, my rotary gets more power when I run lower octane fuel.

thats because you need to advance the timing and up the compersion. Higher octane doesnt mean more enegry density. You get more power by pushing the engine further. My race engines will melt down in a matter of seconds on pump gas.