That is impossible Manchild. How could a little intake valve blow up a whole engine? The failure was so sudden that it must have been something more catastrophic. I've seen a engine run a whole lap with a holed piston (from a dropped valve) before expiring.
I think Ferrari is feeding us a load of BS and i'm not falling for it.
I think the engine was just overworked by constant pressure from Alonso over the past two races.
G-Rock wrote:That is impossible Manchild. How could a little intake valve blow up a whole engine? The failure was so sudden that it must have been something more catastrophic. I've seen a engine run a whole lap with a holed piston (from a dropped valve) before expiring.
I think Ferrari is feeding us a load of BS and i'm not falling for it.
I think the engine was just overworked by constant pressure from Alonso over the past two races.
If valve isn't lifted on time piston will hit is and there's your blow. Ferrari said that problem occured on uppper part of the valve. I presume they were thinking on pneumatic lifter. It is enough that seal fails, pressure will drop and piston will hit the valve. Remember that at 19000 rpm engine makes 316 revs per second and any small malfunction at that speed causes another, bigger one. Actual rpm isn't that much important because same thing would happen on 10k or 6k.
Check the video, first small blow happens around 45 sec of the video and big one few seconds later. From small blow one to big blow one car has passed at least 100 meters
manchild wrote:If valve isn't lifted on time piston will hit is and there's your blow. Ferrari said that problem occured on uppper part of the valve. I presume they were thinking on pneumatic lifter. It is enough that seal fails, pressure will drop and piston will hit the valve. Remember that at 19000 rpm engine makes 316 revs per second and any small malfunction at that speed causes another, bigger one. Actuall rpm isn't that much important because same thing would happen on 10k or 6k.
Check the video, first small blow happens around 45 sec of the video and big one few seconds later. From small blow one to big blow one car has passed at least 100 meters
Small one was valve failure, big one was full engine failure caused by valve failure.
Verry true it jsut happens faster at 19k
G-Rock-
depending on what kind of car you were talking about they may have souter engines rember f1 is all about walking the razors edge where say a hevier built engine might be sliglty more tolrant ive dropped a valve and drove for about a week on the engine
Sorry but you haven't sold me yet. A valve dropping would have produced a lot more smoke and drama and MS should have been able to keep going for a bit, at least to the pits. The valve would punch a whole in the piston, then the pumping action of the piston would spray oil all over the place until the oil is all gone and then a seizure.
My theory is a thrown connecting rod which would definetly destroy and engine in 100meters.
Back to the drawing board boys...
G-Rock wrote:Sorry but you haven't sold me yet. A valve dropping would have produced a lot more smoke and drama and MS should have been able to keep going for a bit, at least to the pits. The valve would punch a whole in the piston, then the pumping action of the piston would spray oil all over the place until the oil is all gone and then a seizure.
My theory is a thrown connecting rod which would definetly destroy and engine in 100meters.
Back to the drawing board boys...
If one pneumatic lifter looses pressure and for example piston his it than for sure lifter will be destroyed because piston would launch valve and bend it, that would lead to loss of pressure in all 32 pneumatic lifters and BANG - 8 pistons hitting 32 valves!
One valve will not cause the other valves to drop Manchild. If you have ever seen a pneumatic valve system, you will notice that each valve has a small "helper" spring to aid during startup in case all the valves are not operating properly during the intitial turning over of the engine. If the pneumatic system does fail due to a pressure drop (a dropped valve for instance) then the valves will stay open slightly, the engine will lose power and won't be able to rev beyond, say 5000rpm.
MS's engine blew a left bank. If all valves dropped, both banks would have been smoking. That's why i'm sure that it was a con rod or a crank journal that was the problem.
Ferrari has had to up the ante in the last few races and they are pushing things too far. I'd like to see this "super" spec engine for Brazil. I bet it won't last for more than 30 laps. They are going to take a 2007 spec engine, increase the rpms (to gain the reported 20hp) to a ridiculous amount and blow the thing to smithereens. It's just not designed for that kind of speed, the V8's vibration sequences will shake it apart. You can't take an engine designed to operate at 19000rpms and run it at 20000 (even if it only has to last one race weekend) but hey, I'm sure Ferrari knows that and will assess the risk.
In my opinion Fisi will be the #1 driver to help Renault win the championship in Brasil, Alonso will go for top 8 and Schumi and Massa, (with not much) to lose are going to go for it. That would be a glorious way to end the year. Win the contructors, or go down in a blaze of glory.
scarbsf1.com wrote:Pneumatic systems use conventional cams operating the valve (4) via a shim\bucket or finger follower, the valve spring pocket is replaced with a chamber ( 28 ) pressurised with nitrogen (held within a cylinder in the sidepods) that runs at a constant pressure to return the valve when the cam timing retards. You often see the teams suffer a loss of pressure in the races through leaks in the system, the driver comes in and mechanics re-pressurises the pneumatic circuit, this rarely works for more than few laps. Also when Engines are changed the un-installed engine needs a remote gas cylinder connected in order for the valves not to drop and hit the pistons.
BTW, Ferrari said that Massa's engine problem had nothing to do with valves although it is same spec. engine.
you may be correct about the latest spec engine, but unless Ferrari do "a Honda" I somehow doubt it. Not only has Schum shown incredible pace in Jerez, but he has clocked over 100 laps on each day of the test... My guess is that they are hammering the engine as hard as they can to see if it blows.
Obviously we will find out in Brazil who's right!
P.S. Personally I don't see what Ferrari would have to lose by telling the truth about the engine failure in Suzuka - there's only one more race left, Renault have to lose the championships rather than Ferrari having to win them, and with only one more race left why try and mislead anyone? If it's a design flaw then they will blow lots more next season and we'll know that they were covering up, but up until last weekend they had a phenomenal reliability record for the race.
Ferrari has now determined the cause of Michael Schumacher's championship-denting engine failure at Suzuka.
It is understood that the German rarely smoked to a halt in Japan due to a failed intake valve.
Engineers at the Maranello based squad, however, have put the failure down to an isolated materials defect, meaning that a significant change or remedy in Brazil is unlikely.
Felipe Massa's pre-race engine glitch in Shanghai is also believed to have involved a damaged valve, but it was apparently a different failure.
Ferrari sources, meanwhile, ruled out the theory that Schumacher's final pit stop at Suzuka - including overheating - could be linked to his failure.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, i've read all the press reports as well! That doesn't change the fact that Schumi's exit didn't look at all like a valve failure. Who in this forum know's what a valve failure looks like?
I don't know what they're hiding or why but there has got to be more to it than this. Maybe they don't want to admit to being pushed to the edge by Renault. The testing times this week show that Ferrari is still fast and reliable but BMW also looks good during testing and see how they fare during a race; no where near their testing performance.
Ferrari's engine is the weak point of the car and they don't want to admit to it.
PS poor Kimi might have another grenade behind his shoulders for 07 (he has bad luck with engines in the best of times)
Ferrari's engines never failed this season before, during a race (and a lot more of them before that). I dont see why Ferrari would want to hide something like this, considering the fact that after Malaysia they didnt hide the fact that there was a design/manufacturing problem with the valves (I think it was one of them). I think I wont be mistaken if I said Ferrari's engines are among the 3 best in F1 today and of the most reliable ones too. Fernando Alonso's engine failed in Monza. Does that mean that the engine is also Renault's weak point of the car? That they were pushed to the limit by Ferrari? Not necessarily so .
You cant compare BMW's performance to those of Ferrari. In the last test at Jerez Ferrari were quicker than them by over a second, a second and a half. Thats too much of a gap, and we dont even know what programs exactly they were running. Besides, BMW's engines has failed 3 times during this season.
What ever caused it to go was the fact that he was ragging the hell out of it, same as Alonso in Monza. Both drivers really, really driving thier cars.
Stuff breaks sometimes, although Im very glad its one each
True, Alonso's engine blew too but due to the fact that he was penalized unfairly by FIA, he drove the *&*^ out of it to catch up, took the chance and it didn't work out for him. Schumi on the other hand was being pushed by Alonso and this may have caused him to outdrive his engine which Ferrari isn't really used to. I think Ferrari has been exceptional with their chassis' but their engines are just reliable, units with good power but not the most power. \
Getting back to the engine blowup, I stand by my assumption that the failure was not valve related.
