Engine supplier change and effect on F1 car design

[pipex]

Hello,
these days there have been rumours related to Force India or other teams changing their engine supplier. This made me ask myself what effects the change of the engine has in the chassis and what is involved. I read somewhere that FI said that their deadline for this is later in October. Is this a change that could be done in this timeframe, or its too late?. Also, if the chassis design is already in the last stages, it could ruin the "car concept"?. I know that the decisions are already very convoluted but i wanted some opinion...

Best regards

[Conceptual]

I don't know personally what the differences are, but if the suspension mounts to the gearbox, the largest thing would be packaging, right?

The gearbox will obviously need to be changed as well, but who knows?

Scarbs, can you comment on what the fundamental differences between engine mountings?

I mean, the STR3 was designed around the Renault engine, but has performed better with the Ferrari engine, so it must not be THAT much of a difference!

And I think another huge question here is:

With the tight rules concerning engines, what specific differences are there? I mean if they all have the same displacement, vee angle, crankshaft angle, and finished weight, there really cannot be THAT much difference, can there? I'm sure that many of these engines are damn near identical in most aspects, so what really is all that different about them?

And PS: Could FIF1 run the same engine maps from their Ferrari customer engine on their McLaren customer engine? And are FIF1 not allowed to share engine map info from 2008 with their 2009 supplier? I could see that being rediculously unfair...

[pipex]

Thanks Conceptual. That last point you raised is pretty interesting

[Belatti]

And I think another huge question here is:

With the tight rules concerning engines, what specific differences are there? I mean if they all have the same displacement, vee angle, crankshaft angle, and finished weight, there really cannot be THAT much difference, can there? I'm sure that many of these engines are damn near identical in most aspects, so what really is all that different about them?

I think thats right. In another times you had different CoG, different angles of V, weights, bore/stroke ratio so engine vibrations where different, thus the mounting points to chasis and suspension had to be revised if not redesigned.

I remember what Senna experienced when they first mounted a Honda turbo V6 in a Lotus that used to have a Renault. He did 1 lap and stopped: "the engine is gonna blow up, its vibrating too much!". So Satoru went for a lap and said: "its nothing wrong, that is how this engine vibrates"!

It has been said many many times, that the designer creates the chassis staring from what he already has: the engine.

[modbaraban]

Funny this. in four posts nobody ever used the word 'cooling' , but it was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the title.

Since the start of the 2007 season till summer 2008 engine cooling aero devices were the only ones different in RBR-STR duo (apart from the mirrors). That should mean something...

[pipex]

Thanks for the answers
From what i know the gearbox is supplied by the team, and the gearbox is a part of the suspension. The connection between the gearbox and the engine should be redesigned too?. And i have another question, the ECU program is the same as the engine supplier or is custom designed by the team?. It seems that changing the engine supplier is not a complex thing at all, or maybe all this small things add up to an important amount of work

[pipex]

I read somewhere (another forum) that RBR does their own programming for the ECU controlling the Renault engine and STR uses the Ferrari programming...
It seems that the ECU program depends on the engine supplier contract...
(just added for completeness)

[mx_tifoso]

IIRC, STR personell aren't allowed to do anything to the Ferrari engine, Ferrari have their own specially dedicated people to work on their engines, in whatever team chassis they may be placed in.

Control over everything is the Ferrari way!

[Conceptual]

IIRC, STR personell aren't allowed to do anything to the Ferrari engine, Ferrari have their own specially dedicated people to work on their engines, in whatever team chassis they may be placed in.

Control over everything is the Ferrari way!

Funny, I call that impeccable customer service!

[ESPImperium]

IIRC, STR personell aren't allowed to do anything to the Ferrari engine, Ferrari have their own specially dedicated people to work on their engines, in whatever team chassis they may be placed in.

Control over everything is the Ferrari way!

Funny, I call that impeccable customer service!

Renault do that as well at Red Bull, Honda did that at SA, and Toyota have a the same at Williams. I call that Customer Service as well.

But from what im led to belive FIF1 didnt get the same service, they got older, less powerful Ferarri power as it was just too expencive to have Ferarri personell to work on their engines, thus they had arround 4 or 6 engines on site at all times to call on, Ferarri had a few personell, but not the ammount at STR. Its all because of distance. And from what ive also been let to belive, Ferarri actually lost money supplying engines to FIF1 because of costs of getting to the FIF1 cactory compaired to the STR one. Thats the same reason that im shure Red Bull havnt taken the Ferarri engine back from STR, cost.

There will probably be better costings going to Mercedies as the merc engines are made in the old Illmour plant, whitch is closer, and the support they will get will be better, as well as they will get some initial suport from McLaren to get them started on the Engines and the Mercedies software and Engine Maps, but not the latest support, maybes the same that McLaren got at the end of the 2007 season id think for a start.

But i think they will have to have a redesigned mounting system, also a redesigned suspension and rear end, as well as redesigning the gearbox that FIF1 have spent alot developing this season.

But its probably all good as this means that Mike gascoigne can get the car for next year right, and not tart up a old design from last season.

[mx_tifoso]

"Control over everything is the Ferrari way"

I know it's providing excellent customer service, and I meant it in a good way... sheesh .