In-line 6 cylinder turbocharged F1 engine

[-Felix-]

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention the source! It's from Niki Lauda's Book "The new Formula 1", the second one after his "Formula 1" book.

This one:
http://www.amazon.de/Formel-Turbo--Zeit ... a+formel+1

The text (Excuse some errors, I tried my best):
This is a supercharged inline 6 by the Austrian Rolf-Peter Marlow, who formerly worked on high performance engines at Porsche, BMW and Oettinger and afterwards went to the development company of Max Heidegger in Liechtenstein. In fact, this is the first ever developed engine specifiacially for the 1.5l supercharged reglement. A very brave project, with a lot of enthusiasm and good ideas, although lacking the money. There have been more than one interested, but none of them actually built the engine into a chassis.
The problems of such small companies might be different from what you think. Not the development of such an engine with it's for laymen complex parts is problematic, it's the realisation of the engine periphery. Especially supercharged engines need complex ignition- and injection-systems, as well as the turbocharger itself. Because of the imense cost and the need of a tuning of these components to this specific engine, most of the suppliers rather work with engine builders with whom they have a series production relationship anyway.
Extreme lightweight, advantageous number of cylinders, optimum design basis are the main objectives of this development. As the Renault and Ferrari engine, so does the Heidegger have 6 cylinders. But, in contrast, they are inline and not in v-shape. With a bore of 86mm and a stroke of 43mm there was no risk to take, because these are the same as the Renault's. Very different though is the crankcase. While the Renault uses cast steel, this engine uses magnesium. Because of weightsaving solutions on other parts aswell, the company stated a sensational low weight of 130kg, which is 30kg lighter than the second lightest engine in the field. Although you have to add some weight again, because the engine can only be semi stressed and needs struts like the BMW Inline 4.
Because of the torsional oscilation of the inline 6 crankshaft (big problems of torsional cracking above 9000rpm), one opted for the central power output. The engines consists of two 3-cylinders practically. Right in the middle of the crankshaft lays a big gear which transfers the torque to another shaft parallel to the crankshaft going to the transmission.
On the tail of the engine there is another pair of gears which then connect the shaft to the flywheel and clutch assembly. Aside from the solving of the long crankshaft problem, there is another advantage to this arrangement.
While usually the cranksfhaft and input shaft of the transmission are in line, now a free positioning of transmission relative to engine is possible. Depending on the requirements, now the engine can be positioned lower or even offset to the gearbox. The cylinder head consists of two seperate parts for 3 cylinders each, to get a compact and stiff part. The camshaft is also driven from gears from the center of the crankshaft.
Regarding the power output, an inline 6 offers the same possibilities as a V6, but because of his symmetric and compact design a V6 is advantageous in means of packaging and implementation into the car. Nevertheless, the author wishes this engine project an adequate chassis-partner, respectively the needed foundation.