F1 Conrods

[Jolle]

Nice to see by the way that the 1.6 pistons of today look more like regular car pistons then from the NA days, which look more like high revving motorbike pistons (especially KTM four strokes, they resemble beer coasters more then pistons)

[piston_peetie]

Stumbled across an older piece from Kevin Cameron on F1 / MotoGP rod bearing tech: https://www.cycleworld.com/2015/10/23/a ... n-insights Also, I am a big fan of his work and can wholeheartedly recommend all of his books.

The really short version being that they eliminated the separate bearing on the big end altogether by coating the rod surface directly! I had not ever heard that before and I certainly haven't seen (or noticed) said treatment on any of the rods in this thread. His post was from 2015, so relevant for the V8's at least:

In this recent F1 process, a very thin layer of copper-lead is deposited into F1 connecting rods by PVD, or physical vapor deposition. This is a “sputtering” process that moves atoms from a target onto a destination surface by ion bombardment. As you might suspect, this is not an inexpensive affair. Because the resulting layer of bearing material is very thin, it is unusually resistant to fatigue and can carry unit loads up to 17,000 psi, a substantial improvement over usual insert-bearing load capacity.

Anyone out there ever seen one of these pieces? Would love any first-hand experience you care to share...

Jon

Is it possible that this PVD process could/would be used successfully and gainfully in a consumer package i.e. consumer road car such as E500 or Lexus ES350 for example, for extended life use up to and over 400K kilometres?

[saviour stivala]

According to a 2009 Honda technical development paper Honda developed/produced hollow con-rods for 2 years.

[e36jon]

Greetings Saviour Stivala

I actually have a few pics of the Honda hollow rods on page one, about half way down. They decided to share a bunch of their F1 tech a while back. Here's a link to the conrod article: http://www.f1-forecast.com/pdf/F1-Files ... P2_34e.pdf

Cheers,

Jon

[saviour stivala]

Greetings Saviour Stivala

I actually have a few pics of the Honda hollow rods on page one, about half way down. They decided to share a bunch of their F1 tech a while back. Here's a link to the conrod article: http://www.f1-forecast.com/pdf/F1-Files ... P2_34e.pdf

Cheers,

Jon

Yes e36jon, I couldn't have missed that on your page one. my point was giving some more important details and that Honda actually raced them for two years. there is also interesting development as regards the pistons and their oil cooling jets on that Honda PDF paper. information on such papers are the only solid and official stuff that we can have.

[e36jon]

Thanks for clarifying saviour stivala. After my hundredth edit or so I was eventually locked out of page one, so when I later learn things, like your post that they actually raced the hollow rods, I can't go back and update the post anymore... So sad. That whole series of papers they released are amazing though.

Cheers,

Jon

[saviour stivala]

A pity, as that thread, pictures/photos of con-rods/pistons was splendidly informative. This is stuff that one do not come upon anywhere else (other sites). You out to have requested help from site administration when you hit on that problem.

[saviour stivala]

Honda had in 2000 used for con-rods a Ti-alloy (SP700) of 25% higher fatigue strength than the ‘workhorse’ Ti6Al4V to reduce mass. To further improve the part, a hollow rod was than developed using 2-pieces diffusion-bonded. The process involved the machined pieces being heated to 70% of melting point than pressed together at 40bar in a vacuum for 5-hours. The joint disappeared. The assembly was then finished-machined. A much stiffer rod with 8% lower mass than the previous ‘I’-section rod resulted. Translateable to higher RPM. It was used in 2003 and 2004 before the FIA banned it.

[henry]

There’s a long history of diffusion bonding in Japanese metal craft. They bond and manipulate different metals and alloys in a technique called mokume gane. Replicating wood grain in metal.

[Tommy Cookers]

I imagine that diffusion-bonding was invented for joining titanium etc by or for someone's aircraft industry
apparently N F Kazakov of the USSR in 1953
turbofan blades with internal stiffener sheet diffusion-bonded to skin sheet have been used for decades
and gilding (gold-leaf bonded to base metal by heat and weight) was an early form of d-b dating back centuries

fridge heat exchangers have been made by what was called cold welding (lots of pressure, no heat) of aluminium for c.70 years
but cold welding will probably wear internally by fretting or galling under changing loads

forge-welding eg as conspicuous at a blacksmith's was the only form of so-called welding until c.1890 ?
it might seem to be rather like diffusion-bonding but the necessary temperature is higher
refractory materials can't be fusion-welded but can be diffusion-bonded
and metals that don't behave well in the liquid state

[saviour stivala]

Further to 2004-2005 Honda hollow con-rods:- these con-rods had a 17mm gudgeon-pin, they rode on a 34mm crank-pin, were topped with a 97mm MMC piston = (aluminum-alloy with 25% dispersed 3um SIC particles), they had con-rod cup-bolts M9X1.0 34mm-long with bolts having a - centre – to – centre distance 48mm.

[e36jon]

Saviour Stivala asked me what length I thought the Ferrari 1.6L Turbo V6 conrod in post #1 was. I dropped the photo into my CAD package and did some math and came up with a shorter / smaller rod than I had anticipated, at ~104mm. Be gentle, please, if I botched the assumptions / math...

[saviour stivala]

Thanks for your troubles JON. Your computerized calculations greatly reinforced my suspicions that the 2014 torbocharged 1.6l V6 piston/rod assemble shown in that photo/picture as claimed by that Japanese collector’s site does not belong to a 2014 F1 1.6L V6 turbocharged engine.

[63l8qrrfy6]

Thanks for your troubles JON. Your computerized calculations greatly reinforced my suspicions that the 2014 torbocharged 1.6l V6 piston/rod assemble shown in that photo/picture as claimed by that Japanese collector’s site does not belong to a 2014 F1 1.6L V6 turbocharged engine.

Why do you think it isn't ?
I am quite convinced it is.

[saviour stivala]

One of the reasons. Hard to figure-out how a 2014 FERRARI hybrid power unit piston assemble finds its way into a Japanese collector’s hands.
The second reason that reinforced that doubt, first my calculations of con-rod length from on that photo and then confirmation by JON’S computer measurements of said con-rod length also from on that photo.
I have no doubt that the actual hybrid engine con-rod length is much longer than what was measured from on that photo.