Engine crashed!!

[schumiGO]

Let's specify engine "death".
What is big white smoke after the car??
If we see some Fire, is it fuel or oil??
What is a blue smoke?

Can anybody explain what we see if oil goes outboard??
freezing liquid ??
Fuel??

[Monstrobolaxa]

Well there was an article in F1 Racing a few years back about the colour of smoke....

blue smoke usually indicates a pneumatic valve failure

white smoke indicates oil either coming from the gearbox cracked housing) or from the engine (engine block crack, cracked/broken piston)

Usually the fires we see are oil caused...

In oils case you see a big puff of white smoke (with no fire) or a fire that has black smoke, in fuels case you'd only see fire with black smoke....in the cooling liquid you'r only see a puff of vapour. fuel caused fires are rare!

[Reca]

White smoke is water, blue is oil

[schumiGO]

Who is right?? ))

[Monstrobolaxa]

I'll look it up....it was in a 1997 or 98 F1 Racing Magazine....I'll look it up when I'm at my moms place...that is where I have all my mags.

But white smoke is oil!.....acrobatic air planes make their smoke trails using burned oil....

[Monstrobolaxa]

Hummm...now I'm kind of mixed up....I found some info...according to Mobil blue smoke is in fact oil like Reca said.....but according to F1 Racing the blueish smole comes from the pneumatic valves....so beeing F1 Racing a magazine....it might have some incorrections...so Reca I'll take Recas opinion as the correct one

[schumiGO]

as you said , i 've just summarized.
Chek my result and correct when i wrong!!
1) f1 engine use for cooling fluid that flows under pressure 3.75 bar.
2) in that conditions It has a boiling point near 120-130 C degree(when P=3.75 bar).
3) F1 Engine always work near 105-107 C.
4) 105 C temp is higher then liquid boiling point in normal pressue(1 bar)
5) When freezing system depressurization, hot (105) liquid immidiatly boils where it has contact with the air.

[keyser]

Warm water at 105 C temperature wouldn't make that much steam when contacting with air. It happens when the water meets with the other parts of the engine: for example the exhaust system runs at 600-800 C degrees.
I've asked some people who designs/creates rallye engines, they say white smoke is water, blue is oil.
Blue smoke can easily indicate valvetrain faliure: when the valves meet with the cylinders at say 15000 rpm terrible things can happen:)

[Reca]

I'll take Recas opinion as the correct one

Do it at your own risk

Anyway this time I was pretty confident because I read it also in an article by Mauro Forghieri, he knows a couple of things.

Here a video of the steam cloud from Sato’s engine at the last gp :
http://f1.tottoro.hu/2004/07_europe/06_sato.avi

[schumiGO]

Does anybody know the effect, when we prepare clean spherical volume,
heat water in it to 110 C (P = 1bar). Then throw some pieces and water immideatly boilt, like a explosion??


Chek my result and correct when i wrong!!

1) f1 engine use for cooling fluid that flows under pressure 3.75 bar.
2) in that conditions It has a boiling point near 120-130 C degree(when P=3.75 bar).
3) F1 Engine always work near 105-107 C.
4) 105 C temp is higher then liquid boiling point in normal pressue(1 bar)
5) When freezing system depressurization, hot (105) liquid immidiatly boils where it has contact with the air.

[Guest]

Reca,
I have a related question. Just how much can a driver influence the reliability of an engine? People have been saying Sato is overdriving his engine and it's his fault they keep blowing. But, Sato has said that everything is controlled by electronics and it is impossible for a driver these days to ruin an engine. Who is right?

Do it at your own risk

Anyway this time I was pretty confident because I read it also in an article by Mauro Forghieri, he knows a couple of things.

Here a video of the steam cloud from Sato’s engine at the last gp :
http://f1.tottoro.hu/2004/07_europe/06_sato.avi

[West]

That would be cool if fire came out of the airbox

[Reca]

Reca,
I have a related question. Just how much can a driver influence the reliability of an engine?

a very simple question... actually that’s a long debated argument, and surely I don’t have a definitive answer, just some thoughts and some info from articles interviews etc.
First of all you have to separate the "immediate" failure from a reduction of the duration. The former, given the amount of electronic protections, is very difficult, but the software isn’t infallible, it could give unpredictable results in case of a particular combination of readings from the sensors and then in a few situations the electronic protection could be useless anyway. (Example, the official motivation for the Massa’s failure in Australia is that he over revved a few times during the spins)
Then you have the other aspect, the reduction of lifetime and here in my opinion a driver could have more responsibility, mainly indirect, because of the settings. There are so many parameters you can adjust that maybe, simply selecting a different map results in putting more stress on the engine compared with another set of parameters and that leads to a reduced lifetime.
A couple of years ago Gené said that Ralf and JPM have a different driving style especially in braking, JPM uses a lot more engine braking and he was setting the automatic downshift at higher rpm than Ralf, up to 700-800 rpm more, putting more stress on the engine. A BMW man confirmed that JPM is (or at least, he was at the time) more rude with the mechanics (I remember he said that JPM used also a more aggressive setting for the TC) but he also specified that it’s not the driver job to respect the car, it’s the team that has to work to allow him to drive as he wants without reliability issues.
Button opinion is a bit different since he said recently that in the years he learned how to preserve the car improving his reliability record.
The search for reliability is a very hard task, and the driver (and his driving style) is a further parameter to consider amongst the others, the different team of mechanics is another one (although the engine is most of time a sealed box for the race team). But if the Sato driving style is the only reason explaining why he had 4 engine failures and Button 0, well that’s very difficult to say.

[Guest]

That's very interesting. Regarding different engine mapping, would two drivers of the same team use different maps? Or are you talking about TC settings? And relying on TC more can be detrimental to the engine, right? Cutting timing, cutting cylinders can all lead to bad things it seems.

And you seem to make a point that it's the settings that can lead to overworked engines. So that means how a driver actually uses the pedal on race day isn't that consequential? I just want to make sure I'm clear on this.

Another thing, your paraphrase of it's not the driver's job to respect the car, but the team's job to provide a working car.. is that from JPM or the BMW man?

Anyway, thanks for the response. I wonder if Button's 'style' has been shaped by the fact that he's had to move teams so often. For him, the car was a given quanitity and he had to adjust to it, rather than wait for the car to adjust to him.

[Rogue230]

Broke a piston, cracked the block, anti-freeze (glycol) got into the cyclinder; Smoke was white.

Engines with failed valve-stem seals leak oil into cyclinders; Smoke is blue.

Cooling systems are 'closed systems'. They operate at (up to for production cars anyway) 18 PSI. That's over 2 bars. Can safely run at 130º C. Crack the block and pressure drops to 1 bar, coolant flashes to steam and goes into the extremely hot exhaust headers with the same effect.

Flames can be oil or fuel but usually oil going into the headers.