Quote:
Originally Posted by RedBaron
I still do not understand why they put a V4 engine in a race car. Was it to save space for all of the electrical junk?
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90 degree V configurations are almost universal in the world of stressed engine cars (where the engine block is part of the chassis, bolted to the driver holder and with the suspension mounting to the gearbox) because it is stiff in basically every plane. A flat engine is floppy in vertical bending, an inline is bendy in lateral bending. The V configuration also allows better diffusers than a flat engine as well as a lower crank centerline, so it can actually have a lower cg.
4 cylinders because there is an optimal displacement for an individual cylinder with a given fuel. This has to do with the combustion efficiency (one reason why you need twin plugs with large bores). The bore/stroke ratio also gets dictated by thermodynamic efficiency.
When you have an optimized single cylinder engine running on the dyno you can then decide how much total displacement you want and therefore how many cylinders. No matter the displacement you make the same power essentially. But gasoline engines can't run super super lean like a diesel when you have a safety car or something, so there is an advantage to having a small gasoline engine and having to wait for the power to come in at the top end vs. the low down grunt of the diesel. Of course you have the hybrid system to fill the low down torque need.
The fact that Porsche are running batteries also certainly pushed them towards a small engine so that they could still meet the minimum weight. A short engine like a flat 4 is also going to be more rigid than a longer one.
I am surprised that Toyota stuck with the big 4.0 liter V8 naturally aspirated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Douglas
Next year's race should prove to be very interesting as I'm sure Toyota will have their reliability issues addressed by then.
I think the one thing the organizer's need to address is the speed differential of the competitors in the differing classes. Yeah, I know, it's always been like that, but someone is going to get hurt very badly if something isn't done about it. That and educating the 'rookies' better about what you do in certain situations, like rain.
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It's better that the LMP cars are super fast on the straight so that they can zip by on a relatively easy part of the track, vs. having to dive-bomb corners like we saw with McNish a few years ago.