Le Mans..........

[Outback Porsche]

And the fat lady sings

[Outback Porsche]

And now #14?

[onewhippedpuppy]

It's on Fox Sports 2 also right now.

[bell]

I pay like 10 bucks for fs1 for f1.... It's another 10 bucks for fs2.....f cable....... thieves. ...

[Baz]

If we're gonna get beat - I want it to be Audi. Losing the 20 car was bad enough but the 14 also - at this late in the game......

[URY914]

Not a good day for the P-cars.....

[fred cook]

Audi finished 1,2 and Porsches were 11 and 12. The #14 car went out right at the end for the race finish.

[FLYGEEZER]

Porsche needs to stay with internal combustion.....this electrolux car thing will pass.

[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?

[Noah930]

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?

Not exactly sure. In the February Christophorus (Porsche) magazine, the head of the 919 program cited reasons of using the motor as a stressed member and certain "thermodynamic benefits." The exhaust flow powers not only a turbocharger, but also some sort of a "dynamo" for energy recovery (Christophorus is more marketing than technical). Perhaps location of those ancillary components is benefitted from the engine's V-configuration.

The rules don't specify cylinder count, displacement, or fuel type. But depending on the power of the hybrid system, there are varying amounts of fuel the car can consume per lap. More available hybrid power, less fuel allotment.

[NOLAsc]

Watching the post race show, and they haven't said what happened to the 919s. Was it the same fuel issue as early in the race?

[livi]

I suppose Porsche is slightly disappointed.

[URY914]

Diesel engines once again prove to be very reliable.

[javadog]

Originally Posted by NOLAsc

Watching the post race show, and they haven't said what happened to the 919s. Was it the same fuel issue as early in the race?

They said the engine was making some noises, so something wasn't happy inside. We'll see in the coming days...

JR

[rfuerst911sc]

I watched about 14 hours of the race and found it very entertaining. All the top cars in LMP1 had issues and they all had to fight to win you can't ask much more than that. Sure I was pulling for Porsche but they have been out of the game for a while and the rules have changed drastically. Hey with 2 hours to go they were leading not bad for brand new technology. They will figure out what went wrong, improve it and move on. I do not think this new technology that all the top teams are using is a fad it is reality for where we are currently. I enjoyed the race and now on to the next one. Congrats to all the winners and everyone that was running in the end.

[Baz]

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by FLYGEEZER

Porsche needs to stay with internal combustion.....this electrolux car thing will pass.

Not likely. Electric motors have too many high-performance benefits. (Look up the term "Torque-fill" )

(Caveat - I predicted Lewis Hamilton would be a bust at Mercedes this year, so what do I know.)

[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.

[LeeH]

Doesn't every new Porsche model have some niggling defect that gets fixed in later models?

Audi's just lucky that their cars were still under warranty.

[Flieger]

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?

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.

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.

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.