Nissan Unveils 88 Pound 400-HP Race Car Engine 239
cartechboy writes "Motorsports used to be about lots of horsepower, torque, and big engines. In recent years there's been a shift to downsizing engines, using less fuel, and even using alternative energy such as clean diesel and hybrid powertrains. Today Nissan unveiled a 400-horsepower 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbocharged engine that weighs only 88 pounds. This engine will be part of the advanced plug-in hybrid drivetrain that will power the ZEOD RC electrified race car that will run in the 2015 LMP1 class during the race season. Nissan says the driver of the ZEOD RC will be able to switch between electric power and gasoline power with the batteries being recharged via regenerative braking. Even more impressive, according to Nissan, for every hour the ZEOD RC races, the car will be able to run one lap of the Le Mans' 8.5-mile Circuit de la Sarthe on electric power alone. If true, that will make it the first race car in history to complete a lap during a formal race with absolutely zero emissions. If this all works, we could be witnessing the future of motorsports unfold before our eyes later this year when the ZEOD RC (video) makes its race debut at this year's Le Mans 24 Hours in June."
For the non USA people (Score:5, Informative)
39.9kG
For the USA people (Score:4, Informative)
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it should be g not G. G is the universal gravitational constant.
In this context, i.e. used as a unit, it's gauss.
Still wrong though.
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So roughly a four-thousandth of a Delorean!
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No, only the time circuits and the flux capacitor needed over a GW of electricity in order to function. The car's actual engine was an ordinary internal combustion engine that output a little less than 100 KW.
(Come to think of it, stealing a steam train seems unnecessarily complicated and history-altering. Surely it would've been easier for Doc Brown to put together an electrically heated steam engine to get the DeLorean moving. Oh well, sensible ideas rarely make for exciting movies.)
Re:For the non USA people (Score:5, Insightful)
It's probably 402hp, since Nissan are Japanese and probably told the US press it was 40kg and 300kW.
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What about the power? I don't speak horse.
I was going to say "Let me Google that for you!", but Wolfram provides a very detailed answer. http://www.wolframalpha.com/in... [wolframalpha.com]
Sure, but what about (Score:3)
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I think it will last at least 24 hours, since they're entering it in a 24 hour race.
In 1984 Renault made a production car with a 1.5L engine producing 345hp called the R5 Maxi Turbo.
Google group B rally cars.
Re:Sure, but what about (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's going to run LeMans, then it'll have to last 24 hours. :)
Kidding aside, it's not unusual for a race car engine to get rebuilt / replaced after every race. Heck, F1 used to use different engines for qualifying and the race. The qualifying engines were so lightweight and high strung they only lasted 12 to 15 laps. (F1 races are around 60 laps, depending on the track)
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hmmm... formula 1 engine rules change quite a bit overtime. I know, I know, you wrote "used to use":
http://www.formula1.com/inside... [formula1.com]
http://www.formula1.com/inside... [formula1.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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As en enduro racer, *grin* no, it doesn't have to last 24hrs. It does if you want to FINISH. (also, there's nothing in the rules that prevent an engine replacement during the race. It takes a fair amount of time to swap an engine.) You don't see F1 teams doing it because there's no point; they'd never recover the dozen lost laps. NASCAR has been known to, but they're getting back out to maintain season points. We do it because we wanna race; we're going to be 50+ laps down, but we don't care at that point
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the horsepower per hour of engine life? That thing looks like it'll last 20 hours before it needs rebuilding.
A point the story ignores. Any idiot can get buttloads of power out of an engine if it doesn't have to do so for very long. Two-stroke engines are particularly good for this if fuel consumption and exhaust emissions are minor considerations.
...laura
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Would you expect a lifetime like ...
a 19th century locomotive?
a modern marine diesel the size of a skyscraper
other engines that barely last 24 hours
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and this in question is not about lifetime, but maximizing efficiency and power output.
Later on, a consumer version will be detuned to 200kW or less, and last that required 150k miles or so, since it's going into a sports car, the lifetime target for that engine is going to be 200k kilometers. BMW uses this target for the M series, after that 200k kilometers, each cheaper to replace the whole engine buying new from factory than to rebuild since everything is so worn out.
Those engines still function, produce
Series hybrids (Score:5, Interesting)
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Bingo, I think that will be the next wave.
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You mean something a bit like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]
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There are buses that do just that. The problem is its not very reliable and starting gas turbines takes a lot of fuel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
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Why? Just spin it up to speed using the electric motor you've got strapped to it anyway!
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The motor/generator isn't connected to the main shaft that's connected to the compressor. It's connected to a separate shaft spun by the exhaust.
Spinning that is only going to lower pressure in the combustion chamber by sucking air through it.
You're forgetting the reliability problems too.
Do you know how often they have to swap out engines in the M1 Abrams tank, despite the air filters? They're also less fuel efficient than diesel engine tanks.
The high temperatures, pressures and stress on the components ma
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Do you know how often they have to swap out engines in the M1 Abrams tank, despite the air filters? They're also less fuel efficient than diesel engine tanks.
Part of that is the age of the M1A1 Abrams. WHEN it was designed the turbine system was state of the art and produced far more power in less space than diesels of that generation could ever hope for.
I've read some possible projects to upgrade the tank, ranging from stuffing a modern diesel in here to putting in an updated turbine to making the tank a hybrid, at which point the turbine would swapped for a highly efficient fixed power one.
Re:Series hybrids (Score:5, Funny)
... a gas turbine. Use it to drive a big alternator and viola!
Gas turbine + alternator = small stringed instrument?
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... a gas turbine. Use it to drive a big alternator and viola!
Gas turbine + alternator = small stringed instrument?
No... gas turbine -> alternator + medium stringed instrument...
He's saying the turbine will drive both. I'd pay to see that concert!
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The problem with gas turbines is that small ones are not noted for efficiency (It has to do with the engineering tolerences of the compressor blade tip clearance among other things), and the bearings generally dislike the imposed accelerations when a high performance road car turns hard (Extreme gyroscopic loads). An electric drive chain with some secondary storage would however somewhat reduce the problems with horrible throttle response inherent in needing to get the mass flow up in sync with the extra fu
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Right, but they were coupled directly and mechanically to the wheels. That's just not a good fit for a turbine. (My uncle was one of the designers of the Leyland Gas Turbine truck in the late 1960s - google it, it was pretty cool, if an experimental dead-end). But driving an alternator is a good fit. Use a bank of super capacitors as a buffer and you're good to go. Yes there are proble
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The problem with gas turbines is ... the bearings generally dislike the imposed accelerations when a high performance road car turns hard (Extreme gyroscopic loads).
Why not place the turbine with the shaft vertical?
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Because of hills and banked curves.
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Why not place the turbine with the shaft vertical?
It's bad no matter which way you put it, because vibrations are going to be transmitted into it and they are going to stress the bearings. Even with exhaust recirculation you're still producing an awful lot of excess exhaust, too, just throwing that power away.
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Well, since a jet fighter can pull far more G than any car, I'm thinking this is surely a solved problem.
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Anybody else wonder why they're not using diesel engines for series hybrids?
Run the engine at optimal speed and use it as a generator.
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Extra cost and diminishing returns.
Basically, diesel and electric motors are both more expensive, and hybrids already reduce the usefulness of the efficiency of diesels, and so using both just makes a more expensive car with less benefit than you'd think. Especially given a series hybrid only uses the ICE when the battery runs out, which for the majority of drivers of these fairly specific-use vehicles (i.e. best for commuting/short drives) should be the exception.
Or for a specific example - a friend of mi
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I looked into building one and tracked down a couple people that had done it. It works a lot better on paper than in the real world. The turbines are not as efficient or as powerful as the manufacturers make them out to be.
A huge problem is loose debris on the road. Airports spend a ton of effort keeping debris off of their runways. A few pieces of gravel ingested into a turbine can destroy it.
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Turbines need a ton of air. Filters work against that.
Is it really 88 pounds? (Score:3)
The engine the guy in the picture is holding has no turbocharger on it.
It's not going to produce 400hp without it. The other pictures have one.
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And the other pictures still don't have the intercooler. It won't make 400HP without that either.
So no, it's not really 88 pounds at 400HP. Unsurprising a company would fib in a press release, isn't it?
Race car (Score:2)
What sort of car racing is this for? Is there a motor race for hybrids?
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Check the recent LeMans results. You'll learn something.
Re:Race car (Score:4, Insightful)
What sort of car racing is this for? Is there a motor race for hybrids?
LeMans is an endurance race, making it to the end is a lot more important than going fast and in a race like LeMan's going fast is achieved by light weight rather than big engines.
Endurance races are about managing resources, fuel and brake usage, managing the driver (ensuring they are fed and watered) and so forth.
For those of us who don't have billions of dollars, check out the 24 hours of LeMons, an endurance race for cars under $500.
Absolutely zero emissions (Score:5, Funny)
Since the battery was charged by burning gasoline in the engine, how does that make it "absolutely zero emissions"?
The rubber that comes off a tyre in one lap at speed should also qualify as pollution.
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You forgot to mention zero-reasoning editors.
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Where did anyone call this a "zero emissions" car? The summary mentions completing one lap with no emissions, but nobody is saying it's a zero-emissions vehicle.
More competition (Score:3)
I hope these low/no emission races grow to rival formula 1 and and nascar. They are a great way to boost innovation and also encourage people to adopt the tech.
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Maybe, but 400hp is nothing to F1 and NASCAR. And both series have almost molecular requirements for their engines.
F1 and NASCAR aren't really races. F1 was a race long ago but the drivers are more machine than man now. Everything is computer controlled from acceleration to braking and cornering. The driver is mostly excess weight these days. But this makes NASCAR look good, the steering wheel is almost superfluous there.
I find rally cross and GT more interesting these days.
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"Everything is computer controlled from acceleration to braking and cornering"
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
None of that is computer controlled, unless you consider a completely normal car with an ECU (so any car from the 1990s onward) to be "computer controlled."
-There is no ABS/traction control/etc.
-The brakes are directly connected via hydraulic line, no computer involved
-the ECU does the same thing the ECU in your car does, tell the injectors how much fuel to squirt. It can enable
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Yep no computers, but no real turns either. IIRC the car has the camber and steering adjusted to one side because right hand turns are never done.
And it's batshit boring, cars are basically going around in a circle.
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Go drive one and tell me how easy it is to control at 180mph+. (actually, they won't let you (us) go that fast, but 140-160mph will certainly change your perspective)
I'm someone who does race (my CAMS license allows me to enter events at the state level in Australia) that's exactly why I don't like them.NASCAR cars suffer from the same problems as the Australian V8 supercars, they are too heavy, too unwieldy and as a result don't take to corners very well at low speeds, let alone high speeds. The difference is the V8 Supercars race on proper circuits, not ovals.
I've raced Nissan GT-R's and even had a track day in a 600 HP McLaren MP4-12C (and have a fax machine with
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You say NASCAR is easy but the only top driver from another series to ever do well in NASCAR was Andretti, every other driver to come over has been in the bottom 20% or so. With the money available in NASCAR you'd think that more than a few top to mid pack drivers from other top series would be tempted to cross over for the 'easy' driving.
Thought Experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
You attach a compressor to the exhaust pipe on a normal car. The exhaust is compressed and stored in a tank. The tank can hold the exhaust from one lap of a race. During a lap, no emissions are released. Would you have a "first race car in history to complete a lap during a formal race with absolutely zero emissions". No. You wouldn't. Whoever is claiming "zero emissions" is a fool. Altering the time or location when emissions are released does not make something zero emissions. How much nasty bunker oil was used to ship all the parts around the globe to make the damn thing? How many children in China will get cancer because they live next to the mine that produced all the rare earths that went into the magnets and electronics?
Minimizing pollution is a noble goal. Making blatantly false and misleading statements to support your world view, biases or support your agenda is wrong on many levels.
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The question is how fast will the car be for that lap? Dragging around a big old steel tank plus powering a badass compressor, or running on batteries that you have to drag around the rest of the race suggests that you have some real tradeoffs here.
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Ever stuck a banana in the tail pipe? You maintain pressure on the back end (exhaust) and the engine dies. An internal combustion engine runs on pressure differential between pistons and outside air pressure. Eliminate the outside air pressure with a device to maintain the pressure on the back end and the system won't run because the back pressure on the exhaust system prevents the intake manifold from drawing in fresh air (normally the hot exhaust exiting the tailpipe generates the suction necessary to dra
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huh? I said run the exhaust into a compressor that then pushes all the exhaust into a storage tank. The air flow through the engine would be unchanged.
This is a thought experiment. The fact that you are trying to compress large amounts of hot gasses (not easy), the tank size/weight, power and size requirements for the compressor are all ignored. The point is: tail pipe emissions are not the end-all-be-all when it comes to actual pollution generated/environmental impact of the system.
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If you are running a compressor what is the point in using the hot corrosive gasses from the exhaust system? After all if your goal is to just collect the gas what the hell do you need a compressor for?
I assumed you were suggesting that you recover some pressure by collecting the already pressurized gas, but doing so robs the engine of the pressure differential used to maintain the air flow in the engine. I misinterpreted that so I apologize, but at least with that faulty assumption you appeared to be tryin
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No great feat... (Score:2)
Think of the kids (Score:2)
Find one unused and strap it to a go kart or mini bike, mmmmooooooooooommmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaa
Ferrari F1 (Score:5, Informative)
Ferrari claims that their 1.6 liter, V6 2014 F1 engine produces 600-650 HP with another 160 HP from the Energy Recovery System. Each driver gets just five engines for the 19 race season.
http://formula1.ferrari.com/ne... [ferrari.com]
Technology marches on.
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Yes and because of the FIA mandating two energy recovery systems and other changes, it will probably be the most unreliable year for F1 Engine manufacturers and constructors in quite awhile. It'll be great for the Drama and Bernie can make a few more bucks.
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Ahem. From the article.
"At a ratio of 4.5 horsepower per pound, the new engine even has a better power-to-weight ratio than the new turbocharged 1.6-liter V-6 engines to be used in Formula One this season."
Battery weight? (Score:3)
Nissan Unveils 88 Pound 400-HP Race Car Engine
How about battery weight that drives this semi electric beast?
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Absolutely zero emission? (Score:2)
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The "energy conversion" is an internal combustion engine. ;)
Scale it down? (Score:2)
So could we scale that down and get a 10kg 100 kW engine that could be used as a range extender for an EV?
"The future of motorsports"? *sigh* (Score:2)
I'm not saying Nissan shouldn't do this, with the Leaf they're heavily invested in EVs and this is great PR, but let's not pretend that in two years EVs will be dominating the racing world.
Not necessarily... (Score:3)
Motorsports used to be about... big engines
As long ago as the 70's, we were able to get as much as 1,000hp per liter of engine displacement through the use of pure toluene and five or more atmospheres of boost (Can Am); squeezung ungodly amounts of horsepower from small engines isn't anything new.
The ultimate sleeper (Score:2)
Drop that thing in a bike and you've got something (Score:2)
See title.
Re:This engine will make my cock 6 times larger. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah... except... over the last few decades, technology advances like this at the cutting edge of racing technology have translated within a few years to increased fuel efficiency and so on in production cars.
Vehicle technology gets driven forward by the people who sink lots of money into vanity projects like this. We all end up benefiting from it.
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But typical size and weight of cars have been increasing - along with the typical use of AC and other power-robbing technologies. So while we might (just might) have lost on fuel economy, we're having larger, heavier and more comfortable cars (not to mention safer and usually more reliable)
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For American cars perhaps, I'm not an expert, but Japanese and European cars have become a lot more efficient over the last couple of decades and some of that is due to technology that started off in competitive racing. For example the VW Passat has a version of KERS which was developed for F1. Honda has a hybrid performance Civic model. Tyres have been improved a great deal too thanks to new materials and construction methods developed for racing.
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I thought when it came to trucks it was engine capacity, not actual power delivery.
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There are already full size electric motorcycles for sale if you can live with the range restrictions. The Empulse [brammo.com] has a transmission. The Mission RS [mission-motorcycles.com] is direct drive.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:5, Informative)
As an actual motorsport specialist and not just shitposting - this is not just real but a case where the hyperbole matches reality. 300Kw out of a 1.5 litre motor has long been possible, the old F1 engines produced 4 times that in qualifying trim. In race trim as the boost has to be turned down, close to 500Kw and more.
The weight of the engine is quite amazing. 39 kgs for a long block is a hell of a thing. And even more that it's also a dressed long block, where items liek the alternator and water pumps are on the engine and included in the weight. Even the turbo, that's amazing. Given the best way to add performance is lose weight, this is at least a 50 kgs' advantage. In this case it is offset by the hybrid system but a electric motor has a huge amount of torque so this thing will fucking SCOOT out of corners.
IF it works, then yes this is a revolution in motorsport. I am not seeing a problem with the headlines or what Nissan is claiming.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:5, Informative)
not really people have gotten 900HP out of 2.0L EVO engines so 400 out of a 1.5L is within the realm of attainability whats really impressive is the weight
The old Gruppe B racers were some classic examples of engineers gone wild. Tremendously powered 4 cyl engines in fly-weight all-wheel-drive cars, which regularly flew off the track, into crowds lining the course with spectacularly bloody results. Eventually the race series was cancelled, but the little monsters of each builder's homologation are to still be found in the collections of automotive buffs around the world. Look up the Ford RS-200 as an example.
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If I remember correctly, that Ford RS-200 was one of the car choices in a racing game some years back, maybe Driver: San Francisco. It was one of the best cars in the game and I'd never heard of it. It flew, but it was difficult to handle.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:4, Interesting)
If I remember correctly, that Ford RS-200 was one of the car choices in a racing game some years back, maybe Driver: San Francisco. It was one of the best cars in the game and I'd never heard of it. It flew, but it was difficult to handle.
Which was the moot point when the FIA series ended. To much power, too difficult to maintain control. Probably the first time any racing series achieved the upper limit in power. Many races now require restrictor plates to limit power, returning the race to a contest of driver skill over engineering prowess.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:5, Interesting)
I would argue that the 1967 Formula One season [wikipedia.org] was the first time a racing series had cars that were too powerful to control. 400-500bhp V8 and V12 engines attached to four wheels and a gas tank, sitting on old-style treaded tires with no downforce wings. In fact, the two fatalities during this season (including Lorenzo Bandini's horrendous accident [wikipedia.org] at Monaco) forced the FIA to mandate new safety features, such as requiring wings on the cars.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:4, Interesting)
I would go back even further. Pre-WWII cars had large displacement motors that produced far more power than could be put to use on dirt roads and the fragile tires of the day. I agree with the point that the move from the 1.5L formula in 67 brought faster speeds, exactly why the change was made. Lotus introduced wings; the FIA did more to ban them than encourage their use.
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Some of them had 5 cylinders [wikipedia.org], you insensitive clod.
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I'm not normally much of a racing buff, but the BBC did a fascinating documentary about Group B rallying [bbc.co.uk] which is well worth a watch if you can find a copy. Lots of interviews with the drivers and the engineers who created such monsters.
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not really people have gotten 900HP out of 2.0L EVO engines so 400 out of a 1.5L is within the realm of attainability whats really impressive is the weight
I do recall reading about several individuals who have gotten 1k+ HP out of 2.0L Ford Cosworth engines.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:5, Insightful)
You can get insane power out of any engine, but you use up the engine quite fast. A topfuel engine (~8L) can have 1k HP just of parasitic loss to the supercharger, but still make 8-10,000 HP. Getting 1000-1250 HP/l happens everywhere topfuel is run, but there's a significant risk the engine won't even last 1/4 mile! (Or however long topfuel runs these days - they shortened the race as the cars had become overly dangerous.)
What impressive about this car is it's built for an endurance race: LeMans and a few others leading up to it. Anyone skilled can turn the turbo pressure up on an EVO engine, but getting it to run at power for 24 hours that way is something far more impressive.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup - top fuel is special. For any claims about engine power, it really matters where on the scale from "rebuilt every 3 minutes of operation" to "rebuilt every 300k miles" the engine lies.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:4, Funny)
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Strapping yourself into something with one seat and 3000hp, and racing it on a flat surface - that's crazy.
Strapping yourself into something with one seat and 3000hp, and then racing the thing on a surface that's constantly moving is a special kind of crazy.
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Strapping yourself into something with one seat and 3000hp, and racing it on a flat surface - that's crazy.
Strapping yourself into something with one seat and 3000hp, and then racing the thing on a surface that's constantly moving is a special kind of crazy.
I have some lovely pictures of an off shore boat, where the props exploded and took out the back of the hull. What a neat day that was.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:4, Interesting)
Watching Top Fuel drag racing can be boring, but the technology is amazing. Here's a video showing how much fuel is provided to each cylinder during a race-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTbQuhhluY
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Oldsmobile had a 900 and 1000 HP version of the Quad-4 2 liter engine for the Oldsmobile Aerotech [wikipedia.org] expermental cars in 1987.
Rod Millen won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in his Toyota Celica [gtplanet.net]. He was getting 600HP out of a 4 cylinder in 1994. It was up to 900 in 1996. and he had it up to 1000HP the next year. While it's not an endurance race like Le Mans. It's still a hell of a lot more realistic than 1/4 mile engines.
What I'd like to know, besides the price tag, is how realistic is that weight? Is that with
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The Cosworth GBA is a 1.5 litre turbocharged V6. It develops about 1000bhp (official figures were never released, so it could be higher). That engine is from the mid 1980s, so it may be old hat by now. That figure was good for 600 miles, which by F1 race standards is "reliable".
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I had to learn about significant digits in high school. Why do people do things like that when changing units?
88 pounds = 40 kg.
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Or the more likely explanation is that it's just some arbitrary weight that happens to be close to 88 lbs. or 40 kg.