An Electric Racecar Drives Upside Down (jalopnik.com) 56
Formula One cars, the world's fastest racecars, need to grip the track for speed and safety on the curves — leading engineers to design cars that create downforce. And racing fans are even told that "a Formula 1 racecar generates enough downforce above a certain speed that it could theoretically drive upside down," writes the automotive site Jalopnik.
"McMurtry Automotive turned this theory into reality after having its Spéirling hypercar complete the impressive feat..." Admittedly, the Spéirling's success can be solely attributed to its proprietary 'Downforce-on-Demand' fan system that produces 4,400 pounds of downforce at the push of a button... For those looking to do the math, Spéirling weighs 2,200 pounds. With the stopped car's fan whirling at 23,000 rpm, the rig was rotated to invert the road deck... Then, the hypercar rolled forward a few feet before stopping while inverted. The rig rotated the road deck back down, and the Spéirling drove off like nothing happened.
The McMurtry Spéirling, as a 1,000-hp twin-motor electric hypercar, didn't have to clear the other hurdles that an F1 car would have clear to drive upside down. Dry-sump combustion engines aren't designed to run inverted and would eventually fail catastrophically. Oil wouldn't be able to cycle through and keep the engine lubricated.
The car is "an electric monster purpose-built to destroy track records," Jalopnik wrote in 2022 when the car shaved more than two seconds off a long-standing record. The "Downforce-on-Demand" feature gives it tremendous acceleration — in nine seconds it can go from 0 to 186.4 mph (300 km/h), according to Jalopnik.
"McMurtry is working towards finalizing a production version of its hypercar, called the Spéirling PURE. Only 100 will be produced."
"McMurtry Automotive turned this theory into reality after having its Spéirling hypercar complete the impressive feat..." Admittedly, the Spéirling's success can be solely attributed to its proprietary 'Downforce-on-Demand' fan system that produces 4,400 pounds of downforce at the push of a button... For those looking to do the math, Spéirling weighs 2,200 pounds. With the stopped car's fan whirling at 23,000 rpm, the rig was rotated to invert the road deck... Then, the hypercar rolled forward a few feet before stopping while inverted. The rig rotated the road deck back down, and the Spéirling drove off like nothing happened.
The McMurtry Spéirling, as a 1,000-hp twin-motor electric hypercar, didn't have to clear the other hurdles that an F1 car would have clear to drive upside down. Dry-sump combustion engines aren't designed to run inverted and would eventually fail catastrophically. Oil wouldn't be able to cycle through and keep the engine lubricated.
The car is "an electric monster purpose-built to destroy track records," Jalopnik wrote in 2022 when the car shaved more than two seconds off a long-standing record. The "Downforce-on-Demand" feature gives it tremendous acceleration — in nine seconds it can go from 0 to 186.4 mph (300 km/h), according to Jalopnik.
"McMurtry is working towards finalizing a production version of its hypercar, called the Spéirling PURE. Only 100 will be produced."
Nice Touch (Score:2, Informative)
Then, the hypercar rolled forward a few feet before stopping while inverted.
I appreciate this touch to avoid technically lying about "driving upside down."
Re:Nice Touch (Score:5, Funny)
Driving upside down was old and busted in the last century already.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Dry-sump combustion engines aren't designed to run inverted and would eventually fail catastrophically. Oil wouldn't be able to cycle through and keep the engine lubricated.
On the other hand, the car weighs 500lbs more than an F1 car, which means it requires more downforce.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This wasn't centrifugal force though. The force here would be air pressure from fans in this case, or maybe wings or spoilers.
Which doesn't act on all parts of the vehicle equally. So oil and fuel will readily fall to what is normally the top of the engine.
The solution would be to use an sport aircraft engine with fully pressurized oil and fuel systems. Or, as in this case, electric motors instead of an engine.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, watch the video, I was going "what spiral setup?", they literally created a rotating table barely longer than the car. That's pure suction.
As for a spiral/loop system that would be centrifugal, like in a roller coaster, I'd question whether the necessary turning radius would allow most race cars to use it - they tend be built very low to the ground, and can only take very limited changes in slope.
As you switch to a much gentler spiral, depending more on aerodynamic downforce to keep the car to the su
I wonder (Score:1)
Battery Drain (Score:3)
Re:Battery Drain (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting. However, while I can see it setting lap records for single laps I can't imagine it will do very well in any but the shortest of races since powering a fan that powerful is going to be a significant drain on the battery.
In the video, they mentioned an upgraded battery for the car that estimates upwards of 10 laps at speed on a sizeable track.
Given that this is built-for-purpose, every design consideration is as well. That’s more than enough power to run around the planet smashing track records. Thing doesn’t even qualify as a grocery getter unless you’re shopping for nose candy.
Re: (Score:3)
Interesting. However, while I can see it setting lap records for single laps I can't imagine it will do very well in any but the shortest of races since powering a fan that powerful is going to be a significant drain on the battery.
In the video, they mentioned an upgraded battery for the car that estimates upwards of 10 laps at speed on a sizeable track.
Given that this is built-for-purpose, every design consideration is as well. That’s more than enough power to run around the planet smashing track records. Thing doesn’t even qualify as a grocery getter unless you’re shopping for nose candy.
Note that they used the smaller battery to set times... anyone who's done any kind of racing knows weight is your enemy when it comes to lap times. An F1 car has to be a minimum of 798 KG, that's a minimum as they can make them lighter. Something like an Ariel Atom is just over 600 KG and pulling lap times with a 2L supercharged engine that could never be matched by any 2T SUV no matter how big an engine you put into it. Straight line speed matters not on a track, what you need is to carry speed into a corn
Re: (Score:2)
There is a reason the Mazda MX5 (Miata) is so loved by car enthusiasts and it's not because it has a lot of horsies..
Yeah, because they moved the 240SX from E/SP to D/SP because it won all the races, so the Miata (which remained in E/SP) became competitive. (Also all the 240SXs have been smashed up by drifters now.)
Boo! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Reckless endangerment is supposed to be the entire point of a stunt like this, not "we built a machine that can just cheat it"
Stig driving that beast around a track faster than an F1 car, isn’t exactly low-risk boring. Just ask his insurance underwriter.
And quite frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the racing community calls this cheating instead of competing. Particularly if McMurtry holds a patent on a certain fan design they don’t feel like sharing anytime soon.
Re:Boo! (Score:4, Informative)
> And quite frankly, I wouldnâ(TM)t be surprised if the rest of the racing community calls this cheating instead of competing.
It's been considered cheating by the racing community for just over 45 years now, actually...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
High-end racing like Formula 1 (or Formula E for electric cars) has extremely strict rules, which is why all of the cars end up looking very similar. There is no "wheel to wheel" race series this car is legal to race in, and they knew that going in. It's not "cheating" because they aren't attempting to enter any such series.
It was built as a time trial/hot lap type car. It's about just being fast as a car can be around a track without regard to racing rules. It's a tech test bed more than a true race car. H
Completely missing the point? (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't the entire point of being able to drive upside down that some cars at high speed generate insane amounts of downforce?
Of course, an active downforce system like this is cool (and not new, in the 70's there were racecars that did this, but was quickly banned from racing for many reasons).
But that basically an electric helicopter can "fly" for a short while isn't particularly impressive, and completely missing the point of why F1 cars could drive upside down when driving at sufficient speed. And the main reason no one is building stuff like this is that it's been banned from racing since the 70's...
I'm hoping someone builds a hotwheels like track where racedrivers actually at high speed with enough downforce drive upside down for a bit (although, probably hard to make something like that safe enough...).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes it's basically an inverted helicopter..
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Completely missing the point? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm hoping someone builds a hotwheels like track where racedrivers actually at high speed with enough downforce drive upside down for a bit (although, probably hard to make something like that safe enough...).
Driver 61 on youtube is having a go at this: https://www.youtube.com/playli... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:1)
First, it's not an F1 car.
Second it's in a limited length tunnel.
Finally it's NOT EVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
SO while I'm a fan of Scott Mansell (no relation to Nigel) and Jolyon Palmer (son of Jonathan Palmer) and various other racier.
THIS SHIT WILL NOT FLY (aka race upside down). It is a valid concept in physics but the transitions are killing them.
Might as well talk about how Trump COULD tell the truth. Yes he COULD. But he WON'T. And going from his lies to the
truth is a barrier. Also I said Trump because
Re: (Score:2)
Weren't the fan cars of the 70s much simpler though? The fan was just connected to the engine, meaning the rotational speed wasn't very controllable. It helped but this seems to be an active system that the driver to control separately to the throttle, which is very handy as you don't want all that downforce on a straight, but need it when cornering, and there is doubtless some lag with it engaging.
It's not a helicopter, it's more like one of those window vacuum bots that sucks itself against the glass. It'
Re: (Score:1)
Weren't the fan cars of the 70s much simpler though? The fan was just connected to the engine, meaning the rotational speed wasn't very controllable
No and No. The Chaparral 2J actually had a separate 2 cylinder engine to run the 2 fans. It also had a skirt that was tied into the suspension to maintain vacuum under the car. It could have held itself upside down due to the fans creating 1.5G of down force. Though it's unlikely the engine(s) could have run that way.
I'm not positive, but I believe the driver could control the down force. Jim Hall also used driver adjustable spoilers in prior cars because the extra down force slowed the car down on a st
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
When driving upside down, it's technically upforce.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not missing the point as much as it is making a different point. The point of the downforce is downforce for grip, not that this is purely generated by drag. The reality of why you have downforce is not really the question, the question is can you generate that much downforce.
The system from the 1970s wasn't banned. The banned system was the one from Lotus which used aerodynamics to create a vacuum under the car. This led to some spectacular accidents when the aerodynamics were upset, this design doesn
Re: (Score:2)
Like the olympics, in f1 racing I'd love to see a category of ultrafastest, no barriers, no limits.
I expect it would be amazing, like this has been: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Fans are illegal in F1 (Score:3)
So that demonstration is completely missing the point. F1 cars generate their downforce exclusively by carefully guided airflow, which is technologically much more demanding than just installing a suction fan.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So that demonstration is completely missing the point. F1 cars generate their downforce exclusively by carefully guided airflow, which is technologically much more demanding than just installing a suction fan.
If the technical reason for banning them is a fear of fan failure (essentially the car losing grip damn near instantly), then I guess I’d have to question how many other components could fail on an F1 car that are equally as risky.
Racing is inherently risky. People don’t just get hurt. People die. For the love of the sport. If the drivers want to drive upside down or with fans, I say let ‘em.
Given the fact this car beat the shit out of the lap record set by an F1 car, I’d say the
Re: (Score:2)
If the technical reason for banning them is a fear of fan failure (essentially the car losing grip damn near instantly), then I guess I’d have to question how many other components could fail on an F1 car that are equally as risky.
Only that wasn't the reason they were banned. They were banned because while they allowed much higher speed aerodynamic stability - especially on curves - was very inconsistent, leading to serious crashes. Also, not all teams at the time had enough resources to build the fans, so it could hinder the competition.
Aside from fans, "normal ground effect" was banned in 1982 because of safety concerns and only allowed back in 2022, since it's much less of a safety concern nowadays. But for anyone who's been watch
Re: (Score:2)
If the technical reason for banning them is a fear of fan failure (essentially the car losing grip damn near instantly), then I guess I’d have to question how many other components could fail on an F1 car that are equally as risky.
See Liam Lawson's crash in practice at Bahrain earlier this week when he closed his DRS too late for an example of how that works.
Re: (Score:2)
No, not missing the point. Downforce is downforce. How they generate it is irrelevant. The point is that it exists and it's a lot. Speaking of F1 there were in fact F1 cars which used fans to generate downforce, such as the Brabham BT46. The whole point is to keep the wheels on the road, it's being pointlessly pedantic to say that it needs to be done aerodynamically.
Re: (Score:1)
Doing it the hard way (Score:3)
Driver61 [youtube.com] is working on a project to drive upside down without using a fan, using downforce generated by driving the car at high speed. The main problem was finding a place to do this: road tunnels have too much infrastructure hanging from the ceiling.
Re: (Score:2)
Except that Driver61's "easy way" is not doing it as well. The big problem with relying on speed for downforce is that you lose downforce when you need it most: going around a corner. There's a reason this car just shattered a 20 year old lap record held by a Formula 1 car.
Re: (Score:2)
I meant that the other way round: Driver61's doing it the hard way.
For decades, we've had racecars that produce enough downforce that they could theoretically drive on the ceiling, but nobody's done it IRL. Driver61 is designing a track where this can be done.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahhh gotchya.
so.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
A tesla will do 0-100 in 4.2 and is has a top speed of over 250mph.
And yet it shows up no where near the top of the lap records for Top Gear and will not give you the neck breaking forces when driving around a chicane. I know this will upset Americans who don't have fun roads, but there's more to life than accelerating in a straight line, or doing gentle left turns in a circle for hours at a time.
Acceleration and top speed mean nothing if you have to slam on the brakes when you see a corner off in the distance. There's a reason a Yamaha F1 racing bike is beaten on a racing
Re: (Score:2)
Americans do have fun roads, though most of them have a deadly drop off one side of them. Check out CA 175 between Hopland and Lakeport for a sample. The ostensible record is about 13 minutes, set by one of the local Lake co. racers (initials J.A.) before there got to be too much traffic on it to accomplish a flat out run even at night.
wat (Score:3)
Dry-sump combustion engines aren't designed to run inverted
Weren't dry sumps invented specifically for the purpose of running inverted... in airplanes? It's wet sump engines that aren't designed to run inverted, not dry ones. TFS is exactly backwards.
Re: (Score:2)
NONE OF THIS (Score:1)
F1 isn not the fastest. It's tradeoff between money engine, downforce,etc.
Tallk to your F1 experts before spewing out this crap.
Upside down driving ia a concept described for 50 years. Look up Jolyon Palmer's attempt on YT.
It will NEVER HAPPEN.
Congrats. You're an idiot who got paid by Ars to help make its readers stupider.
How do I know this? That's how it is. One day... I may work for you..and you'll have my resume.
Not today, Elon.
Re: (Score:2)
F1 isn not the fastest.
Not the fastest what? Fastest in a straight line? No. Fastest around corners, probably.
So theoretically it could fly? (Score:2)
Since the car weights 2200lb and generates 4400lb down-force, there is enough trust as it could fly or at least hover upside-down?
I suppose part of the down-force relies on 'suction' effects been close to the ground but still... stability being another problem.
Dry Sumps ARE designed for upside down (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Upside down is -1G
Gs are a vector equation. Direction matters.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Is it a challenge? (Score:2)
I would think it wouldn't be that tough to break track records if that's the goal. Electric can be crazy fast and batteries are about there.
But this sounds like breaking records in the Kentucky derby using a Toyota pick-up.