80's Ford/Cosworth F1 turbo engine development

[TUFED6]

Came across a couple of really cool videos on vimeo about the development of the 1.5L V6 Cosworth GBA F1 engine during the turbo era. In qualifying trim running on the toluene based jungle juice they made 1200ish HP and ran 60psi boost.

Anyway, the videos disappeared off vimeo but I found another source for them-

http://www.f1archives.com/technical/Tur ... 1986-a.mp4
http://www.f1archives.com/technical/Tur ... 1986-b.mp4

And another good article on the GBA engine program-

http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_articles ... ngine.aspx

Some interesting stuff in there. Particularly the method of boosting the Cosworth BD test engine and the various manifold and plenum designs that were being used.

[ClassicAU]

I read the little article on these in Top Gear Australia magazine, and couldn’t believe they got so much power out of only 1.5 liters!! It’s completely insane! I don’t really know F1 that well, was this before the Ayrton Senna days? I loved the story they did on an episode of Top Gear a while ago on him too, when Lewis Hamilton drove Senna’s car. Was that the same engine?

[TUFED6]

Yea Ayrton's career in F1 was just getting started during the turbo era but he drove for different teams and I don't think any of them were Ford based. Pretty much same/same tho, the other engines were making about the same power with a similar platform. It was always Ayrtons driving that set him apart.

I can only imagine how difficult it would be trying to keep one of these suckers on boost in the wet and being fast as well...

[Rollin]

That's a top read, thanks for posting!

[AaronEF8]

I want to go to their conference room.

Very interesting read, the CVT supercharger sounds like a complete pain in the arse, unusual injector placement too. One good thing about the 80's was the motorsport. Group B rally, 1200bhp F1 cars, 450km/h Le-mans racers.

There's talk of F1 going back to smaller capacity turbo engines with lower RPM in the next few years, running ethanol or even bio-diesel.

[needfordspeed]

I want to go to their conference room.

One good thing about the 80's was the motorsport. Group B rally, 1200bhp F1 cars, 450km/h Le-mans racers.

Same here! And I never got to see it, but it really does seem like the late 80's and early 90's were a pretty good time for motorsport.

TUFED6, Cheers for the links man, was a very interesting read, gonna download the videos now.

Need more threads like this!

[Nikk O'lass]

What about the BRM 1.5L twin supercharged v16?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Racing_Motors_V16

[AaronEF8]

That was a chunk of shit though lol. Was a good idea in theory, but having 16 cyl for 1.5L gave it way too much mechanical drag, and was too long for an F1 car. The BRM H16 (as used in the '67 F1 cars) was slightly better, although that was too top heavy. Formula One has used a lot of different ideas over the years, it's interesting to note that one of the best cars (Brabham BT26) and the best engine (Ford DFV, over 150 wins) are what we would consider basic/normal these days.

That MotoIQ site is awesome. If I get sacked for spending all day at work reading it, I know who I'm blaming lol.

Ken Blocks Fiesta Gymkhana car, 60psi Garrett TR30.
http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_articles ... iller.aspx

I have some articles on 80's Le-mans Porsches on the PC at home, and a few links for Can-Am, Group B and d67-mid 70's ground effect F1 cars that I'll post up later

[Nikk O'lass]

Its interesting, in the 60-70's F1 cars were small hightech thingies...while in america, the Can-Am series was full of Big Blocks with ram tubes...

[AaronEF8]

I guess it would be to do with the rules, F1 had a 3L NA/1.5L boosted rule from 1967 until the early 90's, whereas Can-Am was virtually 'anything goes' until the early 70's when everyone started dying. Porsche had success using more advanced engines in the 917K/917 in Can-Am series.


Other parts of technology have changed a lot in 40 years of F1 too, this is the 1967 version of tyre telemetry. Check out how white his knuckles are lol.