IMSA: USCR 2018

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by MaskedRacer

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/da...p-for-daytona/

Wow. Royalty is literally coming to the Daytona 24. Ferdinand is a direct heir to the Austrian throne and the famous Hapsburg dynasty which is very much alive still.

How dare you call His Imperial and Royal Highness "Ferdinand"? He is Ferdinand Zvonimir Maria Balthus Keith Michael Otto Antal Bahnam Leonhard von Habsburg!

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

How dare you call His Imperial and Royal Highness "Ferdinand"? He is Ferdinand Zvonimir Maria Balthus Keith Michael Otto Antal Bahnam Leonhard von Habsburg!

He shall hereby be known as Freddy.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Nick Woodbury

I was scrolling through my channel listing last night and noticed that I now have Fox Sports 2 on my listing (ch. 923), I am an Xfinity Customer. Now I can watch IMSA properly on TV whenever they decide to go channel hopping (which will be a lot this year as it turns out).

Can anyone else with Xfinity confirm that they now have FS2? I am pretty sure Comcast was the only major cable provider left that didn't carry that channel.

Originally Posted by RWill2073

Whoah! I checked after reading this and sure enough I also now have it. That's cool. Still think I'll try watching online for no commercials and hindy, but it's nice to know it's there.

I can't say I recommend watching the TV coverage. It has a lot of commercials,

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Matt

Many series do the "marketing fees" thing.

I wasn't disparaging it, just heard multiple years Aston had a problem paying, as Viper had in the past and believe Dalla Lana funded it a single season but didn't sound like he was game to any longer.

[FormulaFox]

Originally Posted by Matt

Many series do the "marketing fees" thing.

Not the way IMSA does it.

[MaskedRacer]

Originally Posted by airbusA346

Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Daniel Serra in a Spirit Of Race/AF Corse 488.

AF Corse Ferrari with Aston Martin affiliated drivers. I call this sportscar version of an unholy alliance.

[MaskedRacer]

Looking ahead a little. GTD entry seems down a little for the Florida races which is not big deal. But full season entries is a worry. For the 2 all-GT races at Lime Rock and VIR, I think IMSA needs to look at some packages to make those 2 events appealing to part time runners. A PWC team or two perhaps would find the all GT races appealing to get involved with among others. Don't want those events to have a sub-20 car grid at all.

[Rodger Davies]

What's the Sebring entry looking like then? Daytona minus four prototypes and the Grasser Lambos?

[RWill2073]

Where did all the gtd entries go? Seems to have shrunk a bit.

[FormulaFox]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

Where did all the gtd entries go? Seems to have shrunk a bit.

Several were penciled in for post-Daytona debuts - especially among NAEC-only entries.

[pach233]

I think there is some reason to be concerned with GTD budgets. The Wayne Taylor Lambo article on S365 stated $3M for a single entry. That's a lot of money to run in the bottom class.

With Prototype and GTLM stable for now, I'm sure IMSA is focusing on ensuring GTD remains an attractive category for entrants.

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by pach233

I think there is some reason to be concerned with GTD budgets. The Wayne Taylor Lambo article on S365 stated $3M for a single entry. That's a lot of money to run in the bottom class.

With Prototype and GTLM stable for now, I'm sure IMSA is focusing on ensuring GTD remains an attractive category for entrants.

I still worry about gtlm. 9 is decent, and stable in that it has remained that number for a few years now. But if one manufacturer pulls out you're down to 7. Not sure I'd call that all that healthy. The large gtd grid helped to make up for that, but now that is slipping.

But these are minor concerns at this point, and could turn the other direction pretty quick too. It looks exciting as is.

[FormulaFox]

Originally Posted by pach233

I think there is some reason to be concerned with GTD budgets. The Wayne Taylor Lambo article on S365 stated $3M for a single entry. That's a lot of money to run in the bottom class.

With Prototype and GTLM stable for now, I'm sure IMSA is focusing on ensuring GTD remains an attractive category for entrants.

The issue with GTD is that the GT3 cars they use are some of the most expensive racecars in the world. There's only so much IMSA is going to be able to do about it.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by canaglia

If am I not wrong, mandatory gears ratios have been introduced at detroit, and a cadillac dpi won however.
I explain better what I mean for "bop can't kill torque".
In a turbo engine can be decreased or increased the torque release just setting X turbo boost at X rpm; this way, you can basically design the torque curve you wish.
In a NA you can use air restrictors, but you just will obtain a torque reduction at high-end rpm. Low-mid rpm torque release will remain almost untouched. That's what I mean for "bop can't kill torque".

That's why to me NA max displacement should be set to 5.5L. This way torque release should be in the 650Nm range, like nissan and HPD V6 motors.

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/ca...ed-dpi-engine/

[chernaudi]

Explains why the engine was impounded and why WTR, GM and IMSA were quiet about it. Also looks like Cadillac are trying to reduce power and torque to get the downforce that IMSA took away from them back.

[YZFrider]

Hmm, a new engine without much actual on track data, I wouldn't be surprised to see quarter of the race season to get the balance right seeing as it is now a BoP reset.

[canaglia]

It seems I wasn't so wrong about the 5.5L max displacement issue afterall...

wonder if this engine is a destroked 6.2 LT1 version from last year or an updated LS engine of 2014-2016 corvette DP.

About longer mandatory ratios used this year halfway during the championship, wasn't useless or even a help for the car?
let's think about, if at example first speed was set up to 150km/h and sixth speed kicked at about 270-280km/h like other lmp2, weren't other speeds in the middle much shorter than usual?
it's a great way to increase mid-high speed to me.... considering also the low downforce wing the car had to use.

[canaglia]

Originally Posted by YZFrider

Hmm, a new engine without much actual on track data, I wouldn't be surprised to see quarter of the race season to get the balance right seeing as it is now a BoP reset.

Agree, won't be unrealistic to expect a min. weight of 950-960kg for nissan, acura and cadillac but no more bop messy tricks at least

[YZFrider]

Originally Posted by canaglia

About longer mandatory ratios used this year halfway during the championship, wasn't useless or even a help for the car?
let's think about, if at example first speed was set up to 150km/h and sixth speed kicked at about 270-280km/h like other lmp2, weren't other speeds in the middle much shorter than usual?
it's a great way to increase mid-high speed to me.... considering also the low downforce wing the car had to use.

I've often thought the same thing. If a motor has the torque/power, and we know large displacement 8 cylindes engines do, it can still pull even moderately taller gearing effectively - quite possibly having an advantage. Anybody watch Supercross? Those bikes are pulling holeshots in 3rd gear! None of the pros start in 1st. The power is matched to the gear ratio to give a strong pull from the start and carry you with solid speed. It's actually faster to do that than to click through gears because:
1: engine winds out too soon in 1st and 2nd gear
2: and you'll actually lose time shifting...less shifting = faster lap times.

I believe it was Long Beach that the mandatory gears were announced for the Caddy, I thought to myself, it won't make much of a difference it may actually help them lol. To slow accleration to a crawl they'd have to give it a very tall gear, effectively simulating a car towing an anchor or something...IMSA not going to do that, nor would the Caddy teams accept that

[MaskedRacer]

Any thoughts about how the Daytona 24 in 2018 will play out yet?

-With a 50 car grid could there be less safety car periods?
-Will attrition be higher or lower?
-Could the prototype category have 10 cars on the lead lap by the 24th hour?
-Will the 9 car GTLM field just ride around in a train until the 24th hour?


I think there will be fewer yellows for stalled cars with no LMPCs anymore, so that should help. I think with the 3 classes we do have now those type of cars will allow somebody to get back going and head to the pits if they have trouble or a spin. PC's perhaps had more issues with stalling than the others did.

I think there could be attrition amongst the back half of the DPI/LMP2 field due to inexperience amongst some of the new teams. But the 10 cars that don't hit trouble could all be on the lead lap at the end. GTLM will be all bunched at up the end I think as long as none of them break. The winner in GTLM I think will end up between 10th-12th overall. GTD will be the most unpredictable but I do think there will be 3-4 cars that will stand out and be faster than the rest. I just don't know who other than the Land/Starworks Audi should be safe bet to contend for sure.

[Damian Baldi]

I have a question about turbo boost, i.e. on the Mazda, the maximun is 2.661 bars of pressure over the atmosphere? Or it's total pressure counting 1 bar from the atmosphere, what means 1.661 bars of turbo pressure?

About the DPi/P2 grid, with so many cars it will be a fight to stay on the lead lap, because the traffic and the natural gap between cars would make it difficult to keep 20 cars on the same lap. The key would be the amateur or less eprerienced drivers on each car to try to don't loose that lap.

[canaglia]

Originally Posted by Damian Baldi

I have a question about turbo boost, i.e. on the Mazda, the maximun is 2.661 bars of pressure over the atmosphere? Or it's total pressure counting 1 bar from the atmosphere, what means 1.661 bars of turbo pressure?

About the DPi/P2 grid, with so many cars it will be a fight to stay on the lead lap, because the traffic and the natural gap between cars would make it difficult to keep 20 cars on the same lap. The key would be the amateur or less eprerienced drivers on each car to try to don't loose that lap.

1 bar is the atmospheric pressure at MSL; basically the same pressure of the air inside the combustion chamber of a NA engine; if am I not wrong, 2.6 bar is the pressure of the air pushed by turbo inside combustion chamber of a turbo engine.

Let's say that at X rpm if boost is set at 2.6bar, a turbo 2L developes an amount of torque comparable to a NA 5.2L (2 x 2.6).
Just in theory of course.... the more optmized and heavily tuned the engine is, the more torque will release.

Example, Acura NSX gt3 turbo has a pressure of 2bar at a mid-rpm value; at that rpm range is like having a NA 7L under bonnet... so you should expect something like 800Nm.... too bad; unfortunatey NSX gt3 engine pushes less than 600Nm.
Acura arx05 HPD engine has a same layout and displacemet motor (3.5L V6 twin turbo) but with mandatory less boost for the whole rpm range, about 1.4-1.6bar; despite this, it can release torque in a range of 650Nm because is a better tuned engine.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Damian Baldi

I have a question about turbo boost, i.e. on the Mazda, the maximun is 2.661 bars of pressure over the atmosphere? Or it's total pressure counting 1 bar from the atmosphere, what means 1.661 bars of turbo pressure?

About the DPi/P2 grid, with so many cars it will be a fight to stay on the lead lap, because the traffic and the natural gap between cars would make it difficult to keep 20 cars on the same lap. The key would be the amateur or less eprerienced drivers on each car to try to don't loose that lap.

I'm not sure if the motorsport industry is the same as energy production, but to me 2.661 bars is 1.661 bar over atmospheric.

If it were 2.661 bar over atmospheric, it would be written as 2.661 barg (bar gauge) - where it is calibrated so atmospheric reads 0 bar.

[Damian Baldi]

I have my doubts, because in the group-c era, it was common to use 1.1 to 1.8 bars of turbo pressure (over the atmosphere), and a 3.5 v8 (Nissan or Toyota) engine could get near 900 HP and 850NM of torque.

At the IMSA table, the Acura and Nissan DPi engines (both v6) with 3.5 and 3.8 litres respectively seems to have 1.7 and 1.8 bars of max pressure, but "only" 600 HP of power? Even the Porsche 3.0 litre flat-6 used to get 800HP at 1.5 bars.

I know we are talking about two different eras and different fuel consumption, but the gap is huge. I think that at the BoP list of IMSA they are showing boost inclusing the atmosphere, so the real turbo boost over atmosphere is only 0.7 and 0.8

[YZFrider]

There is a saying in the Forced Induction world: Boost is a measure of restriction.