[WEC] Porsche GTP / Hypercar: factory and customer

[Spyderman]

I'm not a techie, but wont increasing the bore lead to increased piston size and weight? Wont this be a bit of an issue in a V4 ? (vibration)

[Articus]

Sorry to lead away on another subject but again with the sparks? Is it Titanium skid blocks on the Porsche? Thinking of that with regards to the gimmick they are trying in Austria this weekend.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Articus

Agreed the car is not refined but I think the raw pace is there. Enough to do damage in qualy atleast. Fritz Enzinger said himself that Porsche was going to have a run at Pole.

I think Porsche could win soon and they could do it before Toyota. This was Toyota's easy year. Now if they ever want to win it's gotta be a dogfight. I don't think they will ever have quite the pace advantage they have had this year. Audi was put on notice this year. Porsche are already working on a 919 Evo probably.

It was the same with the RS Spyder. The 2005-06 car was troublesome but quick.

What huge pace advantage does Toyota have? Audi did fastest lap at Le Mans and Silverstone. I dont think theyre that much faster, I think theyre pretty even. Porsche has good top speed, so lets see what they come with at Austin. Should be a good circuit for Toyota and Porsche with the abundance of braking zones.

[dbagtbag]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

I'm not a techie, but wont increasing the bore lead to increased piston size and weight? Wont this be a bit of an issue in a V4 ? (vibration)

It can cause tons of vibrations in a V4. Its the reason women can't drive the 919 and come out alive.

[Spyderman]

[AndyN]

Originally Posted by Articus

Sorry to lead away on another subject but again with the sparks? Is it Titanium skid blocks on the Porsche? Thinking of that with regards to the gimmick they are trying in Austria this weekend.

I only saw this on the pit straight within seconds of the start and put it down to the car being in a bumpy part of the track you might not choose to use other than in the post-start frenzy. Was it a regular occurrence? (Until the material wore away perhaps)

I didn't realise the F1 gimmick was going to become reality either, so maybe I'm just not up to date....

Can't see Porsche being overly worried by their performance so far, on the contrary.

[Spyderman]

http://www.crankandpiston.com/on-the...-le-mans-2014/

[MoMedic9019]

Originally Posted by AndyN

I only saw this on the pit straight within seconds of the start and put it down to the car being in a bumpy part of the track you might not choose to use other than in the post-start frenzy. Was it a regular occurrence? (Until the material wore away perhaps)

It was regular with a full load of fuel.

[deltawing]

How was the car scraping the floor and releasing sparks, but did not wear the wood?

[ger80]

I guess they have Ti blocks that create the sparks. They are there to make sure the wood doesnt touch the road

[jee]

At night the cars were bursting sparks where the Bugatti Circuit splits on every lap, only other car than did that was the #27 SMP car.

[deltawing]

Originally Posted by ger80

I guess they have Ti blocks that create the sparks. They are there to make sure the wood doesnt touch the road

But isn't that the whole point of the wood, to be unprotected and the most protruding part along the floor, so the cars don't go too low?

[NelisB]

Originally Posted by jee

At night the cars were bursting sparks where the Bugatti Circuit splits on every lap, only other car than did that was the #27 SMP car.

After the race I walked the track for a bit and the track was really cut up there. The cuts were also pretty deep.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by ger80

I guess they have Ti blocks that create the sparks. They are there to make sure the wood doesnt touch the road

What wood are we talking about? I don't believe the prototypes use a F1 style composite wood plank. I assume they are just using metal skid blocks to protect the bottom of the car when at extreme low ride height.

Richard

[Breitling24]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

What wood are we talking about?

The driver's wood?

[deltawing]

There is 25 mm thick (max thickness, near front and rear axle center line) wood plank. In the two flat areas in front and at the back cannot be worn more than 5 mm. The plank is mounted below the reference plane, so it should be the only thing between the reference plane and the road. That is why the sparks are very intriguing...

[Richard C]

Thank you. I didn't know that a legality skid block was in the regulations. I took a VERY quick look at the regulations. I think there might be room to play in some places. For example 3.5 says no "entirely sprung" part can be below the reference surface. Could some type of flexible block that is not sprung (not mounted directly to the body), but still sit below the body and act as a skid plate? It would drag on the road (at extremely low ride heights only) and also compress against the body. In effect a skid block that would prevent wear on the legality plank. But 3.5.5 says no "friction blocks" are allowed. I wonder exactly what the definition of a friction block might be!? Maybe it has to attach to the body (as a sprung part) before it can be defined as a friction block?

Richard

[jimclark]

Old and tired (more so day by day...)as I am, but I'm reminded of the SPEED boards here.

What in bloody 'ell are so many expecting from a first years effort??? Fords' first couple of years (what got me into endurance racing were a flop; the all conquering 917 was a first year flop, the Spyder was a first year flop, the Audi's were a first year flop, the Peugeot was a first yera flop, the Toyota was a first byear flop, etc., etc., etc......

What, pray tell, is this immediate stisfaction thing???

Hey Mae...I don't know what, and when, you were watchin'/listenin' to, but did you catch the comment by I fergit what driver made the statement on Fox Sports Net that the drivers should be able to determine who's behind them by the headlights? 'Member the discussion we were havin' on whatever board it was that i was so wrong expecting so...? I never know what I'm talkin' 'bout...

4,517

[Articus]

Porsche's car sparked a lot all race long. Taking their Le Mans weekend performance into consideration, I would say they learned quite a few things. The strange pace they displayed reminded me a lot of Peugeot's debut at Le Mans in 2007 when they had to turn down the engines to make it last. I have a really good feeling about next year's Porsche 919. It seems like they completely understand what went wrong this year.

[Spyderman]

I think the issue here is not the inability of Porsche to complete the full 24h of the race. That was expected. In fact, in this area I think that they exceeded expectations.
The issue (for me) is the fact that they were consistently 3-4 seconds off the race pace. Now, that in itself would be quite worrisome, but it is certainly manageable to claw back that time if there is a substantial amount of room to maneuver in terms of engine performance.
We don't really know the real HP figures of the engine (Porsche says 500bhp) , but from what has been written and speculated, the little 2.0L V4 is running out on the edge (could explain some of the power-train issues). It is certainly more stressed than it's V6 and V8 competitors, so the question is : how much more power can they get from further development of this engine.
The very reason for choosing this tiny engine was to benefit from efficiency, however it looked like Porsche did not really benefit from being especially frugal, as they simply lost the possible time gained on the track.
Furthermore, the chassis/suspension looks far from being optimized, but here, there is obviously enough room for further development and I suspect that we will see a marked improvement by the end of the season.

As for the 917: Yes it was unsuccessful at its first outing at Le Mans (poor handling), but it was the quickest car in practice. Interestingly enough, the leading 917 dropped out of the 1969 race with gearbox issues at the 21st hour.

RS Spyder - It won (in class) on its debut race (Leguna Seca) in 2005.
In 2006 (first full year) it won 7 class victories and an outright victory at Mid-Ohio. It is a fallacy that the car under-performed in its fist year.
It had some issues when they introduced the DFI engine, but that was in 2008.
Incidentally - the RS Spyder is Roman Dumas's favorite car of all time.

[Articus]

Romain Dumas has never driven the 2008 Acura P2

'06 RS Spyder- Not to take away from but there was no competition, and car had rampant electrical/driveline gremlins...The Sypder Evo was night and day.

Originally Posted by Spyderman

The issue (for me) is the fact that they were consistently 3-4 seconds off the race pace. Now, that in itself would be quite worrisome, but it is certainly manageable to claw back that time if there is a substantial amount of room to maneuver in terms of engine performance.

Then in your mind how do you reconcile the 3.23's we saw in qualy? and the fact that Hartley was confident he could go faster. To say the pace isn't there, I simply cannot agree. From what I saw, it looked to be they were not running the car at 100%.

Jani and Bernhard started. The laptimes clicked for both. 3.26, 3.25, 3.25,3.25. This was as fast as anyone. After that first stint, they changed the car no doubt. Because the laptime is very consistent 3.28-3.30.


Wasn't it strange how they were slower in the straights all race long? The sub 1:17 sectors 2 from Test day and Practice sessions (the only car to do so btw) were gone. Then we heard they wanted to "limit mileage" during the Thursday qualy practice. Doesn't that sound like a team that was just trying to make it to the finish and believed they could do so by turning the dials down? The 14 lap stints that Toyota could not manage but Porsche could?

Of course none of what I said is fact but rather speculation on my part (except the 2008 Evo vs ARX debate- we know where I stand ).

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by Articus

Romain Dumas has never driven the 2008 Acura P2

I'm sure that there are many cars he has not driven, but still a feather in the cap of the RS Spyder when an ex-Audi driver thinks the RS Spyder is the best car he has driven.

Originally Posted by Articus

'06 RS Spyder- Not to take away from but there was no competition, and car had rampant electrical/driveline gremlins...The Sypder Evo was night and day.

Not disputed. The point is the RS Spyder was fast from it's birth. It was also reliable enough to win most of the races it entered (albeit class wins).

Originally Posted by Articus

Then in your mind how do you reconcile the 3.23's we saw in qualy? and the fact that Hartley was confident he could go faster. To say the pace isn't there, I simply cannot agree. From what I saw, it looked to be they were not running the car at 100%.

We are talking about race pace. Not qualification times. It was clear to me (and I follow every lap time the two cars do)that the race pace was lacking right from practice. That is not to say that they are not able to put in an occasional quick lap.

Originally Posted by Articus

Jani and Bernhard started. The laptimes clicked for both. 3.26, 3.25, 3.25,3.25. This was as fast as anyone. After that first stint, they changed the car no doubt. Because the laptime is very consistent 3.28-3.30.

Wasn't it strange how they were slower in the straights all race long? The sub 1:17 sectors 2 from Test day and Practice sessions (the only car to do so btw) were gone. Then we heard they wanted to "limit mileage" during the Thursday qualy practice. Doesn't that sound like a team that was just trying to make it to the finish and believed they could do so by turning the dials down? The 14 lap stints that Toyota could not manage but Porsche could?

But that is exactly my point. In order to gain reliability, they are unable to push the engine. Why? Is it because they are already "stretching" the limits of the tiny engine? Some (far more technically savvy than I) say that this is in fact the case. The fact they are being more efficient does not seem to pay off, precisely because they are forced to run at a slower pace and thus loose any time gained through pit stops, on the track.

Originally Posted by Articus

Of course none of what I said is fact but rather speculation on my part (except the 2008 Evo vs ARX debate- we know where I stand ).

If we did not speculate, there would be no forum.

[Gingers4Justice]

RE the engine - didn't we hear rumours that Porsche were re-designing the engine again next year? That it might not even be a V4?

Give me a little bit of time to find the (questionable) source.

[Spyderman]

I doubt they will give up on the V4 so easily, however this is what I was getting at in my earlier posts.
It seems to me that a small and light V6 turbo (2.5L - 2.7L) could be made to be almost as frugal as the current engine , and would be far less stressed.
Reliability would improve and more head room for development would exists if they needed to stress it out to keep up with the competition.
Unfortunately we just don't have any facts, so I'm limited to gross speculation.

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

I doubt they will give up on the V4 so easily, however this is what I was getting at in my earlier posts.
It seems to me that a small and light V6 turbo (2.5L - 2.7L) could be made to be almost as frugal as the current engine , and would be far less stressed.
Reliability would improve and more head room for development would exists if they needed to stress it out to keep up with the competition.
Unfortunately we just don't have any facts, so I'm limited to gross speculation.

All the evidence seems to suggest the V4 has been more trouble than its worth, and for me the only reason they've kept plugging away with it is they've had so much time to test that they've managed to make the best of a bad job.

It seems the early stages of the project were plagued with problems pertaining to vibrations from the V4. I'm not sure they just chose that engine configuration because of its frugal nature - it was also chosen as a structural piece and for weight-saving. I don't think it's as easy as sticking another engine in the car, as it was pretty much designed around the engine. The decision seems to have been made very early.

Having said that, this car has been in development for two years. As well as the testing, the car has basically raced an entire Formula One season in the first three rounds of the WEC. As you say, Spyderman, how much more can they get out of that V4? I'm really not convinced it's been the best choice of engine, and this car is further along its development cycle than its rivals.

This is clearly not a budget project and it's not even a "win on Sunday, sell on Monday"-type project. Porsche just want to win Le Mans again and keep that heritage before someone else steals it. With that in mind, and although it would be a massive task, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the Porsche which takes to the grid at Silverstone next year has more than four cylinders under the cover...