Single Seater set-up (Reference and Tyre Pyrometer)

[bzzzracing]

A couple of years ago, I saw some guys from I think Preston College with what looked like a quick reference guide to set-up i.e. laminated flick-over with things to consider depending on how the car is behaving. I think it may have been by the guy who wrote 'Prepare to Win'? Anyone any ideas ??

Also, I'm looking to set-up a single seater project and was wondering whether to invest in a tyre pyrometer? Advice, and what to do with the reading would be helpful.

Cheers.

[ss_collins]

Thermal imagers are quicker, more accurate and easier to interpret... however are much more expensive. See Racecars V15N10 and V15N11

Could be a carroll smith book.

Have you got a good guide to setting up a racecar? if not try to get the old Formula Ford features by Ian Bamsey

[rcr286]

Thermal imagers are really cool and fun, but VERY expensive. My dad works as a Conservation Engineer at a local utility and his department bought one recently. Of course, he brought it over to my place to play with it a bit and the first thing we did was to go outside and look at the tires afer a sprited drive. He claims it is a standard (middle of the road) unit, and it cost the department in the neighborhood of $12,000USD.

If you know of any of these imagers for much less than this, I would be very interested to round up some guys in the local club to buy one to share on race and test days. They are an invaluable tool as they are instantaneous and the images are very intuitive to read.

-Roger

[ss_collins]

read racecar V15N11 - there is a firm that make ones ideal for motorsport usage for around £750. We trialled it with the DAMS A1 GP team (Mexico/France/Switzerland) and also some club racers - it works brilliantly.

they are called irisys

Woodyracing who appears here every now and again writes the software it uses.

[THR]

yup buy a pyrometer... cant set up a single seater without one!

should be hotter inside.. colder outside... and inbetween in the middle. but not a HUGE spread! few degrees

[MGDavid]

Good cheap pyrometer from Screwfix catalogue.... does the job up to a point.

[ss_collins]

Pyrometers are essential, imagers are the next step. Depend how serious you wanna be

[rcr286]

After just "playing" with an imager, I think that nobody will be without one (or have access to one) within only a couple of years - at most. I don't remember the details in the RE article, but my only concern would be surface temps vs. carcass temp. Although, if you use an imager and drive through a neighborhood and look at houses (I don't know the legality of this, but I have heard that someone has done this), you can see the underlying structure of the house (i.e. the floor joists and wall frames). I would imagine that when you are looking at a tire, you are not only seeing the surface, but radiation from within as well.

REALLY COOL STUFF!

-Roger

[Russ-Turner]

Yes it is cool. If I remember correctly didn't the people using this bit of kit take an A1GP teams tyre temperature readings without them even knowing about it?!

[ss_collins]

Indeed, we took A1 team GB's tyre temps without them knowing (by the way A1 teams take six pyrometer readings across the HUGE rear tyres). Valid point about the carcass and surface temp, and I don't have a real answer. One thing that has come out since that article is the growing opinion that whilst taking tyre temp on a car fresh off the track the result is not really ideal. The next step we are looking at is a dynamic imager, to film (thermally) the tyre surface as a car laps the circuit. This in turn would give you the ability to add the inside outside and middle (or whichever points you choose) temperature trace to your logger and traces, so you can see how a different driving style or set up is effecting the car on a run.

F1 teams do this with three lasers every now and again (those are the 'bumper' things you see sometimes). However for reasons discussed in the feature, which is available for download somewhere, the thermal imager would be better.

The technology already exists but has not been applied yet. When we were researching that feature four F1 teams wanted to trial the camera, but not let us see the results!

[GordonG]

You can get video cameras the size of a fag packet for £40 now, so IR cameras cant be *that* far behind (the killer being that you're never going to get the same voulume production for IR as you do for visible).

On the other part of the original question, the book I think you are referring to is Carroll Smith's "engineer in your pocket" book - a pocket size laminated flip pad that from front to back does handling problem to possible causes, and from back to front lists possible setup problems with the possible effects.

Like pretty much all Smiths work it is heavily biased towards high power high downforce single seaters, but may be useful to some.

G

[rcr286]

So the F1 teams, with HUGE budgets, wanted to borrow the cameras and never gave you any data for it?!?!

It seems to me that you could create make 'lipstick' lenses and install them in wheel wells (on saloons anyways) and run the cables to a single central processor. You would not need video quality fps, but something like 7 - 8 images per second...if that. This could ease the load on a processor and keep the cost down. Although, from what I can tell, the lens and the processor are directly linked like an eyeball to a brain and you would need 4X setups for an entire car. There goes your budget.

[kbooth1]

Can anyone tell me the difference in accuracy of a pyrometer and a handheld laser heat gun? The laser gun seems very cost effective.

[Randy]

Originally Posted by kbooth1

Can anyone tell me the difference in accuracy of a pyrometer and a handheld laser heat gun? The laser gun seems very cost effective.

Laser guns only tell you surface temp which changes very quickly when the car comes off the track. Pyrometer probes get into the carcuss and are far more effective.

[THR]

tis odd that the f1 guys dont want to spend a few thou on a gadget!!! i mean they cant be THAT expensive surely!!!

fraction of a new gearbox or engine!!!

[ubrben]

Red Bull and Williams will be testing IR sensors inside the tyre to quantify carcass temp compared to surface temp this season.

A thermal imager would be nice, but for me the difference in carcass bulk temperature and the varying surface temp would be more useful.

Surface temp in the pits is pretty useless IMO.

Ben

[Larry J-Croft]

Originally Posted by GordonG

You can get video cameras the size of a fag packet for £40 now

Could you say where from - I haven't seen any in Dixons yet !!

[GordonG]

www.cpc.co.uk - I think they're £60 actually, but that means that someone is buying them for less than £40 somewhere...

G