New Engine Regs for IndyCar

[Tim Northcutt]

A news release was sent out today announcing that in 2012, 4 cyliner and 6 cylinder turbo charged engines will be the spec for the IndyCar series with 500-700 horsepower.

The ICONIC group has recommended this to be enacted and it has been announced by the series.

That's all the info I have right now.

[fieldodreams79]

i like the idea of 4 bangers verses 6 cylinders and, well turbos, in general. i think i'll always prefer V8s, but....

and did i miss something in the press release or elsewhere? whats up with Honda? is their contract up in 2011? sorry....i haven't been following this much of late....

[Canada ALMS fan]

Two thumbs up Mr. Bernard, I am liking your direction more every day. If this doesn't bring back manufacturers (and keep Honda), nothing will. Next up: multiple chassis'. This series is morphing into CART little by little, keep it up!

[DanicaFan]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

i like the idea of 4 bangers verses 6 cylinders and, well turbos, in general. i think i'll always prefer V8s, but....

and did i miss something in the press release or elsewhere? whats up with Honda? is their contract up in 2011? sorry....i haven't been following this much of late....

No, Honda is committed to the IRL until at least 2013. This just means they may have competition for a couple years or longer if they stay with the series.

[JagtechOhio]

Honda shortened the contract length, I believe it ends after the 2011 season as of now.

Here's what you didn't read in today's announcement:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/4...ic-proportions

[Quintin03]

Randy's doing great. Finally he has achieved something big. The fact that it'll take another two and a half years is somewhat depressing but I'm optimistic.

[Canada ALMS fan]

Originally Posted by JagtechOhio

Honda shortened the contract length, I believe it ends after the 2011 season as of now.

Here's what you didn't read in today's announcement:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/4...ic-proportions

Well written, except you have missed one key point that I feel Indycar is gambling will happen - with the return of engine manufacturer competition will come money and/or a free or heavily subsidized engine supply, at least for some. With multiple manufacturers there will be value in being the victorious engine again. That is what ICONIC is hoping will inspire Ford, Mazda, VW, whoever to put money behind their engine programs instead of a purely customer relationship IMHO. Hence the focus on relevance to the road-going offerings these companies produce. If this all fails to happen to materialize there may be problems, especially if one engine dominates.

[JagtechOhio]

Thank you Canada for your response and your kind words.

Additional participation has been invited for two years, and manufacturers did not see the value in the investment. Today the private request was made public, that's all.

IF an engine manufacturer decides to compete against Honda, the benefits you point out might be realized. The only sure thing is retaining the current V8 as an option will be eliminated. In all likelyhood, that ends the useful life of the current chassis as well.

I could easily see Penske building a killer V6 or I4 Chevy engine, and receiving factory backing before or after the fact. If the competition is truly open, they will be under no mandate to share the technology.

The result is engine wars with escalating cost and contested regulations. There are better ways to introduce the variety that is needed. Your scenario will only be sucessful if players come aboard.

Look at it another way: the hope was that Izod's title sponsorship would grow the Series, and attract added sponsorship at all levels. That is not going to happen, until investors see an increase in ratings. No different for the auto manufacturers who have looked at the possibility of participating, and decided against it.

[gttouring]

It is interesting even if the new "regs" are vague, what is the parity set between I4 and V6 engines both with turbos? Or will they fall into ALMS rule sets? that said keep the V8 like F1 kept the V10 for a season wAs it 2? The dallara is clumsy off the ovals but it will be cheAp to run with at least 40 extras for the few teams still running them for an overlap season. Of course engines are nice but whAt are they going into?

[Flyin Ryan]

So can I build an engine or independently buy a production turbo engine elsewhere and soup it up or is it completely restricted to the carmakers?

Someday the carmakers will lose interest (always have, always will, this whole "relevance" thing is a bunch of bullsh*t), and then the 21st-century version of Offenhauser will rise and take control of the racing world!

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

So can I build an engine or independently buy a production turbo engine elsewhere and soup it up or is it completely restricted to the carmakers?

The announcemetn didn't have those types of specifics, but if it is just the carmakers, this will be a huge mistake, because it'll drive up the costs to compete...that's what happened when Toyota and Honda came over back in 2003

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by JagtechOhio

I could easily see Penske building a killer V6 or I4 Chevy engine, and receiving factory backing before or after the fact. If the competition is truly open, they will be under no mandate to share the technology.

The result is engine wars with escalating cost and contested regulations. There are better ways to introduce the variety that is needed. Your scenario will only be sucessful if players come aboard.

If you want multiple manufacturers, it was always going to be this way. Penske is a known commodity from his prior actions in the sport. Whatever system would come out, he would game it to his advantage as another tool to beat the rest of the field and keep to himself. Recall the '94 500. If anyone else in the field wants to be Tony Bettenhausen and buy a year-old engine, he'd be more than happy to take their money.

[NaBUru38]

Wow, I'm so happy!!! Autosport says that displacement will be restricted to 2.4L.

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

this whole "relevance" thing is a bunch of bullsh*t

"Relevance" means "marketability". F1's KERS isn't truly road relevant, but it looks like, because there are more and more hybrid cars.

[DanJR1]

that means the next car wont be the deltawing, as they stated they only need 300-400hp for their car. guess i have to hope for the swift!

[Tim Northcutt]

I made an error...the HP range will be 550-700

[nickyf1]

So this means that the future F1 1.6 Turbo would be eligible too?

[duke_toaster]

Probably not, IndyCar will go for 2400cc lumps.

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

"Relevance" means "marketability". F1's KERS isn't truly road relevant, but it looks like, because there are more and more hybrid cars.

And almost every manufacturer in the series a couple years ago wanted nothing to deal with it.

I understand the marketability factor, but again I think in the end it'll prove to be bullsh*t, the only manufacturers that will be present will be whoever is winning. Look at Le Mans, it's as close to "run what you brung" as you'll get in racing nowadays, only two cars have a chance of winning (and 3rd on the sheet has far worse odds than 3rd behind Penske and Ganassi in Indycar), and no other carmaker will use the prototype racing platform in order to experiment their next-gen car design ideas.

Is anyone honestly going to be surprised if in say 2015 we see a couple carmakers pull out because they're not competitive (what pretty much happened in the IRL after 2005) or because the engine rules got gamed by one or two carmakers under the premise of "greater relevance to make this worth our while", which in sportscars is usually code for "change this rule to improve our chances of winning or we're leaving"? You can see that at Le Mans with the huge performance advantage given to diesels over everything else in recent years, and who had diesels? The two carmakers, Peugeot and Audi.

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by nickyf1

So this means that the future F1 1.6 Turbo would be eligible too?

They're going with a 1.6? What's the drive belt on that going to be, a rubber band? My sister's Ford Focus has a bigger engine.

I imagine they'd be eligible. It's under 2.4 liters and it's turbocharged. However, I think it'd be underengineered for oval racing. Your run-of-the-mill F1 engine sees top load once every lap normally (every 80-100 seconds). Your run-of-the-mill Indycar engine sees top load at the end of every straightaway on an oval (every 10-15 seconds). Plus, your F1 engine only has to last for about 180 miles in a race.

[duke_toaster]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

They're going with a 1.6? What's the drive belt on that going to be, a rubber band? My sister's Ford Focus has a bigger engine.

F1 had 100cc smaller engines than that in the 80s, with double the power of these proposed IndyCar engines. 1600cc should be able to reasonably produce 750hp for however long. The US Focus, being a large family car (my guesstimate of what EuroNCAP class it would be), would normally have a larger engine than 1600cc anyhow.

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

The US Focus, being a large family car ...

You think the Focus is a large family car? My knees can touch the dashboard driving or in the passenger seat, and it's not like I'm huge, I'm only 6 feet tall.

1600cc should be able to reasonably produce 750hp for however long.

You need to go talk to guys in sportscars that have used old F1 engines in prototypes. They got detuned like crazy to make them last and even then it was borderline on whether they could make the checkered flag (and that wasn't even on an oval, it was a road course). F1 engines are designed to get an extremely high amount of performance for a very short race. That'd be perfectly fine for the road course races the Indycar series will do. Ovals though are a different story. For Indy for example, you'd be taking an engine designed to go 180 miles usually and trying to make it last 500 miles, and instead of reaching max load on the car about 60 times in a typical 100-minute F1 race, it'd do max load about 350 times in a 180-minute race. It can be done of course, but a few components would have to be changed or engineered differently (no super high rpms for sure).

[duke_toaster]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

You think the Focus is a large family car? My knees can touch the dashboard driving or in the passenger seat, and it's not like I'm huge, I'm only 6 feet tall.

That was a guess of which EuroNCAP class it was, the US Focus is probably borderline between a Large Family Car and a Small Family Car. The Saturn Aura/Vauxhall Vectra is a Large Family Car, the Saturn/Vauxhall Astra being a Small Family Car.

<remainder of post>

Of course a sports car engine will need to last longer - we're talking about races of 1000km+ as opposed to a 305km Grand Prix, which is roughly the length of an ICS races, although some are slightly longer (333km at Barber, for example) but still have a two hour guillotine. F1, of course, has a maximum of eight engines per nineteen road race season.

Oval engines of course have far more stress (The story is that an F1 engine would hand grenade after a minute of continually running at max RPM, but that was probably in the days of the V10s with no rev limits), and a 1600cc turbo would not be appropriate if it was expected to produce upwards of around 550hp on ovals, but it suits road races fine. 2400cc should work for IndyCar, factoring in fewer engines per season.

[Canada ALMS fan]

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...ers-listening/
Early days, but it looks like the manufacturers are biting! The Mazda option (2.0L turbo I4) is currently the most viable, assuming it will be compatible with the new chassis. Ford would be a great addition back, there needs to be at least one American engine in the series for the domestic fans to be interested IMO. One of the great things about the ALMS is the variety of powerplants and to have that again in Indycar would be fantastic (something I never expected to see again in my lifetime).

[ptclaus98]

Originally Posted by Canada ALMS fan

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...ers-listening/
Early days, but it looks like the manufacturers are biting! The Mazda option (2.0L turbo I4) is currently the most viable, assuming it will be compatible with the new chassis. Ford would be a great addition back, there needs to be at least one American engine in the series for the domestic fans to be interested IMO. One of the great things about the ALMS is the variety of powerplants and to have that again in Indycar would be fantastic (something I never expected to see again in my lifetime).

What ever they do, they need to get lease deals like the MZR-R

[NaBUru38]

Engines will be equalized, Ryan, don't worry about carmakers pulling because of that.