JAGazette Technical Editor

RPM Ever wonder how and why the Formula 1 Jag turns 19,000 rpm? The why is easy. The more rpm you turn the more air you can suck in for a given displacement and air inlet size. The more air you have available the more fuel you can burn, and the more h.p. you can generate. The how is what separates the winners from the also-rans. The first advance was the discovery that the length and shape of the intake runner and the placement of the throttle butterfly could create a ram effect that would introduce more air than atmospheric pressure alone. Some of you might remember the huge Chrysler cross ram manifolds of the 60’s, but the effect was used, if not well understood, as early as the 1920’s. Renault made the second advance in the late ‘70’s with pneumatic closing of the valves, allowing much more rapid valve closing while using less engine power to operate the valves. More air and more power were both benefits. Ah, you say, what about Mercedes in the 50’s with their desmodromic valve system? Why isn’t it used now? The desmodromic system was primarily designed to overcome the poor metallurgy of the day when it came to making reliable valve springs. The desmodromic system eats more h.p. than it helps create. The hot topic a few years ago was reduction of reciprocating mass. Cranks were drilled every-which-way for lightness, rods became titanium, and piston skirts all but disappeared. An all-out assault was made on the valve train to reduce its weight. The hot topic today is how short can "we" make the stroke. None of the Formula 1 engine builders will reveal the stroke of their engines, or the length of the connecting rod. Rod length is extremely important. The longer the rod for a given stroke, the more time the piston will spend near the top and bottom of its movement, giving more time for the cylinder to fill and more time for the exploded fuel mixture to push on the piston when it’s close to TDC. My guess is that the piston pin is tiny in diameter and literally in the crown of the piston and that it is inserted in such a way that you can’t see any evidence of it on the sides of the piston. The stroke is probably less than 1.5 inches. The next logical step would seem to be more cylinders. One can achieve less reciprocating mass per cylinder, more valve area and higher gas velocities with smaller cylinders. However, I predict that we will see just the opposite. With the advances that have been made in materials it makes more sense to have fewer and bigger cylinders simply because there will be less heat lost to the coolant. Picture a shallow hemispheric cylinder with 8 valves, two spark plugs and two direct fuel injectors. The valves will be arranged in an alternating intake-exhaust pattern that will have to be determined by careful experimentation and computer simulation. There will be no throttle butterflies because the engine will always operate at virtually the same speed thanks to an 18 to 24 speed automatic transmission. Some fuel will be injected in the intake runner just before the valve so the mixture in the cylinder is optimized more quickly than direct injection can provide. Under light load rpm will be controlled by modulating the fuel flow and ignition. When the engine is not called on to produce maximum power it will be charging reserviors for electricity (lithium ion batteries), lubrication (a pressurized dry sump) and coolant. All the pumps required for these operations will be disconnected when the engine is called on to produce maximum power. Whether the valves will be operated electrically, hydraulically, or pneumatically is still an open question, but one thing is for sure; the power wasting camshaft has to go. I don’t have the mathematical skills to calculate all the tradeoffs, but every physics student knows that efficiency of the Carnot cycle upon which the internal combustion is based calls for a constant speed and no heat lost except for the exhaust. To minimize heat loss you must minimize surface area per volume. This implies a one cylinder engine! Ferrari actually experimented with this idea in the 50’s and for awhile they tried to be competitive with a 4 cylinder engine when others were using 12. The legendary Offenhauser engine, one of the longest lasting and most successful racing engines ever, had only 4 cylinders and up to 300 cu in.

Just Rewards A few months ago Jac Nasser received an $8m bonus for his adept handling of the Firestone tire crisis. As I write this (May 22) Ford stock has been suspended from after-hours trading because Ford will take a one-time write-off of $2.1b to cover the cost of replacing all 13m Firestone Wilderness tires in a timely manner. You do the math . . .

Gloves We all realize that we shouldn’t get such nasty automobile chemicals as gasoline and used oil on our skin. They can lead to the big C. What most people don’t realize is that latex gloves don’t protect you from these chemicals. Latex maybe great for keeping out viruses and not downgrading the sense of touch, but it swells, breaks down and leaks under the influence of gas and oil. Use nitrile gloves. They come in all thicknesses from the thinnest disposable to ones thick enough to withstand the onslaught of 300° oil and straight alkali. A box of 100 disposable nitrile gloves can be had for $12 to $20 from any autoparts store worth its name (Kragen is not the name).

Why Formula 1? Some months ago one of the other editors on this staff questioned Jaguar’s strategy in its Formula 1 debut and the fundamental question of, Why Formula 1 at all? The only other recognizable name in Formula 1 is Ferrari. When’s the last time you saw a Judd, or a Benetton advertised in the local paper? Have you ever driven a McLaren or a Williams? Ferrari sells 3000 cars a year worldwide, about 1000 in the U.S. They probably make $100,000 per car. Winning Formula 1 was essentially the Italian government and industry’s statement that Italian ingenuity is just as good as any in the world, even if they needed an English chassis and team manager and a German driver to win the championship! Jaguar’s stated goal is to best BMW at its own game. Jaguar sells ½ its cars in the U.S. vs. ¼ for BMW. How many Americans relate to Formula 1 or professional racing at all? BMW’s cache among young people isn’t based on its racing prowlness; it’s based on sleek design, excellent performance (acceleration, handling, and braking) and relative affordability. Those of you who can, think back to the 60’s when the E-Type was the ultimate driving machine. Was it a successful racer in the top echelons? Did it matter to that mini-skirted blonde whose legs reached all the way to her bodice? The young professionals who bought them liked to imagine drifting through the esses under the Dunlop Bridge or hitting 6000 rpm in 4^th on the Mulsanne straight while they slowed and goed in the morning commute on 17, but the D-Type’s LeMans successes didn’t clinch many sales in the U.S. The beauty, the handling, the power; the fact that they could buy a car equal to an exotic that cost 3 times as much is what sold them. Being an old fart myself I hope the old farts at Jaguar ask some young guys what will make them buy a Jaguar. I did. The answer was simple. Give us a Modena 360 at a Boxster price. William Lyons did it 40 years ago . . . Well?

Idle . . . the devil’s . . . A few months ago I wrote about the virtues of turning the engine off when the car isn’t running. The Honda Insight does this. Problem is, as one of our readers pointed out, when you turn the engine off you also turn the air conditioning off! Not the best thing for sitting in a traffic jamb on a hot summer afternoon. So sometimes the engine will have to run even when the car isn’t. Really cold winter days would require some source of heat. Nothing like an idling engine generating waste heat (and spewing pollutants into the inversion layer).