Hybrid vs. Hybrid Again Oct. 20th

Homeland should give an advantage. Go Toyota!

 

Keep in mind that toyota's car is butchered by the racing rules (blame audi for that, because they heavily influence the racing organization and they dont like to lose especially from a toyota hybrid. It is just marketing after all) . Toyota is not allowed to use atkinson cycle engines (toyotas forte) and hybrid systems (toyotas strong point) are heavily restricted. At Lemans they were allowed to make use of their electric power for 7 % of the lap time. But at Fuji they are allowed to make use of their electric power for 13 %. So they have better chances to win at Fuji.

 

Endurance: Audi claims world championship title in shortened 6 Hours of Fuji | Auto123.com
Toyota won, but unfortunately rain put a big asterisk on the victory.

I haven't read the race rules recently, but there didn't use to be anything stopping a manufacturer from using atkinson valve timing. I don't know why anyone would, this is a race, not mpg championship, and atkinson timing reduces hp, a bad thing when you are racing.

They would need to create a new division if they were to allow batteries in hybrids. That may be a good decision given the work porsche, toyota, ferrari, and bmw have put into it. I would love to see batteries allowed, but they are not in this category.

 

No! Toyota atkinson tech is based on vvt-i, but vvt-i systems are banned from WEC! It s a scandal but its true. But even if it was allowed, it would make them incompetent, because FIA restricts recovery of electric power to 3.5 MJ on LM. Which means that they are allowed to use less than 25hp of electric power to cover the whole lap. Also, endurance racing is about efficiency and if toyota allowed to use their hybrid tech (large atkinson + high power and density output) they would sweep any opponent off their feet.
Again you are wrong. Batteries are allowed, but its a pointless to use them because of the 3.5MJ rule.

Technical Regulations LM P

 

Electric power is reduced, so it doesn't play a very significant difference. The big advantage is a Turbo charged diesel engine, that can deliver high power on a broad rev range, where NA petrol will achieve peak power only at the highest rev. The difference in performance can be seen in normal cars, a small 1.6 TDI with only 105 HP will have 0-60 time as good as 1.6 NA petrol engine with 120 HP.

How will a 530 HP 3.4 NA petrol engine compete with 500 HP 3.7 turbo diesel?

It won't.

 

Toyota's corrola engine is vvt-i too. They aren't banning otto engines, they are banning some ways to vary the valve timing.

Atkinson in the prius is different because A) they don't change exhaust valve timing (allowed by the rules), and they have late valve opening (allowed by the rules). Only an idiot would want to build an atkinson engine in a race because rules do restict volume of the engine, and atkinson's have less hp for a given volume. Atkinson is perfectly legal but stupid in a race application according to the rules you just gave me.

Older rules I read said batteries were not allowed. That may have changed, but you were not allowed to have energy in the electrical system before the race (charged battery).

 

I don't get it, every 11 laps (55 brake events) there will be one full electric lap available? Did the author of the article figure that out on his own or did Nissan actually said that?

Will the rules change next year?

 

Nissan said that may be the implementation.

This is a "garage 56" entry, replacing the fuel cell entry. These cars don't have to follow the rules or qualify. If it does well, they may create category rules.

 

No! They ban ANY device that allows the modification of the valve opening timing and/or lift. Which means that toyotas atkinson tech is banned too, because it is based on vvt-i.

So, you were implying plug-in batteries getting charged from grid? These are not allowed. Plug-in batteries would make cars incompetend, spending too much time on pits. I think recharging from braking is a much more advanced and cleaner tech.

 

I think it makes sense to 'audit' the rules to understand what each team is working under. If there are unfair rules, let's understand what they mean.

In golf and bowling, there are handicaps used so more people can play together and have fun. Without an honest handicap system, the golf courses and bowling alleys would not survive . . . they need participation.

Perhaps someone has some good links to share about the rules . . . not what the teams claim . . . but the actual rules as published.

Thanks,
Bob Wilson

 

atknson tech is not banned, its variable valve timing and variable lift. You can have fixed late intake valve closing in an atkinson valved engine, which is perfectly legal for a LMP, it simply is not a good engine choice. Toyota wasn't even one of the innovators in this tech, so you can't say its an anti Toyota rule. IIRC porsche had prototypes in the '50s, and alpha romao put it in the first production car around 1980. Its a rule that hurts all manufacturers equally. For Lemans the turbo diesel is the "best" technology, but they penalize the cars that use it (audi) to lower fuel flow per lap to level the playing field. If turbo diesels continue to dominate, either all manufacturers will switch, or rules will be changed to penalize them more.

The problem is a car could start a race with a charged battery, which is why they restricted the energy allowed in the kers system. This restriction kills the advantage a battery might have versus a super capacitor. There are rules for these capacitor and flywheel system, and restrictions are higher in 4wd cars versus 2wd cars on when the power may be used.

Rules are always changing, but remember these are racing rules not the real world The rule makers try to keep up with technology. Next year they were going to have a fuel cell vehicle as a garage 56 entry, but it looked like it could not make it. Instead nissan will be trying a battery hybrid in the garage 56 slot. This slot doesn't need to follow the rules, but if it is successful, then they may create a category and rules for it.

They put more restrictions on the audi cars, but let them use better technology. Both diesel and awd kers have more restrictions than gas and 2wd. If they win by too much, they can up these restrictions. LMP went away from restrictions on engine size but do restrict fuel consumption per lap (and a lower number for diesel) and when the kers (regen brake energy) can be used.

Toyota cars seemed to do well with these rules, but drivers and reliability was not as good as with the audis.

 

Who are you trying to fool anyway? Toyota has been using atkinson since late 90s. They already have a proved and super high efficient atkinson tech, that develop for the future. It is hypocritical to claim "Oh! Atkinson tech is not banned. But you have to throw away your currently high tech atkinson engine and start from beginning! "
If that was not enough FIA put such restrictions on electric recovery (3,5MJ on LM) that made the electric technology stagnant, uncompetitive, by doing AND this way impossible to implement toyotas atkinson tech.

So, after FIA has butchered toyota, they put restrictions on audi car in a totally hypocritical manner! Then you claim audi has the best tech for LM against everything. Well, there is certainly no second to audi, when it comes to brainwashing mechanisms.

If FIA was independent, they would allow every team to use what tech they want. Then they would equalize performance by regulating fuel tanks differently for each team.

Ha! This is such a poor excuse! There is no way a race team can cheat in this way. They will be found illegal on pre-race car inspection by ACO and disqualified of the race.

 

The power from the ICE is determined by the amount of air being pumped through. Both engines have restrictions, from the table in the document there are diameters (cm) for the restrictors and pressure of the turbo:
- Petrol NA, 3,400 cm3 43.3 or 2 x 30.6 if two are used
- Petrol Turbo 2,000 cm3 42.9 or 2 x 30.3 and 2,500 mbar max pressure
- Diesel Turbo 3.700 cm3 45.8 or 2 x 32.4 and 2,800 mbar max pressure

So tell me in what way they put more restrictions on Audi? Awd is their own choice, speed restriction would be the same in a petrol car.

If I'm completely honest I don't really understand this restriction diameters, but something tells me the high revs (high power) is very limited with these. Diesel engine obviously can not rev high, so they let them bigger displacement, but still they can pump more air (lower restriction + higher turbo pressure) through that engine. I think this gives them a lot more playing field for the economy vs power ratio.

 

I'm not trying to fool anyone, you just are being bull headed. That valve timing is much older than toyota's use. If you allow variable timing, no one will use atkinson still You just don't understand it is not a good choice for a race car.

Why do you think the FIA should create a catagory just so toyota can win. As I said these new tech things go through garage 56. Nissan is going to be racing a hybrid there. We will see if Nissan gets them to create rules for batteries then. You really just don't understand much about racing. Have you even been to a LMP race?

Well they seem to be winning and there are restrictions. You would need to restrict both gasoline otto, diesel turbo more to get atkinson in. Batteries without rules would give unfair advantages versus kers (kinectic energy recovery), so there would have to be greater restrictions on its use, or some other parts of the car.

That is a different sport. I'm not sure how more pitting would make it a better race.

Just trying to explain the rules to you. I actually like nascar better than these races, but I have more interest now that we have a local F1 track COTA and I have been able to go out and see the cars. These endurance challenges are strange races indeed.

 

Its on diesel, but audi is the company pushing diesels. Here were the changes in 2011 to try to equalize the diesel advantage.
Diesel-powered LMP1 cars will be restricted for the inaugural FIA World Endurance Championship - Le Mans news - AUTOSPORT.com

For hybrid and hybrid means kers system, not big battery gasoline engines get 76 liters or 31% more than diesel hybrids which get 58 liters.

The restrictors limit hp, and there is a hard limit on how much hp is allowed. You could tweak the rules to allow for atkinson ice to get a bigger displacement and smaller gas tank with similar hp restrictions as gasoline, but no one has asked the rules committee.

I certainly did not make these rules, but understand where they came from. This is an ancient race, if you want to do a eco endurance race today, you need a different format. To me a 6 hour race is quite boring.