V-8 Car of the Future

[Brad M]

...a yet to be released in Australia Mazda 6, that is a 6 cylinder front wheel drive mid size sedan...

Last article I read on Mazda was they were only going to put the Sky-Activ 4 cylinders in all their future passenger cars.

I don't see how both articles could be about the same car manufacturer.

If Mazda do get in on the V8 Supercars action, I'll be interested to see how they spin it to the masses.

[colcol]

The Team rumored to be running the Mazda is Queensland based Jim Beam Racing Dick Johnston Racing, next year it looks like Ford will be concentrating all its support with the factory racing team of Ford Performance Racing, with Falcon sales on the decline, there is no money for Dick, so a switch to Mazda with dealer support could be a reality, currently Dick runs 4 Falcons, it looks like Moffat is taking his Norton money to Nissan, Paul Morris is taking his V.I.P. petfoods money to Lucas Dumbrell Racing, who will run 2 Tripple eight Commodores, that leaves Steven Johnston and Dean Fiore as Dicks 2 remaining drivers, with Jim Beam rummured to be leaving Dick, to ensure long term survival of Dicks iconic team the no 1 priority, a switch of bodyshell could be on the cards, Dicks 4 current Falcons are built by Tripple eight, if this happens there could be only 4 front running Falcons next year, the stable of FPR, Colin.

[Anthony Miller]

...a yet to be released in Australia Mazda 6, that is a 6 cylinder front wheel drive mid size sedan...

Last article I read on Mazda was they were only going to put the Sky-Activ 4 cylinders in all their future passenger cars.

I don't see how both articles could be about the same car manufacturer.

If Mazda do get in on the V8 Supercars action, I'll be interested to see how they spin it to the masses.

In much the same way that Toyota run V8 rear drive Camry in NASCAR, it's all a case of what wins on Sunday sells on Monday,but I agree it's along bow to draw

[colcol]

Whisper going round at the moment, is that V-8 Supercars are on their way back to channel 10 in 2013, hope it is true, 10 had the forsight to see the advantage in putting on live, motor racing, as opposed to channel 7 who put the VFL on live, then put the Touring cars on late at night, usually up against the Formula 1, hope Neil Crompton and Mark Larkham follow, won't miss Matty White or Grant Denyer one bit at all, no hope of going to channel 9 as reported earlier on in the year, as they are broke!, Colin.

[Duk]

Whisper going round at the moment, is that V-8 Supercars are on their way back to channel 10 in 2013, hope it is true, 10 had the forsight to see the advantage in putting on live, motor racing, as opposed to channel 7 who put the VFL on live, then put the Touring cars on late at night, usually up against the Formula 1, hope Neil Crompton and Mark Larkham follow, won't miss Matty White or Grant Denyer one bit at all, no hope of going to channel 9 as reported earlier on in the year, as they are broke!, Colin.

Agreed!
If Crompton, Skaife and Larkam go back over to Channel 10, it'll be fine. But if they leave out Larkam, I'm fine with that too. I think Crompton is an absolute necessity for successful commentary and Skaife brings massive success based input to the show.

[colcol]

Larkham is great!, good technical knowledge, sense of humor, been a driver, team owner and team manager, did fantastic job at Albert Park Formula 1 technical explanations and as for Neil Crompton, he is the best in the world in my opinion, you look at the old channel 7 commentary from the 70's and 80's and you relise how bad Mike Raymond was and is, i used to watch the old Touring cars at 11 PM with the sound down to avoid Raymonds inane comments, Colin.

[colcol]

The Stones, [Ross & Jimmy, not Mick & Keith], unveiled their Car Of The Future at Queensland Raceway, for a few laps, it was wearing Falcon panels and has a Ford motor as they are still contracted with Ford, it will have new outer panels installed next year to ressemble a AMG E Class Mercedes, complete with restricted Motor so it doesn't lap the pushrod Chev motor in the Holden bodied cars in 2013, Colin.

[Duk]

COTF cars will use a tailshaft mounted torque sensor that will be constantly data logged by the rule makers to make sure that the more technically capable quad cam, multi valve engined cars aren't getting a power advantage and romping away with it all.
Power is capped at 650hp. Any more than 30hp advantage and they'll look very close at 'the offender'.

I still don't think there will be that much in it between the 2 valve push rod engines and the multi valve quad cam engines with a 7500rpm rev limit. The old dinosaurs have proven themselves to be powerful units and I recon they'll all be naturally pretty damn close.

Will be interesting to see if the factory Ford teams stay with the old dinosaur or go with a Coyote based engine.
To me, marketing and valve train durability (not that the dino engine aren't all ready pretty damn durable!) says they should go with the new engine. Financial reality of developing 1 when they all ready have a capable recipe, says otherwise.

[colcol]

When Car Of The Future was announced, the plan was to make it 30% cheaper than it was, the latest poll  in Auto Fiction amongst team managers suggests otherwise, and the power source was going to be $17,000 'crate motors' bought in from the USA via Mexico on wooden packing crates, as it was going to be GM vs Ford, now that Nissan and Mercedes are getting involved, there are no $17,000 crate motors with quad cams for Altimas and E class Mercs, so it seems logically that  Ford and Holden will stick with their current power trains, and with the 'power sensor' installed in the drive shaft between the engine and transaxle, that will limit the amount of power to 650 horses, there will be no incentive to develop any more due to getting  handicaps such as more weight, intake restrictors and lower rev limits, current cars are now obsolete for main game, development feeder series will have some impressive cars next year, except Jamie Whincup, he is reported to be paying team vodafone $600,000 to buy his old car back!, Colin.

[Duk]

Jamie Whincup, he is reported to be paying team vodafone $600,000 to buy his old car back!, Colin.

If I was Jamie Whincup, I'd be buy that chassis (Kate) too!
Even if he never drives that car again, that car has been a massive part of his success over the last few years. How could he let it be 'retired' to the development series to be bashed up by some 'up and coming'?

[MD]

Limitation of power to 650hp..mmm ?? Not all cherries taste the same. Not all horses run at the same rate.
If there is a cap then the pressure is on for who is going to develop that power faster...

[colcol]

The teams will look to max the power at 650 hp, but how are they going to check for torque and driveability?, when a team gets an advantage, the others will start crying, and call for a cap on the leading team, .....just like with Nissan with the GTR,  tried to limit the hp by lower boost and restrictor plates, but the Nissan found torque instead of hp, then Mike Raymond came up with the V-8 formula, that "banned turbos like in formula 1", but actually banned Nissan because they never had a rear wheel drive locally built pushrod V-8, when the season kicks of at the Clipsal 500, the whinning won't all be coming from the Albins transaxle, Colin.

[Duk]

Individual lap speed and long term lap speed is defined by much more than just a power and torque advantage.
Do you really think that there is a massive power advantage between top teams like Triple 8 Racing and FPR versus the 'also ran' teams like Kelly Racing and the like?
The top teams (Triple 8 and FPR) have better chassis (starting with the little intricacies of their roll cage), suspension set up and team integration (as well as driver skill and mind set) to achieve their success. HP differences across the board would be small.

Time will tel the real truth and I maintain that Triple 8 (and FPR) will be the team(s) to be beat.

[colcol]

A few races ago, a Toll HRT car blazed past a Fujitsu GRM car on the mainstraight, Fujitsu driver Michael Carruso, was heard to say over the radio, "this is B.S.", both cars use HRT motors, you see Vodafone cars blast out of corners and pass other cars on the straight and it looks like they have more power, but if they come out of a corner 3 kph faster they hold that all along the straight and pass at the end, about 10 years ago when Toyota decided to go hillbilly racing in Nascar, they were not allowed to use any of that quad cam multi valve rubbish, and the Nascar regulators made them build a pushrod 2 valve V-8 for parity, its only in the last few years they have gone over to horror!, fuel injection, ye gods, that apparantly is made by Mc Claren in the UK, Colin.

[Duk]

Yeah, I saw that too, but it's a rarity to see such difference in straight line speed.
Holding a corner speed advantage will also look like a power advantage unless you can see actual data traces from the 2 competing cars.

And I forgot to mention, if they can constantly log the output from the tailshaft mounted torque sensor, then they will obviously be logging engine speed too. So they will be able to know how much torque the engine generates at any engine speed. So, obviously, they can calculate power too.
Until we know more, we are all just guessing.

Ford Australia have used their electronic throttle to deliberately control the torque output from their XR6 turbo engines.
There is nothing stopping the rule makers from mandating electronic throttle control that could be used to even out the torque characteristics and bring a better performing more in line with the average. At 'X' speed and 'Y' throttle position (full throttle or not), only 'Z' amount of throttle percentage is allowed to cap the torque (and so power) at that particular engine speed.
That way the it's not just full throttle performance that can be capped, but torque output at any given rev and load point that can be capped.