Banned stuff?

Knurled wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

NGTD wrote: There is a great quote from Walter Rohrl and the end of a video called "The Gods behind the Wheel(IIRC). He is asked about how it went and he said something like, "I only know that the Audi is too fast for me!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1WcLLcb2FM

But that comes down to the old saying. "Power is nothing without control" Those cars were massively, stupidly powerful. Some claim over 600 or even 700hp with primitive electronics, massive turbo lag, on/off power delivery with crude suspension, dampers and diffs.

In reality, 400hp, 500hp maybe. Certainly the Audis were the most powerful (their heavier weight allowed them 2100cc engines vs the 1700s of Lancia and Peugeot), but conversely the Audis were also supposed to be utter pigs that could only go, stop, and turn, but no two at the same time...

Yes, hence I said claimed. But I have seen several sources claiming 600hp for the delta S4. Don't forget it was super and turbo charged.

Will wrote: One of my all-time favorite cheats, just because it was so simple, was whichever NASCAR team at Talladega stuck some washers under the roof flaps to elevate them a bit and get air over the spoiler. NASCAR also specs how stiff the springs can be, and Chad Knaus won several races for JJ by building shocks so stiff they acted as stiffer springs. That was banned after it was discovered. Bill Elliott won 4 races in a row before anyone discovered the cambered rear end. It wasn't banned outright, but the rules now limit the amount of camber.

There seems to be a fine line between cheats and bans Of course, cheating and bans are intertwined.

My favorite was the team that dropped a cylinder on the dyno while testing a restrictor plate motor and discovered that the engine made the same power dragging a cylinder. So they sealed one of the header tubes off at the collector, slit it open up against the engine where nobody would see it, then had a camshaft ground with that cylinder's lobes reversed...

The SCCA's banning of turbo's and EFI for most of its road racing classes because of all of the cheating that went on during the late 70's and early 80's.

The CVT was banned in F1

Someone in NASCAR used the rollcage to hold fuel to increase fuel capacity. Smokey did something similar by using HUGE diameter fuel lines I believe, so much so that when NASCAR pulled the tank, he was able to start the car and drive it back to the pits without the tank installed.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Yes, hence I said claimed. But I have seen several sources claiming 600hp for the delta S4. Don't forget it was super and turbo charged.

I can almost believe 600hp when everything was perfect (not overheating, Markku's car actually running on all four cylinders, etc) given how its times on a circuit were pretty close to contemporary F1 cars. But it wasn't supercharged AND turbocharged, it was supercharged or turbocharged, Lancia deciding to bypass the supercharger once the big triple-K got on song. At least, every document I could find suggested that.

Running in series instead of either/or would have allowed them to make the same manifold pressure with less work done by the turbo, but the engine controls of the day may not have been sophisticated enough to work properly over the engine's whole range. I understand that just the computer that controlled Audi's Umluft system was rather... complex and ungainly.

Don't get me wrong, I like Audi. The engines sound cool and it's nice that they used, theoretically, the same things that they ran on the street. But Audi went in the wrong direction in so many ways that it's almost a case study of what not to do. Cars can't take tight turns well with a locked differential? Make the wheelbase shorter! Car too nose heavy? Move everything to the back, and hey we can power the alternator by the power steering pump too so let's move that to the back too. One does have to admit that the experimental PDK transmission worked out well for them in the end.

I like the NASCAR NOS bottles found on the back straight of Talladega during qualifying, or the lead shot instead of bricks for ballast. pull a thread and loose some weight.

Although the funniest one I have seen was in boat racing OPC Racing stock class. They would add shaped inserts into the cylinder head that was held in with a few of the spark plug threads. Up the compression and get much more power. When the heads would get pulled for inspection, you would leave the spark plugs in. Once the head was removed you would set the heads on a towel and remove the spark plugs. The inserts would fall onto the towel and you would lift up the head and cover the inserts with a towel in one motion.

You would then have a crew member pick up the towel, tools and spark plugs and pack it away for the trip home, while you would go over to inspector with your heads to get them measured You never reassemble at the course.

EDIT: Just for clarification, Stock Racing class is a 2 stroke outboard class.

Jay_W wrote: Then there was Toyota's variable-flow turbo restrictor...but I reckon it was banned before they installed it.

Before anyone questions the utility of the alterations: They inspected the restrictors closely when they noted that the Toyotas were out-accelerating other cars on a side-by-side stage, when this should have been mathematically impossible.

After Toyota was caught, a number of other teams also changed their restrictors... Hmmm

In reply to Knurled:

The claim was about 50BHP gain....

Knurled wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Yes, hence I said claimed. But I have seen several sources claiming 600hp for the delta S4. Don't forget it was super and turbo charged.

I can almost believe 600hp when everything was perfect (not overheating, Markku's car actually running on all four cylinders, etc) given how its times on a circuit were pretty close to contemporary F1 cars.

Pretty close? I thought it was qualifying 6th on the grid or something nutty like that?

I would believe that most of the sanctioning bodies like Tudor united sportscar championship, V8 supercars, etc. don't allow magnetorheological shock absorbers for many of their classes.

Knurled wrote:

Jay_W wrote: Then there was Toyota's variable-flow turbo restrictor...but I reckon it was banned before they installed it.

Before anyone questions the utility of the alterations: They inspected the restrictors closely when they noted that the Toyotas were out-accelerating other cars on a side-by-side stage, when this should have been mathematically impossible. After Toyota was caught, a number of *other* teams also changed their restrictors... Hmmm

History notes that Toyota received a one-year ban for that illegal mod. If it was later adopted by other teams, was it because the rules were changed?

It wasn't later adopted by other teams... when Toyota got banned (hey, now we're back on topic ) and other teams redesigned their restrictors, the implication is that they were cheating too and had to "go legit" in the face of possible further scrutiny. Toyota just happened to be the best at cheating. Or at least, the best at making more power, being the best at cheating requires not getting caught.

Newer restrictors look like they are expressly designed so that the area of restriction is deliberately thinwall, so you can't pull these kind of shenanigans. You can't go around it, and you'd instantly know if it was pulled further from the impeller blade (which was probably most of the power gain).

rcutclif wrote: is this a trojan-horse plot to get us to design your next challenge car? I don't have anything but am interested to see what comes forth.

Perhaps.

But I also thought it would generate a pretty good conversation.

Mission accomplished.

turboswede wrote: Someone in NASCAR used the rollcage to hold fuel to increase fuel capacity. Smokey did something similar by using HUGE diameter fuel lines I believe, so much so that when NASCAR pulled the tank, he was able to start the car and drive it back to the pits without the tank installed.

I'm not sure they ever figured out how he did it, but Junior Johnson's cars used to get excellent "fuel mileage".

And I believe DW was driving for him when he won a race and blew the engine on the cool down lap so it couldn't be dynoed.

Flight Service wrote: Although the funniest one I have seen was in boat racing OPC Racing stock class. They would add shaped inserts into the cylinder head that was held in with a few of the spark plug threads. Up the compression and get much more power. When the heads would get pulled for inspection, you would leave the spark plugs in. Once the head was removed you would set the heads on a towel and remove the spark plugs. The inserts would fall onto the towel and you would lift up the head and cover the inserts with a towel in one motion. You would then have a crew member pick up the towel, tools and spark plugs and pack it away for the trip home, while you would go over to inspector with your heads to get them measured You never reassemble at the course.

I heard of something similar being done in kart racing - they'd use spark plugs with cutouts in them for inspection, to drop the compression on a cheater head so it passes. Then swap to a standard spark plug and off you go!

Speaking of Toyota, here's an interesting article on their GTO efforts with Dan Gurney (prior to going to GTP):

http://allamericanracers.com/the-angriest-celicas/

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

Knurled wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Yes, hence I said claimed. But I have seen several sources claiming 600hp for the delta S4. Don't forget it was super and turbo charged.

I can almost believe 600hp when everything was perfect (not overheating, Markku's car actually running on all four cylinders, etc) given how its times on a circuit were pretty close to contemporary F1 cars.

Pretty close? I thought it was qualifying 6th on the grid or something nutty like that?

I've heard that story for years and I flat out don't believe it. Google turns up this that sort of claims it, but I don't buy it.

Look at the facts. Yes Group B had potentially 600hp, maybe more for a single banzi run, but F1 had more. 750 was race hp, this was the days of 1,000hp or even up to the mythical 1,500hp for qualifying. Then look at weight. A Group B Delta S4 weighed in at just under 900kg (call it 2,000lb's) without the driver while an F1 car at that time weighed in at 540kg (call it 1,200lb's) So on power to weight alone I can't buy it. Allowing a generous 700hp for the S4 that's a power to weight of 2.8 lb's/hp where the F1 car was at the worst case 1.7lb's/hp in race spec. In quali spec it was in the region of 0.8-1.2 lb's/hp. Not even close. Then take in to account the fact that the F1 car was designed as a race car with less than 50mm ground clerance, properly designed suspension and berkeley off wide slicks and massive aero. The Group B car, while a technical tour de fource was still tall, spindly with no where near the aero or mechanical tire/weight grip of the F1 car. I'd love to believe it, but if it was remotely true then every F1 designer should have been fired on the spot. If you read Tony Southgate's biography he designed the RS200 after years as an F1 and Sports car designer. He talked at length about the completely different geometry requirements for rally Vs F1, again , the rally car stood no chance.

I recall several well known cheats back when I was racing. In A sedan it was illegal to seem weld the chassis, I was told by some people in the known that the top cars were stripped then the seems were all brazed. As brazing relies on the capillary action of the filler to be drawn into the narrow gap, you don't notice it as there is no bead on the outside of the joint. Once painted you couldn't see the discoloration of the joint and it looked stock.

Another one that I and others did wasn't cheating, it was careful use of the rules. IT regs prevented strengthening of the chassis beyond the 8 point roll cage. I used to run a Mk I Fiesta, they were notorious for flexing the firewall where the brake pedal was, but you couldn't strengthen it. Instead what you did was make the mounting pad for the forward leg of the roll cage the absolute max allowed in the rules and position it such that it was under the master cyl mounting area. The cage leg itself then landed near the edge of the mount, rather than in the center. It really worked for pedal feel.

I have a hard time believing a rally car could beat an F1 car - but the Can-Am monsters were quicker for sure. They sometimes raced on the same track only a few weeks apart so it was a pretty direct comparison. Their races were longer too. Talk about banned, pretty much any of the interesting tech from that series is illegal everywhere. Although it did certainly answer the question: "Is it better to have all the power in the world at the expense of weight, or have a lighter/smaller car with less power?".

They used a puffer to check displacement at some tracks. When you pull the plug for the test dumping some cigarettes in there could make it read smaller, then they blow harmlessly out the exhaust when you start it.

I remember reading one in NASCAR or circle track racing where they used two cylinders of a V8 as a pump to help extract exhaust air from the other cylinders, and didn't allow the intake valve of those two pumping cylinders to open. Or something like that. Anyone know what legend I'm vaguely referring to?

After mazda won, the FIA banned the rotary engine due to its "unfair weight advantage"

something something reliability something fuel economy something something powa! something.... victory!

fidelity101 wrote: After mazda won, the FIA banned the rotary engine due to its "unfair weight advantage" something something reliability something fuel economy something something powa! something.... victory!

The International Rotard Mafia may take out a hit on me for this and I may need to go into hiding, but I've always thought that Rotary engines were cheating in motorsport to start with. Not the fact that they are rotary, but due to the farcical capacity definitions. You have a nominal 13b for instance based off of two rotors, each with a theoretical volume of around 0.65L for a total of a theoretical 1.3L. The thing is while the rotor turns at 1/3 crank speed, you get three firings per revolution of the rotor so one firing per revolution of the crank. In a 4 cycle Piston engine you get one firing every second revolution. So I think to make it fair a 13B should be classed as a 2.6L and a 12A classed as a 2.4L. This also makes their pathetic fuel economy slightly more understandable.

Note, I'm not anti Wankel. I used to own an FC and miss it dearly. I strongly considered an Rx8 until I saw the pathetic fuel econ. Wankels make great toys, but are useless as DD's to me because of the gallons per inch fuel econ.

indeed :)

I think in Europe the 13b is actually considered to be a 2.6L for emissions and insurance/taxing/titling etc but that varies drastically between countries.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

I agree with everything that you just said.

I believe the upcoming ban on the rotary was already known when Mazda took the 787B to Le Mans. It was now or never for that car. I'll bet you could run one today with the current rule set, but I expect the fuel economy would make it a no-go.