smuff76 - 06 November 2009 12:44 PM

I think you all are missing a key element in your discussion....... the weight of the new car. A 1600 lb. dallara produces 650 hp to get the speeds we have now. A 1000 lb. would need about 406 hp to equal the same hp/weight ratio. These motors are supposed to be designed to go 3000 miles (I think that's the number?) between rebuilds.

I don't believe we will be seeing higher hp numbers. I believe it will be a lighter car with lower hp.

Indications have been that the power will go up for road courses at least. It's pretty hard to make an IndyCar any lighter without either increasing cost, reducing safety, or both...

I guess we will see.

The current Honda V-8 weighs about 300 lbs. I would guess an I4T will probably shed 100 lbs. of that. Not sure but I would guess that you could also shed some gearbox/transmission weight with a lower hp setup and updating to a newer transmission. There is also the added weight to the current cars that many of these "add-on" safety features could be removed and actually incorporated into the actual design of the car, thus reducing weight.

I guess we won't know until they actually release what they are going to do.

marshall banana, have you been reading my posts about consolidation, ALMS, Scott Atherton,Nascar, and bernie. LOL.I forgot A1GPand the Atlantics too.

Earl has always wished the other series would just "consolidate" into nothing so Indycar would be able to take it's natural place at the top of the heap. I suppose he has little confidence that the series can get there WITH other series still on the landscape.

The issue with a power to weight ratio is you still need some "grunt" to get up to speed quickly, when not racing on an oval. I think most calculations show that an F1 car has less than 300 ft.lbs of torque, to move the 1300 lb car. But, I think a V8 can turn out more T than a 4 banger. So, getting enough torque, and not having a lot of HP, might be a tough job.

So for road courses you want torque right? I don't think top speed is the big thin at Long Beach, I'd say it's gettin off the corner and the 1st half of a straight. That is torque. To me, it's like when we were growing up and we figured that just because the speed limit was say 45, there was no law against how fast you got to 45. So without burning out, we'd always try and see just how quick we could get to the speed limit. So to me, as I've tried to say elsewhere, the cars need a lot more torque! I don't know if it's the engine or gearing that would work the best, but they need some torque.

Yep, you need torque. As I recall, torque is a by product of the engine geometry. In it's simplest form, it's force times lever arm distance. I think in an internal combustion engine, that is how the piston works on the crank shaft. The more offset from center or rotation, the more torque it will have. I'm sure there is more to it than JUST that, but I'm going off my old physics classes.

In an F1 engine, the offset is very small, so even though they get upwards of 900 hp, the torque is more like a 300 hp engine. They rev like crazy and the piston moves only a small amount to make that HP. They also keep the revs way up there during the race. I doubt they ever drop below 10k rpm, once they leave the grid. I think they idle at 8k.

I suspect that configuration is too costly and fragile for the next gen series engine.

Still a 4 cylinder engine will need to rev higher than a 6 cylinder one.

Couldn't you potentially adjust the torque factor with gears? A RC gearbox could have gears that force more low to mid response while a oval gearbox could have better top end gears even a overdrive. Changing the gearing you could have a 5 speed on a RC and a 6 speed for the ovals.

I just think you don't need 1,000 HP to have a good race. I think 500-600 could produce great racing if the powerband could be adjusted accordingly depending on the track. Even the difference in RC could be adjusted for in this manner.

The number mentioned a year ago for target HP with the new engine was 750. They plan on dialing it down to the present levels (with adjusting the turbo) so it runs at the present level for ovals and gets all of it for road/street courses. So they'd be roughly the same speed on the ovals but a lot faster on the twisty courses with a car built to run there and more HP.

They may tweak that now with TG out of the picture and with push to pass seemingly around to stay.

I really wish the whole P to P, or whatever it is called, would just go away. No traction control, no anti-locks, no P to P, just all in the drivers abilities. Whoever gets the traction down the best does the best.