F1 Concept Car

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: Bill888
As for the current Indycars, I still can't get used to those "pods" on the rear corners. Reminds me of the very end of the CanAm series when the real cars were gone and they tried to squeeze out a season or two using F5000 cars with enclosed bodywork, driver still sitting in the center. You either race open-wheeled or you don't.


The above is EXACTLY what I was thinking the first time I set eyes on the new Indycar design with that semi-enclosed rear body work.

I remember back when they used the F5000s for Can Am, and it put the final nail in the coffin of a series that already had been dying a slow death, with all of the big name drivers having left it a while ago.

 

[DeepFriar]

Oooo Formula 5000. Crazy wonderful while it lasted. It was my path of later interest in F1. There are different opinions on David Hobbs as an announcer but that guy drove everything I cared about.

 

[Bill888]

Originally Posted By: DeepFriar
Oooo Formula 5000. Crazy wonderful while it lasted. It was my path of later interest in F1. There are different opinions on David Hobbs as an announcer but that guy drove everything I cared about.

Yep..talk about gutsy drivers - Hobbs, Redman et al. I used to regularly go to Riverside to see the f5000 cars run - basically CanAm with open bodywork. And, I have to mention the guy I think might be the best all-time win-in-anything driver, M. Andretti. In '75, before the first Long Beach F-1 race, they raced F5000 cars to basically verify the concept of fast cars on that track (won by Redman.) After the race I went over to the pit area to look at Andretti's car. The right rear tire appeared to be a whitewall, as he was passing on the inside of the apex on Shoreline Dr. and just barely brushing the white armco barrier (at those speeds in an open-wheeled car.) It was at that point that I realized my then-novice SCCA level would probably be a lifelong status.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: Bill888
I used to regularly go to Riverside to see the f5000 cars run - basically CanAm with open bodywork.


Weren't they limited to 5 liter V-8s (hence the class name)?

They never got to use the crazy big blocks that were used in Can Am during their heyday, correct??

(But that would have been CRAZY cool, a formula car with a 500 c.i./950 hp V-8 sitting in the back!!

)

 

[Bill888]

Many of the CanAm cars used the small-block Chevy engines from builders like Bartz which were taken out to 363 and (IIRC) 388 inch displacement. Even some models of the McLarens used SBC power. Then there were cars like the Porsche 908 with even smaller displacement motors. I fondly remember the sound of the pack coming around to the back straight at Riverside with the ground literally shaking. Then, a few years later, the eerie lack of noise as the Porsche 917s entered the series. What a great time for motor racing.

 

[A_Harman]

The original Can-Am was unlimited, run whatcha brung racing. They started out with aluminum Buicks or Olds at about 300HP, graduated up to aluminum 327 Chevies with about 500 HP, went to big-block Chevies of 427, 430, 465, and 495 cubic inches of about 720-820 HP, then finally went to twin-turbo big-block Chevies of about 1240 HP when the series finally collapsed of its own weight. The twin-turbo UOP Shadow was built to challenge the domination of the 5.0L twin-turbo Porsche 917.

 

[dailydriver]

^^^Yes, I know about the powerplants in the Can Am series, but I was asking about/commenting on the F5000 series engines, as mandated by their rules.

 

[BikeWhisperer]

Originally Posted By: dailydriver
^^^Yes, I know about the powerplants in the Can Am series, but I was asking about/commenting on the F5000 series engines, as mandated by their rules.


F5000 used stock block V8 engines with a maximum 5 liter displacement. The top engines were getting 500hp with fuel injection which was comparable to F1 in power...although in a larger and heavier package compared to the Cosworth DFV. They were reasonably competitive with F1 cars (in fact they did race against them once, Mark Donahue finished 9th as the top F5000 car, but the track favored the F1 cars).

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: BikeWhisperer
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
^^^Yes, I know about the powerplants in the Can Am series, but I was asking about/commenting on the F5000 series engines, as mandated by their rules.


F5000 used stock block V8 engines with a maximum 5 liter displacement. The top engines were getting 500hp with fuel injection which was comparable to F1 in power...although in a larger and heavier package compared to the Cosworth DFV. They were reasonably competitive with F1 cars (in fact they did race against them once, Mark Donahue finished 9th as the top F5000 car, but the track favored the F1 cars).


Thank you, that is what I thought was the case.

The stock block small blocks (IF actually iron stock blocks were required, and not all alloy, including the heads, like was allowed in Can Am) most definitely were heavier than the DFVs, but, I question the size statement, given how much head was involved to contain DOHC/32 valves.