Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: addyguy
I wonder when they get time to check it, add oil, and make sure the level is right......
Not during a race! Its against the rules to add oil anyways even if they had time. I guess now that they use an engine for a couple races they actually change the oil. Back in the good old days of qualifying engines some engines didn't get the oil changed until it was rebuilt... OCI of 30 minutes...
I guess they try to use oil separator tanks to catch the blow-by and drain it back into the sump for use
Originally Posted By: 90crvtec
Martin Brundle, commentator on BBC and ex-F1 driver, frequently talks about topping up the oil as well. He refers to it as an external oil tank that the teams can access when the rear engine cover is off the car. I don't know if "topping up the tank" is just British lingo for adding more oil or if there's actually a large dry sump reservoir back there, I tend to think there is actually a large tank used for the oil supply.
I would think the setup would be similar in concept to the oil supply on an LS7 in a Z06 or any of the dry sump Porsche engines.
If you watch closely it isn't unusual to see a lot of the F1 cars having bluish smoke come out of one of the cylinder banks on the over-run after a really high G corner. This was really common last year with all the Mercedes powered cars, if the driver just made a 5G right hand turn you could see some very light smoke trails on the left hand engine bank if he let off the throttle.
Finally, I would imagine the hydraulic valvetrain requires a HUGE amount of oil at extremely high flow rates to stay reliable. I would guess an F1 car's capacity for oil is easily in the tens of liters.
I thought F1 has gone to solenoid valvetrain?