F-1 Oil burning to increase power

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I_4

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I am a bit surprised that no one has started a thread on this, so here goes. Renault has accused MB of burning oil during qualifying or other times to increase the "fuel flow" and power. To get around the fuel flow limiter rules currently in place. Engine Oil consumption is not limited or regulated. So it must be some type of covert to the rules system that will allow engine oil to the combustion chambers. Of course MB denies all of this now. Anytime there is smoke, there could be fire, and I do think Renault would just make this up. But who knows? Not really a big fan of these power units, the expense and noise. I preferred the V12 and flat 12 era. MB has had the upper hand the past three years with their split turbo. But they are technically interesting science projects.
 
It is proven in 2 strokes that burning oil increases power when tuned correctly, maybe there is something to it. I'd think it would have to come from the intake and not past the rings to be beneficial. I'm not up on F1 design but I'm imagining a pressurized leaky valve train that leads to the intake...
 
A "malfunctioning PCV valve" would certainly fit the bill to allow more oil into combustion chamber.
I wonder if the oil is formulated to be more combustible than a standard oil ....
 
So, Pale mineral oil would burn at higher pressure engines? They may be adding those maxx add in the turbo exit?
 
Litre for litre there's more energy content in the oil than in the fuel.

Octane not so much.

Can see it happening, and I thought back in the days of fuel freezing, this was tried.
 
I've noticed that these turbo F1 engines sometimes smoke a little when pulling away from a stop, but I've always noticed that the Mercedes' are the 'smokiest' of the bunch. Clever idea nonetheless; no limit to oil sump size IIRC.
 
At the cylinder pressure levels they are running, I'm skeptical they could use enough motor oil in the combustion chamber to make significantly more power without it causing detonation problems. Motor oil typically has a cetane number of 80, which makes it very prone to autoignition. Maybe their lubricant supplier has developed a very special lubricant that overcomes this problem?
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
At the cylinder pressure levels they are running, I'm skeptical they could use enough motor oil in the combustion chamber to make significantly more power without it causing detonation problems. Motor oil typically has a cetane number of 80, which makes it very prone to autoignition. Maybe their lubricant supplier has developed a very special lubricant that overcomes this problem?


In Formula 1 anything is possible. If these oil burn stories are true, I can easily imagine tens of millions of dollars being spent in a single season to develop, use, and perfect an engine oil that provided additional benefits beyond "ordinary" engine lubrication.

This kind of stuff is what makes F1 great. (and as someone said, bring back the 3 liter 12s - naturally aspirated and without fuel restrictions!)

Scott
 
Originally Posted By: SLO_Town
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
At the cylinder pressure levels they are running, I'm skeptical they could use enough motor oil in the combustion chamber to make significantly more power without it causing detonation problems. Motor oil typically has a cetane number of 80, which makes it very prone to autoignition. Maybe their lubricant supplier has developed a very special lubricant that overcomes this problem?


In Formula 1 anything is possible. If these oil burn stories are true, I can easily imagine tens of millions of dollars being spent in a single season to develop, use, and perfect an engine oil that provided additional benefits beyond "ordinary" engine lubrication.

This kind of stuff is what makes F1 great. (and as someone said, bring back the 3 liter 12s - naturally aspirated and without fuel restrictions!)

Scott


Yes, that's why I didn't completely dismiss the possibility. Never say never when it comes to F1 and chemistry.
 
Hello, I'm going to add further comment about Formula 1 competition...

Years ago (I'm 64) Sam Posey was covering Grand Prixs for one of the networks. This may even have been before cable. There had been rumors that the Grand Prix cars were using "rocket fuel" instead of the specified gasoline design. Rumors circulated about pit crew members being affected by these fumes. There were several fuel suppliers, the usual ones in F1, Agip, Shell, Gulf, etal. These suppliers had very close relationships with certain F1 Constructors. It was part of the technical alliance in F1.

On this particular broadcast (I'm thinking mid '80s), Sam somehow got a hold two professional looking measuring flasks. These two identical flasks held exactly equal amounts of fuel. I seem to recall the color of the two fuels differed somewhat, but the same exact quantity was in each flask. Sam had gotten one of the fuels from some official source. The other sample was obtained secretly from one of the teams. Right in front of the camera, right in front of your face, Sam puts the two flasks on a balance scale. One of the fuel samples caused the balance to slam down on its stop, because the other fuel was much lighter. You could visualize the difference in "power potential" between the two fuels, the heaviest one having the greatest power potential (and being the illegal one).

It was an amazing piece of investigative work by Sam Posey. There was indeed fuel cheating taking place! IIRC, the FIA started cracking down on fuel shortly after that.

Scott
 
I have an SAE paper written by Honda in 1990 about their F1 V6 turbo after the 1980's turbo era. It goes into great detail about their engines and fuels. When the FIA started limiting the liters of fuel the cars could carry, Honda developed a fuel that was about 80% toluene, and had a significantly higher heat content per unit of volume than previous fuels. Pretty clever, I thought. That is how to interpret the rule book to your own advantage!

The current turbo F1 rules specifies a maximum fuel mass allowed to get through a race (100kg).
 
In all Professional Racing, there are regulations. Anything that doesn't actually "break" those regulations, is fair game..
 
Here is what I think is funny about this.... If it's true. They spend tens of millions of dollars developing all of this "green" stuff, like KERS and such. Trying to recover lost energy from the brakes and put it into batteries. So they can use it somewhere else on the track as "free, clean power". Then it all gets shot to he!! because they start burning motor oil for more power! Ya' gotta love it. F1 would burn blood from dead old ladies if they thought they could win with it.
 
Given the obvious cetane issues, they could be adding energy to the turbine end of the equation.
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
At the cylinder pressure levels they are running, I'm skeptical they could use enough motor oil in the combustion chamber to make significantly more power without it causing detonation problems. Motor oil typically has a cetane number of 80, which makes it very prone to autoignition. Maybe their lubricant supplier has developed a very special lubricant that overcomes this problem?


Originally Posted By: Shannow
Given the obvious cetane issues, they could be adding energy to the turbine end of the equation.


Bit puzzled by these references to cetane number.

As I understand it, current Formula 1 engines are required to run on pretty much standard unleaded pump petrol.

Isn't octane number rather than cetane number the relevent performance parameter?
 
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