F1 Engine Oil Consumption

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It really struck me when Steve Matchett said during the Bahrain race this weekend that the engines consume 5-7L of oil during a race. I had no idea it was this high. Where is all this oil consumed? Injected? What is sump capacity anyway? I wonder how much oil is left after a race?
 
Did you see Mark Webber's car blow out all that (oil?) smoke on the first few corners of the race? Overfilled much?
lol.gif


They probably have oil level sensors that relay information to the race engineers.
 
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...
 
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.
 
Piston rings rubbing the cylinder walls all the way up creates more friction than some built-in wobble/slap.
 
i would be more worried about the pneumatic valve springs having enough air pressure, i seem to remember a few years ago McLaren having to "top up" the pneumatic valve air supply during a GP.

Steve Manchett has said they have a "reserve" tank in addition to the dry sump that allows them to top up the dry sump tank. The driver has to control it since two way controls were banned.
 
Originally Posted By: pcfxer
Piston rings rubbing the cylinder walls all the way up creates more friction than some built-in wobble/slap.


Especially spinning at 17K RPM (limited?) to 21K RPM (capable?).
 
I have heard from a guy at Shell that the Ferrari engine uses a 0w5!! With the amount of heat that must get generated, that oil must be REAL thin. He also told me that the oil they use doesn't have detergents as it gets changed so frequently.
 
Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
The tolerances are so tight on the motors that they have to run heated oil through them otherwise they wont crank over.
you mean clearances? I would hope they keep the tolerances tight,
 
Originally Posted By: Oxman
I have heard from a guy at Shell that the Ferrari engine uses a 0w5!! With the amount of heat that must get generated, that oil must be REAL thin.


That's why the engines idle at 5K! At lower speeds, the oil film would break down. MotoGP bikes have similar needs.
 
The engines idle just fine at 3000 RPMs.
The ECUs need more computation power than a typical desktop PC inorder to keep the engine from self destructing (more or less all the time).
The pistons run one scraper ring and one compression ring 0.75mm in thickness (chrome)
The cylinders have an exotic coating (used to be nikasil) to hold oil
The gasoline has been jury-rigged so that it detonates at the 102 octane lever in the test engine, but not in the actual race engine. The gasoline carries about 5&-7% more thermal energy than pump grade gasoline.
If you made the F1 engine use pump grade gasoline you would loose at least 50 HP. However, it would run just fine and not self destruct.
The intake velocity stacks change size based on the acceleration rate and the RPM band. This allows for the intake to be tuned to "the whole RPM band" rather than a few small ranges in the RPM band.
The engines will survive 21-22K RPMs without mechanical fatique but are regulated to 19K RPMS (last year) and 18K RPMs (this year).
When the RPM range is breached, if the ECU just cut fuel or spark, the engine would self destruct crank tortional vibrational failure. So the ECU backs down the advance, and cuts cylinders fuel and spark in a prescribed pattern to supress these vibrations. It also flashes a red light on the steering wheel to inform the driver to upshift. The ECU is regulated against shifting for the driver.

The coatings on the valves cost more than an LS7 engine--not the valves with the coatings, the coatings themselves (DLC or ADC).
 
Originally Posted By: Mitch Alsup
The intake velocity stacks change size based on the acceleration rate and the RPM band. This allows for the intake to be tuned to "the whole RPM band" rather than a few small ranges in the RPM band.


Per the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations section 5.7.1 Variable Geometry Intake Systems are not permitted.

source http://fia.com/en-GB/sport/regulations/Pages/FIAFormulaOneWorldChampionship.aspx
 
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?
 
F1 use a pneumatic valve spring. the valves are required to be opened via a camshaft per the Technical Regulations. to close the valve air in injected into a "bag" for lack of a better word to close the valve since a metal spring will float or take too long to close.
 
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