Style Posted December 6, 2017 Share Posted December 6, 2017 Spotted this on a Facebook page I follow. It has some other examples as well but this one's genius "I thought I'd post this awesome bit of rule twisting by the Ford WRC team with the Focus. See that huge piece of welded metal there? That's a 45ltr, 2mm thick titanium tank that was normally hidden behind the rear bumper of the 2003 spec cars which were fitted with fatter US-spec rear bumpers, and you know what it contained? BOOST! Connected to the inlet manifold by 30mm diameter titanium tube and via an electronically controlled valve, the tank was filled with pressurised air from the turbo at part/off throttle situations where the engine airflow needs are low, but thanks to the anti-lag system the turbos compressor could still flow huge amounts of air which was otherwise surplus to requirements. Thanks to the small 34mm inlet restrictor all WRC cars had to run in an attempt to keep power levels in check, the turbo, especially as the revs rose, couldn't supply all the air the engine would require to hit its true power potential, but with a 45ltr tank full of pressurised air, the valve would be opened by the ECU at full chat, releasing the air back to the engine with no inlet restrictor in the way, allowing a sudden performance increase, especially at higher rpm, over what an inlet restricted WRC engine could normally produce; albeit until the tank emptied! As 100% of the air had originally still passed through the inlet restrictor, it was, technically at least, totally legal, but just like a lot of interesting inventions used in motorsport to bypass the regs, it was soon banned!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Style Posted December 6, 2017 Author Share Posted December 6, 2017 Another one: "Another of the wild ways race teams go to extremes to bypass the word of the race regulations is the Volvo BTCC engine in the 90s. The head, modified in the conventional way the rules "seemed" to allow, produced 260bhp, about 25bhp down on most the cars in the series at the time- Not enough to be competitive. So TWR, who ran the works team at the time, set to work studying every letter of the rules to find a way around it, and they did, in maybe the most complex way ever! The BTCC rules basically stated they had to use the production cylinder head. They could port them, they could fit bigger valves, but they couldn't weld extra metal on to in inside the heads, and they couldn't modify the valve angle either. But it didn't say you couldn't cut stuff off, they didn't say you couldn't add metal by bolting it on, and didn't say what angle the head had to sit on the block. So they did ALL of that and a lot more! They pretty much chopped the whole top half of the head off, and bolted on a custom billet setup to house the big valves and cams the rules allowed. The standard valve angle wasn't ideal either, too steep, but that wasn't allowed to be changed. But as the angle that the head bolted to the block wasn't mentioned in the rules, they cut a wedge out of it, so what was left of the production part was tilted in a way that allowed a shallower exhaust port and steeper inlet port design. There was enough of the Volvo head left in the middle to still pass the regs as a 'Production' head, but this new 13.5:1 compression engine made 325bhp- 65bhp more than before, and pretty much the most powerful engine in the field. The legality of it was queried after every race, and every time it was proven to be within the word of the regulations. The main stupid thing was the production head rules was intended to keep costs of the series down, but instead of allowing a custom head design, which would've been 15k for the original then a few hundred each time to re-produce, they were spending £15k each time chopping up and wildly modifying £200 production heads!" - - - Updated - - - And a funny one to finish "I love the tricks people have used to get past the rules and regs of motorsport, and this is one of the simplest, but one of my favourites as it's so blatant! Late 80s Group A Touring Car rules in Australia stated any car that was homologated with a MAF sensor or similar still had to have it connected to the inlet on the race car, and plugged in too. Not ideal when 99% of race cars want/need to run MAP-based aftermarket management and no inlet restriction of a MAF. So Gibson Motorsport, with their ~470bhp RB20 powered R31 GTS-R Skyline, simply bolted the MAF sensor to the inner wing, in plain sight, with a chopped off MAF sensor wiring plug fitted, and joined it to the inlet near the air filter with a little piece of vac hose! Totally within the words that the rulebook stated, just not what they intended to mean! It's not what the rulebook says you can't do, it's what it doesn't say you can't do..." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz6002 Posted December 6, 2017 Share Posted December 6, 2017 There are plenty of these stories. It's basically what motorsport is all about. My favourite is the NASCAR team hiding N2O in the rollcage but it's worth looking up the ST205 Celica GT4 WRC's clever restrictor too. Fascinating engineering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axl Posted December 6, 2017 Share Posted December 6, 2017 Love that Volvo head Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Style Posted December 6, 2017 Author Share Posted December 6, 2017 A few people mentioned Toyota's trick as well but I never got a chance to read about it. Sounded very clever so I'm off to have a read Hidden floor pans filled with water to make weight at scrutinising which was then emptied was another simple one that tickled me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ark Posted December 6, 2017 Share Posted December 6, 2017 A race team principle once spent half an hour boring me about how his team had found the regulation wiring harness could return less electrical resistance by mechanically stressing it to nearly breaking before use, which caused some trivial percentage performance improvement. Of course the harness would only last one race, but it was apparently worth it. And of course there are the apocryphal stories of 'widebody' Jags, which were cut 'n shuts with a few inches added in the middle; when challenged on the authenticity of the shells they would claim 'of course they're real, I bet you'll see several in the specators car park', which of course they'd seeded with similarly modified road cars... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Style Posted December 7, 2017 Author Share Posted December 7, 2017 There are plenty of these stories. It's basically what motorsport is all about. My favourite is the NASCAR team hiding N2O in the rollcage but it's worth looking up the ST205 Celica GT4 WRC's clever restrictor too. Fascinating engineering. Very clever stuff from the Toyota team however I'd say that's more cheating than bending the rules A race team principle once spent half an hour boring me about how his team had found the regulation wiring harness could return less electrical resistance by mechanically stressing it to nearly breaking before use, which caused some trivial percentage performance improvement. Of course the harness would only last one race, but it was apparently worth it. And of course there are the apocryphal stories of 'widebody' Jags, which were cut 'n shuts with a few inches added in the middle; when challenged on the authenticity of the shells they would claim 'of course they're real, I bet you'll see several in the specators car park', which of course they'd seeded with similarly modified road cars... That's up at the extreme end of backing up your case Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Doom Posted December 7, 2017 Share Posted December 7, 2017 My favorite was the 1970 Chaparral 2J. They added an extra small engine at the rear from a snowmobile, powering two giant fans that literally sucked it to the ground. The grip was ridiculous and gave it a big advantage, the trouble was the fans sucked up dirt and debris from the track and sprayed the cars behind. This is a great read - http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a32350/jim-hall-chaparral-2j-history/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Wilson Posted December 17, 2017 Share Posted December 17, 2017 Audi take some beating with their flat plane crank V8's that they claimed bent like that when heat treated... The Toyota turbo restrictor that opened up when the throttle was mashed beyond what felt like the throttle stop was a work of art, Fraser MacKellar of Motec fame had one and it was an absolute jewel of thing. TVR ran a car in a series with a rear transaxle. The regs said the gearbox casing had to be original and in the original place. It was, but totally empty save for the torque shaft running through it to the transaxle. i used to see scrutineers purple with rage but impotent to ban it... F3 cars with the air box and restrictor mounted so again, at WOT the air box pulled away from its O rings allowing un-restrcted air to the engine. Dampers that locked down over a bump and held the car illegally low, yet when parked they rose up within a few seconds to make it legal when tested. It's not just politicians who are bent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Style Posted December 18, 2017 Author Share Posted December 18, 2017 Audi take some beating with their flat plane crank V8's that they claimed bent like that when heat treated... The Toyota turbo restrictor that opened up when the throttle was mashed beyond what felt like the throttle stop was a work of art, Fraser MacKellar of Motec fame had one and it was an absolute jewel of thing. TVR ran a car in a series with a rear transaxle. The regs said the gearbox casing had to be original and in the original place. It was, but totally empty save for the torque shaft running through it to the transaxle. i used to see scrutineers purple with rage but impotent to ban it... F3 cars with the air box and restrictor mounted so again, at WOT the air box pulled away from its O rings allowing un-restrcted air to the engine. Dampers that locked down over a bump and held the car illegally low, yet when parked they rose up within a few seconds to make it legal when tested. It's not just politicians who are bent Great stuff I would say the Toyota and F3 airbox tricks were more cheating than bending the rules but interesting to see what extents people will go to none the less Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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