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Nissan Unveils 88 Pound 400-HP Race Car Engine
cartechboy writes "Motorsports used to be about lots of horsepower, torque, and big engines. In recent years there's been a shift to downsizing engines, using less fuel, and even using alternative energy such as clean diesel and hybrid powertrains. Today Nissan unveiled a 400-horsepower 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbocharged engine that weighs only 88 pounds. This engine will be part of the advanced plug-in hybrid drivetrain that will power the ZEOD RC electrified race car that will run in the 2015 LMP1 class during the race season. Nissan says the driver of the ZEOD RC will be able to switch between electric power and gasoline power with the batteries being recharged via regenerative braking. Even more impressive, according to Nissan, for every hour the ZEOD RC races, the car will be able to run one lap of the Le Mans' 8.5-mile Circuit de la Sarthe on electric power alone. If true, that will make it the first race car in history to complete a lap during a formal race with absolutely zero emissions. If this all works, we could be witnessing the future of motorsports unfold before our eyes later this year when the ZEOD RC (video) makes its race debut at this year's Le Mans 24 Hours in June."
39.9kG
it should be g not G. G is the universal gravitational constant.
the horsepower per hour of engine life? That thing looks like it'll last 20 hours before it needs rebuilding.
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If you're going to build a series hybrid, why bother with pistons and cranks? Just make the turbo bigger and you have... a gas turbine. Use it to drive a big alternator and viola! The turbine can run at constant speed and be optimised for that one speed - the rest of the drive train is purely electrical. Someone should at least test the concept.
Yeah... except... over the last few decades, technology advances like this at the cutting edge of racing technology have translated within a few years to increased fuel efficiency and so on in production cars.
Vehicle technology gets driven forward by the people who sink lots of money into vanity projects like this. We all end up benefiting from it.
The engine the guy in the picture is holding has no turbocharger on it.
It's not going to produce 400hp without it. The other pictures have one.
Since the battery was charged by burning gasoline in the engine, how does that make it "absolutely zero emissions"?
The rubber that comes off a tyre in one lap at speed should also qualify as pollution.
I hope these low/no emission races grow to rival formula 1 and and nascar. They are a great way to boost innovation and also encourage people to adopt the tech.
You attach a compressor to the exhaust pipe on a normal car. The exhaust is compressed and stored in a tank. The tank can hold the exhaust from one lap of a race. During a lap, no emissions are released. Would you have a "first race car in history to complete a lap during a formal race with absolutely zero emissions". No. You wouldn't. Whoever is claiming "zero emissions" is a fool. Altering the time or location when emissions are released does not make something zero emissions. How much nasty bunker oil was used to ship all the parts around the globe to make the damn thing? How many children in China will get cancer because they live next to the mine that produced all the rare earths that went into the magnets and electronics?
Minimizing pollution is a noble goal. Making blatantly false and misleading statements to support your world view, biases or support your agenda is wrong on many levels.
not really people have gotten 900HP out of 2.0L EVO engines so 400 out of a 1.5L is within the realm of attainability whats really impressive is the weight
The old Gruppe B racers were some classic examples of engineers gone wild. Tremendously powered 4 cyl engines in fly-weight all-wheel-drive cars, which regularly flew off the track, into crowds lining the course with spectacularly bloody results. Eventually the race series was cancelled, but the little monsters of each builder's homologation are to still be found in the collections of automotive buffs around the world. Look up the Ford RS-200 as an example.
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Ferrari claims that their 1.6 liter, V6 2014 F1 engine produces 600-650 HP with another 160 HP from the Energy Recovery System. Each driver gets just five engines for the 19 race season.
http://formula1.ferrari.com/ne...
Technology marches on.
not really people have gotten 900HP out of 2.0L EVO engines so 400 out of a 1.5L is within the realm of attainability whats really impressive is the weight
I do recall reading about several individuals who have gotten 1k+ HP out of 2.0L Ford Cosworth engines.
As an actual motorsport specialist and not just shitposting - this is not just real but a case where the hyperbole matches reality. 300Kw out of a 1.5 litre motor has long been possible, the old F1 engines produced 4 times that in qualifying trim. In race trim as the boost has to be turned down, close to 500Kw and more.
The weight of the engine is quite amazing. 39 kgs for a long block is a hell of a thing. And even more that it's also a dressed long block, where items liek the alternator and water pumps are on the engine and included in the weight. Even the turbo, that's amazing. Given the best way to add performance is lose weight, this is at least a 50 kgs' advantage. In this case it is offset by the hybrid system but a electric motor has a huge amount of torque so this thing will fucking SCOOT out of corners.
IF it works, then yes this is a revolution in motorsport. I am not seeing a problem with the headlines or what Nissan is claiming.
You can get insane power out of any engine, but you use up the engine quite fast. A topfuel engine (~8L) can have 1k HP just of parasitic loss to the supercharger, but still make 8-10,000 HP. Getting 1000-1250 HP/l happens everywhere topfuel is run, but there's a significant risk the engine won't even last 1/4 mile! (Or however long topfuel runs these days - they shortened the race as the cars had become overly dangerous.)
What impressive about this car is it's built for an endurance race: LeMans and a few others leading up to it. Anyone skilled can turn the turbo pressure up on an EVO engine, but getting it to run at power for 24 hours that way is something far more impressive.
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Nissan Unveils 88 Pound 400-HP Race Car Engine
How about battery weight that drives this semi electric beast?
If I remember correctly, that Ford RS-200 was one of the car choices in a racing game some years back, maybe Driver: San Francisco. It was one of the best cars in the game and I'd never heard of it. It flew, but it was difficult to handle.
Which was the moot point when the FIA series ended. To much power, too difficult to maintain control. Probably the first time any racing series achieved the upper limit in power. Many races now require restrictor plates to limit power, returning the race to a contest of driver skill over engineering prowess.
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Saw a special on youtube, basically the spark plugs are melted halfway through the course and they're just dieseling to the finish line.
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Yup - top fuel is special. For any claims about engine power, it really matters where on the scale from "rebuilt every 3 minutes of operation" to "rebuilt every 300k miles" the engine lies.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Watching Top Fuel drag racing can be boring, but the technology is amazing. Here's a video showing how much fuel is provided to each cylinder during a race-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTbQuhhluY
Oldsmobile had a 900 and 1000 HP version of the Quad-4 2 liter engine for the Oldsmobile Aerotech expermental cars in 1987.
Rod Millen won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in his Toyota Celica. He was getting 600HP out of a 4 cylinder in 1994. It was up to 900 in 1996. and he had it up to 1000HP the next year. While it's not an endurance race like Le Mans. It's still a hell of a lot more realistic than 1/4 mile engines.
What I'd like to know, besides the price tag, is how realistic is that weight? Is that with fluids? Front end accessories? Does it include the weight of the turbo? Regardless, it's pretty damn cool. I want two of them to put in my Vette.
I would argue that the 1967 Formula One season was the first time a racing series had cars that were too powerful to control. 400-500bhp V8 and V12 engines attached to four wheels and a gas tank, sitting on old-style treaded tires with no downforce wings. In fact, the two fatalities during this season (including Lorenzo Bandini's horrendous accident at Monaco) forced the FIA to mandate new safety features, such as requiring wings on the cars.
Oh it's awesome. Me it's the drag boats that really get me. I don't know why, I don't have a nautical bone in my body, but those boats are awesome.
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Strapping yourself into something with one seat and 3000hp, and racing it on a flat surface - that's crazy.
Strapping yourself into something with one seat and 3000hp, and then racing the thing on a surface that's constantly moving is a special kind of crazy.
I would go back even further. Pre-WWII cars had large displacement motors that produced far more power than could be put to use on dirt roads and the fragile tires of the day. I agree with the point that the move from the 1.5L formula in 67 brought faster speeds, exactly why the change was made. Lotus introduced wings; the FIA did more to ban them than encourage their use.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
Motorsports used to be about... big engines
As long ago as the 70's, we were able to get as much as 1,000hp per liter of engine displacement through the use of pure toluene and five or more atmospheres of boost (Can Am); squeezung ungodly amounts of horsepower from small engines isn't anything new.
2014 model year and forward this "may" be true, but for at least the last 20 years it has been about adding more ponies not economy. The zero to sixty times have been shrinking but fuel economy has been stagnant, if not even retarding a bit.
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What sort of car racing is this for? Is there a motor race for hybrids?
LeMans is an endurance race, making it to the end is a lot more important than going fast and in a race like LeMan's going fast is achieved by light weight rather than big engines.
Endurance races are about managing resources, fuel and brake usage, managing the driver (ensuring they are fed and watered) and so forth.
For those of us who don't have billions of dollars, check out the 24 hours of LeMons, an endurance race for cars under $500.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
400 out of a 1.5L is within the realm of attainability
The Cosworth GBA is a 1.5 litre turbocharged V6. It develops about 1000bhp (official figures were never released, so it could be higher). That engine is from the mid 1980s, so it may be old hat by now. That figure was good for 600 miles, which by F1 race standards is "reliable".
Top fuel crankshafts are 'pre-twisted' 20 degrees in advance from end-to-end. It's only when running at full throttle does all that torque twist it back 20 degrees and thus putting things back into alignment with regards to piston position and valve timing. That's why the engines sounds like shit when idling, but run in perfect harmony under load. That kind of engineering blows my mind!
Life is not for the lazy.
But typical size and weight of cars have been increasing - along with the typical use of AC and other power-robbing technologies. So while we might (just might) have lost on fuel economy, we're having larger, heavier and more comfortable cars (not to mention safer and usually more reliable)
I'm not normally much of a racing buff, but the BBC did a fascinating documentary about Group B rallying which is well worth a watch if you can find a copy. Lots of interviews with the drivers and the engineers who created such monsters.
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For American cars perhaps, I'm not an expert, but Japanese and European cars have become a lot more efficient over the last couple of decades and some of that is due to technology that started off in competitive racing. For example the VW Passat has a version of KERS which was developed for F1. Honda has a hybrid performance Civic model. Tyres have been improved a great deal too thanks to new materials and construction methods developed for racing.
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