Yet another roadrace Champcar wishlist

[ChrisB]

Welcome back OC! There's not much going on this weekend (I wish the SCCA runoffs were on Speed) so I thought I'd drag out this old topic, to see if anyone might have anything new to add. If the future CART were all road-street racing with no ovals, the Champcars should probably have...

Fuel: Gasoline. A 17 gal gas tank will get about the same range as 35 gals of alky, thus taking up less space and weight. Good sponsor potential too.

Engine: 750hp minimum. 800hp would be better. Williams BMW makes 900hp, why not Champcars? A turbo with gasoline will require an intercooler. What turbo config do you folks like... I4, V6, or V8? My personal preference is still rootes superchargers (V6 or V8) because of their low-end torque for acceleration outta corners. If it's NA, 3.5L V8 is the absolute minimum. 4.0L or 4.5L V8 or V10 would be even better for Hp and torque.

Undertray: lots of it to prevent grip loss during "wash" when getting close behind another car to make a pass.

Tires: Fatter! same reason as above... tire grip is less suseptable to aero loss when following close behind.

Chassis weight: as light as possible. No more need for 225mph oval crash-worthiness, so trim those cars down. Champcars have stayed at 1550lbs for years, while F1 (dry weight) is about 1100lbs. Surely Champcars can get halfway to that (about 1325lbs)

Wheelbase: shorten it up to be more responsive on tight street circuits. Champcars are now 120-124". WC taxicabs are actually shorter at 110" and early 90's F1 (with 55gal tanks) were about 104-109". F5000 was about 102" and 60's RE Champcars were 96". Surely the Champcars have room to get the wheelbase much shorter that what they have now!

No airbox. Keep the sleek look.

Anyone have anything else new?

[RARules]

As I recall (too lazy to look it up in the wee hours of the morning), the track of Champ Cars is also pretty wide. Makes for great cornering Gs, but makes passing difficult on all but the widest corners.

[ChrisB]

Yep... they are kinda wide. Here's some numbers I dug up:

CART/IRL: 80"
F1 (circa '97): 79"
Ferrari333 WSC: 79"
Atlantics: 76"
Nascar WC: 75"

From the 1970's:
F5000 Lola: 84"
F1 Lotus79: 83"

Does anyone have the current F1 and F3000 widths? (the track of F3000 is given as 58", but that's probably the tire centerlines)

Ironically, Champcars (and IRL) are longer and wider than WC cars!

70s' era F5000/F1 were very wide because of the 16.25" rear tires. I wouldn't mind seeing Champcars use that tire width again, but shorten the wishbones to reign in the overall width.

I guess it would be good if Atlantics and Champcars shared about the same 104" wheelbase and 76" width. (though obviously not the same Hp and appropriate construction)

[Chaos]

How does everyone feel about a 'dumbed down' F1 car. Now by dumbed down i mean having much stricter rules for the car in regards to what they can and cant do (ie standardize the rear wing configuration as opposed to F1 that can have multiple rear wing configurations)

[Sean O'Gorman]

I don't know much about the technical side of racing, but if the new specs could be described as Formula Vees on steroids, I'd probably be pretty happy. :D

[ChrisB]

How does everyone feel about a 'dumbed down' F1 car. Now by dumbed down i mean having much stricter rules for the car in regards to what they can and cant do

F1's fastest pole time at Montreal was 1:12 and a Champcars was 1:19. If a CART "dumbed-down F1 car" could substantially narrow that 7 second gap, I'd be happy. If it could match that 1:12, I'd be really happy. If it could BEAT that 1:12... WHOA! Let Bernie and the F1 folks crow about their "pinnacle" technology... I'm mainly interested in the results.. and if spec Champcars can put up the same fast-lap times without requiring a third-world GNP budget... good for us!

But instead of "dumbed-down" why don't we say "brute-force" instead? :D

[JT265]

Why not have Adrian revive the plans for the Premier 1 car? Same basic design as F1 with actual slick tires, lightweight relative to the current ChampCar, and stuff a BIG engine in the back?

[Lizzerd]

I don't have a problem with most of what ChrisB proposes. Here's my unworthy two cents...

Fuel: Other than the potential sponsor opportunities, are there any advantages to gasoline over methanol? A narrower full to empty weight differential isn't such a big deal to me.

Engine: 800HP would be nice, especially if traction control is still banned. I don't know enough about engines to offer an opinion on the I4, V6, V8, etc...

Undertray: I'm in total agreement with everything here. Just allow development to continue throughout a season so as not to inflict an unsurmountable obastacle as faced by the Reynard customers this year.

Tires: As is is fine with me.

Chassis weight: Lighter would be nice, but not at the expense of safety. If they can trim a couple hundred pounds and keep the high torque engines with no traction control, we could see some real displays of driver talent.

Wheelbase: Shorter would be good too.

Air Box: Just say NO!


Having said all that, and now that we have designed CART's new package, I'm sad that it must remain a "wish list" for a while. If there were manufacturers lined up to play, and CART and its teams were really on solid financial ground, I would say go for it. Unfortunately, I'm afraid we are stuck with what we have for now.

[RARules]

Chris, I'm in favor of your old proposal (as I recall), a high-boost ~1.8L I4. As you noted before, it gives adequate HP and you can still throttle the HP through the years by cutting the boost, making a decent lifetime for the formula. And no ugly airbox.

This would also cut the weight of the car even without other safety-compromising modifications. You still could adjust the weight further if desired.

But mostly, it makes a lot of sense for the auto manufacturers - "See what we can get out of an inline 4?" - and the payoffs for participation and sponsorship. Big identity factor for fans of the millions of production I4s owned by potential CART fans.

[oddlycalm]

If they are not going to run ovals, and I suspect they won't, then they need a smaller lighter car. I'd like to see something near F1 weights with 850-900hp horespower from a turbo engine. At this point I really don't care what configuration. As far as I'm concerned they can keep the Cosworth just as it is, and run the same revs with a lot more boost.

I think that car specs are not likely the center of attention with CART at present.

oc

[RacinM3]

None of the changes mean a damn thing without a drastic reduction in aero (F & R wings) dependent downforce.

[oddlycalm]

Originally posted by RacinM3
None of the changes mean a damn thing without a drastic reduction in aero (F & R wings) dependent downforce.

Agreed. The wing size should be substantially decreased, and undertray rules should be changed to encourage that solution. It's not impossible to have exciting street races, but it is with the current specs.

oc

[ChrisB]

(JT265, I put pics of the Reynard Premier1 and Lola F3000 in the "spec chassis" thread)


I found the F1 widths in RACER 7/97 which had an article on the upcoming changes (for '98) when they narrowed the chassis and grooved the tires.. Pre '98 F1 was 200cm (78") wide and they reduced it to 180cm (70"). F3000 is actually slightly wider at 185cm (72")

The article also has an interesting quote from Goodyear's F1 sales manager Cal Lint, who said that they recommended to the FIA (at the time) for "a wide, flat tire that would give you plenty of grip in the corners for passing maneuvers, but would slow you down on the straights because of the increased aerodynamic drag" (exact quote). The FIA ignored this recommendation and went with the grooved tires which nobody still likes to this day. CART would be on the right path to increase tire width/grip to facilitate passing.

(BTW.. I caught a little bit of the Monterey Historics last weekend when they were showing the 70's F1 cars... I guess those superwide 16" rear slicks are still being made in small batches!)

As far as matching F1 fast-lap times, maybe a roadracing-specific Champcar chassis wouldn't have the budget to be as lightweight, but it CAN have better grip than F1 to make up the speed difference. F1 uses those dumb grooved tires and even dumber wooden-plank flat undertray. Champcars would have proper slicks and a proper undertray for better grip. (roadracing Champcars could fix a few things F1 got wrong)

[ChrisB]

I just wanted to bring this to the top for two reasons... First, for me Champcars are really getting to be unwatchable when they run a road/street race later on the same day as an F1 race. And when you have a situation like yesterday when (at least here in the Philly TV market) you can flip back and forth between CART and F1, the Champcars really look fat & slow on a road course compared to F1. They just plain look clunky and sluggish in a direct comparison. They really need to trim down and get more Hp.

Secondly, Fontana and LVMS are on the 2004 schedule. Someone on 7G suggested LVMS might be a rental, so hopefully this is not a long-term commitment to having a few (low attended) ovals for the sake of "diversity" and maybe they'll just get one more year out the current cars, let the oval contracts run out, and then go to all road/street for 2005 with a new chassis!