While pushrods may not have a place in (relatively) unrestricted, top-flight racing engines any more, they are still a part of the racing landscape in many forms of racing, whether by regulation or through financial expediency.NASCAR, of course, mandates the use of a pushrod engine in all its racing series, along with a single block-mounted camshaft and a controlled height above the crankshaft. Like almost every part of a racing engine, pushrod design is the subject of a number of opposing...
If a valve spring for a race engine is to survive a service life of 1400 race miles or 1600 absolute miles then it needs to be robust and reliable. In the Indy Racing League's IZOD IndyCar Series, where the Honda Indy V8 is the sole motive power, Honda Performance Development (HPD) has gone with a steel, flat-top, double-valve spring without insert, to achieve the balance needed on road courses, street circuits, short ovals, speedways and superspeedways. HPD has tried different designs...
In the previous article on this subject we looked at the use of Inconel as a valve material. This month I'll look at an application of another high-temperature valve material, Nimonic alloys.These are nickel-based alloys which, similar to Inconel materials, maintain a high proportion of their room-temperature strengths at elevated temperatures. As with Inconel alloys they are commonly used in turbocharged or supercharged applications, where the high operatingtemperatures in these...
Last month we discussed the aluminium alloy AlSi10Mg and the fact that it can now be processed by means of a new manufacturing process. It is only because of the fact parts can be made of this material by this process that I chose to categorise it as being 'advanced'. The picture which accompanied the article showed a small aerospace part which would be impossible to make by other means. There is now, however, a wide range of materials which can be processed by this particular...
While KERS has been banished from Formula One for the 2010 season, there are many in the paddock that have seen its worth in racing and relevance to modern road cars. Therefore, there is the plausibility that this item could return in 2011. In sports car competition, Zytek produced a hybrid system that was used by the Corsa Motorsports team in the latter stages of the 2009 American Le Mans Series, albeit to a mere fraction of its potential. While Corsa were not seen on the grid for the...