Okay, the plan is to keep it original looking, just with a nicer paint job. More along the lines of the below photo.
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Good choice
Beautiful.
I like this the best. Maybe do something different with the stripes to make it your ownā¦?
Great project.
Cheers
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Anybody into F1?
What do you think about the compression ratio controversy?
In a nutshell, FIA have ruled that C.R must be limited to 16:1, down from 18:1.
FIA regulations specify testing C.R. statically, engine cold and not running; chamber volume BDC vs TDC.
Mercedes and perhaps other teams have reportedly designed-in thermal expansion of pistons such that at operating temps, the functional C.R. is 18:1.
Clever, but are they breaking the rules?
I think it is similar to the intentionally deflecting aero components recently and will be treated the same. If they tell teams the rules is exactly X measured by Y, donāt be surprised when they simply see those as constraints to their problems. So, we need to make the engine measure at 16:1 when measured in this manner but we need to be faster than everyone else. How do we do this?
You should also remember that the biggest way racing gets sold to companies is that forces them to develop new and improved solutions to problems. These improvements often make their way to road cars, so hopefully we will see advances in piston design in our own cars one day as a result.
Do I like to see a team that comes up with a development be rewarded for their innovation? I sure do. However, you are certainly going see any team without this development path complain to anyone who will listen right up until they develop their own. How long will the FIA allow the innovation to stand? I donāt know, hard for me to say who the highest bidder will be.
Spirit v letter of the law. Those whose job it is to write the rules need to be more clever than those whose job it is to exploit those rules.
I am most curious about how Mercedes/Red Bull would pull this off. I let Gemini provide the bore/stroke specs and do the calculations and come up with an answer of 0.416 mm difference in stroke to raise the CR from 16:1 to 18:1.
In my low tech engineering experience we didnāt get to specify the direction of thermal expansion. I have no idea what running clearances are but have a hard time imagining a piston growing 0.416 mm in length without seizing.
Iād say this is the expected result of letting teams build their own car instead of spec racing the same car. It does not violate letter or sprit of anything in my opinion. The sprit of F1 racing is to be fastest. You want teams to spend tons of money developing their own engines but not try to work out every manner they can think of to produce as much power as possible for a race? F1 and those who signed up all agreed to build their own cars so teams could specifically do this and come up with advancements for advantages.
Having said that, wouldnāt it be great if they added a spec race or sim race for an even playing field for one race a year so we can actually see who the best driver is. Iād toss them all on iRacing in Mazda MX-5s on a fan selected track revealed at the race an hour before the race to start off the F1 season. My F1 buddies all want to see something like this but donāt expect it anytime soon. The MX-5 was picked because it is a momentum car that is extremely difficult to break from the pack in. Itās not uncommon to have 8+ cars in a 2 second window, constantly trading position lap after lap. We all think it would be exactly the type of racing many formula 1 fans craved but donāt get. Everyone gets the same virtual car, no advantages and itās a car most people are familiar with. Plus, you probably get video feed of at least one of them rage quitting and a whole new set of excuses to laugh at. The problem is that this would be an F1 driverās race, not an F1 race. However, anyone upset about the advantages from cheating would probably be interested in the results of an equal race.
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How one can sidestep the rules has long been a part of auto racing. I enjoy the creativity.
F1 regularly adds restrictions to slow the cars done. I find this annoying, Let them run the fastest car. If you cannot handle it go home.
I do not find pure spec racing of much interest, but spec racing of MX-5s would be amusing. Even then, I despise giving Hamilton anything to whine about. He is a victim after all.
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The rule didnāt change about how the compression ratio is measured, it just got lowered. Itās measured with engine cold and not running. So either someone missed a gaping hole to exploit or itās just a bunch of hot air. There is lots of posturing in F1 by pointing fingers hoping to get the FIA to look at your competitors more closely in hopes that they might find somethings else to get them on. Itās all fun and game in racing.
Hereās a pretty good explanation on how it could be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLzto55W3RU
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Not to diminish his talent, but I always felt that during the period of Mercedes dominance, Hamilton was just driving around the track, racing only against the other Mercedes. It bored the crap out of me. At the same time, I very much admired Mercedesā superior engineering.
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From what Iāve read FIA specify materials of construction of the piston.
Since the top of the piston naturally gets much hotter than the skirt, maybe Mercedes are using some sort of ribbing or other mechanical means to control thermal expansion in one direction only.
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Certainly more entertaining than the IROC series.
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I would think that the connecting rod would be the best place for some expansion.It gives 120mm of length to play with. And now with only 
16:1 compression ratio, there is a lot of space between the .piston top and head to work with. Can you say gumby rods? I imagine the teams that decided not to push this to the extent that Merc, F and RB did put money into other endeavors. BTW, I hate the cost caps.
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Amusingly, back in the day of engineering classes, I was taught that anything over a 10:1 compression ratio was too high.
āGumbyā rods at whatever stratospheric revs they run at would worry me.
āIād toss them all on iRacing in Mazda MX-5s on a fan selected track revealed at the race an hour before the race to start off the F1 season.ā
Iām not following. How do you announce the track an hour before the race?
iRacing is a racing simulator. They have laser scanned every bit of around 150 tacks with over 400 configurations. Since it is virtual, nobody needs to travel to the specific track and you can run anywhere they have already scanned. We do the random track thing in some leagues and it works out well since nobody is spending tons of time figuring out the perfect lap before the race and the race is more defined by overall driving skill. If you want to know who the best driver is, put them on an even playing field without a ton of time to prep and see which driverās skills shine. An hour is plenty of time to learn a car and track but not enough time for most drivers to master a track, at least that is the thinking.
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