Cosworth engine technology

“To go faster you just have to keep making the bore bigger, the stroke shorter and sort out your valves...” Cosworth technical director Bruce Wood’s turn of phrase is worthy of Keith Duckworth. Race Engine Technology reports on the first Formula One engine to reach 20,000rpm, the Cosworth CA of 2006 and it seems unlikely anybody went faster before rev-limiting. The naturally-aspirated 2.4-litre V8 CA is now in the Marussia, disputing the back of the grid with Renault-engined Caterham. RET editor Ian Bamsey recalls that since 1906 grand prix engine speeds rose from less than 2000rpm to 20,000rpm until progress was halted with a 19,000rpm rev limit for 2007. This was reduced to a (relatively) stifling 18,000rpm, together with a moratorium on development but evolution is back for 2014. In deference to greenies its goal will be fuel efficiency, rather than outright power.

Speed and horsepower climbed with the 3.0-litre V10s, before the switch to V8s for 2006. BMW probably reached 19,000rpm first in 2002 but engines had to do bigger mileages in 2004 and 2005. The top 2005 V10 was the Toyota, which ran to 19,200rpm and produced 930bhp. All the 2005 V10s exceeded 900bhp, probably not more than 950bhp except possibly the Honda.

Bamsey describes the astonishing performance of a Formula 1 engine. At 20,000rpm, the CA's piston acceleration was 10,616 g, while the load on each crankpin by piston and conrod reached 5937kg. Ballistic missiles can only manage 100g, while 5937kg is about two and a half times the weight of a Rolls Royce Wraith.

Race Engine Technology's full report of the Cosworth CA, in issue 73, spans 27 pages and can be bought from www.highpowermedia.com, or by calling Chris Perry on +44 (0)1934 713957.
Cosworth CA (top) and its great predecessor the Ford-Cosworth DFV (right)

RUSH

Disappointing that Guy Edwards is never given his due in Rush, the movie on James Hunt and Niki Lauda. In 1976 Edwards helped pull Lauda out of his burning Ferrari, earning him a Queen’s Gallantry Medal. The omission is one of the flaws in a good film. The drama is well caught, and while it is almost creepy to watch people you knew quite well recreated in a feature film, some of the detail should have been better researched.
James’s Guild of Motoring Writers’ Driver of the Year Award seems to have taken place in a seedy night club full of girls, rather than the RAC in Pall Mall. He won the title twice and the film portrays the trophy as a little silver cup, which it isn’t. Scorning formal attire while the rest of us sat applauding in black ties, he made a witty speech. Demoting the occasion to a night club missed the point. By turning up at the RAC in open-necked shirt and plimsolls he was telling us someting.
A real Guild Driver of the Year Trophy. Jim Clark's of 1963.
Still, the portrayals of James (Chris Hemsworth) (left above) and Niki (Daniel Brühl) are absolutely spot-on. Voices and mannerisms are completely authentic even if the script is careless. Alexander Hesketh’s sudden arrival and departure from Formula 1 was nothing like that, and the idea of “champers in the pits” as the extent of the team’s high living was nothing like that either. The most permissive censor would have blanched at the truth. Alexander was much noisier and heartier than his screen counterpart.
Louis Stanley was far more pompous and self-important, called everybody by surname. He even called Jackie “Stewart” in the ambulance after his accident at Spa. Yet the actor failed to catch “Big Lou’s” essential humanity. The film somehow misses Teddy Meyer’s excitement in Japan, holding his fingers up to tell a disbelieving James he was world champion.
However I can vouch for the veracity of James’s airliner experiences, portrayed graphically in the film. I sat with him in a Tristar on an overnight flight to the Middle East. Tristars had a tiny lift to the galley, with what was euphemistically referred to as a lounge area for off-duty stewardesses, below the passenger deck. At least twice (while I dozed I may say) James caught the lift. I never knew if it was two stewardesses or the same one twice. Or two at the same time.
Hard to believe Guy Richard Goronwy Edwards QGM is 70. After a glancing blow to Lauda’s crashing Ferrari, togther with Brett Lunger, Arturo Merzario and Harald Ertl, Guy stopped and went back to the burning car. In 1998 he told Autosport: “I could see him. I had time to run back and save him. It was very difficult. Petrol fires are awful and this was a big one. The heat and noise were incredible. I was running and thinking - do I really want to do this? The honest answer was No Way. But what could I do? Stop and walk back? The flames were so thick, I couldn't see the bastard. It was hot and there was choking dust everywhere. I knew it was now or never and with a desperate sense or urgency, and help from other drivers, feeling quite desperate, we were banging against each other, pulling, cursing and just struggling. His shoulder straps came away in my hands and it was incredibly frustrating, the heat was just so physical. I got hold of an arm and a good grip on his body and the little sod came out with all of us falling in a heap. We pulled him out like a cork from a bottle.”
Niki’s worst burns were the result of catch fencing he had run into, knocking his helmet off. The track was blocked and the race restarted. Lunger’s and Ertl’s cars were too damaged to resume but Merzario and Edwards lined up on the depleted grid. Merzario lasted 3 laps, Edwards finished 15th in the old Hesketh, sponsored by Penthouse, painted up with a girl on the front. I was covering the race as a journalist and stayed up half the night writing Niki’s obituary.
Best line in the film? James to Niki: “You’re the only person I know who could get his face burned off and come out better looking.” Sums it up really.

Portraits of F1

In 1967 the BRDC’s “May” Silverstone was on April 29th. A muddle on the international calendar had brought Monaco uncomfortably close, so there weren’t enough Formula 1 cars for a non-championship race at Silverstone. May was traditional for the Daily Express Trophy at a time when newspapers could afford to sponsor a Formula 1 race.
So there were no works Cooper-Maseratis or Anglo-American Eagles, and BRM, Lotus, and Ferrari could manage only one car apiece. The field was further depleted on the Wednesday before first practice, when the JA Pearce Racing Organisation transporter mysteriously caught fire. It had been parked infield on the Club Circuit with two Pearce-Martins and a Cooper-Ferrari aboard, all of which were destroyed. Tony Lanfranchi, Earl Jones and Robin Darlington were left without drives, however Pearce emerged almost unscathed. Apparently he had the lot insured for £100,000.
I was photographing drivers on the grid with my big Rollieflex, a twin lens reflex with beautiful optics. When you got everything right it took superb pictures but getting everything right meant an exposure meter and, well, it wasn’t handy. Heavy and clumsy, it used expensive 120 film, so if you weren’t getting paid a lot for pictures it was not very commercial.
Mike Parkes (above) was driving a 1966 long-chassis Ferrari, a stretched one that suited his 6ft 4in. Ferrari was trying out various cylinder heads on its V12 in 1966-1967, quad-cams, two-valve, three-valve and Parkes had a new one in which the inlet and exhaust arrangements were reversed, so instead of exhaust pipes draped over the sides like spaghetti in the slipstream, they were bundled up in the middle.
Son of Alvis’s chairman, Mike had joined Ferrari in 1963, more as a development engineer than a driver, working up the 330GTC road car, but he quickly became a leading member of the sports car team. In 1961 he had been second at Le Mans with Willy Mairesse in a 250 Testa Rossa, and was successful driving Maranello Concessionaires’ Ferraris. In 1964 he won the Sebring 12 Hours, in 1965 the Spa 500Km and the Monza 100Km, gaining his place in Formula 1 when John Surtees departed Ferrari in a huff.
Parkes drove in four grands prix in 1966, coming second at Rheims on his debut (and only his second grand prix), had two dnfs, and then was second again in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. It was an astonishing start to what looked like a promising career. At Silverstone BRM had one H16 for Jackie Stewart, who matched Parkes in practice, and two V8s for Mike Spence and Chris Irwin. Lotus had a 2litre BRM V8 in Graham Hill’s car, a token entry while it was developing the Ford-Cosworth V8, which would make its sensational debut for Clark and Hill at Zandvoort a month later.
Parkes led almost the entire 52 laps to win the International Trophy, pursued by Jack Brabham (Brabham-Repco) and Jo Siffert in Rob Walker’s Cooper-Maserati. Stewart had kept up with him in the early stages until the BRM’s universal joint bolts sheared.
TOP Mike Parkes (1931-1977) with Tommy Wisdom (1907-1972) motoring journalist and veteran driver in 11 Le Mans races, Mille Miglia, Targa Florio and multiple Alpine and Monte Carlo rallies. In June Parkes’ grand prix career was cut short on lap 1 of the Belgian Grand Prix, when he crashed breaking both legs. He returned to sports cars, engineered the Lancia Stratos, and died in a collision on the road.
RIGHT Bruce McLaren (1937-1970) at the wheel of his McLaren-BRM V8, in which he finished 5th in the Daily Express International Trophy. Founder of McLaren Racing, he died at Goodwood in a freak accident with a Can-Am car.
BELOW Mike Spence (1936-1968) Already a veteran of four seasons’ grand prix racing, likeable talented Spence finished 6th in his BRM at Silverstone. A month after Jim Clark’s fatal accident at Hockenheim a year later, Spence took over Clark’s entry at Indianapolis and was killed in a practice accident.

Porsche 924

You feel Porsche prefers to forget the 924. It had the engine of a van and was a quarter the price of a 911. It never sat easily in the Porsche pantheon of profligacy.
Yet it was precise, swift and well-made. It had warmth and as much speed as can usually be employed on the road, but in 1975 it was radical. Porsche had always hung air-cooled engines behind the rear axle so making one water-cooled and putting it at the front was dramatic enough. Putting it fairly upright and in line was really not Porsche’s way any more than how the 924 started. It was a design commissioned in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis by Volkswagen for an Audi Coupe.
Porsche Design was already working on the large and expensive 928, now it had been instructed to work on a replacement for the VW Porsche 914, a relatively low-grade although quite popular mid-engined sports car made in Osnabrück between 1969 and 1975. The new brief was to use VW and Audi components already in production for something a lot smaller than the 928.
They technicians were told to use an inoffensive 2.0litre single overhead camshaft engine that had been intended for the 1977 Audi 100 and VW LT van. Porsche added Bosch K Jetronic fuel injection to increase power to 92kW (125bhp), and to keep weight distribution about even, the 928’s formula was re-employed with a drive shaft in a tube to a 4-speed gearbox in the rear axle. This was a back-to-front Audi 100 front wheel drive unit although later a 5 speed became standard. A few 924s were even sold with a 3 speed automatic. Front suspension was by VW Beetle 1302 MacPherson struts, while at the rear there were semi trailing arms and transverse torsion bars.
Notwithstanding its potential for speed, the light weight 924 used a mundane mix of K70 disc brakes at the front and drums at the rear. The same could be said of the tyres, which were rather ordinary 185/70SR14, although wider section, 60 profile covers came later as an option. The body shape was notable for Porsche’s careful attention to aerodynamics and a late decision to make it hot-dip galvanised provided a 6-year anti-corrosion warranty from the start.
Late in the 924’s development Volkswagen decided it did not meet the company’s marketing plans. Instead, with Porsche sales still flagging in the shadow of the oil shock, it became a proper Porsche in its own right. It was perfectly fitting for it to come from a consultancy proclaimed in the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen Commercial Register on 25th April 1931 as “Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH, Konstruktionen und Beratung für Motoren und Fahrzeuge” (design engineering and consultation for engines and vehicles).
As soon as it took full control of the project, Porsche AG gave it better-class trim and seats, plus a revised facia. However there was no space in the Porsche factory at Zuffenhausen to build it, so it was handed out to Audi, which found room at the former NSU factory at Neckarsulm and became responsible. Porsche kept a close eye on quality and over 122,000 were made between 1976 and 1985, 300,000 including derivative 924 Turbo and 944 variants that went on until the 1990s. Their merit was beyond reproach and while Audi gained an industry lead in how to make rust-resistant galvanised steel bodies, Porsche was rescued from a financial fissure that its regular premium-pricey products were failing to fill.
BODY 2 door coupe; 2+2 seats; weight 1130kg/2486lb
ENGINE 4 cylinders; in line; front; 86.5mm x 84.4mm, 1984cc; 92kW/125bhp @ 5800rpm; 46.4kW (63.0bhp)/l; 165Nm (121.7lbft) @ 3500rpm
ENGINE STRUCTURE ohv; 2 valves per cylinders; 1 belt driven ohc; aluminium head; cast iron block; 5 bearing crankshaft; Bosch K Jetronic injection.
TRANSMISSION 2 wheel drive; 4 speed gearbox; hypoid bevel final drive, 3.9:1. 3 speed automatic option.
CHASSIS DETAILS Steel unitary construction; independent front suspension, struts, coil springs; independent rear suspension, semi trailing arms, transverse torsion bars; telescopic dampers, disc front, drum rear brakes; dual braking circuits; vacuum servo; no ABS; rack and pinion steering; 66l (14.5gal) fuel tank; 185/70HR14 tyres; 6in rims.
DIMENSIONS Wheelbase 240cm (94.5in), front track 142cm, (55.9in), rear track 137cm (53.9in), ground clearance 12.5cm (4.9in), turning circle 12.5m (33.3ft), length 421cm (165.7in), width 168.5cm (66.3in), height 127cm (50in).
PERFORMANCE Maximum speed 204kph (126mph); 21.4mph (34.4kph) @1000rpm; acceleration 0 100kph (62mph) 9.6sec; 12.3kg/kW (9.0kg/bhp); average fuel consumption. 30.8mpg (8.7l/100km) Euromix.
These 968s were test cars, the top one at Bellanoch on the Crinan Canal, the bottom one a convertible in the garden at Sutton Veny with Lewis as a puppy on the left and lovely Harris on the grass. The 968 looked similar to the 924, but was wider at the wheels.

Make Tracks

STRANGE ROVERS. Don’t you sometimes kick yourself ? I’ve been writing about weird, tracked multi-purpose Land Rovers, like the one on the left, for years. Yet I never thought of such a clever headline. Auto Express did, in its recent magbook celebrating 65 years. I also liked AHEAD OF THE GAME over the section on Land Rover estate cars built for shooting parties. Auto Express cleverly called a piece about the Land Rover Experience on the Blair Atholl off-road course LOCH AND ROLL. I’ve been there, done that, (see pic) but never thought of as bright a headline. Kick! I must have risked life and limb there taking this photograph in April 1992.
The plaque reads:
THE EYE OF THE WINDOW BRIDGE
THIS ARCHED BRIDGE ON GENERAL WADE’S MILITARY ROAD FROM DUNKELD TO INVERNESS WAS BUILT ABOUT 1728 ACROSS THE ALLT A’ CHROMBAIDH. IN 1985 THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF RURAL SCOTLAND RESTORED IT WITH THE HELP OF VOLUNTEERS FROM THE SCOTTISH CONSERVATION PROJECTS TRUST AND FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FROM MEMBERS AND FRIENDS, THE ERNEST COOK TRUST AND PERTH AND KINROSS DISTRICT COUNCIL. IT WON A “GLENFIDDICH-LIVING SCOTLAND AWARD” IN 1985. PRESENTED BY THE GLENFIDDICH DISTILLERY DUFFTOWN BANFFSHIRE. UNVEILED BY HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ATHOLL ON 23rd MAY 1987
Here’s what I thought of the Range Rover in The Sunday Times: 27 September 1992
When the Range Rover was introduced in 1970, it had rubber on the floor, and tough plastic seats. It was intended to be a posh sort of Land Rover that could be scrubbed out, if necessary, with a hosepipe. It has been gentrified over 22 years, but the engineering and the rather severe-looking boxy shape have remained much the same.
For 1993 it is stretched by 8in and provided with novel springs, which enable it to change its ride height at the touch of a button.
It gains an interior of polished wood veneer and saddle leather more suited to the grouse moor than the farmyard, and goes up in price. The top Vogue LSE will cost around £40,000, which distances it from the more practical Land Rover Discovery, now available with automatic transmission.
Long coil springs made the Range Rover the first cross-country vehicle with a road-going ride comparable to a saloon car. A few competitors are a close match in some respects, but none has its all-round competence.
The stout steel chassis and aluminium body have proved as enduring as its good proportions, and despite the recession, production of the Range Rover and Discovery is being increased.
It might seem perverse to make changes to anything so successful, but with the Discovery at around £20,000, the Range Rover can move up-market. The eight extra inches are devoted to rear legroom.
Engine power is increased to 200bhp from a 4.2 litre version of the evergreen V8.
The steel coil springs are replaced by electronic air suspension (EAS) and there is an electronic traction control system which supplies power to the wheels with the best grip.
The EAS system changes the ride height of the vehicle. There are five settings spanning a range of 130mm. The standard position, for normal roads up to 50mph, gives the same ride height as the metal springs. Above this the suspension drops 20mm to improve aerodynamics.
For off-road use the driver can select a position 40mm above standard for negotiating rough ground or wading, which can be increased by a further 30mm for pulling out of boggy soil, or after grounding on rocks.
Access mode lowers the Range Rover 60mm to make getting in and out easier. An electronic control unit (ECU) receives signals from the height sensors, and takes account of road speed, engine speed, footbrake, handbrake, the automatic transmission selector, and the door-closing switches so that access mode is not selected when somebody is getting in or out, or the vehicle is moving.
The Range Rover's astonishing off-road performance gains an extra dimension with EAS, and it maintains its equilibrium regardless of load.
The ride on the road is very little better than that of a steel-sprung Range Rover, but the plush interior and extra room enhances its appeal for the well-to-do who feel the need for an all-purpose vehicle.

The Sunday Times Motoring, Range Rover Vogue 23 June 1991
 The Range Rover was a masterpiece in 1970. The door catches were generously designed for gloved hands because it was an all-weather working vehicle, with big plastic-covered seats, and rubber on the floor. It was the first convincing dual purpose car which behaved like a Land Rover off the road and a fast comfortable saloon on it.
The door handles are dainty affairs now with little flaps electrically heated to stop them freezing. The robust tall body is little changed; the performance has been improved and it is as versatile as ever but with leather upholstery and pile carpets it is for grouse moor picnics rather than cross country surveys.
Twenty-one years of steady inflation and extra gadgets has taken the price from £1,998 including purchase tax to an imposing £34,450 for the best-equipped Vogue with car tax and VAT. Now besides the heated handles it has air conditioning, cruise control, anti-lock brakes, leather upholstery and electrically adjustable seats.
Muddy gumboots are as out of place here as in a sitting room yet the Range Rover remains a masterpiece. Rivals such as the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen have caught up with it in quietness and refinement but not in style. The added-on strips and grilles have not enhanced Spen King's and David Bache's crisp 1970 original. Range Rovers which have survived the two decades can be shabby, but their aluminium bodies, stout frames and vigorous V8 engines could see them through another two.
It has been flattered by imitators of which only one, the derivative Land Rover Discovery at just over half the price, provides worthwhile competition. The lusty V8 uses a lot of fuel; most owners will be lucky to see much over 16 mpg. This autumn's changes to the Range Rover can only support its claim to be the best field transport for the clean-wellied.
The Land Rover File 65 Anniversary edition, £22.50 on Amazon and in good bookshops.

Home from Hume

Mastermind question. What have a world champion racing driver, an 18th century philosopher, and Munich 1938 in common with two Lincolnshire hostelries? Clue – the Scottish Borders. The pubs are the Hume Arms in Torksey and at South Kyme in the fens near Sleaford.

(Neville Chamberlain)

Lord Dunglass was a young parliamentary private secretary when he accompanied Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to Munich on his mission to avert war in 1938. The piece of paper Chamberlain waved to crowds on his return proclaimed that Hitler had no more territorial ambitions in Europe. Alas, it did no more than buy another year’s preparations for the war which, even then, was inevitable. It gave a year’s grace, time to build government so-called “shadow” factories in which Rolls-Royce would build Merlin aero engines, and Vickers-Supermarine Spitfires.

Dunglass’s title was a courtesy one. He was not entitled yet to sit in the House of Lords, but was able to stand for the Commons. The family had a long record of public service; his great grandfather was under-secretary at the Foreign Office in Wellington’s 1828-1830 government and Dunglass seemed destined for something the same until his parliamentary career was unexpectedly interrupted. When he volunteered for army service at the outbreak of war a medical examination revealed spinal tuberculosis. This consigned him to two years’ treatment, a lot of it spent in a plaster cast. His return to the Commons as MP for Lanark, and later Perth and Kinross, led to distinctions that included acting as Foreign Secretary during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.

(Douglas-Home)

Renouncing his family Earldom, Dunglass become plain Sir Alec Douglas-Home and in December 1963, following Harold Macmillan’s resignation, succeeded him as prime minister. Taunted by Labour leader Harold Wilson for being an aristocrat and the 14th Earl of Home, Douglas-Home dismissed the inverted snobbery with “I suppose Mr Wilson, when you come to think of it, is the 14th Mr Wilson.” Describing Wilson as “a slick salesman of synthetic science”, Douglas-Home derided Labour as, “the only relic of class consciousness in Britain”. His opponents retreated, saying that, “The Labour Party is not interested in the fact that the new Prime Minister inherited a fourteenth Earldom – he cannot help his antecedents any more than the rest of us.”

(the 14th Mr Wilson)

Alexander "Alec" Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel (2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995) died at the family seat near Coldstream in the Scottish borders, not far from Chirnside, near Berwick-on-Tweed. It was here that the Scottish philosopher, historian economist and essayist David Hume (1711-1776) had grown up.

(David Hume)

Hume was important in the period known as the Scottish Enlightenment. His father Joseph Home, an Edinburgh lawyer was a scion of the same Home and Douglas-Home dynasties that held six Baronetcies dating back to 1638. In 1734 David altered the spelling of his name and from the family home of Ninewells, Chirnside between 1754 and 1762 embarked on a writing career that included a 6-volume History of England, “From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688”. A wide-ranging work inspired by Voltaire, it covered more than kings, parliaments and battles and included a study of literature and science, noting the work of Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. It contended that England had achieved “the most entire system of liberty that was ever known amongst mankind.”

At heart a Royalist, David Hume thought revolutions quite unnecessary, which led to his History being regarded as essentially Tory, emphasising religious differences more than constitutional issues. He was anti-Presbyterian, anti-Puritan, anti-Whig, and his portrait feature on the gable of the Hume Arms in Torksey is probably a cameo profile from an engraving in one of his major works.

(It could be mistaken for Adam Smith (1723-1790), (below) another notable figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, moral philosopher and political economist.)

That David Hume was not, however, directly connected to Torksey. This was more correctly Sir Abraham Hume, whose grandfather Robert Hume (1662-1732) of North Berwick in Scotland was yet another scion of the Home-Hume-Douglas dynasty. There were two Sir Abraham Humes, one 1703-1772, the second 1748-1838, and their property in Lincolnshire included Torksey, a manor belonging to Sir Jermyn Davers until disposed of to The Duke of Newcastle who, in turn sold it to Sir Abraham in 1748.

Enter John Cust (1779-1853), 2nd Baron and (from 1815) 1st Earl Brownlow. In 1810 he married Sophia, daughter and co-heir of the second Sir Abraham Hume. This brought Cust not only Torksey and South Kyme, where there is the other Hume Arms, but also under the will of her uncle the 7th Earl of Bridgewater, a lot of the Ellesmere estate in Shropshire, the Ashridge estate in Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, and properties in County Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire.

So, it seems, the arms of the Hume family were spread wide. The world champion racing driver? The connection is Chirnside (pop 1300), 9 miles west of Berwick-upon-Tweed and 6 miles east of Duns. Its name was said to be derived from a cairn on nearby Harelaw Hill. South of the Lammermuirs and north of the Cheviots it was the home of Jim Clark (1936-1968), who won the world drivers’ championship in 1963 and 1965. Born at Kilmany in the Kingdom of Fife, the Clark family moved to Edington Mains farm at Chirnside in 1942 when Jim was six.

Here he graduated from farm tractors to his father’s Sunbeam Mark III, started racing in his friend Ian Scott Watson’s Porsche and Lotus, before joining Team Lotus in Formula 1. One of the greatest drivers of all time, Clark set records in his eight year career that have only recently been broken by virtue of the proliferation of grands prix.