What is this race engine?

Appears to be a 1.5 liter turbo motor from F1 in the 1980's. Following the success of the BMW 1.5 liter engine in 83, there was a lot of interest in 4 cyl turbo motors. Ferrari raced a V6 turbo during that time. I didn't see any history where the 4 cyl actually started a race.

 

very cool - I was certain that Ferrari built its last 4 cyl in the late 50s. I would love to know what the output on this thing was. Can you imagine all the little sports cars you could have put this beast into?? fun

 

I remember reading that Ferrari were designing a 4 cylinder motorcycle engine for Cagiva in the early 90s not sure if this was just rumour or whether anything came of it (the 750 -1000cc engine in the MV F4?)

 

And that on an engine built up on a production engine block as a base with as high a mileage as they could get them. Amazing stories there.

 

regarding to Keith Bluemel`s list in cavallino we had a 154 F1 in 1985 , 4cyl turbo , chassis 078

 

Thanks to the thread starter for the photo credit, and for posing this question. I have assumed that it was a prototype but have never bothered to ask, great to see this engine being discussed.

At the factory this was on of the few engines that did not have an information/spec card next to it.

 

Ferrari has built many experimental engines, many of which were never intended to race or for production. Many of them are to study ideas. They range from single cylinder on up, 2 and 4 stroke, na and blown. We used to recieve a book from Ferrari as a Christmas present every year and one year it was a book of all the experimental motors they had built to date. Some were very interesting configurations.

 

I have always found the story of BMW's World Championship 4-cylinder turbo F1 engine pretty amazing. It was based on the cast-iron small Bee-Em production block, and chief engineer Paul Rosche reputedly found that used stock blocks with some 50,000 miles on them performed best. I was told that BMW's dynos only read to a maximum 1,000bhp - and that by the high tide of F1 boost pressures in 1985-86, they merely extrapolated 1,240bhp or thereabouts from the fact that the Brabham-BMWs were timed at 213mph on the Mistral Straight at Ricard-Castellet, and Nelson Piquet at 208mph past the pits at Monza! The Brabham boys found during qualifying that emptying a CO2 extinguisher onto the car's intercooler alone found an extra 80-horsepower. Engine specialist Heini Mader talked of 1470-horsepower from one of these 150occ M12 units. Hardly surprising then that Ferrari should explore the compact and lightweight 4-cylinder concept...

DCN

 

What many people forget is that the Cosworth v6 turbo engine was the most powerful and reliable by the end of the turbo era ... just in the wrong car. Well that is according to the articles I've read.

Those BMW engines, while very powerful, went bang very often.
Pete

 

In early development, cripplingly so - true. But they then survived quite well enough to carry Nelson Piquet to the second of his three Drivers' World Championship titles, in 1983...which was the first to fall to a Formula 1 driver using 1.5-litre turbocharged power. Renault and Ferrari had to stand by and watch the old adversary succeed...

DCN

 

I assume that this is due to the increased strength and ductility derived from the large number of heating cycles that these blocks were subjected to.

 

Indeed - if they passed inspection at all they were certainly very thoroughly stress-relieved... Even so I recall several early blow-ups in which around 30% of the engine by weight was sent showering along the track in a haze of incandescent, bouncing, tumbling shrapnel.

DCN

 

An old hot rodding trick was to leave a block exposed to the elements to "cure".

I have no idea what was supposed to happen but any number of tuners swore by the ritual.

 

IIRC BMW would use blocks that they found sitting in junkyards.

 

The BMW production block in question was cast iron, see this link for the benefits of ageing cast iron at room temperature: http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/812004-hqPv8q/native/812004.PDF

Thus they went looking for old blocks as they would be stronger and thus more likely handle the power.
Pete

 

While it is true that the used blocks are stress relieved do to thermal cycling, the machining operations they would do to turn them into race engines would put stresses back in the casting again when the blocks were bored, decked, etc. and in the case of aluminum if any welding was done.

Nowadays they use things like vibratory stress relief after the machining is done. http://www.meta-lax.com/

 

750cc, naturally aspirated inline 4 cyl, for Cagiva, who owned MV Agusta. What Cagiva ended up with doesn't look remotely like this engine, FWIW. Ferrari assisted, as I have read, on both engine development (radial 4 valve/cyl arrangement and cam/shim) and the system eventually used on the Tamburini model MV 1000 FV variant for fuel injected variable throttle 'trumpet' length. I believe the Castiglioni's eventually got sideways with Ferrari in the development and took there toys and went home.....but I don't always believe what I read on these things, and I trust my memory for them even less.

AXE

 

What they were looking for were engines that were work hardened, which is what metals do when they are in service.

While its always interesting to recall the horsepower the turbo cars were making at the end of the era (and as far as I recall Honda won that battle by producing over 1500 HP in qualifying trim), it was Renault who were the first to become successful with turbocharged 1.5 liter engines against the 3 liter NA's. For a few years Renault fairly anhilated Formula One until the other teams started figuring it out.

What I thought was facinating were the various teams who were blowing the intake plenums apart with so much boost, over 80 psi for a while until FIA started regulating boost. And even more astounding, that when FIA suggested reducing the turbo cars engine size to 1.2 liters, to try and slow them down, it came about that they would make even more power. It was postulated the teams would drop to three cylinder engines, and the reduced pumping losses would completely overshadow the reduction in displacement. Imagine 1500 HP in race trim from a 1.2 liter. Amazing!

 

Jetta mod here I come! Ferrari power at last baby!


_J

 

In my engineering classes in college, much was discussed about cast iron settling with heat and age....lowering the number of potential sites for fracture failure initiation.