The (one and only) '0846' Debate Thread

In the `60-70thies SP ( Sport Prototypes ) racing era the engine set-up was mostly unrelated to the cars. What mattered was the installation ( fittings ) in the framework and the matching with the transmission to swap between different versions. Sport indicated the cars were built just as racers ( no serial production ) and Prototype that the car could actually have been a single ( only one car built in that configuration ). So that you could have had three P4 in the race but each one was different of the others ( bigger or smaller engine volume, spyder or berlinetta, longer wheelbase, different brake set-up, carbs or injection, different ventilation louvers etc ) . Other as today, when the different racing categories are strictly regulated, the teams had few restrictions to observe and were quite free to use creativity and to adapt to the last minute situation. Ferrari had to use its limited factory capability in engine production to support each other week-end both F1 ( Drivers World Championship ) and Endurance (Brand or Marche World Championship ) with same crew of engineers so that swapping engines, creating hybrids where allowed, was the usual way to get things done on time with some economy.
The only way to know which car had which engine when is to have access on the data sheet the racing team manager ( Direttore Sportivo ) filled by hands on the track.

 

The data sheets would provide an answer IF they still exist, but most of the drivers are living, and perhaps they would know and remember the displacement of a particular car at a particular race...

 

I tend politely to disagree: racing drivers mostly cared just for driving and did not have much insight on what was behind their shoulders. Unless were kind of test engineers ( like Mike Parkes ) who did carry-on car development. The ultimate documents might be the bloc notes of the teams where all technical set-ups were registered and the entry records of the race organization ( Direzione Corsa ), where participants were registered on practices and racing events.

 

I agree with that. Certainly any entry records (if they still exist) would provide more insight than the drivers, but it is possible the drivers might have some information that would be valuable.

 

Jim G.,

I wasn't questioning they type of block used or whether is could be built into a smaller displacement engine, just the comment that the engine was designed to have various displacements, which seemed to imply that Ferrari would change the displacement of a specific block. I agree that any block can be built into an engine of smaller displacement than its maximum design spec. if a significant portion of the internals are replaced.

What didn't make sense was to me was why would one bother converting a specific block from one displacement to another when a spare block could be used. Ney's post makes sense to me. If you have a foundry, make a few extra blocks as spares (raw material is cheap compared to engineering time). Then build up some of the spares with different innards.

By the way, I've forgtten the answer to this: besides the different structure, are the mounting points different on the 3 liter F1 block and the P4 block? Could they have run F1 blocks in P4s? (please note i am not suggesting your motor is an F1 block - just wondering what options were available to the factory at the time)



Cal Morr & Nathan,

I agree with your comments.



Knowbar,

I respectfully disagree, aluminum was cheap compared to the effort of building up a championship race motor. If you need to replace all of the innards of an engine to rebuild it a a lower displacement motor, the effort and cost is high compared to casting and finishing 8 instead of 7 block while the production tooling is set (note numbers were pulled out of the sky, I do not know how many were actually cast).

By the way, some of us still get grease on our pasty skin.


Happy New Year to all!

Art S.

 

Stu
I don't know about other Italian cars, but Ferrari chassis nearly always had matching engine numbers.
Nathan

 

Interesting read from a few years ago - http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=688142#post688142

I believe I posted the Sports Car Graphic link referred to therein a week or so ago.

Oh, well - I was thinking of a SportsCar Market profile I read, but don't think I posted - nevertheless, note the italics/bolds:
http://www.sportscarmarket.com/profiles/2000/November/Ferrari/index.html
At Monza the P4s triumphed again while 0844, shared by Jean Guichet and Pedro Rodriguez, charged hard from the start. In fact, Pedro eventually got the lead from Parkes’ P4 thanks to the P3’s better fuel mileage and his blinding pace until the Mexican, trying too hard, went off at the first chicane and damaged the radiator too seriously to continue. 0844 was now prepared for the return match at Le Mans.

So, there is basis in having a P3 engine for the long haul in '67.

 

Maybe the Porsche's 100L fuel tank versus the 4litre 330P3s fuel tank of 140L had something to do with it!!
Nathan

 

Not if the amount of fuel you're allowed to load is limited by the rules.

 

Not to mention the extra time it would take to put in 40% more fuel or the extra weight of that fuel. The bottom line remains that at the Targa with it's long laps and low speeds fuel econ. would matter and IMO that would be something they'd understand. I somehow doubt Audi was the first to realize it.

 

Are you you are saying that there was no stockpile of engines; that a specific engine or set of engines belonged to a particular chassis and were simply rebuilt as needed? I find that difficult to believe, as even Alfa pre-WW2 had spare engines, and switched engines from chassis to chassis on their racecars as needed.

 

Stu
Did I write that? No.
It's simply that when a new Ferrari was built the engine that was fitted to it - when new - usually had the same no. as the chassis. Of course there were spare engines, and today there are many old Ferraris that don't have matching engine and chassis nos.
Nathan

 

Interestingly so far as I know 0844/0850/0854/0856/0858 still have matching chassis and engine numbers. I'm not sure about 0848 and 0860.
0846 of course no longer has it's original block.

 

I guess I misunderstood.

 

This one is for sale. It's show in an ad in current cavallino. It looks good in Yellow.

 

When Ferrari built race cars, some cars had more than one engine with the same number on all chassis number on all engines. the owner of 0844 has two original engines with the same chassis number on each. The facory also assembled and built up engines of a particular type and stamped (and changed ) the numbers as required. note the attached picture of 0810. the 081 are fixed, the "0" could be 2 oe 4 or 6. This picture is not for duplication.
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VERY interesting. Now I have to figure out just who you are! Are you someone I know?

 

I thought Wayne had already unequivocally stated that the P4 ran a 3L engine.

So is it 3L or 3.3L, or maybe either? I wonder why there is now a drive to persuade us that a smaller engined P4 actually existed?
And we still don't have any details, only supposition. Which cars, which races ran smaller engined P4s?
Nathan

 

Check THIS out

 

Wayne said that the engines could be set up as: " a 3 liter or a 4 liter". The caption said 3.3 liter.

Drive?? All that's happening is once again some of us are trying to find out what happened, whether or not Wayne,the caption and other's here and on Atlas who have speculated that the P3's and maybe the P4's sometimes ran as "3 or 4 liter's" is correct. It is fact that they could be built up as either so it is therefore possible that they did. Once again opinions are different than fact.

Umberto Masoni on behalf of Ferrari Classiche stated the following about 0846's chassis:

"Therefore eventual pieces retrieved from the trash container should not have been used to rebuild or to revival a car which was written off, if this is the case."

That is opinion.

That you can't build a P3 chassis from P4 blueprints is fact.

One should never confuse the two.

 

No:

"A sample of the prominent cars that have recently been handled by..."

 

Same site - with original facsimili from AUTOSPORT 1967
http://www.imca-slotracing.com/1967-PART2.htm

 

0850 is not for sale. Read more carefully. Hamilton WAS involved with 0850 in February 2001, five years ago.
Marcel Massini

 

And how much was that exactly?

 

Next time I'm over there I'll look up it up. In the mean time why don't you answer a few questions.

Would better fuel econ. be an advantage at a long lap low speed race?

Would a lower/lighter fuel load make a car handle better on a very twisty course?

Would it take less time to load less fuel?

Can P3 and P4 blocks/spare engines be built up in different displacements?

If yes to the above is it therefore logical that different displacements were used at different races?

If not why did Wayne S. say they were?

As an aside none of the above has anything to do with this thread. A mod moved my posting in the Targa thread here as he considered it debate.