Steel Cranks for FF1600

[mattray]

.......... I can say no more

[JustinDawkins]

aye?

shouldnt you be asleep?

[mattray]

Nah been out with the Japanese, hence not being able to say what I mean in coherent words, Even these little dudes can drink more then me!

[JustinDawkins]

Brooklyn Beckham can drink more than you......

[mattray]

Who? never heard of her! Stop reading HEAT magazine and fit some skid plates!

[kartingdad]

Originally Posted by JustinDawkins

.....and I am not keen on another......

Thats why it makes sense to have a steel crank.

[JustinDawkins]

or a smaller/lighter flywheel might do it?

[kartingdad]

I'm sure it would, but then you have the issue of performance gains from a lighter flywheel.

Perhaps you can only have a lighter flywheel if your a big tall person.

Oh, that means you could be well in there Justin.

Nope. Sorry, keep it to steel cranks, it's simpler.

[blue nose]

Neil Bold has done some tests this year With Phil Austins crank to see if the power out put is the same as the Hilton ones.

Does any one know what the outcome was ?

[ff90]

According to Mike Waite all was the same as both Neil & I expected that was last November and I've still not got the crank back!! Unfortunately I now understand that a new batch of cranks is needed and it will be coming from the original source Don Hilton. Mike Waite is supposed to be sorting thing now so I will just put my head back in the sand.

The lighter flywheel was also supposed to have been tested and again according to Mike no extra power was developed that could be noticed by Neil but Neil cannot measure the acceleration curve which if any thing would only be expected to change by a midges amount. As the overall car weight is not to change and an easy thing for all to do if details are made public why not do doth, you can save more rotating weight by swoping to alloy bell's & Disc set up!

A smaller Dia flywheel is a non starter unless you all want to buy new bell housings and/or adaptor plates as the starter motors will not reach the ring gear.

[kartingdad]

Originally Posted by ff90

A smaller Dia flywheel is a non starter unless you all want to buy new bell housings and/or adaptor plates as the starter motors will not reach the ring gear.

Very good.

[JustinDawkins]

Originally Posted by ff90

A smaller Dia flywheel is a non starter unless you all want to buy new bell housings and/or adaptor plates as the starter motors will not reach the ring gear.

Interesting

[JustinDawkins]

Originally Posted by kartingdad

Perhaps you can only have a lighter flywheel if your a big tall person.

Sounds good, a head start would also be good if possible.

Surely a lighter flywheel has got to be soem advantage, I am sure the curve would be small, but wheel to wheel it could well be noticable.

Clearly there is always going to be an increase in performance, it is unavoidable, but it would be good to keep it to a minimum so that people with old flywheels can still compete, and then just change to the new parts when the can afford to or need to.

[Redracer77]

Originally Posted by ff90

A smaller Dia flywheel is a non starter unless you all want to buy new bell housings and/or adaptor plates as the starter motors will not reach the ring gear.

We have played with different flywheels in my F4's this year in our development as we are allowed to in our regs. We keep the same diameter (due to the same issue Phil was talking about) but trialled different materials. Scholar has some good ones that are the same dia but weigh half the weight of the original lump for about £120. We don’t get a power advantage on the dyno but we do get the ability to get on the power quicker out of slow speed corners. So will ultimately be a bigger benefit around Cadwell than say Silverstone National.

I think the standard clutch and flywheel for a Ford is about 13.5kg our lightweight one with AP racing clutch is about 4kg I think. So big saving.

So no need to make it any smaller just don’t use a cast one. I am sure more cranks will last a lot longer without that 13.5kg of cast rubbish flying round on the end at 6,800 rpm....

[kartingdad]

I'm sure you are correct. Can we change the regs then or what?

[Triple J Motorsport]

Originally Posted by JustinDawkins

Brooklyn Beckham can drink more than you......

Is he breast fed?

[Redracer77]

Originally Posted by kartingdad

I'm sure you are correct. Can we change the regs then or what?

An issue to think about is that most FF1600 are close to the weight limit. If you lose 5kg at least from your flywheel you will have to replace the weight with lead. Some drivers will already have a load of lead to try and place...

[JustinDawkins]

Originally Posted by Triple J Motorsport

Is he breast fed?

yeah, Ed Moore says it makes his nipples tickle!

[JustinDawkins]

Originally Posted by Redracer77

An issue to think about is that most FF1600 are close to the weight limit. If you lose 5kg at least from your flywheel you will have to replace the weight with lead. Some drivers will already have a load of lead to try and place...

Good point there, although 5kgs does not make up a huge amount imo and it would be a very extreme case if you had no room to put that anywhere. My RF90 had 12kgs in it to make it to 420kgs and I still had plenty of room elsewhere for more. I doubt there are any/many cars out there under 405.

At the death 5 litres of fuel would sort it, or a stainless floor.

[Triple J Motorsport]

Originally Posted by JustinDawkins

yeah, Ed Moore says it makes his nipples tickle!

[Chris Horton]

I've had to pull out of the Walter Hayes due to a running over the start of the kerb at Becketts - the apex of the kerb ran up the centre of the car, hit the skid plate and (being a point load) bent it out the way and then, unfortunately, hit the flywheel hard and sent me airborne ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2npFtEdzhc ). The ring gear has damaged teeth and is heavilly distorted, and the runout on the flywheel puts the flywheel itself under query. God knows whats happened to the nose of the crank but a strip, measure and crack test will provide all the answers. Of course, this means that my interest in this thread has gone markedly up!

If the weight/inertia of the crank is kept the same and the cost of the crank is reasonable (i.e. now iron cranks are not cheap either) then I think it's crazy not to allow a sanctioned steel alternative. There is no performance advantage, minimal cost difference, just a longevity and reliability improvement which is in everyones interest. I bought my car from a work colleague who had suffered crank failure in it at Brands - the damage was enormous and damn near split the block in two so it's certainly not something I'm keen to experience first hand. The only reasonable argument I see against it is whether anyone believes that it will allow an increase rpm but I suspect not.

Flywheel size/inertia is something a bit different, because depending on the change it will have an impact both on transient performance and, if you were to take it right back to first principles and could run smaller ring gears then presumably it would allow lower engine installation height on new cars (certainly thats what it looks like on my RF88).

Apologies if I've missed some retorts or counter-arguments to the above, but I've only read about a dozen pages of this thread and couldn't face all 60!

[Biggun]

I'm guessing the limiting factor on revs is in the valvetrain?

[kartingdad]

It is with the standard valve springs....

[Triple J Motorsport]

Originally Posted by Chris Horton

I've had to pull out of the Walter Hayes due to a running over the start of the kerb at Becketts - the apex of the kerb ran up the centre of the car, hit the skid plate and (being a point load) bent it out the way and then, unfortunately, hit the flywheel hard and sent me airborne ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2npFtEdzhc ). The ring gear has damaged teeth and is heavilly distorted, and the runout on the flywheel puts the flywheel itself under query. God knows whats happened to the nose of the crank but a strip, measure and crack test will provide all the answers. Of course, this means that my interest in this thread has gone markedly up!

If the weight/inertia of the crank is kept the same and the cost of the crank is reasonable (i.e. now iron cranks are not cheap either) then I think it's crazy not to allow a sanctioned steel alternative. There is no performance advantage, minimal cost difference, just a longevity and reliability improvement which is in everyones interest. I bought my car from a work colleague who had suffered crank failure in it at Brands - the damage was enormous and damn near split the block in two so it's certainly not something I'm keen to experience first hand. The only reasonable argument I see against it is whether anyone believes that it will allow an increase rpm but I suspect not.

Flywheel size/inertia is something a bit different, because depending on the change it will have an impact both on transient performance and, if you were to take it right back to first principles and could run smaller ring gears then presumably it would allow lower engine installation height on new cars (certainly thats what it looks like on my RF88).

Apologies if I've missed some retorts or counter-arguments to the above, but I've only read about a dozen pages of this thread and couldn't face all 60!

Mark Edwards ended his WHT early too with a big hole in his block

[mattray]

Chris,

Are you suggesting an alternative on cost grounds or durability? Not sure a titanium crank would have survived that!