Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers could be despatched to mailbag@racer.com. We love listening to your feedback and opinions, however letters that embrace a query usually tend to be printed. Questions obtained after 3pm ET every Monday will seem the next week.
Q: Been following racing of all sorts for my entire life. Type of miss the unknown potentialities of a blown engine throughout a race affecting the end result with these nearly bulletproof engines (until it was somebody I used to be rooting for).
I’m wanting ahead to attending one other enjoyable weekend with the IndyCar circus and different followers at Mid-Ohio, and questioning what (if any) kind of issues do the brand new hybrid techniques convey to the facility trains? What can go improper with them that might trigger some kind of engine failure?
Mike Nikishin, Burgettstown, PA
MARSHALL PRUETT: We’ll want to carry the primary hybrid race to have a greater concept on the problems that may come up. Hundreds and 1000’s of testing miles have been accomplished, however we’ve by no means had a full race distance accomplished with 27 automobiles, and with contact between automobiles and all the opposite regular issues that occur and go improper between the inexperienced and checkered flags that may shake and rattle the ERS.
We might have an ESS or MGU failure. An ESS drawback wouldn’t essentially be the tip of the world, however a seized or damaged MGU, because it connects to the motor’s crankshaft through the enter shaft, might result in might hem. Overheating of the ERS unit — ESS or MGU (or each) — might trigger failures.
The MGU is the principle space of sensitivity on the onset of hybridization. There’s nothing improper with the factor, however IndyCar doesn’t need to push it too laborious, which is why the facility figures are being saved considerably low. When IMSA went hybrid, there have been expectations for every kind of ERS issues, nevertheless it by no means developed right into a severe concern. There have been occasional hiccups, however nothing widespread.
Well-known final phrases for me right here, however IndyCar’s final-spec ERS has accomplished a whole lot of working and the reliability has been fairly good, so primarily based on that actuality, I’d anticipate Mid-Ohio to proceed the pattern. Mentioned one other approach, it will come as a shock if the entire reliability we’ve seen with the final-spec ERS goes out the window and leaves us with half or extra of the sector sitting parked and smoking on the facet of the street on Sunday.
Q: I understand the charters are a foregone conclusion at this level in IndyCar, however I simply don’t perceive why the sequence has been so hellbent on including them? I completely perceive why the groups need them, nevertheless it doesn’t make a lot sense to me from a sequence standpoint – it’s not as whether it is struggling to draw automobile homeowners and groups proper now. Why undergo all of this bother, flip away potential events, and reward charters to the incumbent groups? They don’t have charters now, and those self same groups present up each week and there’s a full grid. If this was 2007, I might see how charters would maintain worth for the sequence at a time when it was robust to get a full grid each week, however are they actually nervous {that a} bunch of groups are going to up and go away now with out a constitution system in place?
I might a lot relatively the sequence embrace the alternative stance and lean into competitors – embrace bumping! You may run street and road course qualifying with Spherical 1 cut up into three teams – the highest two from every group routinely advance to the Quick 6. Backside two or three from every group go right into a Final Probability Qualifying like Indy for the ultimate spots on the grid, which might be instead of the now-moot Quick 12 phase. It will actually make qualifying much more thrilling and would drive groups to up their sport in the event that they need to proceed to play – which might solely be good for the product, contemplating it’s an expert sequence.
Matt, Nazareth, PA
MP: I’ve had the identical struggles to search out the overwhelming causes to create charters, however we do know that workforce homeowners wish to have their entries protected, so guaranteeing beginning positions in each race — besides, fortunately, the Indy 500, which they backed away from after receiving an enormous backlash from followers — is one thing they may obtain.
And attaching a free-market financial worth to their entries is one other factor they received’t flip down, in order that’s what they’ll get as nicely. All of it suits with the spec-minded path the sequence has been on for a few years. Strip away as many areas which you can the place failure might exist, like a number of tire suppliers and a number of chassis suppliers, so no one is prone to selecting the improper vendor, and that approach, you’re all however assured to have the ability to compete on the highest degree.
It’s additionally defending your means to compete in all however one race whereas letting the newcomers be the one ones prone to failing and doubtlessly going out of enterprise. That’s not the spirit of racing I fell in love with.
Minus the assured beginning positions, the constitution works for me, however perhaps I’m taking a look at it the improper approach.
Charters have apparent advantages for the groups, however maybe at the price of competitors. Phillip Abbott /Motorsport Photos
Q: As an engineer, I’ve no drawback switching between U.S. and metric models to make comparisons. Nevertheless, a whole lot of followers on social media are totally befuddled by IndyCar’s insistence on utilizing the longstanding U.S. models for energy and torque for the ICE however metric for the ERS. To be trustworthy, I feel that’s deliberate obfuscation to cloak simply how impotent this ERS is in follow versus all that was promised.
Energy is torque occasions rpm, plus any obligatory conversion components. 30 Newton meters of torque at 12000 rpm is equal to simply underneath 51 hp, woefully in need of what the initially said objectives had been on the out-set.
The sequence will permit 105 kJ of power deployment per lap at Iowa. That’s equal to 50 hp for two.8 seconds, assuming that the driving force is ready to harvest and deploy that a lot with all the things else occurring throughout an 18 second lap – and a 100% environment friendly MGU, which we all know shouldn’t be potential.
An ordinary rechargeable lithium battery pack on a homeowner-level weed whacker is 30 Watt-hour capability. One Wh equals 3.6 kJ, thus that pack accommodates 108 kJ power. Clearly, I don’t anticipate Hinch to be making that comparability on display screen, despite the fact that it’s sensible.
A gallon of E85 accommodates about 94,000 kJ of warmth power, and a turbo engine at full throttle can attain 40% effectivity in changing warmth power to kinetic power on the driveshaft. 105 kJ is just about as a lot en-ergy because the ICE places out the again finish from burning 0.14 ounces of E85.
I’ve been a fan of the sequence because the turbine period, and I’m having an actual laborious time understanding the hype round this ‘growth.’ It’s a mass of complication with valuable little profit versus permitting a bit of extra turbo enhance, OEM advertising and marketing efforts be damned.
Steve Jarzombek
MP: I hear you, however there are a whole lot of constraints IndyCar gave itself by sticking with the identical chassis since there was no area to construct a stout high-voltage lithium-ion battery resolution. Left with a small void to fill within the bellhousing, what Chevy and Honda got here up with is, as I’ve stated many occasions, a marvel of packaging. However because of the excessive limitation of area to suit an ESS and MGU, they weren’t in a position to make a monster ERS that delivers big horsepower and torque.
The sequence says it might go as excessive as 150hp with the unit in the future, so that will be nice. But it surely’s beginning at a modest 60hp and 33.2 lb-ft of torque to take care of the reliability it’s achieved with the MGUs.
Before everything, it is a advertising and marketing train, not a deep technological exploration by IndyCar, Chevy, or Honda. It’s to present its present and hopefully extra auto manufacturers sooner or later the relevance they should keep in or be part of the sequence. Thus far, from 2013-2023 (and half of 2024), no producers wished to affix IndyCar whereas it was non-hybrid.
The brand new ERS package deal may not produce the staggering efficiency we’d hoped — a minimum of on the outset — however I’m however centered on what the transfer to hybridization might do to convey extra automobile firms into the sequence.
On the models of measurement, I’ve conveyed the priority and want for the sequence to ‘Americanize’ every-thing associated to the ERS models. Newton-meters and kilojoules simply don’t jive right here, so let’s hope the recommendation was taken.
