New Engine that is NOT motorcycle engine?

[Mi_Ko]

We should wait for the first tests. Everything depends on how good the engine realy is. It depends on the layout, ability to tune, weight and the livespan.

Mahle sure know what it is doing!

2002/03 University of MARIBOR - Team Member

[RiNaZ]

hey guys,
i just talked to my friend who works there in Mahle. He said, Mahle motorsports is building that engine for Aachen Tech. Univ. (i think that's what they're called). Mahle is the sponsor for Aachen Univ.

Even if Mahle actually sell it, the engineer told me not to buy it since they're still in the developing stage ... and there are still some problems to the design.

RiNaZ

[Mi_Ko]

Link in German

2002/03 University of MARIBOR - Team Member

[Alfonso Ochoa]

aahhhhhh...come on guys...they sell cv joints for fsae (taylor racing I think they are called), torsen diffs for fsae....why an engine designed for fsae would be the end ... jejejejeje.... I would start worrying about when I see a Chassis and suspension kit designed for Fsae teams being offered, jeje....hope it never happens....
Cheers,

Alfonso Ochoa Vega
cabezota311@hotmail.com
F-SAE USB Team, Venezuela

[awhittle]

english version

[gug]

the properly translated english version (you missed the small "in english" button on the left there awhittle. )
mahle engine

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>This engine, a three cylinder in-line, was especially built for the Formula Student by Mahle and weighs under 40 kg, including fluids.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

i know there are a team or two out there who cut the gearbox of a 600 inline 4, did you guys happen to measure the weight of the engine without gearbox?

- the problem with the world is stupidity. i'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety lables off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

[Frank]

good point gug

Frank

[Travis Garrison]

Gug, we have an old honda F1 in our shop that had its gearbox removed for a long dead attempt at clean snowmobile, without gearbox, with headers and with a large aluminum cap plate covering the hole the engine weighs ~60 lbs.

I believe sgnificant weight has been shaved between the F1 and F4 so an F4 w/out gearbox would likely be a few pounds lighter still...

Travis Garrison

[Tim Heinemann]

Moin!

As a member of the RWTH Aachen uni team who will actually use this particular engine I'd like to make some points on this thread:

For those of you who consider this the end of FSAE due to cost explosion or whatever you might spend a minute or two on thinking about your efforts on getting the BigFour's engine running at it's best. This is on proven designs which are not very far from the ideal FSAE engines except maybe for the trannies. Our Mahle engine is a brand new design with all the usual consequences. I don't expect it to win the hp shoot out and this is not the reason Mahle does this engine. What they want is to demonstrate their ability to handle an overall engine concept, nothing less and nothing more.
Hoyasuka have some 100 years (together...;-) of experience with high end 600cc engines, Mahle builds the first one (allthough with tons of knowledge from other forms of motorsport avaiable, granted) and to my knowledge they have no plans to do neither a real series production nor a successor. It is not even sure how long we will actually be able to field these engines at all.

If you guys have an engine breakdown the worst consequence usually will be getting a new one. We can do this exactly two times, then all engines in existence will be used up and we will be forced to find a whole new concept or try to fund the castings, pistons, con-rods, cam- or crankshafts...you name it for these bespoke prototypes. You might not guess, but apart from the huge sums (compared to other teams not MC manufacturers!)spent on this drivetrain we have as much a hard time as most of you funding everything else on this car, leave allone transportation etc. Wee do not even have a proper set of tools at the moment and have to borrow them from several institutes which might be familiar to some other teams.

We're forced (but really enjoy this!...;-) to build a complete gear box as the closest thing you could get on the market is some FormulaFord or the like transaxles which eat up all potential weight benefits and give a hell of a packaging problem. Actually we have a Hewland LD as a backup if our self-designed gearbox will fail for any reason and this means we have to develop 1 1/2 cars as the Hewland needs a much longer wheelbase etc.

Furthermore driving the cars is one of the pleasures of building them. Our car is an absolute prototype with two brand new and unproven (compared to volume production MC engines) designs so many of us will never drive this particular car because you really need to know what you're doing when getting this whole unit running, warming up etc. The engines are rated at 200h so you might agree that simply turning the key and having fun like with a Hoyasuka-powered car is very much out of the question.

Don't get me wrong: We consider us very lucky to have this astonishing opportunity, especially as this also enables us to build a rather nice gearbox, too. However I doubt that this concept will really give us any kind of advantage over teams running more conservative designs. Here in Germany we have the perfect example, too: It's Stralsund who did a superb 4th in FStudent this year. Their car has nothing of the vulnerable high-end approach of our current car and it perfectly paid off for them. Delft build an all-carbon car weighing 136kg and got 5 points more than Stralsund in design and didn't do the dynamic events in which Stralsund did rather well. They have a totally different approach and if you're really into winning this IMHO does not make any kind of lesser sense at all. FSAE doesn't necessarily reward high-tech so I'm quite anxious which of the two concept will "encash" in May: A conventional design out-tested for some 10 months minimum or the one with an all-new engine and gearbox.
Personally, I'll consider it as a dream come true if our car will make it over the finish line of the endurance and you'll notice as by then just by jumping for joy. And I'm really curious what the judges will say in design and cost event, whether they will like our car at all.

And a last comment to those of you who call for a bann or even imply that we pay for getting an engine developed to our needs: Just compare the potential effort going into the Mahle engine which will be build in homeopathic doses to a Nippon-4 which will have to prove itself on a highly competitive mass market. I guess I could easily derive a claim for banning series production engines in FSAE reading quite close to what you said (allthough I might consider myself insane doing so....;-)

I hope we will make it for Detroit and in this case we'll be happy to discuss everything around this engine with anybody visiting our pit!

Regards from Aachen,



Tim

--
ecurie aix RWTH Aachen FSAE team
http://www.ecurie-aix.rwth-aachen.de

[This message was edited by Tim Heinemann on December 01, 2003 at 01:37 PM.]

[Big Daddy]

Why don't you run a CVT on this engine? It seems to be a match cause from what I hear the biggest argument for not using one on a bike engine is having to cut off the tranny well in your case its already done for you. Just a suggestion/question.

"A woman is a lot like a beer, they look good, smell good, and you would run over your own mother to get one." Homer Simpson

Nobody is born with a steering wheel or a gear shift in his hand. It's something you choose to do or you don't.
Mario Andretti (1977)