What about engines?

UPDATE #3 A reader writes, Nice of Honda to initiate merger talks? But what planet is HRD President Robert Clarke on? His statement "I was clear in stating that Honda has no interest in Champ Car by itself. Our only intent is combining the two series. I believe Champ Car does have a vision, but I was quite frank in telling them (when Champ Car met with Honda) that I don't think that vision aligns with Honda's". Kevin K must have been stunned, is it the Honda "vision" to dump hundreds of millions into a series that no one watches and races (other than Indy) that no one has attended for 10 years now? What is up, that statement makes no business sense whatsoever. Brian Kellione, Colorado Springs, CO 06/01/05 Honda Racing Development President Robert Clarke told ESPN, "I was clear in stating that Honda has no interest in Champ Car by itself. Our only intent is combining the two series. I believe Champ Car does have a vision, but I was quite frank in telling them (when Champ Car met with Honda) that I don't think that vision aligns with Honda's" (i.e. international expansion is not for "American" Honda – the BAR F1 team is for that, where they never win a race and recently got caught for cheating bringing much embarrassment to Honda as a company). 05/25/05 According to a post on an internet forum from a pretty reliable poster, Honda Performance Development in California has been building and running 2.65 liter turbo engines on the dyno, possibly to make them long-life like Cosworth has done. If true then our premise below that the Champ Car 2.65 liter turbo engine would be best for a unified Champ Car/IRL series begins to take new life. Honda has them. Toyota has them. Cosworth has them. They are reliable, versatile and they sound good. Hmm….Is Honda already testing them just in case? 05/25/05 A reader asks, Dear AutoRacing1.com, I read about Honda getting involved in trying to put Champ Car and the IRL back together again. Great, but the IRL uses normally aspirated engines and Champ Car turbo engines. If they agree on a common rules package, what is your best guess for an engine formula? Rock Morris, Staten Island Dear Rock, We have never heard an IRL or Champ Car fan say they did not like the turbocharged engine. And with turbos becoming more common on passenger cars worldwide, it would seem to us as the logical choice. If everything is going to be new in 2007 anyway, the engine could be anything really.

The easy option? Honda still has their 2.65 liter turbo engine from their CART days. They can simply detune it like Cosworth did to get the high mileage between rebuilds now required by Champ Car and they would be ready to compete head-to-head with Cosworth again without too much effort. The Cosworth could be badged Ford, Chevy, Hyundai or whatever.

Of course they would have to agree to a common set of electronics to prevent the traction control wars of yesteryear. By adopting a high mileage engine and common electronics, Champ Car has significantly reduced costs, but as we said, no engine manufacturer should be able to subsidize a car more than $1 million per year. Insane RPM and manufacturers subsidizing teams and giving away free engines is what drives costs up. Never again should the teams become beholden to the engine manufacturer.

If we had our druthers, we still maintain that a small 1.8 liter twin turbo engine, running on either methanol or ethanol would be the way to go. It's technologically "sexy", not ear-piercing loud, in-tune with the tuner market and able to produce more power and torque at a lower RPM than an equivalent normally aspirated engine. The smaller and lighter engine has many advantages. What would be a disaster is a heavy production based engine that makes the back end of the car too heavy. We all lived through the nightmare of those days in the IRL when the tail-heavy tail-happy cars spun without warning tail first into the walls, breaking far too many drivers backs. There were rumors of the IRL adopting the Grand-Am engines and making them a non-stressed member, essentially sitting freely on motor mounts like a stock car in a tube frame backend of the chassis. We shutter to think anyone would come up with such a preposterous idea for an IndyCar. We see visions of entire engines bounding along the track or up into the grandstands in some of the violent oval track crashes. An open wheel car is supposed to be a state-of-the-art vehicle (within reason).

With that said, I'm sure a suitable normally aspirated engine formula can be agreed to as well. But why? Unless they unmistakingly scream like an F1 engine, the extra noise is just annoying and does nothing to make an IndyCar sound unique.

As for HP goals, take 100 pounds or so of weight out of the cars and a good target for HP would around 700, 750 tops. If the car's track is 6 inches or so narrower than present, and with no traction control, they will be a handful for any driver. With the right turbo boost limit and RPM limit, Cosworth and Honda will be plenty challenged to make that much HP from such a small 1.8 liter engine and still get 1200 or so miles (about 2 or 3 weekends of racing) between rebuilds. Would such a formula keep Toyota involved too? Probably not, but given where the sport is today, just a two engine racing series (Honda vs. a Chevy or Ford badged Cosworth) may be the best that can be hoped for short term. Mark C.