dt -
F1 actually featured 1.5L V6 engines with twin turbos for a while, delivering up to 1500hp. Truly insane but still more fuel efficient than the naturally aspirated ones, which just kept losing. The rules even limited the amount of fuel turbocharged competitors were allowed to use. For some reason, the racing purists eventually won out and turbos were outlawed.

Allen Z -
electrohydraulic and electromagnetic camless valve drives actually eat a lot of energy because they cannot recuperate any via the valve spring the way a purely mechanical VVT can. Also, all valvetrains with variable valve lift deliver the greatest improvement in part load, because the reduce or eliminate the need for throttling via a butterfly valve in the intake duct. Race cars spend >80% of their working lives near the engine map point of rated power, so there would be little benefit.

One feature that would make a difference to both consumption and power is direct fuel injection, preferably in combination with downsizing, turbocharging, intercooling and cam phasing (but constant lift).

Thin-film thermoelectric elements in the exhaust manifold would be a useful complementary technology to stress-test in F1 conditions. Early lab results indicate high conversion rates of 10-20%. The electricity produced could power electric motors in the front wheels, which would do double duty by recuperating kinetic energy into ultracaps during braking (and mask turbo lag during acceleration). Manufacturers currently use a 40kg slab of tungsten to fine-tune the weight distribution between the axles for each racecourse. A well-designed ultracap system could be repositioned just as easily.

High turbine-in temperatures at rated power preclude the use of VGT turbos in production gasoline-powered cars (except Porsche 911 Turbo). VGTs are alreeady common in diesels and sharply reduce turbo lag at low RPM, a key requirement for customer acceptance of fuel-efficient downsizing concepts.

Rafael,
This is similar to GM hydraulic Cylinder Deactivation system, and may solve issues with camless solenoid valves, some which you pointed out. I'm wondering why GM is sitting on this.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6918360.html

For images, click "View PDF Images", follow page instructions.

Rafael, your comment about thermoelectric devices is good. There are people working on that one now. Power Chips is one such company, which uses nanotechnology to make a very efficient thermoelectric vacuum chip. Much more efficient than the 10-20% conversion rates you mentioned. It looks very promising, and then the current can be shunted into a large ultracap for use in acceleration, etc.

http://www.powerchips.gi/

During the turbo period of F1 there was also a V8 Alfa Romeo engine (twin turbo) but it was not succesful.
BMW also provided a 4-cylinder 1.5L engine with a single turbocharger.

Allen Z -

cylinder deactivation aka displacement on demand is used in a number of Honda and GM V6 and V8 engines in production today. Modified valve clearance compensation elements permit toggling the kinematic transfer function between the camshaft and the valve stem between two states, 0 and 1, in less than one crankshaft revolution (even at high RPM). Fuel economy gains are on the order of 7%, at low cost. The technology is not heavily advertised because it reminds customers that they are actually paying for a much bigger engine than they need for 90% of the time.

John W. -

interesting company, based in Gibraltar. It's possible they might be on to something, since changes in a material's figure of merit and/or the temperature differential it can tolerate mechanically do make a big difference in conversion efficiency. However, 70-80% seems awfully high. All I see is theory and vaporware.

Here's a primer on the state of the art of secondary thermoelectrics in automotive contexts:

http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/deer_2004/session4/2004_deer_fairbanks2.pdf
http://www.cemamerica.com/doeevents/DEER/Presentations/Thursday/TS6%20Waste%20Heat%20Recovery/2006_DEER_LaGrandeur.pdf

Automotive subsystem supplier Valeo announced that their camless electromagnetic valvetrain is scheduled for mass production in 2009. It actually uses return springs:

http://www.valeo.com/automotive-supplier/Jahia/op/edit/pid/1317

Andrey -

please look closely at the drawings. In an electromagentic valvetrain (Lotus and FEV have independently developed similar solutions in Europe), each valve has not one but two springs. At rest, each valve is half-open. Before cranking the engine, the crankshaft has to be positioned at an angle of approx. 45 degrees to the vertical (in an inline 4). Next, the valves in each cylinder have to be excited into oscillation until they are caught in the closed position and kept there - this ALWAYS requires the application of a magnetic field.

After all the valves are closed, the engine is cranked and only then is the valvetrain actually activated. Upon releasing a valve from its "closed" position, the energy stored in its springs causes it to move well beyond the equilibrium position such that it can be caught and held in the open configuration. This also ALWAYS requires the application of a magnetic field. The springs serve only to minimize the strength of the magnetic field (i.e. the electrical power) required for catching the valve in the extreme positions. The actuator in fact never functions as a generator.

Engine shut-down also requires a special procedure to reliably avoid hard contact between the valves and the piston crowns, which could quickly lead to catastrophic engine failure. The combination of high electrical load, lack of recuperation and special start/stop procedures have limited the use of camless valvetrains to engine R&D applications, where they are used to optimize simulated cam profiles.

Note that in a mechanical valvetrain, each valve spring really does recuperate power to its camshaft in the receding portion of the cam profile.

John W. and Rafael,
some years ago I read an article in an electronics magazine about 2 english scientists who patented a direct conversion thermo-electric device capable of attaining an efficiency of 70% of the Carnot cycle.
They made a demonstration to the US Patent Office with a sample of the device. It generated electricity exchanging heat between the ambient air and a piece of ice.

Never-the-less amazing that these ICE electro-mechanical designs remain on the boards. When long ago we left analog electronics behind in favor of solid state digital devices - the mechanized world remains stubbornly entrenched in thousands of moving parts, coolants, heat exchangers, lubricating systems, on and on.

A brushless motor has so much more elegance. Perhaps it's the "idle hands" argument that keeps thousands of mechanical parts at the fore of engineering today.

Jorge, thanks, but do you have a link to that product? (the thermoelectric device).

John W.
No, I do not have a link.
I will try to find that magazine. I hope I can find it.

gr -

the engine development divisions of the various carmakers do have a vested interest in keeping themselves employed. However, the main obstacle to all-electric drive has historically been the low energy density/short operating range and poor deep-cycle life expectancy/warranty risk associated with traction batteries.

Tesla Motors claims to have achieved a quantum leap in both respects by switching to Li-ion technology. The really do have just the electric motor and a differential as moving parts. Unfortunately, their two-seater roadster is still priced at $100k.

Rafael,

So, once we have simplified and lowered costs of the clean drive train - auto manufacturers will have the challenge of building exciting cars with an emphasis on innovative design. The culture of engineering low MTBF diverts attention from creative design and inventive aftermarket equipment.

The Tesla has to deal with early adopter Li-ion pricing. Economies of scale will amend that.

Thanks, Rafael.

This has been a very interesting discussion, especially for someone like me who is an avid (albeit relatively new) F1 fan. Based on some of the responses, I'll probably embarrass myself here as I have nowhere near the level of knowledge some of you do, but hopefully you'll appreciate my "average Joe" perspective.

Rafael mentioned the 1500 hp turbo cars. From my understanding, a lot of the reasoning behind outlawing those configurations was due to safety. While the race teams' ultimate goal is to go fast and win races, the FIA's ultimate goal is to do it a fair, safe manner.

While several people feel that the F1 technology is not improving street cars in a green manner, I think it is, indirectly. While there are really no limits to how fast these cars could go, there are limits to how fast these cars can go safely, and they also have to be reliable enough to withstand the stress they experience long enough to finish the races.

For example, this year the teams ran 2.4 litre V-8s instead of 3.0 litre V-10s because the teams were getting too much horsepower out of them - estimated around 350 hp per litre. Dropping them down to 2.4 litres puts them down into approximately the 800-850 hp range.

The teams work very hard to make the engines efficient enough to produce that kind of power. In order to go faster, they will continue to find more efficiency, and soon they'll be getting 400 hp per litre and will be too fast and unsafe.

So, the FIA will have to respond by imposing some sort of limit. Of course, dropping the engine size can be done again, but it obviously has limits - it's pretty difficult to have a 0 litre engine (I'm no mechanical engineer or anything, but I would guess that's a safe bet!). So, I think the idea of limiting fuel and promoting hybrid-type technologies is a good one. It provides a whole new challenge to the team engineers, and who knows what they'll come up with to win races. When you have a governing body such as the FIA, the quest for speed is a quest for efficiency. Isn't efficiency a major factory in green technology? If the teams concentrate their efforts on gaining efficiency in hybrid technology or regenerative braking, it will only lead to good things that can be applied to our street cars, I think - not necessarily making them faster, but making them more efficient.

As an aside, if you look at www.formula1.com, check out the technical analysis section. While it's a fairly superficial look at the technology changes introduced throughout the race season, I find it very interesting. Most of the aerodynamic improvements are done to increase downforce and handling. Somebody had mentioned the idea of moving/flexing wings and that has been tried, with both Ferrari and Renault being scrutinized for trying it this year. As for the mass-damper system incorporated by Renault, Ferrari was also experimenting with a similar concept.

Anyway, that's my two cents. It's a lot of fun hearing people's perspectives on this site.

Doing something for development and future advancement, the FIA should also allow different sources of power, such as different ICE's, when going the route of hybrids or trying to find better and greener drive train solutions.

I understood hybrids only make sense in city driving where part load and braking are very frequent. Going on the highway, hybrid does absolutely nothing to conserve fuel, right?

Correct me if I am wrong. But if that is true a hybrid is utter nonsense in F1. I will listen to comments and perhaps advise to the contrary.