By now, I imagine all F1 fans have probably watched the first Grand Prix of the season. I finally had a chance to watch it last weekend and I must say, I was quite disappointed with the noise. The major changes to cars have been decreasing engine size, rpm limit and cylinder count, a return to turbocharging, limiting fuel use, body changes to promote safety and increase passing opportunities and increase available power boost from the electric motor, both in duration and magnitude. If you want to learn more about the changes, click here to go to the summary on the Formula 1 official website or watch the video below prepared by the Red Bull. The changes to the engine itself are the ones that most affect the noise. Firstly, a drop from a V8 to a V6 means fewer cylinder fires per engine revolution and, therefore, per unit of time (second, minute, etc.). This is coupled with a drop in maximum rpm from the typical 18,000 - 19,000 to 15,000. This means fewer fires per revol
BMW M2 equipped with an eLSD - BMW © A few weeks ago, I posted about traditional clutch-type limited slip diffs (LSD's) and how they work. You can read about those in the previous post: How Limited Slip Diffs Make You Faster on Track . But as you might know or have learned from reading the article, they aren't without their faults, which means engineers are always working to get around those limitations. You may not be surprised to learn that something like the Ferrari 488 GTB doesn't use a traditional limited slip diff, but it's not limited to super cars, far from it. Cars like the Golf GTI, the Civic Type R, various Mustangs, Corvettes, and BMW M cars, and even the Lexus RC F and GS F, all avoid a traditional limited slip diff in favour of one of these technologies. To keep things simple, I'll focus on two wheel drive vehicles. The vast (vast) majority of principles apply to all and 4 wheel drive vehicles, but there are some subtle differences that I'll