Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Fast Track. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Scott Benjamin, and today we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: something and I bet a lot of people are curious about, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, why why is it that you can't take
Speaker 1: a race engine and stuff that in your car, your truck,
Speaker 1: whatever and make that work on the road. Why why
Speaker 1: is it that you can't do that? And a lot
Speaker 1: of people have tried, a lot of people come, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of close to it, or they claim that they
Speaker 1: have an engine that's that's a race engine that they've
Speaker 1: turned into a street engine, you know, for their vehicle.
Speaker 1: And you know, actually there are some examples of it,
Speaker 1: but they require a ton of maintenance, a ton of upkeep,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a different it's a whole different animal
Speaker 1: than what you normally would have under the hood. And
Speaker 1: manufacturers create engines specifically for ease of use among the
Speaker 1: consumers and being able to turn the vehicle on and
Speaker 1: and and expected to reliably power your vehicle, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to and from the grocery store, to and from work,
Speaker 1: school where you happen to go long road trips whatever. Reliability, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, um, just just the like the repetitive nature
Speaker 1: of it that you can expect it to function in
Speaker 1: a certain way all the time, and you're not going
Speaker 1: to get that with a race engine. And and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that today. Um, in specific, we're gonna talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, F one engine. So you know, because a
Speaker 1: lot of people would have kind of the fantasy I've
Speaker 1: been able to put a n F one engine, a
Speaker 1: Formula one engine into their road car and make that work.
Speaker 1: Because wouldn't that be just incredible? I mean, it would
Speaker 1: be an amazing thing to to have an F one
Speaker 1: engine under the hood of your you know, your Mercedes,
Speaker 1: your BMW, your Miata, whatever it happens to be, you know,
Speaker 1: a small little car. Can you imagine how much fun
Speaker 1: that would be in order just to stuff some giant
Speaker 1: race engine in there. And a lot of people again
Speaker 1: have come close to it. And well we'll talk about
Speaker 1: some of those people in just a moment, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to kind of catch you up
Speaker 1: here on something. Well, in the last episode, we talked about, um,
Speaker 1: some really fast cars. We talked about the ten fastest
Speaker 1: production cars, and I told you that we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about ten outright fastest cars pretty soon. But when
Speaker 1: I was talking about ten fastest production cars. I asked
Speaker 1: you the question, what was the first time that you
Speaker 1: were in a car that ever traveled over one hundred
Speaker 1: miles per hour? And I mentioned that it was my
Speaker 1: my uncle's barracouta that I was in, you know, on
Speaker 1: a fishing tripper, you know, just a weekend afternoon out
Speaker 1: in the country, and that was the fastest I'd ever
Speaker 1: gone at that point. I was really really young at
Speaker 1: the time. Um. But I also want to mention this,
Speaker 1: and I think there's another question that that begs to
Speaker 1: be asked here, and that is what was the first
Speaker 1: time that you ever drove a car over one hundred
Speaker 1: miles per hour? What was the fastest you've ever driven
Speaker 1: a car? Maybe, Um, that's maybe that's the second question.
Speaker 1: That's actually two things. The first time that you ever
Speaker 1: drove over one hundred miles per hour? When you hit
Speaker 1: that that triple digit number for yourself with you behind
Speaker 1: the wheel, Uh, do you clearly remember that? Because I
Speaker 1: know I do. I clearly remember the first time I
Speaker 1: ever did it. And again, you know, once again, it
Speaker 1: was on these back roads in Indiana, these these these
Speaker 1: old country roads that have you know, great big Swales
Speaker 1: to them, they're you know, kind of hilly. They're they're
Speaker 1: out in the middle of nowhere. And this time it
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily in the summer. You know, we weren't not
Speaker 1: fishing or anything like that. This is a different person,
Speaker 1: different car. Uh. This was This happened in the fall.
Speaker 1: It happened right around Thanksgiving. And I know it was
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving because it was my aunt's birthday and we were
Speaker 1: always always in town there for my aunt's birthday right
Speaker 1: around Thanksgiving. And she had she happened to have a
Speaker 1: brand new car. And I was all excited about this
Speaker 1: car because, um, A strange thing about this. She was
Speaker 1: married prior to this and they had um An m
Speaker 1: R two, a first generation MR two Toyota m R two.
Speaker 1: Uh So that really angular a little little vehicle, two seater,
Speaker 1: incredible little cars, really cool. It was black and gray.
Speaker 1: Uh really really sharp little car was It looked like
Speaker 1: a spaceship at the time. To me, it was incredible.
Speaker 1: It was so cool and um just a blast to drive,
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It was a five speed with
Speaker 1: that little um short throw shifter that was you know,
Speaker 1: you put your arm way up on the arm rest
Speaker 1: and you could just flip your wrist and shift this thing.
Speaker 1: It was incredible and um was so go away by
Speaker 1: this car. She had one when she was married. She
Speaker 1: and her husband got divorced, and then she bought one
Speaker 1: exactly the same as the one that her husband took
Speaker 1: in the divorce. So she had the exact same car.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure this was kind of and I'll show
Speaker 1: you move you know a uh um, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: get the same car Thingum. But but anyway, she showed
Speaker 1: up for Thanksgiving dinner with this vehicle, this Mr two
Speaker 1: and again first gen. And she threw me the keys
Speaker 1: and I was a pretty new driver at the time.
Speaker 1: I was as relatively young, um, I want to say
Speaker 1: I was like seventeen, maybe eighteen and the most I
Speaker 1: don't even think I was eighteen. And she tossed me
Speaker 1: the keys and said, let's go out for a ride.
Speaker 1: So we did before dinner, and we took it out
Speaker 1: into you know, past the city limits. We went out
Speaker 1: into the country, and she encouraged me to drive it
Speaker 1: faster and faster and faster. And as we got going
Speaker 1: faster and faster, I realized I'm going to break a
Speaker 1: hundred miles per hour here and this is the very
Speaker 1: first time I've ever pushed a car to that limit,
Speaker 1: and it was so much fun and what if what
Speaker 1: a great car to be in to do it is
Speaker 1: so memorable. It was a great memory to have with
Speaker 1: my aunt with this car. You know, the season, I guess,
Speaker 1: you know it was it was cold, it was it
Speaker 1: was dreary there. It was you know, not snowing yet
Speaker 1: but but just about ready to snow. All the corns
Speaker 1: knocked down the fields. You can see a long long distance,
Speaker 1: so there wasn't much danger of cross traffic or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Um, there's always animal traffic that's dangerous, but
Speaker 1: reaching a hundred miles per hour in a car is
Speaker 1: one of those milestone moments that I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people recall, or a lot of people can really
Speaker 1: you know, bring back up in their memory and say, like,
Speaker 1: I remember the day specifically when I did this. And
Speaker 1: then there's another you know question I guess that begs
Speaker 1: to be asked, and that is, um, you know, the
Speaker 1: fastest you've ever driven? And of course that's a that's
Speaker 1: a completely different topic and we'll probably get into that
Speaker 1: at some point on this show. I would think, but
Speaker 1: I would love to hear some of these, uh moments
Speaker 1: of yours, you know, your personal moments when you drove
Speaker 1: over a hundred miles per hour for the first time
Speaker 1: ever and uh, you know what what led to that?
Speaker 1: With that intro, that's an exceedingly long intro and hopefully,
Speaker 1: uh that I'll get you thinking about some things during
Speaker 1: this podcast. But UM, I do want to mention you know,
Speaker 1: we we said that we had kind of covered this
Speaker 1: before on another show. You know, I did another podcast
Speaker 1: called car Stuff and I still do Car Stuff. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a new version of that with just me,
Speaker 1: not not me and Ben my co host anymore. But
Speaker 1: but go to car Stuff show dot com and check
Speaker 1: out our archival information that we have there. You can
Speaker 1: search our podcast history are archives and you can find
Speaker 1: that we have over nine episodes in there that you
Speaker 1: can you can search. One of those happens to be
Speaker 1: on engine Swaps and the engine Swap episode we did
Speaker 1: back in two thousand nine, and I believe there was
Speaker 1: a repeat of this one back in two thousand twelve. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a rerun, same show, and um, we talked about
Speaker 1: a lot of, um, you know, the things that people
Speaker 1: have done to their cars in the past, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it was you know, just fantasy they wanted to
Speaker 1: do this, they have done it. I think mostly this
Speaker 1: show was based in reality and that it was it
Speaker 1: was people that had done swaps in their cars, maybe
Speaker 1: even some listeners that had transplanted something incredible to the
Speaker 1: hood of a you know, like a small little vehicle,
Speaker 1: you know, taking a V eight and stuffing it into
Speaker 1: a Fierro, or taking a giant again another V a
Speaker 1: Corvette engine or something and putting it in a Miata.
Speaker 1: Just incredible swaps like that that make cars faster and
Speaker 1: better in some way, you know, kind of a sleeper,
Speaker 1: I guess in a lot of ways, or or just
Speaker 1: some enormous V eight engine that they would stuff into, um,
Speaker 1: you know, an old pickup truck and make it, you know,
Speaker 1: something that is unexpected on the drag strip, you know,
Speaker 1: that type of that type of thing. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of, um there's a lot of stories about people
Speaker 1: that do things like this, you know, put w R
Speaker 1: X S t I engines in different vehicles and and
Speaker 1: just just fun things, fun swaps that people do. One
Speaker 1: question that comes up quite a bit is um, you
Speaker 1: know why can't I put a race car engine into
Speaker 1: my daily driver and make it reliable, make it, you know,
Speaker 1: something that I can count on to get me to
Speaker 1: and from work or school or wherever. And uh, like
Speaker 1: I said before, I think I just kind of touched
Speaker 1: on this, but uh, you know that's the thing is
Speaker 1: that like the logistics behind this whole thing, this this
Speaker 1: type of engine swap, they just really don't match up.
Speaker 1: The race engines and the production cars don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: enough in common for it to work often enough. I know,
Speaker 1: you can you can take you know, um, maybe an
Speaker 1: engine from an old car that was a race car
Speaker 1: that raced at the local dirt track or circle track
Speaker 1: or whatever and put it in your your street car,
Speaker 1: and and that might be kind of cool. But when
Speaker 1: we're talking about this, this level of swap, when we're
Speaker 1: talking about you know, taking an Indy car engine and
Speaker 1: putting it into um, you know, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: a Subaru or something like that, where you take a
Speaker 1: an F one engine and you want to put it
Speaker 1: in into your BMW. It doesn't necessarily work that way.
Speaker 1: There's there's just not enough um you know, commonality between
Speaker 1: the two vehicles in order to make it work. The
Speaker 1: logistics don't work. And I'll tell you there are five
Speaker 1: reasons at least five. There's probably way more than five
Speaker 1: why this won't work. And it comes from an article,
Speaker 1: uh that that I'm going to follow along with here
Speaker 1: called the car Throttle dot com and a lot of this.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of common sense in this as well. Um,
Speaker 1: before I get into this whole thing, before I get into,
Speaker 1: you know, the top five reasons, I do want to
Speaker 1: say that, you know, I understand that there are some
Speaker 1: F one derived engines in past vehicles, you know, past
Speaker 1: road cars that have have been successful. Now, this isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily taking an actual F one engine and putting it
Speaker 1: into a road car and making it work. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's a derived engine. So it has a lot of
Speaker 1: commonality between the uh, the F one engine and the
Speaker 1: road car. But maybe it's just the number of cylinders.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just some of you know, the the headwork
Speaker 1: that they do on the thing. You know, maybe it's
Speaker 1: very similar in that way. But you're gonna find that
Speaker 1: the cooling and the fuel and all that is is
Speaker 1: completely different in these vehicles. Now, a couple of them,
Speaker 1: just to give you an example. I can give you
Speaker 1: maybe three or four examples here just real quick. Uh,
Speaker 1: the two thousand five BMW E sixt M five that
Speaker 1: had a V ten engine that was um derived from
Speaker 1: the F one vehicle that that BMW fronted at the time.
Speaker 1: And if you want this is actually a pretty good
Speaker 1: news because right now, going back to get an E
Speaker 1: six d M five with that V ten engine, it's
Speaker 1: it's fair really cheap considering considering what you're getting. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can find one that is roughly, you know, somewhere
Speaker 1: in the ballpark of about twenty dollars right now. I
Speaker 1: know that still sounds like it's kind of expensive if
Speaker 1: you're talking about just a toy car you know, have
Speaker 1: on the weekends and have fun with or whatever. But uh,
Speaker 1: this one could be a daily driver, it could be
Speaker 1: a could be a fun car for under twenty thousand.
Speaker 1: So keep your eyes open for an E sixt M
Speaker 1: five BMW from around two thousand five, and you'll find
Speaker 1: that they do have that that F one derived V
Speaker 1: ten engine. In fact, there's another one that's a lot
Speaker 1: more expensive. This will show you that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the BMW maybe is quite a bargain compared to it
Speaker 1: the Ferrari F fifty. The Ferrari F fifty does have
Speaker 1: a V twelve engine that was derived from the F
Speaker 1: one car at the time that Ferrari is posting in
Speaker 1: that series, and this is from around to about nineteen seven.
Speaker 1: And then there's the Porsche Carrera GT, which has a
Speaker 1: five point seven leader V ten engine UM and that
Speaker 1: is a car that was built around two thousand three
Speaker 1: to two thousand seven. I believe that I think that
Speaker 1: seven was the final model of the year for that vehicle. UM.
Speaker 1: And there there's some others out there too, but those
Speaker 1: are just you know, three quick examples of some of
Speaker 1: these F one derived engines and some of the road
Speaker 1: cars that you can have that that do have these.
Speaker 1: But I want to point this out, and I think
Speaker 1: this is really really important, you know, to make these
Speaker 1: engines road where they would take so much effort to
Speaker 1: make them, you know, so they're reliable, so that they
Speaker 1: cool correctly, so that you know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: use some crazy, ridiculous fuel in order to drive them,
Speaker 1: you know, here and there to get the performance out
Speaker 1: of them. They won't knock, so they won't destroy themselves.
Speaker 1: There's there's so many uh different things that we need
Speaker 1: to talk about in this podcast that we're gonna get to.
Speaker 1: I promise F one engines. I wanted to stress this
Speaker 1: are extreme. I mean and that's not an overexaggeration or
Speaker 1: an overuse of the word extreme. They truly are F
Speaker 1: one engines are extreme. And just to give you an
Speaker 1: idea of what they're using right now, they're using um
Speaker 1: the current F one configuration for nineteen, they're using one
Speaker 1: point six leader four stroke turbocharged V six engines in
Speaker 1: these cars. Now, there's been an incredible evolution in UH
Speaker 1: in F one engines over the years, and going back
Speaker 1: to pre nine, there were unlimited cylinders. You could use
Speaker 1: an unlimited number of cylinders in the cars. If you
Speaker 1: wanted to have sixteen cylinder, you could a twelve cylinder whatever.
Speaker 1: In the nineties they limited the number of cylinders to twelve,
Speaker 1: and then in the early two thousand's they cut that
Speaker 1: back to V tens. Everybody was using V tens, and
Speaker 1: then in two thousand and eight they went to V eights,
Speaker 1: and then I don't remember, I think it's around twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, I believe they backed it down to
Speaker 1: these Uh, these turbo charge V six engines, and uh,
Speaker 1: of course they're getting just as much power out of them,
Speaker 1: so you know, the the engineering behind them is very
Speaker 1: very solid, of course, as you can imagine. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they drive just an incredible amount of power out of
Speaker 1: these things. Just remember how extreme these engines are and
Speaker 1: how the logistics just don't match up with your typical
Speaker 1: road cars. So you know, some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: that I'll tell you here, Uh, it's pretty incredible. I
Speaker 1: mean really when you think, when you think about it, UM,
Speaker 1: for number one, I guess we'll start right here. They
Speaker 1: are notoriously difficult to start. They're very very difficult engine
Speaker 1: to start. So you can't just jump in the car
Speaker 1: and expect it to turn over if you turn a
Speaker 1: key or push a button or whatever. It doesn't happen
Speaker 1: that way. It has to These things have to be
Speaker 1: brought to life in what we'll call precise conditions. And
Speaker 1: by by precise, I mean that first of all, you'd
Speaker 1: have to have these external pumps that would push um
Speaker 1: coolant and fuel through the system. So you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to um, you know, pump these these preheated liquids through
Speaker 1: the engine in order to make it even work. Now
Speaker 1: this is kind of funny. I mean, the water and
Speaker 1: oil pump that would be necessary to send these around, um,
Speaker 1: they have to um be preheated too, about a hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy six degrees fahrenheit, that's eighty degrees centigrade, uh,
Speaker 1: to to kind of warm up the engines inner passages
Speaker 1: before they would even start. So you know, um, prior
Speaker 1: to that, these things are built to such tight tolerances,
Speaker 1: so such incredible small tolerances that anything cooler than that
Speaker 1: and the engine is effectively seized. Either there's nothing that
Speaker 1: would even turn that engine, and the pistons are gonna
Speaker 1: be so tight within the cylinder walls that they're going
Speaker 1: to be essentially sees solid. And so anything below sixty
Speaker 1: degrees centigrade, which is about a hundred and forty degrees,
Speaker 1: you can't even get it to budget all. So, so
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventy six is going to be kind
Speaker 1: of the minimum temperature that you're gonna need in this
Speaker 1: thing in order to get it to even crank over.
Speaker 1: And and then once you do, of course, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to have what is effectively like a large drill
Speaker 1: or you know, a starting mechanism. And I think we've
Speaker 1: all seen this on the starting grid for any type
Speaker 1: of open wheel race car, you know, IndyCar, F one,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever happens to be some of these other
Speaker 1: formula series where they have to crank the engine with
Speaker 1: UM an external starter and that's how they get it going.
Speaker 1: So it's just not very practical for you to want
Speaker 1: to do this in your in your own driveway, especially
Speaker 1: on a like a you know, wintry morning on January
Speaker 1: or something. You know, if you're trying to go out
Speaker 1: and snow and and start up your car with an
Speaker 1: F one engine, there's no way there's just gonna have
Speaker 1: no chance of starting that thing out. So UM understand
Speaker 1: that that you know, it will require these these external
Speaker 1: pumps that that pump this heated fluid throughout the engine,
Speaker 1: the cooling and lubricant. UM. You know, just a side
Speaker 1: down here, and I want to take just a moment
Speaker 1: to uh, to pause on this for a second as
Speaker 1: we as we talk about this. And one thing that
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed watching over the past several years on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and I've owned a car that has I don't own
Speaker 1: it anymore. I had I had a car that had
Speaker 1: an enormous V eight engine and it was just a
Speaker 1: beautiful sounding engine. I love to hear it run. One
Speaker 1: thing that I've I've kind of become addicted to, I
Speaker 1: guess on on YouTube is watching people cold start their
Speaker 1: muscle cars. And I know it's a little silly, it's
Speaker 1: a little funny, but you know, it doesn't even have
Speaker 1: to be muscle car. Can just be an old luxury car.
Speaker 1: It can be any car from you know that nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties nineteen seventies era that you know, they they just
Speaker 1: refused to start on cold marains and you know, you're
Speaker 1: you're pumping the gas pedal, you're pulling the choke. You know,
Speaker 1: you're trying to do everything you can in order to
Speaker 1: get it to go. I just won't fire. And then finally,
Speaker 1: after know what, it seems like a minute of cranking
Speaker 1: the engine, finally it just slowly starts to turn over
Speaker 1: and chugged to life. And then once it does, you
Speaker 1: know it it burbles and kind of gurgles quite a bit,
Speaker 1: and uh, finally kind of breathe to life. Once it does,
Speaker 1: you know, then you hear some owners after a few
Speaker 1: minutes they might give it a little throttle, and you
Speaker 1: know that's when they get they get the great sound.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, these cold start videos online are
Speaker 1: just they're fun to watch, and you can see some
Speaker 1: incredible cars and you get to hear some of the
Speaker 1: best engines that you know we're made ever really, I mean,
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned. You know, some of these
Speaker 1: these enormous vates that were just so powerful and so
Speaker 1: so dramatic when they begin, you know, they sounds so amazing.
Speaker 1: Just it's kind of a fun thing. So um, you know,
Speaker 1: we've gone through our list here only we've only done
Speaker 1: the first one on our list. We've got four more
Speaker 1: to go, and I'd like to get back into it
Speaker 1: in just a moment, but first let's take a break
Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsor. And we're back and
Speaker 1: you're listening to the Fast Track. I'm your host, Scott Benjamin,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about about being able to stuff
Speaker 1: and f one engine into your road car. Would it work?
Speaker 1: Would it not work? And and uh, I think we're
Speaker 1: pretty much uh getting to the point where we understand
Speaker 1: that it would not work. But there are five reasons.
Speaker 1: There are five good reasons. Probably a hundred other good
Speaker 1: reasons why it wouldn't work as well. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you the top five. And the first one that
Speaker 1: we talked about was because they're they're tough to start.
Speaker 1: That's one thing, and really it's really tough to start. UM.
Speaker 1: The second one that we're going to talk about here
Speaker 1: on our way to the the last version of the
Speaker 1: last reason is that they're not cheap. And uh, to
Speaker 1: which most of you will reply, duh, we know that
Speaker 1: they're not cheap. They're they're very very expensive. In fact,
Speaker 1: the average F one power train at this point, and
Speaker 1: I think this article was written in this is a
Speaker 1: article article UM, the price is roughly seven point seven million,
Speaker 1: anywhere up to ten point five million dollars per engine.
Speaker 1: So imagine this. I mean, let's say that you've got
Speaker 1: the the ultimate top end vehicle, UM, the Mercedes makes,
Speaker 1: and you want to put a Mercedes F one engine
Speaker 1: into it. It's not going to be as simple as
Speaker 1: you think. Mercedes doesn't build its F one engines to
Speaker 1: fit into its road cars. However, let's say you've got
Speaker 1: a Mercedes that several hundred thousand dollars and you know,
Speaker 1: to begin with, it's a road car and you want
Speaker 1: to put one of these in there. The manufacturer is
Speaker 1: not going to put a seven point seven million dollar
Speaker 1: engine into the car and expect you to be able
Speaker 1: to maintain it and and and keep that thing going.
Speaker 1: It's just there. There's just no way, there's no way
Speaker 1: to justify putting that type of money into an engine
Speaker 1: for a road car. Um the cost again, the cost
Speaker 1: comes from some of these extremely tight and tiny tolerances
Speaker 1: that emines are manufactured or machine too. And because of
Speaker 1: this that that's how they get every little tiny bit
Speaker 1: of power out of them that they can within those
Speaker 1: six cylinders because you know, again they're dealing with six
Speaker 1: cylinders turbo charge engines, turbo of course, but but still
Speaker 1: they are trying to get every tiny little bit of
Speaker 1: a less little morsel of power out of that engine
Speaker 1: that they can. And and uh, and that's how they
Speaker 1: do it. They manufacture them to these really really tight tolerances.
Speaker 1: And as we said in the starting part of this,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't even if you don't circulate
Speaker 1: the fluid throughout the engine order to heat it up,
Speaker 1: it's not even gonna turn. It's going to be as
Speaker 1: if they're seized in there. It's that tight, and that's
Speaker 1: not the case with your normal road car. You're able
Speaker 1: to typically, you know, put a wrench on the engine
Speaker 1: and turn it freely. Um, it's a struggle in some cases.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of compression there. I agree, However, it's
Speaker 1: nothing like an F one car. Um, there's just no
Speaker 1: way to even move it at that point. I do
Speaker 1: also want to say that F one engines rev it's
Speaker 1: something like fifteen thousand RPMs or even more in some cases,
Speaker 1: and they use things like pressurized nitrogen which snap the
Speaker 1: engine valves back into place. Um, you know, after the
Speaker 1: camshaft loads of open them. So they're they're like, there's
Speaker 1: more to it than just you know it being um
Speaker 1: expensive to uh um, you know, to manufacture the engine,
Speaker 1: expensive to you know, upkeep the engine. I guess it's
Speaker 1: like a different world. You know. You would you would
Speaker 1: require having somebody on hand at all times in order
Speaker 1: to monitor all systems in this car as you're driving it.
Speaker 1: You know, practically after every drive to the office, you
Speaker 1: would have to have somebody monitoring the engine, telling you
Speaker 1: what you broke during your drive to work. How much
Speaker 1: it's gonna cost, you know, and you likely wouldn't be
Speaker 1: driving that same car home. That's the way. That's way
Speaker 1: a lot of these work. And we'll we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in just a moment too, because that is coming up.
Speaker 1: But one other thing, uh here in number three on
Speaker 1: the list out of five that we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: is cooling and uh oh man with that fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: rpm that we talked about, and uh, you know, just
Speaker 1: the incredible efficiency that these things operate, and you know
Speaker 1: how hot they have to be in order to to
Speaker 1: maintain even fluid movement so that they that they continue
Speaker 1: to operate. Um, you're gonna find that cooling is really
Speaker 1: really critical in these things, and radiator sizing UM is
Speaker 1: really really important. It's huge. It's a huge concern for
Speaker 1: F one teams. And if you've ever seen an F
Speaker 1: one car, and I'm sure that anybody listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast is familiar with an F one car or an
Speaker 1: Indy car, those enormous pods that are on the side
Speaker 1: of the car, so the ones that are to the
Speaker 1: left and right of the driver, those are where the coolants,
Speaker 1: the cooling system is housed. So that's where that's where
Speaker 1: you're gonna find the radiators and the radiator its actually
Speaker 1: heat exchangers, but it's a radiator if you want to
Speaker 1: call it that. That's the best way to say it. Um.
Speaker 1: But they are enormous. They're they're much bigger than just
Speaker 1: the pods. Uh. You know, the distance from the top
Speaker 1: to bottom if you were to measure them, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're less than the height of your knee maybe
Speaker 1: you know, when you're standing next to the car. So
Speaker 1: the way they get around this in order to make
Speaker 1: these um much much bigger than uh they would be
Speaker 1: if they're standing upright, is that they angle them and
Speaker 1: the heat exchangers are angled down and away, so the
Speaker 1: top front edge is angled to the front of the car,
Speaker 1: the bottom edges angled to the back of the car.
Speaker 1: And uh, and they're really big there. They go through
Speaker 1: that whole pod um kind of like at a forty
Speaker 1: five degree angle. So there's the maximum amount of air
Speaker 1: flow over top of those things. And um. You know,
Speaker 1: in order to keep one of these f one uh
Speaker 1: power units cool, you know, you have to keep them overheating.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna be able to do much idling. So
Speaker 1: if you in traffic every day, you know, in Atlanta traffic,
Speaker 1: or Dallas or Los Angeles or wherever you happen to live. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to keep your f one
Speaker 1: engine powered road car cool. There's just no way You're
Speaker 1: gonna have to continue to have airflow over those radiators
Speaker 1: those heat exchanges for uh the entire time that you're
Speaker 1: driving it. It really requires you to to keep them
Speaker 1: moving in order to keep them cool enough to operate.
Speaker 1: And that's something that just a lot of people aren't
Speaker 1: going to be able to to do. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: they put out so much horsepower, they have such high
Speaker 1: revving speeds that you know, it's difficult to keep them cool.
Speaker 1: You need as much air as possible. Those side pods
Speaker 1: are about the only way that it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And unless you know, you are someone who is willing
Speaker 1: to completely change the look of your vehicle, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the front opening for radiator in most cars
Speaker 1: is not going to be enough to cool one of
Speaker 1: these engines. If you were to try to get one
Speaker 1: end of your car, you're gonna need something much much larger.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna have to have I guess what you'd
Speaker 1: call as this article says a rather adventurous body kit
Speaker 1: um on your vehicle in order to to make it work,
Speaker 1: So you're gonna have to, you know, add these extra
Speaker 1: side pods on the side, or you know, add something
Speaker 1: that is going to look out of place on your
Speaker 1: vehicle in order to make it work and to to
Speaker 1: get those um those coolant systems in place that are
Speaker 1: sufficient enough to keep the temperature down. You know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about two more things here before we wrap
Speaker 1: this up. But first let's take a break for a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. And we're back and you're listening
Speaker 1: to the fast Track. I'm your host, Scott Benjaman, and
Speaker 1: we were just going through this list of reasons why
Speaker 1: it might not be a good idea to stuff and
Speaker 1: f one engine into your road car, and uh, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good reasons, probably hundreds of reasons.
Speaker 1: And we are up to number four on our list
Speaker 1: of five here. That comes from an article that was
Speaker 1: written in car throttle dot com if you want to
Speaker 1: follow along with this, and there's probably many other articles
Speaker 1: just like it with with other typical or other similar
Speaker 1: reasons as well. I'm sure because these are these just
Speaker 1: some good, some good reasons. Number one I think is
Speaker 1: right where it should be. But first let's talk about
Speaker 1: number four. We'll talk about the fuel bill, and uh
Speaker 1: as you can imagine the fuel bill, so F one
Speaker 1: regulations rule this. So there's a rule and F one
Speaker 1: that dictates that an F one engine or F one
Speaker 1: car cannot burn through more than one of petrol per
Speaker 1: hour of driving. So that equates to roughly, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ballpark this. That's like a little more than
Speaker 1: twenty six gallons of fuel. So that's for one hour
Speaker 1: of driving. Now consider that you know a lot of
Speaker 1: people drive about a half hour on your daily commute,
Speaker 1: and that's of course you're not gonna go race speed,
Speaker 1: obviously you're gonna go a little bit slower. But it's
Speaker 1: gonna typically amount to about fifty leaders of fuel, which
Speaker 1: is about thirteen and a half gallons of fuel that
Speaker 1: you're gonna burn on that commute, on that half hour
Speaker 1: commute to work. So it's gonna be quite quite an
Speaker 1: expensive drive into work. And the thing is that these
Speaker 1: F one cars can carry a lot of fuel too.
Speaker 1: They can carry twittered and twenty five leaders, which is
Speaker 1: almost sixty gallons of fuel. So that's a lot of
Speaker 1: fuel to put in your car. Um, you're gonna end
Speaker 1: up spending a lot of time at the gas station.
Speaker 1: And and here's the interesting thing, and you might not
Speaker 1: have guessed this, is that the type of fuel that
Speaker 1: these things run on, it's it's not necessarily that much
Speaker 1: different than the type of fuel that you use in
Speaker 1: your daily drive, Like if you were to drive a
Speaker 1: car that uses high octane fuel. Um, it's fairly close.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the same, but it's fairly close to
Speaker 1: the same chemical makeup of fuel that we use every day.
Speaker 1: But you know, there have been some slight modifications to it,
Speaker 1: you know, with some uh, some additives and you know,
Speaker 1: some different things that you know are required per engine.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that's part of why this is
Speaker 1: again this is just something that is not capable of.
Speaker 1: Logistics just don't work out for something like this. And
Speaker 1: that's because after every single race, uh, the engine oil
Speaker 1: is tested for up to fifteen different types of metal
Speaker 1: to source any probable any probable concentrations aware in the engine.
Speaker 1: So you're you're looking at um, you know, chemical analysis
Speaker 1: is analysis rather of the engine oil. And I think
Speaker 1: they even send the fuel out to make sure that
Speaker 1: they're using the proper fuel and all that. But the
Speaker 1: engine oil is is monitored for up to fifteen different
Speaker 1: types of metal, uh that are they're found within the engine,
Speaker 1: so that they'll be able to tell where the where
Speaker 1: is coming from. If it's the piston rings, if it's
Speaker 1: the cylinder walls, you know, whatever it happens to be,
Speaker 1: if it's if it's camshafts that are wearing prematurely, they'll
Speaker 1: be able to determine exactly where that metal is coming from.
Speaker 1: And then they change the fuel. They contact the fuel
Speaker 1: supplier and they dictate the level of cleaning and friction
Speaker 1: reduction additives that have to be integrated into the next
Speaker 1: batch of fuel that they send them for the race.
Speaker 1: So fuel is not something uh that can be overlooked
Speaker 1: in this when you're when you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: putting an F one engine in your car, It's something
Speaker 1: that you definitely have to consider if you're gonna even
Speaker 1: try this. And again I don't recommend anybody does this.
Speaker 1: If you have seven point seven to ten point five
Speaker 1: million dollars burning a hole in your pocket and you
Speaker 1: want to try this, go ahead and do it. But um,
Speaker 1: I just don't think that the actually, that's just not
Speaker 1: going to be possible. There's so many reasons why it's
Speaker 1: not a good idea to do this. Um, but after
Speaker 1: every single drive in your F one engine road car. Uh,
Speaker 1: it would be advisable if you wanted to run and
Speaker 1: to operate like an F one engine does in a
Speaker 1: in a car, in a you know, on a team,
Speaker 1: on an F one team, it would be advisable to
Speaker 1: hire a chemical engineer to test your car after every
Speaker 1: single drive that you make, you know, to and from
Speaker 1: work wherever it happens to be, just around town, and
Speaker 1: then supply you with you know, custom fuel specifically blended
Speaker 1: for your engine. And that's that's one very good reason
Speaker 1: not to do this. I mean, how boy, this would
Speaker 1: be expensive, would it'd be? It would be super super expensive. Otherwise, um,
Speaker 1: otherwise it might be a great idea other, you know,
Speaker 1: other than the other four things that I've told you
Speaker 1: already about this thing, uh, the last one on this list.
Speaker 1: This is maybe again I think this is this is
Speaker 1: the right where it should be. This is number one
Speaker 1: on the list for a good reason. How many times
Speaker 1: have you been watching a Formula One race or any
Speaker 1: kind of car race, and one to three laps into
Speaker 1: the race, someone blows an engine. There's mechanical failure immediately.
Speaker 1: Now again this is a seven and a half to
Speaker 1: ten and a half million dollar engine. That is somehow
Speaker 1: something I find a way to grenade itself. It imploded
Speaker 1: in some way. What happened? You know, you're you're gonna
Speaker 1: find that. There's a variety of reasons. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of problems there. They have to be cooled. If you're
Speaker 1: not cooled correctly, you know, it could be any number
Speaker 1: of things. There's just a lot of stresses put on
Speaker 1: these engines, as you can imagine, even in a well
Speaker 1: running car, and and something that is is perfectly running,
Speaker 1: the lifespan on these engines is very very short. Now,
Speaker 1: in an unlimited F one car, um you know that
Speaker 1: they are allowed to spin as high as as twenty RPMs.
Speaker 1: And we said, you know, they've been limited to about
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand RPMs. I think that's what F one dictates.
Speaker 1: But if it was unlimited, they could spin it up
Speaker 1: to twenty RPMs. And they have a real small stroke,
Speaker 1: a real wide board allows us to happen. But the
Speaker 1: pistons are moving up and down at something like three
Speaker 1: hundred times every second. So three times every second the
Speaker 1: pistons are moving up and down. That's extremely fast. And
Speaker 1: if you consider the weight of all those components that
Speaker 1: that do all that that that make that crazy movement
Speaker 1: in the engine, the pistons can experience somewhere in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood of ten thousand, six hundred times the weight of gravity.
Speaker 1: So the pistons are experiencing ten thousand six d g
Speaker 1: s when they're at maximum revs. Now that's twenty thousand. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is for fifteen thousand, no
Speaker 1: calculation for that right now. But there's an incredible amount
Speaker 1: of internal pressure that's going on within these cylinders. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the cylinders are reaching somewhere around fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: ps i every second. Um, you know, it's no surprise
Speaker 1: that these engines they typically lasted and this is the
Speaker 1: maximum lifespan for these engines somewhere around a thousand kilometers. Now,
Speaker 1: that's about six twenty one miles before they have to
Speaker 1: be completely stripped and cared for and you know, rebuilt
Speaker 1: in some way. Um. Now, that's not a whole lot
Speaker 1: and you know, I've kind of done the calculation for this.
Speaker 1: Now this article says something, do you know, do you
Speaker 1: want to rebuild your engine six to ten times a year? Uh?
Speaker 1: Not something that most people want to do. And and
Speaker 1: here's the truth behind that is, you know, it's six
Speaker 1: hundred twenty one miles for the maximum lifespan of this
Speaker 1: before it has to be rebuilt six to ten times
Speaker 1: a year. Doesn't amount to too many miles per year.
Speaker 1: That's only between three thousand, seven hundred and twenty six
Speaker 1: miles and six thousand, two hundred and ten miles driven
Speaker 1: per year. And I don't know a lot of people
Speaker 1: that drive, you know that short of a distance. That's
Speaker 1: small of a distance. Uh, very few people do. Myself,
Speaker 1: I put something like twenty thousand miles in a car here,
Speaker 1: maybe even twenty five thousand UM. But the average US
Speaker 1: driver at this point is putting thirteen thousand, four hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy six miles on their vehicle every single year.
Speaker 1: That's the US average right now, thirteen thousand, four hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy six miles per year. That would equate if
Speaker 1: if you divide that by six twenty one miles between rebuilds.
Speaker 1: That means that the average driver would have to rebuild
Speaker 1: their engine twenty two times every year. Twenty two times
Speaker 1: is what you would be looking at to rebuild your
Speaker 1: seven and a half to ten and a half million
Speaker 1: dollar engines. So, um, there's just no there's no way
Speaker 1: to get this done. And uh, you know, this is funny.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a quote in here, and I've heard
Speaker 1: this quote many many times and I think it's funny,
Speaker 1: but it makes perfect sense. And it was actually a
Speaker 1: quote from Ferdinand Porsche and it's from a long This
Speaker 1: of course goes back to the I think, but it's
Speaker 1: talking about race cars and perfect racing cars and how
Speaker 1: you know, they just give their ultimately, you know, the
Speaker 1: most that they possibly can, and then they just they
Speaker 1: die at the end. That's it. I mean, it's very dramatic.
Speaker 1: I understand that. You know, it's like, uh, um, you know,
Speaker 1: give it, give it your all, and then that's it.
Speaker 1: It's it's over. Um. But the quote is the perfect
Speaker 1: racing car crosses the finish line first and subsequently falls
Speaker 1: into its component parts. And I completely agree with this.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that you win the race, the
Speaker 1: car just completely falls apart before you even make it
Speaker 1: around your victory lap. And uh, and you're the winner.
Speaker 1: But you know, the car has given its all. It's
Speaker 1: given everything. And I don't know if anybody has ever
Speaker 1: driven a car like this. I've I've had several cars
Speaker 1: like this, and and this is something that kind of
Speaker 1: watch out for. I've I've I've driven many many cars
Speaker 1: over my years. I've I've had several cars, and some
Speaker 1: of them were a little sporty. Some of them were,
Speaker 1: you know, just sedans or whatever, you know, a variety
Speaker 1: of vehicles, the sporty cars. However, I've noticed a few
Speaker 1: times and this this happens occasionally. There there's maybe and
Speaker 1: I had it. You know what, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: ahead of myself here, but let me just tell you this.
Speaker 1: There's certain days when my cars felt better than other days,
Speaker 1: and it felt like the car was just driving at
Speaker 1: its ultimate best performance. It just felt good underneath me.
Speaker 1: For so for whatever reason, it was shifting right, it
Speaker 1: felt good, it was handling right. Everything was just right.
Speaker 1: And uh, and then there are other days when it
Speaker 1: feels like a little a little bit more sluggish or whatever.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't coincide always with the weather because you
Speaker 1: would think that um, you know, it would be as
Speaker 1: one of my former bosses would say, it's maybe just
Speaker 1: atmospheric conditions that that cause that. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's cool weather. It's uh, it's cool weather, that's not damp.
Speaker 1: You know that it's dry weather. You know, and the
Speaker 1: and the roadway is hot or you know, it feels
Speaker 1: you know, the tires are able to warm up and
Speaker 1: it feels better. And that wasn't always a case. It
Speaker 1: didn't always match up that way, and I was always
Speaker 1: puzzled by this. But then I've had a few cars
Speaker 1: in the past that I've been driving, and this is
Speaker 1: a fantastic thing. When it happens, it feels great. The
Speaker 1: car just feels loose, it feels like everything is working right.
Speaker 1: The engine is so smooth and so just everything is
Speaker 1: like it doesn't make any noise, it's uh, it's shifting smoothly.
Speaker 1: It's it's driving better than it ever has before. And
Speaker 1: you're wondering, what is what's the deal with this? Why
Speaker 1: is it working like this? And then you know one
Speaker 1: week later catastrophic engine failure something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: some major major problem happens it turns out the car
Speaker 1: was loose because you know something was about to break.
Speaker 1: You know, there are things that were going wrong in
Speaker 1: the engine that we're making it loose. It wasn't as
Speaker 1: tight or wasn't being bound up, it wasn't being restricted
Speaker 1: in a way that it should have been. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it ran too freely. It ran you know
Speaker 1: a little too a little too good, or maybe I
Speaker 1: pushed a little too hard or whatever. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: watch for that sometimes. I mean, if if your car
Speaker 1: is running really, really great, maybe you know, maybe uh,
Speaker 1: instead of thinking like this is fantastic, maybe take a
Speaker 1: look for something that's going wrong with it. And I
Speaker 1: hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it
Speaker 1: happens quite a bit. Um. But again that that kind
Speaker 1: of falls into that category. And we've I think we've
Speaker 1: seen cars that do that on the racetrack to you
Speaker 1: know that, Uh, they run fantastic for the race, but
Speaker 1: they can't make that final lap. They can't they can't
Speaker 1: push it into victory circle. It's just it's too difficult.
Speaker 1: So you know, when you're running a power train at
Speaker 1: the peak of automotive engineering, at the peak of perfection,
Speaker 1: it's something that is a different monster altogether from you know,
Speaker 1: the car that you have in your garage right now
Speaker 1: that is built for you know, a hundred thousand miles
Speaker 1: of what you call, you know, low revering, low reving driving,
Speaker 1: you know, like it doesn't it doesn't get pushed to
Speaker 1: the limit every single day like this thing does, or
Speaker 1: every single moment, like an F one engine does, or
Speaker 1: or or should be. F one engines almost need to
Speaker 1: be pushed to that limit. So, um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons. There's probably again a hundred
Speaker 1: reasons not to put an F one engine into a
Speaker 1: road car, But that's five and I think we'll stick
Speaker 1: with that and and leave it there. Um. I do
Speaker 1: want to mention that we are going to, uh, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about more topics like this. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about engine swaps, and we're gonna talk about some some
Speaker 1: of these uh the these engines that that push the
Speaker 1: ultimate limits in the in these cars. We're gonna talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, drag cars that have five thousand plus horsepower.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about some go carts. Even, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about you know that that that go faster than you
Speaker 1: could ever imagine from a modified Briggs and Stratton engine.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about all kinds of engines in this
Speaker 1: series and uh and and in this podcast over the
Speaker 1: years as we as we progress here. And if you
Speaker 1: have a comment on today's show about the F one
Speaker 1: engine and and road cars and you know why it's
Speaker 1: not possible or maybe an engine swap that you've done
Speaker 1: that you know is pretty exciting to know something that, uh,
Speaker 1: that that markedly improved the performance of the car, or
Speaker 1: it was just an interesting swap for whatever reason. I
Speaker 1: don't know, he put a helicopter engine into a car,
Speaker 1: like you think about Tucker and what he did. He
Speaker 1: put helicopter engines in the back end of his cars
Speaker 1: early on. That was something remarkable. So that was that
Speaker 1: was interesting. And maybe maybe you've done something similar, you know,
Speaker 1: just tell me, tell me whatever you're up to and
Speaker 1: what you've got going on in your bar out back
Speaker 1: and and uh, I'd be excited about hearing about that. UM.
Speaker 1: I like that kind of thing. And if you want to,
Speaker 1: you can contact us. So there's the way you can
Speaker 1: get ahold of us. You can you can find us
Speaker 1: on any of the social network platforms. We are on
Speaker 1: Twitter where we are at the fast Track Pod, or
Speaker 1: you can find us on Facebook and Instagram where we
Speaker 1: are UM at the fast Track Show. Or you can
Speaker 1: go to the show's brand new website, which is The
Speaker 1: fast Track Show dot com and I'm pretty excited about that.
Speaker 1: You can check out, you know, all the podcasts there
Speaker 1: and kind of look back through our archives. And of
Speaker 1: course you can leave UM reviews on Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: on the iHeart Radio Apple or wherever you happen to
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts. I mean, that's always helpful if
Speaker 1: you can leave a review, and if you like what
Speaker 1: you're listening to, if you like what you're hearing, be
Speaker 1: sure to tell your friends because we're always looking for
Speaker 1: new listeners. So UM, you know, we're excited about it.
Speaker 1: We hope you're excited about it, and we'll see you
Speaker 1: next time.