Diesels at Le Mans 1

[PJGD]

I see that the first diesel-engined car to qualify and race at the 24 hour race at Le Mans was a French entry in 1949, the first race held after the war. The car was the Delettrez Diesel entered by brothers Jean and Jacques Delettrez and was of 4395 cc 6-cylinder. It did not finish, running out of fuel about half way into the race.

Delettrez entered again in 1950, as did another diesel car, the MAP. Again both cars DNF with engine problems, a cooling system leak in the case of the MAP. The MAP was interesting in that it was the first mid-enginesd car to race at Le Mans, the engine was located immediately behind the driver, and was a two-cylinder opposed piston 2-stroke with rocking levers connected to a single crank, similar to the later Commer TS3 engine. Many thanks to Aorangi for providing me with supporting information on this engine.

The Delettrez entered in 1951, for the last time, but again DNF due to the engine after only 4 hours.

My question(s): Has anyone got more information on these pioneer racing diesels? Have there been other diesel cars at Le Mans since then? How long before we see diesel cars at Le Mans again; any guesses?

PJGD

 

[framorgal]

I have read two months ago that RICARDO Engineering has ready for the next 24 h of Le Mans an V10 Diesel sport engine with 600 hp.

 

[ivymike]

framorgal, could you post a link or reference to where you read that?

 

[framorgal]

I have read that in the RICARDO oficial magazine, which is sent every two or three monts to my company.
The article said -I remember- that RICARDO Engineering is planing to have a Diesel sport engine in the next 24 hour of le Mans, the engine has been developed by RICARDO, and now they are waiting for a company interested in the proyect, I think some kind of collaboration like the made with Audi in the developement of the Audi R8 gearbox.

Francisco

 

[dynodan]

I was at the recent Performance-Racing Industry trade show in Indianapolis where Ricardo had one of their Lemans diesel prototype engines on display. It seems that the engine originated out of a very robust 3.5 L V10 F1 engine project that had been done some time ago. They are looking for a company to partner with to run this engine in the 2004 ran. Could be very interesting!

Dan

 

[riktoo]

I read all the theorizing about limitations to diesel engined car racing.
How about being a lot more positive....
Isn t vwracing in europe been racing for a few years.
They have 1.9 l TDI diesels pumping out 450 lbs of torque, thats more than a 350 LTI vette engine....
All theory limited engineers should check:

http://www.vwracing

They have fantastic V6 diesels in the european versions of the Passat ...


SPEED+++++

 

[PJGD]

I see that some information and a photo of the Ricardo mule engine is posted here:-

http://www.detnews.com/2004/motorsports/0401/11/e01-4021.htm

I think that this report comes from the same Show that Dynodan above mentions. Here's hoping that they find OEM support and sponsorship!

PJGD

 

[Tmoose]

Would those glow plug model airplane engines qualify as 2-stroke Diesels? up to 20,000 rpm for the littler ones. 18,000 rpm for the .4 CID with .7 inch stroke.

 

[riktoo]

forget all the engineering arguments for not racing diesels.
They have twice the torque and some .
There are guys who are stopped by arguments and those who do it. Its all in the attitude.

SPEED+++++

 

[riktoo]

so, will monster torques win over HP ?

SPEED+++++

 

[PJGD]

I don't know, riktoo; however........
This graph came from the presentation that Dr. Shahed of Honeywell / Garrett Turbochargers gave at a recent SAE meeting in Detroit (Also available at:

http://www.egarrett.com/about_garrett/pressreleases.jsp

).

It shows the specific power and torque of a representitive selection of modern engines, NA and TC SI, and TC CI. You can see that the diesels are low on power but do OK on torque, although the turbocharged SI engines do impressively well too. I suspect that the diesel point that is in among the TC-SI cluster is the high output unit injector VW 1.9L engine.

The interesting thing is that the power and torque projections for the Ricardo racing diesel engine place it just slightly beyond the best turbo SI spot. That is a long way to move the rating of a diesel, and will represent a significant development of high speed diesel combustion technology.

PJGD

 

[antti]

This thread has started to sound supiciously like a discussion in a hot rodder magazine - ie, importance of torque vs power, capacity specific outputs, etc. Surely you can see past those.

What does it matter what magintude of an engine's torque output is? I mean power is work rate. So of course the engine with the largest power output wins - obviously provided other things are equal.

And what does it matter how much power an engine makes per capacity - except in capacity restricted racing. As engineers, surely more useful metrics are things like brake thermal efficiency, mass specific power output, piston loadings, etc.

I'm not really trying to cause an argument, but as Greg posted on 31 july - we are talking about engineering aren't we?

 

[enginesrus]

Tmoose, no they wouldn't qualify. But the small adjustable compression diesel engines would. In a sense they are not a true diesel, because the fuel is not injected. But they are a compression ignition engine. A glow plug engine is just that. The ignition source is a glow plug. When I saw this thread I thought on the same lines you did.

 

[Joest]

Yes,

The fact is that more power always equals more torque...at the rear wheels that is. All this is required is application of the proper gear ratio.

-Joest

 

[LEGUELLEC]

I have some additional infos on the MAP.
MAP means Manufacture d'Armes de Paris.
The company was located in Paris's subburb (saint Denis).
MAP was manufacturing tractors (agricultural vehicules).
In 1950, the MAP raced with the N°1 plate and was driven by Ferdinand Lacour and Pierre Veyron.
My father was running a welding, hardfacing company and he welded together the tubular MAP chassis made of CrMo steel which was difficult to weld in the 50's !!!!
The company went bankrupt shortly after and my father never got paid.....
TChronos, I have not been able to find the photos at the given link, thank you to let me know where I can get them.
herve.leguellec@wanadoo.fr

 

[Preselector]

A diesel is entered for Le Mans this year (2004). It has been in Autosport and Racecar Engineering. Backed by Catapillar, the team is using a Lola chassis and a production-based V10 disel engine. Who said it couldn't be done?

 

[tdirs1]

The engine they used in the le mans car backed by catapillar is the v10 tdi from a vw toureg.There were only a couple of big problems they encountered 1 being finding a 12v starter with enough power! and the other was the engines physical height with the sump so it was dry sumped,but the torque that was available is around 1000nm and 600hp.

 

[TChronos]

Did anyone follow the race? Taking a quick look at the results, the Catepillar entry dropped out after 35 laps. If it had completed the race at it's initial pace, it would have finished around 8th in GTS class. Sounds like reliability was an issue...does anyone know why it dropped out?

 

[TChronos]

Clutch problem. The motor is still unproven. Here are some photos:

http://tinyurl.com/2uwx7

http://tinyurl.com/28kqf

http://tinyurl.com/2c95b