What's Inside an F1 Gearbox (& How it Works) | F1 Engineering
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- In this video, I open up an F1 gearbox to find out what's inside and explain a little about how it works.
I used to work on race cars many years ago, but it's been a while since I worked on any part of any car, let alone a Formula One car gearbox - as you can probably see in this video.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun to take this apart and see what's inside.
Thanks to Mansell Motorsport for allowing me to take this apart (and for them to put it back together!)
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The violent impact each gear shift produces when gears are engaged on such small pieces of metal at such high RPM is unfathomable! Thanks for the vid, it makes me truly appreciate the sophistication of F1 engineering.
My thoughts too. I thought they have synchronizers attached on these
@@MrWarhead16 As you increase the number of dog "teeth" you require less in the way of synchronisation; as this is also a sequential gearbox, the need for synchronisation is reduced.
Another method is the piston which moves the gear selection shaft (which in turn moves the drive dogs) has electronics to synchronise the shifting of the dog at just the right time.
"Consumer grade" manual H-pattern gearboxes usually have just three drive dogs, hence the need for synchromesh systems and rev matching.
Modern sequential gearboxes now engage both the current with the next gear pre-selected. Manual pre-selector gearboxes used to be a thing on old Volvo's (change gear, then push in the clutch, release the clutch, and "bingo" the gear is selected.
Fun fact. At Monaco, a Red-Bull engineer was looking at the Super Aguri car when his eyebrows went up and he asked "How in the hell have you got our gearbox?!" (At the time, Red Bull was one of the few teams with seamless shift and the SA gearbox was identical!)
Aguri san was not phased at all. He replies "Actually, you have ours." This was technically true. The gearbox run by SA was the first seamless gearbox on the grid when it was originally in an Orange Arrows. SA bought the entire OA equipment and intellectual property. However, the gearbox was also licensed by Red Bull (well the original team did) when OA folded.
I loved the access I had in those years.
as a home bike mechanic, it's fascinating to see the similarities and differences in our drivetrains ! thanks !
That is what I was thinking. I've just rebuilt two 1998 Yamaha R1 engines. Straight cut gears, no synchro. Plus I like the way the selector forks sit over the selector drum in this video, Very tidy.
The first time ever I understand throughly how gearbox works, and it's from F1 car! Bloody brilliant stuff!
Surprisingly F1 parts are so much better to learn the basics of how car components work because even though so much goes into them they’re very simple. They’re straight to the point instead of adding fancy things for reliability and comfort that production cars need
same.. I'm really surprised that I understood this video.
Ah, so the the gear sits on a bearing and it's the dogring that enables power transfer by engaging with it!
Cool vid👍
It took me like 3 other animation videos to understand how manual transmissions work and I was stll left with some gaps of uncertainty. This video did all that in a single take and cleared up any remaining uncertainty.
@@neurofiedyamato8763 this really isn't about general manual transmission, it's sequential manual gearbox.
its amazing and beautiful how smooth these parts operate even when one end of each shaft isnt supported, the precision machining is perfect
Both shafts are supported on both ends via roller bearing.
@@borutgoli840 ...the OP was referring to the setup, that was being demonstrated on this video..
Hi! Nothing beats the real thing. Thank you for showing us this kind of stuff!
This is so beautiful to look at. Actually amazing how simple the mechanism works and yet so smooth
The most soothing gearbox removal I've ever seen
So true XD if all cars gearboxes were done like that
The beauty of a cassette gearbox
Thank you for this video! So, the selector shaft and shift forks are a "simple" cam-and-lobe type setup. Brilliant. This unintentionally demonstrated exactly why sequential gearboxes are sequential and why they can't skip gears like an automatic or true manual. This was super informative, and again, thank you!
Lo llevan usando las motocicletas desde hace 80 años...
Im always amazed at how small the actual components are considering how much load is being put through them.
You would think those tiny splines and dogs would never be able to deal with the forces at play there.
The torque of these motors is not super high
Small but sure are made from some witchcraft material lol. And smaller parts should translate to less twisting I suppose
I remember an F1 driver (I think DC) describing the crank shaft as being like a coat hanger bent into shape.
@@Shadowboost not crazy high torque, but consider the load these goes through, especially with those big grippy wheels
@@MrSutekii I design rocket components for a living, so this is nothing :) my fasteners take 300,000 lbf each. And I have three hundred of them ;) with the right metallurgy and materials used, those splines are plenty strong.
Love this video, it's helped me so much while building my own 3D printed F1 gearbox. You can only stare at so many pictures, being able to watch you disassemble the gear stacks helped so much.
sheesh good luck man sounds like a project for sure
Brings back memories, I worked on the gearbox and traction control unit for the 193 and 194. Shift times were 10 to 25ms as I recall, coordinated with a momentary ignition cut using the same interface to the engine management as the traction control. It would automatically retry shifts if the dogs hit face-to-face as happened occasionally and inhibit shifts that would over-rev the engine. TC and over-rev protection banned in '94, the FIA came in to audit our software. Happy days but extremely hard work!
Can you “guess” a little how modern seamless shifting works? Is it done by two output shafts like a DCT? Or as someone said, just try overlapping the two sequential gears 1~2ms and make the shaft absorb the twisting torque?
Before opening the video i thought i wouldn't understand a thing but it was really well explained and i got everything. Really good job.
Great explanation! New subscriber here. More F1 tech please.
Shut up
@@roberts2231 raikkonen energy
Oh yes! Awesome channel here. He has tons of stolen equipment. 😜
@@roberts2231 lmao salty boi
@Khalid Gibson Shut up, no one cares
Things like this should be on Netflix or tv. Man I love this. 😍
no it should not be, its better here. netflix and tv is trash.
For me it seems very similar to a production car, minus the synchro rings. This example is really a good one because it's actually cleaner and more simple than a gearbox from a road car : no reverse, just two shafts and two sets of gears, the shifting mecanism is also beautiful by its simplicity (vs the complex forks on a H pattern shifter).
I just wonder how it manages to shift smoothly, even if it's not the main concern for a F1 it's still important for reliability and predictability, but I guess it works perfectly !
Thanks for the video
Production car gears are much longer and aren’t straight cut. They’re helical gears, to minimise noise and make the power delivery smoother. Also a lot heavier as you can imagine.
It actually has reverse gear
How it manages to shift smoothly? Its not smooth. Its violent. The gears are just pushed in by the pneumatic cylinder. And I think its beautiful
In a production car you can select any gear, these are sequential boxes so if you want 6th gear you have to go through the other five. I've watched a friend who would go from 1st to 2nd and then to 5th in a production car.
Motorcycle tech... 80 years ago
I am trained to AMIMI level, and this is one of the best explanation of how a gearbox works I have seen. first time I have seen the layshaft being driven rather than a separate mainshaft, good idea, one less shaft/bearing combination to worry about. Good job!
Great to see real hands-on work!
Oh, and I am GREATLY appreciating the calm guitar music. All too often people think that it´s cooler to have some energetic modern music on max volume. For me (an old geezer ) tech nerd this is perfect - very well done mate!
i was waiting for forever to see how a gearbox actually grip gears together, thank you so much for this amazing video !
Would be interesting to see more about the diff
Here it goes
ua-cam.com/video/yYAw79386WI/v-deo.html
Hi Mr Crab if I’m not mistaken there is no differential action on this particular car!
Maybe the diff is further down the drive train?
What a gem of a channel I've found! Having rebuilt my own cars' gearboxes in my youth, great seeing inside a sequential gearbox and its use of spur gears over helical on a road car - and of course no synchromesh.
4:13 deeznutz
Can't believe I missed that
Was searching for this comment
@@laddaevolta if you look closely.. Deeznutz
Glad someone else saw that 😂
Boffa deez nuts
These videos are amazing. The engineering that goes into this really is exciting and mind-blowing. Just the gearbox appears simple but it is so complex as the accuracy and quality that goes into it. These F1 engineers are truly masters of their craft.
4:14 Ha! Got ‘eem
Deez nutz
as soon as i heard this nuts i went into the comments, i am not disappointed!
Why this not have more comments?
I laughed out loud!!! (oooops...I meant I LOL'ed)
@@gabeteuton I did the same thing and you're one of the first comments I've read lol
It was so reassuring to know how actually the gears engage, thanks.
First video of yours I've ever seen and this is excellent honest content, subscribed.
I believe that what you call a layshaft is, in fact, the input shaft. A layshaft is defined as:
A layshaft is an intermediate shaft within a gearbox that carries gears but does not transfer the primary drive of the gearbox either in or out of the gearbox.
A layshaft in a car is used almost the same, but the input and output shafts are in line. The power is transferred with an extra gearwheel from the input shaft to the layshaft.
The principle of this gearbox is very much like a motorcycle gearbox: straight gears and dogs.
Motorcycles also have a separate input and output shaft, but on most the moving parts are on both shaft.
But a really nice video!
Yep, that's the input shaft. A layshaft is also called a counter-shaft in some manuals.
Straight spur gears like that are louder but stronger than helical gears, which is why one is used in motorcycles and race cars and the other is used in passenger cars.
It's actually interesting to consider that on a mechanical complexity level this F1 gearbox is very simple and is more comparable to a car gearbox from the 50s. A "modern" car transmission would be far more complex with synchronization, over-speed lockouts, double synchronized gears, synchronized reverse etc.
@@immikeurnot - Helical gears themselves are actually stronger than spur gears but they produce thrust loads requiring more robust case designs/components which are therefore heavier and larger
6:56 am more curious on the integrated barrel and fork slider's mechanism!!
This is by far the best gearbox explanation on youtube.
4:13 got em'
lol was wondering if anyone else heard
My mind was wandering the entire video EXCEPT for that exact moment in time
This is exactly the level of detail I’ve been looking for, thank you!
*has a gearbox with perfect little wells to fit a ratchet*
*used a wrench anyways*
exactly :D
First thing I noticed. The Snap-on man hasn`t been yet? :)
when you post your video of the workings of something like this, make sure you use your ratchet then, ok?
@@timmaaynoob2975 fucktard
britts..
It's amazing that the most sophisticated and advanced racecars, and vehicles for that matter, have the most simple mechanics that work together perfectly
This was bloody fantastic! Again!
That is one incredibly engineered gearbox. Be a fan i see and know how many times per second those gears shift up and down down down and complete the turn and in a split second its changing gear to the next and so on etc. It is so amazing and i really appreciate you taking your time to help us fans of formula 1 🏎 better understand and get a great look at the gearbox. Thank you my friend.
Absolutely excellent vid dude. Explaining with the real thing in front of you. Beats any number of diagrams and words hands down. Cheers. Keep up the good work.
Well done. I still remember for those who had the money in the lesser classes, they had the gears on wooden boards with pegs, the boxes were often done rapidly during or after practice, or you had charts that told you the best ratios for a given track. As a mechanic, you had to recognize the worn dogs on the gears.
GREAT video dude! Since you're there, I've always wondered about the tiny F1 clutch and pressure plate assembly!
Ok... I'll have a look at a clutch!
Look up Tilton or AP for an overview of what tiny racing clutches look like. They likely use a 4.5" multi-plate clutch.
Very well explained, thanks for sharing, and what a beautiful piece of engineering 👏🏻
Really good video! Explaination was spot on! Thanks for this!
5:00 I didn't know that F1 gearboxes had such a cassette system for taking the gears out of the gearbox. Sure makes replacing the gears a lot simpler than fidling with the parts inside the housing.
The fasteners that hold the cassette on place were also surprisingly little considering how much power F1 cars have and when you have wheel hop with those sticky tires, the forces the gearbox sees are insane.
This was very interesting. Great video!
Like the precision of the machining of all those gears. And yes,just like when we move the lever on a bike only this one is obviously powered pneumatically or hydraullicaly. But the best thing is how it's all so simple and in the same time high-tech complicated. Simple yes,but then you add the pneumatics and the ECUs and all. Just love it man. F1 is the only sticker album i completed as a kid.
A motorcycle transmission like on a GSXR 1000, for the most part, works and looks the same. The shift drum on the F1 is a good bit nicer. Very nice thanks for posting this.
Yep ! Years ago I noticed the same thing. Did F1 learn from the Super Bikes, or the other way around ?
@@lroy730 Since bikes have had sequential boxes like this since the year dot, F1 took the idea from bikes.
@@stupidlogic2987 from 80 years ago Motorcycle tech.
Never knew what happens in a gear box. Your very clear, step by step explanation- I understood it. Thank you. In 1950s went to watch
F1 -and continue to watch it now . Looking forward to your next lesson. Pat the Dragon
I subscribed because of this. Make it even more in depth.
Currently designing a gearbox for my engineering project at uni and this was incredibly helpful! Love this channel!
Very similar to a motorcycle gearbox, except it's about 2x the size so it can handle 10x the power.
Those gears are smaller than my goldwings.
Agree, look the shifting gear between lay and main Shaft, no synchromesh there.
OldLeatherHands&Friends weight concessions and shorter time between overhauling allows the smaller components ....
@@fauzimachamili1691 Yes, no synchromesh. Only dog clutches, and straight-cut spur gears, rather than helical-cut gears.
Synchromesh slows the gear shift time. With revs matched a simple dog engagement is much faster shifting. It also allows clutchless up shifts.
Your videos are like oxygen for an enthusiast like me. Awesome job. Greetings and many thanks from Brazil .
great explanation of the dog drive via main shaft. slick shift, no synchronizer here. Brilliant machine design.
Absolutely superb explanation
4:14 Ha! Got em!
Beautifully explained! Made simple and easy to understand. Another reason I love F1. The engineering artistry!
2:35 Two words, my friend: "ratchet spanners." 😉 😀
Beautiful video! The engineering is a piece of art! Thanks for sharing
That was awesome! I feel like I've learned something (actually, I know I have).
Thank you. I've wanted to understand how a gearbox works for a very long time. You explained it well. Good job!
Many thanks for that great work.
This brilliantly completes other videos I found on other youtube channels about gearboxes.
This is a great video.
7:56 ineed for spiner replacement
Excellent description of the gearbox operation. The shifting mechanism reminds me of a motor cycle unit. Thank you for the video.
Some good info' in the video - and a lot of 'less good' in the comments.
You may have noticed a shaft coming out the back of the gearbox, near the bottom - that is a starter shaft - an external strater is engaded there to start the engine.
The input shaft isn't connected 'directly' to the engine, but via a clutch assembly about the size of a large man's fist - worth a separate story just on the clutches, perhaps?
most performance and race gearboxes are gas operated, but the speed demands of F1 means that is too slow and hydraulics are used.
That isn't a layshaft, it is an input shaft.
Some of you who have some experience in race gearboxes may have noticed that the input gears are machined as part of the shaft, rather than splined on - this is because F1 gear ratios are fixed (one change allowed mid year, if that still applies) and it is stronger and lighter to build them that way.
Astonishing piece of design and machining. Beautiful!
When you popped the rear case off, I said "oh, look - there's reverse.... and it's gone."
No comment on reverse??
They have neutral and a crew to service the car, that crew can push the car backwards. Reverse is a waste of space and materials in a vehicle that is built to only go one direction 99.99% of its life.
@@oldleatherhandsfriends4053 Thats not the case anymore. Todays F1 cars do have a reverse gear and you better use it because If you need someone elses push to get out of a deadlock, your race is over.
@@Chuckiele interestingly, modern F1 cars shouldn't necessarily need a reverse gear, they could pull the clutch and reverse the polarity of the electric motor. Of course that would only be the case if the motor is after the clutch, which, after reading the technical regulations, turns out to be illegal. I tell you, the engine regs fucking suck, they leave almost 0 room for imagination. And it's not like they do it to keep "road relevance", variable geometry turbos, twin scroll turbos, VVT and VVL are all very common among modern roadcars, yet they are forbidden by the FIA. The regs are so tight that they might as well make the entire PU a standard component, I could write a massive paragraph explaining why having such tight regulations is stupid but it's late and I'm tired, maybe tomorrow. Here are said regs btw, I'm linking the 2022 ones because the PU will remain mostly unchanged and they show were the future is headed www.fia.com/regulation/category/110
@@jorge8596 They had to add so many regulations because things kept escalating and now they have to slowely remove them again. The aero cleanup is a good start already, finally undoing the ground effect ban but back then there was no way around it.
@@jorge8596 it is a huge mistake to prevent the worlds foremost technological motorsport form experimenting with different technical solutions! evolving new technology should be one of the primary aims of formula one
This is incredible. So simple and effective, but a real work of engineering
My Friend: What's inside An F1 Gearbox?
Me: Gears
As mechanical engineer i know those gears are thick enough to last "X" hours/cycles for a give "Y" Stress (loads) while saving weight, but i still get anxious and nervous when i see gears that much thin compared to normal automotive gears. Loved the video, cheers.
Holy Cow my man, quite new to the channel, I cant say how insanely good at explaining you are! (the actual gearbox itself helps) I just might understand the whole car when you are done lol.
The distance of the dogteeth relative to each other is bigger than my life.
Fascinating, many thanks. Been driving cars for years but never really know what the inside of a gear box looks like. Love this video and looking forward to more.
Im happy.
no surprise. you listen to electric house.
This is just a great explanation of the shift mechanism in any manual transmission even..obviously road cars use syncros and a countershaft too but same idea.
1:10 - "this is conected directly to the engine" - really? ?
what about the clutch?
F1 cars HAASn't got clutch
They have no clutch
How do they start then ? neutrall to 1st gear without clutch ?
@@mecabecane234 Oui !!! Exactly, from neutral to 1st you need either disconnection either engine starting in 1st.
They do have a clutch. Its an electronically controlled clutch
Nice simple explanation man. Beautiful engineering.
Just like millions of motorbike gearboxes
Talita Slabbert even the little Honda 90’s from the early 60’s. Whoever did this first was a genius. So simple but complex to make it all work.
Exactly what I thought... I have a cassette like that, maybe even better, in my race bike! Hah.
3:09 best ad placement ever
“… you can see here that …”
“LIKE A GOOD NEIGHBOR, STATE FARM IS THERE!”
best explanation of how a gearbox works i've seen
No sync ring?
That was my first thought too.
Yes
@@EmmanuelLHPil no need for sync wheel, those side teeth has very large gap, they find themselves
@@ToomSugi They also aren't designed for tens of thousands of miles without repair like a consumer vehicle is. F1 cars will get their transmission changed multiple times per season. They can afford to withstand some extra abuse in the name of pure performance.
On the flip side, I think it is amazing the kind of endurance that road cars have.
@@tankerd1847 motorcycle gearboxes withstand long mileage, vfr 750 engines can do 150k miles+ with no gearbox problems
Thanks a lot for this Scott, I built/ rework gearboxes for a living but have long been curious about the internals of f1 gearboxes.
No synchros ;p
Not needed, since in a constant mesh like this, the gears are always engaged.
One of the best F1 gear box explanation. Love engineering. Thank you for the video.
Fantastic explanation and demonstration, has answered many curiosities and head scratching, Thank you
The design of the drive ring, dogs, mating dog in gear, and shift fork is awesome. Very highly optimized when compared to say sequential motorcycle transmissions. I have rebuild many motor cross bike engines...so I was really curious to see the design of the drive and dog mechanisms. Thanks for showing.
A bit late to this one, this was fascinating--I've always known what a gearbox *does* but I've never seen such a clear explanation of how everything fits together and how the entire transmission works in action. Really great stuff.
Bit late?
Was watching a F1 race at the Nürburring 1997 and was surprised how insanely loud the shifting of the cars was. You didn't hear that on Tv at all. It was a massive bang every time they shifted.
I personally thank you for your post, it is sublime, your explanation is great. Keep doing such videos
Very nice explanation and beautiful hardware.
What a beautiful gearbox, thanks for your sharing and explanation.
how simple it works but how much effort needed to design this....superbly explained
Exceptional video! I'm a college student learning about cars and this just clears so many misconceptions I had
Absolutely fascinating stuff. Amazing. Never seen such comprehensive insight into F1 engineering and mechanics. It almost feels like this stuff should be "classified"!
Those gears all show evidence of scoring/scuffing damage. They are ready for the scrap bin. Looking at the contact wear patterns of each gear set, it also doesn't appear the designer did a good job of optimizing their geometry, including tip relief, lead compensation, face crowning, profile shift, etc. Maybe it was due to cost. But it looks like they could have easily improved the efficiency of that gearbox by 1%. That might not seem significant, but remember that all the engine power at the flywheel end of the crankshaft is transferred thru the gearbox.
Being in the gearbox trade when I was 18 I striped out many gearbox's the best engineered one being the Rover 3500. The F1 is much like a motorcycle with straight cut gears to deliver more power. But oh so simple and straightforward not as complex as I taught
Superb and splendid explanation!! I really appreciate your effort. Keep it up.
Hi, Scott! First, thank you for giving a precise demonstration of the F1 gearbox. What amount of strength of steel are we talking about here, where metal is always up against metal, at the same time rotating at such high rpm's? An F1 car is such an engineering miracle that encompasses a multitude of technologies rolled into one. The gearbox must be right up there as one of the most important parts of the car itself. I cannot imagine what engineers have to do to design, machine tool, test and integrate into all of the other parts. This is why I appreciate your taking time to explain at least this aspect of the F1 car. I look forward to your next video. I recently watched another one of your videos on the pitstop crew, which was one of the best explanations I've seen yet. Thanks!
very nice video with great explanation and clear close ups!
I love this video. Amazing that the carbon fiber tub is all that is bolted to the engine forming its frame. I would have thought that torque put into the tub would twist it like crazy.
HI Scott, thanks for the detailed illustration! i iunderstand how the Gear + hub + dog ring work together! many thanks
Great presentation and clear explanation. Thanks Scot
First class explanation, first time Ive seen the gearbox explained
I've been waiting for a channel like yours for years!
Thanks a lot for the content and all the effort you're putting into it.
That selector movement/mechanism is pretty cool tooo
This is the video what i have been looking for a few years....THANKS!!!!!so much. I am a new suscriber.