Volvo's Rule-Bending Cylinder Head
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2018
- The Volvo 850 has to be one of the coolest BTCC cars ever, but Volvo used some pretty crafty tricks to give it a little advantage...
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Credits:
Thanks to Italiansupercar.net for the footage, check out his channel here: / @italiansupercarvideo - Авто та транспорт
Now THIS is race car engineering.
It is the engineer's sworn duty to follow the letter of the rules while doing everything within the laws of physics to defy the spirit of it.
are you Doug de Muro? ^^ I heard his voice reading your text :D
100% agree with you on this one, pure determination to build a beast, shame that the estate never won a single race though
Well said. The engineers don’t get enough credit sometimes as to how they figured out how to work around the rules in ingenious ways.
It's fair, because they're not breaking the rules...So before you go competitive, pls read the rules, find the grey area and exploit them
Spoken like a true politician... or F1 team...
Powertampa Ex-Lancia Rally Team waves with greetings :)
A.k.a Adrian Newey
achmad fajar Couldn't agree more. F1 and Nascars' finest hours have been when geniuses like. Gordon Murray bother to learn the rules and move the game along by thinking outside the box.
@@mrc7966 I remember Jeff Gordon's T-Rex car
That feeling when you're going down a straight in a Porsche but a literal brick on wheels flies past you, cuts the next corner perfectly and raises one wheel off the ground and he's gone after just two corners, just to be seen in the rear view mirror again after a few laps.
What Porsche are you referring to?
@@sonicstep from '94 ? Almost all of them 😂
can we just for a minute enjoy the fact that they used a frickin estate car in racing, like how often do you see that? (except for like banger racing and that stuff ofc)
Kriss subaru levorg for a few years now, in btcc as well
BTCC
Honda used the Civic Tourer in BTCC (2014 I believe) and won with it.
Kriss check out BTCC , most of the cars are like civic estates and subaru levorgs
Only proper wagon i saw was the Toyotas and Subarus, is the Toyota fwd? Whatever the 850 will be the kind of the racing wagons in my opinion just because it's an 850 and well it explains itself right there
They used their heads in this instance.
Blunt hits!😂🤣🤭
Actually they didn't use their heads, they used their block 😉
@@bogdancondicaru7848 ok
It wasn't technically illegal, so it was perfectly fine. Smokey Yunick would've been proud
Smokey would think what took you so long to figure it out😂
Awesome
Haven't heard or read that name in a while.
Yup.
This is called lit af engineering.
What a genius idea. Well done Volvo
Motor Man 11 you mean twr.
Mark Denyer true enough
Question is, what did Volvo learn and did they apply the lessons to future engines?
I wish DTCC and BTCC where still like this, normal cars pimpt for racing.. those where the days.. seeing your own car race.. now they are all made of plastic and look like spaceships.
tell me how exactly they look like spaceships? to me they look like pimpt up normal cars of today. And no they are not made of plastic no more than the production models.
Pykezuikkeli
I don't know about BTCC but Australian Supercars (just a name, used to be called touring cars) are all standardised chassis with mostly carbon fibre panels. Standard panels don't even fit.
Yes those are different ball game, btcc cars are built from standard cars
Pykezuikkeli
Are? Or were? That was once the norm here too but "parity" and other complaints took over. BTCC now uses "Next Generation Touring Cars" rules. All sorts of things are standardised and are unfortunately no longer comparable to their road going origins.
www.btcc.net/about/technical-overview/ Are. Of course standardisation has happened on components used to keep the costs down but the cars are built to the original bodies and manuafacturers have the option to build their road going engines up to specs, for example the btcc avensis engine is built from the 3zr-fe used in avensis. And the cars are still mostly steel cars, not some kind of plastic spaceships. Just like they were in the 90's. If one thinks that the 90's volvos were just standard bricks with high horsepower and coilovers they'd need to look more into the cars.
Love these rule bending vids. Plz keep them coming
Fair doesn't factor in here. Rules were abided and none were broken.
They were just cleverer/first.
not 1st... Audi I think was 1st with the 2L engine in the A4
Exactly this. Everybody else could've done the same, so it's not unfair or breaking the rules.
I drive a 850 T5 Estate with over 400k km on it, and I love it. Still runs great!
Esra B its volvo what do you expect?
That's the real point, they're great cars.
My mate had an 850. Not the T5 .lowered from factory and every option...
Same with mine. I love driving it. Sounds nice too.
Esra B I think it's about time you change the running in oil.
Making 325 bhp from 2.0 liters and keeping it together for a season, that's the impressive part. Your explanation of how they changed the top of it though, was not as detailed as I would've liked.
There's an excellent video called The Genius Rule Bending of the Volvo 850 Touring Car which explains it in a lot more depth
I don't even care if it was smart or cheating. That sound is too good
In all of these videos, my belief is that if they haven't broken the rules, that's fine. It's only rule bending if the rules aren't broken. If there's any genuine deception that has to occur for them to race, that is clearly unfair.
If they can explain what they did to the race organising body and they're still allowed to race without a penalty, they're just being very clever and deserve praise for it.
I remember every man and his dog were laughing at Volvo for bringing an Estate to the BTCC in 94. However No one was laughing at the end of the season.
Simon I think Volvo made some doubters eat their words. The 850 estate was a fast car, it certainly gave the Vauxhall cavaliers something to think about.
How can 260 bhp be 25hp below the competitors, but 325bhp is 65 horsepower more than the "other cars"?!
Mattias Filander I was literally sitting here debating the same thing, and was hoping someone mentioned it in the comments. Thank you.
Apparently he cant do math.
Mattias Filander Maybe more than the other 850s?
65 more Hp than the production 850s
@@YeetxBoi nope
1:52 that noise came from a Volvo...
God I love 5 cylinders
I live 30 minutes from that motordrome! :D (and yes that sound is..... jgashghasgashgeagbgvsjafeyg i fuckin' love it!)
That inline 5 sound is incredible!
Just Some smart ass carguys
As a child watching BTCC in the 90's, this is still my dream drive if given the oppotunity along with the Mazda 787.
Same. I'll have an 850 one day!
Awesome rule bending!. This is innovation and thinking outside the box.
They worked the grey area in the rules. It’s not like they did what Toyota did with the GT4 and it’s turbo
Massive Unicorn Wang cheating is cheating
if someone beats you in a debate because your argument was full of holes, they haven’t cheated you, you just didn’t prepare properly. The same applies here, the rules were full of flaws that they used to their advantage
I love the way alfa with the Alfa 155 threw a front splitter and rear spoiler jacking kit in the boot of a production model (Silverstone - formula) to be allowed to use it😂
Not cheating. After all, the rules didn't say they weren't allowed to do it.
Phil Mitchell even better, apparently GT cars at Le Mans in the 90s had to have space for a suitcase otherwise they were considered a prototype. Since the fuel tank was empty during scruitineering, Toyota said that the GT-One's fuel tank could theoretically hold a suitcase.....
Perfectly fine. I've also seen an instance where a head was actually redrilled to shift it over a few mm on the block to unshroud the intake valve slightly
TW and TWR knew how to wring the most power out of a rule book =)
I loved this era of BTCC. I built a couple dozen of the Project43 kit and half a dozen of the Tamiyas for customers back then. So cool.
I remember going to the btcc when that volvo estate came out, remember thinking what drugs have they taken, it was bloody quick. Great days of the btcc and some great drivers.
Legendary sound! 😍💪🇸🇪
Finally the engineering to the TWR head is revealed to me... Brilliant!
That engine note sounds incredible!
My favourite touring car
Straight and to the point. good shit.
100% using the rulebook to your advantage! Great engineering!
Love this kind of rule bending , engineering genius. Legal by the rules, and a little bit cheeky too. :).
Brilliant engineering and rule book bending
As clarkson would say, BRILLIANT
Ey, is not in da rules m8
Ohhh... nostalgic trip to the 850 era and BTCC when it was the best! Have all races on VHS.. but no VHS player... hehe!!
I love stories like this. Engineers have to use their ingenuity, creativity, and cunning to find a solution. And it leads to progress.
Brilliant... Worth every penny
Awesome content guys. Lots of touring car teams were doing funky things in this time, i heard Alfa actually turned their head around on the 155 to get the intake side facing towards the front of the car. But volvo had by far the most extreme engine and best sounding too along side the mondeo. The teams had some crazy budgets but it was still the best touring car racing era.
vauxhall turned the xe head 180 aswell
Volvo turned the whole motor instead of just the head from memory.
Fair, studied the rules and played by them too
Top engineering at his best! I bow deeply...
My first love at slammed wagon. Still drive one today, 25 years later. Not exactly a brick but slammed.
i had a Volvo 850 turbo for 22 years. It was a lot of fun.
Hearing that noise again, took me straight back to Brands Hatch and Silverstone. Halcyon days.
Done with the rule book in hand 👍🏼
I lived not that far from the Thruxton race track at the time and saw these cars in action on several occasions.
They engineered there way around a problem to make themselves competitive, didn’t brake any rules just interpreted them in there own way! Every team on the grid was at in the 90’s
Damn swedes
** shakes fist **
But TWR are British. The Swedes are too nice to do anything dastardly like this.
*laughs in Swedish*
This is the result when you mix the Swedes and the British together.
Check this out on Google Translate pls! -"Var det något du ville, Milky?- .. No, I didn't think so.
I wasn't from this time but I admit, this car is pretty good
LOVED these cars - best era of the btcc!!
Rallying's non-turbo, 2WD 'F2' category had a similar issue around the turn of the century: The rules said the cylinder head had to start life as a production item. The idea was to keep costs down, but it meant teams - and Citroen above all others - spent tens of thousands (francs, pounds, dollars... pick your currency) modifying the production part, rather than just being able to fabricate a comparatively cheap fit-for-purpose head.
Yes, at least the Peugeot 306 Maxi did rev to around 10 000 rpm to make all that power, since unlike Super Touring, the Rally F2 cars did not have mandanted revlimiter of 8500 rpm, so it was all green light to make your engines rev as high as you can, these cars sounded awesome, and the 4wd WRC teams complained that they got beaten on tarmac by cars that were perfectly designed for tarmac rallys, and weighed around 200 kgs less than the 4wd world rally cars 2.
In 1999 Citroen won 2 rallys outright, Spain and Corsica, and after 1999, the f2 series was prety much gone, since both Hyundai and Peugeot moved on to the big WRC class, later followed by Citroen, Seat had already moved on after 1998, so in the early 2000:s a new series was introduced to let the wrc cars win a little easier on tarmac :
The Super 2000 series, which unlike the F2 cars were 4wd, but still naturally aspirated, although they only revved to around 8000 rpm, had less aero and were heavier than the old F2 cars as well, they were still capable, but could not really beat the wrc cars anymore.
Oh, I miss the good old 90s BTCC, the races were so intence back then.
T5 was a great road car to have. Loved it.
That's racing - always has been and always will be - rule book engineering followed by actual, outstanding, engineering.
What I think is that every single fucking time ANY sanctioning body has passed "cost cutting" rules, they have completely & utterly failed at cutting ANY cost, often actually causing increases in expenditures. And, yet, to this day they STILL keep trying to "cut costs" via the rule book, as if it'll miraculously actually work THIS time...
It's IMPOSSIBLE to keep money out of racing, you can only change where it's spent
that is brilliant not cheating.keep these rule bending vids coming love them ct.
I think it's just cool when people use cool tricks to come around the rules
We used to do a wedge shaped skin on the cylinder head back in the days of racing the 4K Toyota starlet engine, There is close to the edge of roll bending on all motorsports
This reminded me of something i've seen a while ago. A motorcycle parts dealer near me had cylinder heads for a Honda NR750 for sale. That's a crazy 32v V4 with oval pistons. The price was 11500€. Per head. Not including the camshafts, valves etc.
Rule bending was standard at the time. Everyone was doing it to get a tiny bit of an advantage. Just look at Alfa using homologation rules to get their front and rear aero bits legal. 94 BTCC was one of the best most exciting seasons I ever saw, and is the reason I bought my Alfa 155.
King of the supertourers imo
Love it! May not follow the spirit of the rules but follow the rules it did! Those nights up there in Sweden must get long to think of taking a slice out of the head like that
Volvo supplied some standard castings, all the late nights and machining was done by TWR in Oxfordshire.
That’s brilliant. Someone needs to bring out a book of motorsports best rule “interpretations”
creative. and it shows how tech rules generally just push cost up because they dont target the money specifically.
beautiful
I love the slight obsession CT has with Volvo
I actually like it when racing teams try and use loopholes when it comes to how the car performs, it lets the people who have more of a crafty mind more of an edge
It's like when lawyers become engineers.
That’s racing. Any edge within the literal wording of the rules
Very cunning indeed!
Rules are rules, part of the fun of watching races is to see how they actually change their cars to compete with the same set of rules
I would love to get one of those TWR engines in my V70R.
Volvo is great. I think I need to do some SCCA rule reading and figure out how i can bend rules.
Racing has always been the one with the most money is likely to win, that's why i really like the young guys at the drags who race there daily driver, they seam to have more fun than most racers
Rules have been bent like this ever since the first person lost a race. I love it
Think the Alfa 155 and it’s BTCC history should be covered too especially with how it bent the rules with the adjustable spoiler
Agreed, it is a fascinating story. Their DTM development of the 155 is a good story too. Covered elsewhere by another UA-cam channel...
Stuff like this is an example of how an old Swedish submarine sank a US carrier 2?...3? times in war games some time ago. Using what you got....and thinking out side the box. Smart on so many levels. Of course it helps when you have money to burn when you start cooking up stuff like this
winning is everything
TWR's job was to win races. They interpreted the rule book and made an excellent race car. Good on TWR.
I love the Volvo 850
The really fun one was the Ford Mondeo V6's, where the team noted that the rules stated that the engine had to be in the same place as on the stock car when viewed in plan form (i.e from vertically above). The Result? Well, the road car had a driveshaft that ran under the engine. In the racing version, the same driveshaft ran between the cylinder heads...
I believe it was also Ford who spent £150,000 figuring out the best position to glue the windscreen wiper for optimum aero...
What a note comes out of that car 🤤
I want to see that machining process you described
THAT SOUND UGH!!
Thats Gold!
Someone deserved a raise
A true genius masters the grey areas
"We dont break rules, we make rules"
This is exactly the kind of clever innovation I like to hear about in racing. Too often you hear about draconian rules stamping out any kind of creativity and cleverness in the name of "fairness".
What did they do about the head studs/bolts with the head mounted at an angle? Were they allowed to weld up the original holes in the deck amd drill/tap new ones at an angle?
More than fair, every motorsport engineers dream is to do something "within the rules" that gives you the edge above the competition. That is the point of it all. Like the early MK1 ford focus RS WRC car had its rear bumper filled with a charge chamber for the turbo that worked with the anti-lag system forcing per-charged and previously wasted compressed air back into the head between shifts or slow part throttle corners. Some call it genius some call it cheating!
The real mods I need to know about. An extra 60 horsepower just by modifying the heads? YES PLEASE
Half the reason for the head mods was for clearance for the HUGE cam they used. The lobes were way to big to fit in the factory heads. The other reason was to make the intake/exhaust runners flow better, in order to take advantage of the cam. Without the cam, the head mods are useless. Wouldn't be surprised if they played with the fuel as well. When they raced the 240s in the 80s, there was speculation they were using fuel that was up to 70% toluene to control detonation. This was in addition to water/meth injection. They ran a metric shit-tonne of boost. They got in trouble for the fuel and that year the factory stepped out of racing. The 850 was the next hurrah.
And most of the claimed HP numbers are considered conservative. That head and cam with high boost was probably good for more like 150+hp,.
it isnt "modyfying the head" they liteeally completely replaced the upper half(the part with the cams and associated moving parts)... to the tune of $20,000 and up. you could swap nearly any production twin turbo i to your volvo for quite a bit less and be faster
No way to fit 2 turbos. They moved the engine back a long ways in the car. The exhaust exits toward the firewall. Only room for 1 turbo. Plus the turbo and exhaust had to be homologated, as per the rules.
It is possible to make higher peak power for sure. The question is how smooth is the power curve, and how drivable is the power. Turbo cars with a big hp but a peaky power curve can be a bear to drive.
Here is a couple articles about the cylinder head and the choice of wagon, along with the homologation papers: www.supertouringregister.com/documents/model/32/
Actually the Volvo 850 Super Touring car ( used in the BTCC ) did have a 2 liter naturally aspirated 5 cylinder engine, based on the Volvo 850 2.0.
Turbos were not allowed in Super touring and all cars had to use 2 liter naturally aspirated engines.
www.cyanracing.com/concept-cars/volvo-850-super-touring
www.supertouringregister.com/regulations/
What is happening when you cut a wedge out and tilt the head and valves to create more hp? Better flow/scavenging?
Captain CRAYONBOX stepper intake angle and less of an exhaust angle which means better flow
That's motor sport right there!
TWR did amazing things with those volvo's. Some say only they could have pulled of an engineering job like that.
In Sweden, generally known as the "T-Yellow", for a combination of three reasons. The famous yellow colour, the T in the name, and because Swedish chemistry company Kemetyl's T-series of fluids, named for colours, where red is denatured ethanol, blue is washer fluid, and yellow.....is grill-starter fluid, fitting since the car goes like it's on fire.
That is smart engineering.
The same thing they do now in formula 1 and Indy car races!
its an old speedway trick on corollas and etc in australia