Originally posted by Surf Green
But how many VTEC engines does honda run in the major racing series? VTEC is hardly racing technology.
And for all of those people who knock diesels as being old tech, smelly, and polluting... how does this make you feel?
http://www.dieselforum.org/inthenews...il_062302.html
But hybrid was going to be the golden new race technology.
The highbred hybrid's roots date to 1998, when Don Panoz's Le Mans racing team discovered that shoehorning a 195-horsepower electric motor and a 300-volt nickel-metal-hydride battery alongside the gasoline engine would give the team's car an edge. It successfully competed in a race, but the team didn't have enough time or money to develop the car as its primary racer. Several Formula One teams, though, got wind of the idea and started pursuing hybrids of their own.
Their plan was to use a car's alternator—the mini generator in every vehicle that keeps the battery charged—as an electric-assist motor that could contribute small boosts of power. This prompted the Formula One sanctioning body to ban the technology before it ever got to the track. "They had to," says John Wallace of Ford's electric-centric Think division. "Teams without it would have had their behinds waxed."
read the rest here.....
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/auto/ar...220824,00.html