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0t---F1 piston ---$60K each?

not the best video from that guy to say the least, usually he has much better content...

didn't mention development costs, didn't mention exotic materials, did show a woodworking bit carving some diesel engine pistons and lots of unrelated other copyright free material as a filler with a couple minute payed ad in between

and development cost is probably 95% of that price estimate
 
Nascar would be billet. F1 is probably aerospace or even military grade billet. The way F1 is now it probably has to be traceable certified to be 100% recycled content and net zero carbon emission machine shop.
Bill D
 
Nascar would be billet. ..
Bill D
Really? Even given these high dollar day this surprising and I would think not a good idea.
I think the video guy a bit off base on tolerance particularly on bore.
Production car pistons in millions are now made way into single digit microns.
When car makers went from sized matched to one size bore the piston making people had to improve size control by a factor of 10 or more.
This was a big problem. Once we could make one size bore only 20% of the pistons made were usable.
The goal make a perfect hole and then oh-poop for things to put in it.
Go Nascar or NHRA and look at the stickers on the car. See if any say Mahle.
Bob
 
I'm surprised that the F1 pistons are still an aluminium alloy rather than titanium. I would have thought that the latter could provide significant mass advantages.

F1 rules have gotten quite tight on materials used for the engine. In fact, things have gotten so constrained that even the CG of the engine is now specified.

Ti doesn't make a great piston due to greater mass than Al, and not great tribology properties. I'm pretty sure the pistons must be made from a predominantly aluminum alloy, but what alloy elements are allowed and their percentages I'm not sure. We can be pretty confident Be is no longer allowed.
 
Not so much, Titanium weighs 2.605 oz/cu in. Aluminum weighs 1.56 oz/cu in
A couple of places were experimenting with straight carbon. I thought that would be fun to mess with as a small shop, no one-off forgings required, high strength, low weight, a good cnc would machine to size okay.

There's an interesting product for someone who wants to get off his ass and take a little risk.

Also hollow connecting rods ....
 
A couple of places were experimenting with straight carbon. I thought that would be fun to mess with as a small shop, no one-off forgings required, high strength, low weight, a good cnc would machine to size okay.

There's an interesting product for someone who wants to get off his ass and take a little risk.

Also hollow connecting rods ....

Miller / Offenhauser had hollow connecting rods for about 100 years or so.
 
Also hollow connecting rods ....
Honda was using for a while hollow connecting rods. IIRC diffusion bonded titanium.

Honda has CRAZY good techinical details in their book "Honda R&D Technical Review F1 Special (The third Era Activities)"
Honda R&D Technical Review F1 Special (The third Era Activities) | Research paper site of Honda R&D Co., Ltd.
Its free download but you need to register. Well worth the trouble, about 1000 times more informative than the mentioned youtube video.

Using (di-)deuterium oxide (heavy water) as engine coolant is one of the crazy examples why F1 is expensive. OK, you need only few liters of it [maybe 500 usd per liter for low purity grade?) but compared to ordinary water it is like 10000 times more expensive.
 
Honda was using for a while hollow connecting rods. IIRC diffusion bonded titanium.
Would you please shut up ?! You're wrecking my gig !

Not mine, actually, a friend's. But he thought it up around 1985 .... worked for Aerojet, had access to the Good Stuff. Betcha he is still sitting on the blanks, they are good and aged by now :)

NASCAR requires steel, but same principle.
 








 
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