SEEN AT MONZA

SEEN AT MONZA

FERRARI always makes a big effort to get his latest racing car ready for the Monza race, and if he cannot produce a complete car he Usually manages a new engine. Last year he introduced the 3-valves-per-cylinder engine, with which Searfiotti won, and this year it was a completely new engine layout with 4 valves per cylinder, which has been in the experimental stage at the factory for some time; indeed, when Surtees saw it he recalled that the design was under way when he was in the Ferrari team. The base of the engine follows normal Ferrari practice, being a 60-degree V12-cylinder, but the cylinder head design is a complete breakaway from Maranello tradition. The two inlet and two exhaust valves of each cylinder are at a narrow angle to each other, and also; the inlet valves are slightly angled to each other as are the exhaust valves, giving a very slight radial effect, hut not sufficient to require any complications in the valve gear; in addition the valves are not disposed equally on each Side of the cylinder centre-line., but are rotated very slightly. The general layout of the valves is similar in principle to the Apfelbeck B.M.W. full-radial layout, but nothing like so exaggerated, so that the two overhead camshafts on each honk of cylinders are close together and operate directly on to the valve stem tappets. Due to this compactness each bank of cylinders has a single cam-box cover, with single central sparking plugs in each cylinder. For many years Ferrari has been an advocate of the twin-plug ignition system and wide-angle valves, so that this new layout looked strange in a car from Maranello. With the narrow valve angle there is no room for the inlet ports to run vertically down between the camshafts, as has been Popular recently, so the Ferrari inlet ports are on the outside of each cylinder hank and the exhausts are in the centre of the yee. This necessitates the inlet ports being quite short, with the injector nozzles for the Lucas fuel-injection hidden away under the inlet pipes and behind the throttle slides. Bolted direct to each bank of throttle slides are glass-fibre collecter boxes with forward facing air scoops. The chasSis of this new car, number 0007, is similar to the previous, 1967 cars, with deep chassis sponsons running along each side of the engine .to the rear bulk-head surrounding the clutch housing. A lot of attention has been given to detail weight saving, replacing steel components with alloy ones, and with the latest and lighter hve-speed gearbox the total weight of the car has been brought to a more °competitive figure, in line with Lotus and Brabham, it being in the region of less than 1,200 lb, although officially quoted figures are always a bit vague as to detail conditions such as the amount of fuel in the tanks, tyre sizes and so on. Power output is LIGHTER AND BETTER.—Thc Honda engine installed in the new chassis, showing the small-tube space frame behind the eOckril,

down-draught inlet port, and the central exhaust system.

around 380-390 bit p. at 10,800 r.p.m. and in typical Ferrari fashion, when the engine made its first public appearance in the Friday practice, it ran perfectly, never missing a heat, and ran equally reliably throughout the race, despite the over-revving it received at the start, which must have taken the tine edge off the valve seats. The Ferrari engine designers seem well versed in the use of a test-bed and in the problems of Chassis installation, tor their engines always seem to work well and reliably, even a brand new design on its first outing, unlike Maserati, B.R.M., Cosworth. Weslake and Repco engines that sutler teething troubles when they are first raced. If Amon had not been delayed by a defective shockabsorber he might well have won the Italian G.P. with this new

engine on its first outing. As is well known there are a great number of racing projects centred around John Smacks, who MUSE he the busiest man in motor racing since Stirling Moss. The Le Mans, Lola-Aston Martin V8 project, the Group 7 Iola-Chevrolet V8, the Formula Two LolaB.M.W., Formula Two Lola-Cosworth, and the Japanese Formula One car all have Surtees as the central figure, operating under various company names from a small factory at Slough, to the west of London. Team Surtees run some projects, I.ola Racing run others and Honda Racing look after Formula One. Although based at Slough the Honda project has been controlled from Japan with Japanese engineers and mechanics, aided by some of the stall from Team Surtees, and over the past two months John Surtees has been re-organising all his workers and making better use of his various business interests, in particular getting Eric Broadky and Lola Racing in Closer cooperation with Honda Tokyo and the Slough-based Honda Racing. All this work meant missing the Canadian G.P. but the result was seen at Monza in the shape of a completely new chassis for the Honda G.P. car. The 90-degree V12 engine is unchanged; and is one of the limiting factors of the car, for it does not develop 400 b.h.p., let alone the anticipated 450 b.h.p., so that the weight of its all roller-bearing layout is not justified. A full roller-bearing crankshaft assembly must weigh more than a plain-bearing assembly, and can only be justified if the result is a substantial increase in horsepower over your rivals, as Honda achieved with their one-litre Formula Two engine in 1966. However, arart from any weight handicap that the El Honda has suffered all season, it has been sadly lacking in road-holding and good handling characteristics and the fact that all the detail changes that Surtees made did not really make any major improvement, merely making the car ” less worse ” indicated that someone would have to start all over again. This was done during August, with help of Eric Broadley and his Lola factory and the new chassis turned out to he better and lighter. A monotoque centre section of riveted alloy sheet forms the cockpit, with the front suspension hung on the forward hulk-head and the engine hung on the rearward hulk-head, but unlike the Lotus 49 where the engine is the rear part of the chassis, die Honda has a tubular structure running under the engine 1.0 a rear hulk ,head that

Coutinued on page 900. carries the rear suspension. A large alloy casting attaches the engine to the cockpit bulk-head. Front suspension is of the lower wishbone and upper rocker-arm type, with spring units and anti-roll bar all inside the nose cowling and rear suspension is the conventional layout of lower wishbone, pivoted at the chassis by its apex, a single top transverse strut, two forward running radius arms and an exposed coil-spring/shock-absorber unit. The I-kinds diff unit has a modified right side -casing with an outrigger bearing so that the drive shafts are now of equal length, and these are of the simple sliding-spline jointed type, thus doing .away with the Honda hub carriers that incorporated a sliding joint and allowed one-piece drive

shafts to he used All this change is in the interest of unsprung weight on the rear wheels.

While it was officially insisted that the new car was all Honda, it had an obvious English look about certain components and a distinct touch of Eric Broadley and some unkind people dubbed it either a ” Lolanda ” or a ” Hondola,” whereas it was in reality a ” Surtees Special.” However you looked at it, it was a great improvement and the way it went in the race must have satisfied all the people who stretch from Slough to Tokyo under the John Suttees banner, and repaid the incredible amount of work that was accomplished in six weeks. Making its first appearance in Europe, though it had already raced in Canada, was the new McLaren M5A, powered by the new 12-cylinder B.R.M. engine. Bruce McLaren started the season with a modified Formula Two McLaren chassis containing a 2-litre VS B.R.M. engine, which served him well until one day when it was on test at Goodwood and a fuel pipe broke; the car caught fire and was completely destroyed. The Formula Two cars were built of riveted aluminium sheet, with steel hulk-heads, in what is best described as an open trough, in which the driver reclines in front of the engine, a glass-fibre nose and cockpit cover clipping on to the top of the trough. The new car is much more of a complete monocoque, still fabricated from aluminium sheet, but the front section is more in the shape of a tube, with a hole cut in it for the cockpit. The front suspension is on the lines of the F.2. car, with double wishbones and exposed coil-spring/damper units, and the rear suspension is orthodox Grand Prix pattern. The engine is the first of the new series from B.R.M., being a comparatively simple V12-cylinder unit, much more suited to selling to customers than the H16-cylinder works engine. The two-cylinder banks are at 60degrees, each cylinder having two overhead camshafts driven by a single-roller chain from the front of the crankshaft. There are two valves per cylinder and the inlet ports are vertically down between the pairs of camshafts, with Lucas injector nozzles under the

throttle slides and long intake trumpets. Single sparking plugs p,..r cylinder are used, fired from a distributor on the front of the left hank, and there is an alternator on the front of the right hank; from the front of the inlet camshaft on the right bank a toothed rubber belt drives the injection metering unit. Bore and stroke are given as 2.9375 inches by 2.250 inches and the capacity is 2,999.5 c.c. and with a 12-to-1 compression ratio on petrol it develops some 365 b.h.p. at 10,000 r.p.m. This engine has -been in the offing for over a year now, and now that it has appeared there is a rush of customers, though some are going to be disappointed. It. would seem to be fundamentally a sports-car type engine, rather than a full-blooded Grand Prix engine, but nonetheless it performed very well in the McLaren, proving very controllable in the wet at the Canadian G.P., and battling with Honda, Ferrari and Cooper-Maserati until it broke at Monza. It would seem likely that Cooper might use this engine next year, Ken Tyrrell in a Matra, and one or two other private ventures.—D.S.J.