New Toyota TS040 Racing Hybrid

I'd say, bring it on Le Mans 24h! This is shaping up to be a great season whereby anyone could take a pole position and the race is anyone's game.

 

Porsche has a fast(er) car, but they had reliability problems, if they get more testing before LeMans, they can be a serious contender. I do wonder how those A123 cells will cope with 24h of molesting with over 180 kW charge and discharge power.

Audi may complain to ACO, just like Toyota did last year for a little larger fuel tank. I have a feeling that Audi is planing to be the most reliable, if you are "average" through the whole 24h of the race without issues then you are very near the top.

 

Could someone post the lap summaries and/or pit stops?

Bob Wilson

 

All the data is available here:
FIA WEC - Timing Results

You are good for a day of analysing

 

The same can be said of Toyotas as well... well, with the exception of the oversteering issue experienced by No. 7. Still come third with that issue.

The two TS030 did finished 2nd and 4th in LM24H last year, so hopefully the new TS040 are just as reliable.

 

Sure, Toyota has the greatest chance to win, they proved that with the two wins, I just wanted to point out that competitor are closer than anyone thinks. After 6 hours first 5 competitors were very close only 1 lap difference. Toyota didn't fully disclose the issue with #7, all we know is that one driver complained about oversteer.

Here is a nice illustration of how close the lap times of all the competitors were:

 

This is really excellent and I hope you can post similar graphics for the future races.

The insight I gained is the slow laps are very important and have a significant impact that is disproportionate to the fastest laps. Clear out the slow laps and any of the cars could have been contenders. Also, there may need to be a little finer tweaking but gosh darn, those are close lap times. We're starting to get into a region of driver variability.

This has also given me new insights to the "Double Tank Contest" I'm sponsoring. I had used the 'composite' MPG number and tank capacity to figure out the range much as the USA EPA. But I need to go back and use the "city" MPG to make sure my handicap table is as fair as possible. I may elect to stay with the composite MPG number but I still need to do a 'sensitivity' analysis of both 'city' and 'highway' numbers.

This chart also helped refine a problem with a diesel driver who wants to 'shame the Prius' by joining the contest. I knew it was foolishness unless they wanted to do a whole tank of 'forced shutdown' followed by some sort of 'bump-start'. Although technically feasible, doing it for a 14.5 gallon Jetta tank in the 20-25 mph range would be unpleasant. But now I have insight about how to model non-hybrid vehicles, both gas and diesel, to make a chart predicting their maximum fuel efficiency speed. Yes, I know, why would any of us care?

I have been a little surprised at the poor quality of vehicle models at least as reported by various open documents and papers. Yet it seems so trivial that a simple excel spreadsheet can easily provide useful metrics. Having a good model allows us to identify where optimization provides the most return for the time and money invested. Anything less is wish-craft, hackery and superstition.

Bob Wilson

 

Some new info on the TS040 in Race Engine Technology article (Yoshiaki Kinoshita):
- Compression ratio is 17:1
- "We have no plans to use direct injection"
- Operating band between 7,000 and 9,000 rpm, and 520 BHP
- "If we make an engine from scratch, maybe 4.0 litres would be a good solution, but so far we are happy with having 3.7 litres"
- no high pressure port injection (better atomisation?)
- "If it's 6-hour race we can go leaner than we can run on 24-hour race"
- "The fuel selected for this year was the one that was best for Porsche. This was not for us the number one choice, maybe the number two or three. For Porsche it was the number one choice good for the turbo charged engine.
- ERS-H: "Even for a gasoline turbocharged engine I'm not in favour of using it", " The Toyota R&D center has continuously developed this technology for maybe 15 years, but we haven't been able to find any good reason to use it. If there is a good reason to use it why doesn't the Prius have this technology"
- The capacity of el. motors is more than 480 BHP, "The limitation we have is the input output from our supercapacitor. The input current and output current - that it the restriction"
- If the minimum weight would stay at 915 kg (last year) then Toyota would have had an 8 MJ system

 

I'm glad he shared this. I have been trying to understand why a turbo, Otto engine has any BSFC advantage. Diesels are another matter but spark ignition, it doesn't make sense with the exception of a compound turbo. A compound turbo can take some of the excess turbo engine and feed it back into the drive train.

Bob Wilson

 

He was referring to ERS-H, as in heat recovery system that is used in Porsche 919 and F1 cars. It could also be used on NA engine, but what you gain on the generator you lose on the engine efficiency.

 

I didn't know you could do 17:1 compression without di. Do you know how they cool the cylinders enough to not get detonation.

That all seems normal

ERS-h is not being used by audi either. This was in our local paper.


Audi Abandons ERS-H System - Sportscar365

I don't think toyota or audi were able to get it to work well enough this year. That doesn't mean they won't next year. It would not be used in the prius because it costs too much money, and the prius does not really put out that much heat to recover.

Thanks for the new information.

 

Here is the scanned article, click next or arrow key for next page:
imgur: the simple image sharer

 

+1

I guess that the higher octane of the fuel allows them to get 17:1. Other than allowing for higher compression from cooling the cyclinder, in a race car cycle there is not as much of a benefit of di. I'm guessing at that 8000 rpm that the ts040 runs, port injuection might even allow for better mixing of fuel and air.

Technically I am sure the larger volume engine and higer power supercaps give toyota a small technical advantage over porsche's turbo + battery. Still the porxche configuration is more likely to work in a product sold to the public.

I'm a little amazed that the 3.7 liter ice is only 100 kg at 17:1 compression. That is about the same weight as the prius ice, and the valving makes compression only 9:1 (expansion is 13:1)). Lots of magic going on here. I previously had a Lexus V8, and toyota sure knew how to make that work well. I'm sure in 2013 they have advanced. I wonder if next year they will take the time to go to 4L and lower the rpm a little, or perhaps make a miller cycle, low boost electric turbo 6 cyclinder 3L.

The conclusion was a little strange. I thought conventional wisdom was that more cubic inches were better in a race car and that super capacitors were better than batteries. Toyota did both of those. The lack of di though does defy it. Conventional wisdom would not think you could get that high of compression without di (mazda skyactiv is 14:1 and uses di, and is highest compression normally aspirated production car).

 

Toyota already introduced 1.3 engine for next year that doesn't have DI and has 13.5:1 compression ratio. Just add something like 105 RON fuel and maybe just a little delay in closing intake valves ...

Does anyone know theoretically how much higher CR can you get from 105 instead of 95 RON fuel?

 

This is rather particular for race cars.

A turbo has 3 efficiency advantages over a naturally aspirated ice that provides similar performance
1) Downsizing reduces weight
2) Downsizing reduces friction (more efficient at lower power levels)
3) exhaust energy can be used to create a cooler compressed charge

Only number 3 decreases bsfc. 1 must be compesated in a race car with more weight in other areas. Power levels are high, so downsizing doesn't help. Even on number 3 the higher bsfc at a moderate power, in a race car is balanced by lower bsfc at higher power levels. The porsche tries to recover some of this energy at higher power levels (accleration) with a ERS. The diesel (audi) doesn't do ERS at these higher levels as the turbo is designed for it, and it can do lean burn at lower power levels, simply a difference between the compression and spark ignition cycle.

In a prius type car a turbo is not called for because of lower power requirements. The ice is already fairly small. If it was turbo charged, a 1L engine is all that would be needed. Toyota does not have a 1L turbo available, and costs would be high to develop one for little gain, as it is doubtful that people would want to pay more for a 2 or 3 cylinder prius that got 2 or 3 mpg more on the epa test.

The new ices have variable valve timing (or lift, I'm not sure) with enough room to go into atkinson mode. I don't know on those figures but mazda talked about the key being to get as much exhaust out of the ice. It runs at 13:1 on US regular E10, 87 aki which I think is around 92 ron, but have a 14:1 on 100 ron japanese fuel. I'm guessing from that if toyota designed the ice to run at 13.5:1 on 95 ron, that you could build an ice to be at around 15:1 on 105 ron.

 

And we already have a new one TS050, reveal tomorow, but pictures are already on their site

Fan Corner - Photo Gallery • TOYOTA GAZOO Racing - FIA World Endurance Championship Team

I like this one:


Official test at Paul Ricard, showed that this year again Porsche is looking strong. It's hard to judge anything else since we don't know what they were really up, because it's just testing.

Here are the oficial specifications:
Post TS050 HYBRID TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS • TOYOTA GAZOO Racing - FIA World Endurance Championship Team

One thing interesting is that Toyota developed their own battery, both other rivals outsource their cells (Porsche A123, Audi LG Chem). It's nice to know Toyota is seriously developing their own cells and also chose their own as the best option.

 

Still early days, but I think both Toyota and Audi are hiding something from Porsche. We will find out on the 16th April at Silverstone!




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FWIW, Toyota did set the fastest times at least a couple of sectors but the car somewhat slowed down over the curvy last sector.

 

Acording to this article:
Technische Daten: Porsche 919 Hybrid 2016 - 24 Stunden von Le Mans, WEC - WEC bei Motorsport-Total.com
Porsche is still using A123 cells, but battery and all around it is made in house.

 

With Porsche quitting LeMans, Private teems were given 69% more fuel to work with. The official test was concluded this weekend at Paul Ricard:
Productive prologue for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing
Toyota ran outside rules for best Prologue times
Toyota played “games” with privateers in testing - Sarrazin

In normal running Toyota will have a really tough time defending the fuel sipping competition, the rule makers are analysing the data from the test and will equalise the performance if necessary.