DCAWD.com

i was watching rally of italy and i heard that next year they are going to be mandating 2.0 NA engines so more manufacturers can jump on the rally bandwagon, personally i think it is a great idea. but i was just curious what everyone else thinks about this

btw first post in the forum

Mandating 2.0 NA engines? As in the are required to use these? Is this like a new class then? I just don't know, I mean I love some of those 1.8-2.4 liter NA honda engines, but I can't image that it would make for a very good rally. I think a lot of the fun of the rally is that the power levels allow them to be very much on the edge. How on the edge are you going to be getting with a 2.0 liter NA engine?

There are a couple big threads on NASIOC about this, in OT, Mid-A and Motorsports. The bigger part of the issue is not smaller engines or NA, it's the fact that they won't be allowing Boxster-style engines in the future. They are doing this to reduce the cost of participating in WRC. How making several manufacturers throw away their entire engine development program saves money, I don't know. In essence they are trying to level the playing field so smaller teams can keep up with the big boys.

oh yeah i forgot to mention the loss of boxster style engines... plenty of power can be made with 2.0 NA engines, i wonder if they will do away with the 30mm air restrictor then

Yes of course 2 liters can make lots of good horsepower, they had 300 hp engines using destroked h22 blocks in a couple of races in Europe, but still it just seems like a why fix it if it ain't broke? Are they really trying to pressure Honda into making a rally team?

no but they are opening it up to companies that can't afford rally

I'd love to do some rally!

elzorro wrote:There are a couple big threads on NASIOC about this, in OT, Mid-A and Motorsports. The bigger part of the issue is not smaller engines or NA, it's the fact that they won't be allowing Boxster-style engines in the future. They are doing this to reduce the cost of participating in WRC. How making several manufacturers throw away their entire engine development program saves money, I don't know. In essence they are trying to level the playing field so smaller teams can keep up with the big boys.

They are also going to mandate a standard gearbox - hence the rule of a standard engine layout. Frankly, I think this kills the whole reason for manufacturer participation in motorsports - real-world / dual-use research. For the cost of a research budget, the manufacturer gets to test their new designs and gets world exposure and advertising. Why not allow each company to pursue the best results by letting them choose their own technological direction?

I understand the mindset of trying to lower costs for the rally teams - a standard gearbox means shared production costs and a mandated inline-4, N/A engine means a wider selection of engines available to the teams - but there has to be some leeway to allow innovation. That's the big knock against NASCAR - a real lack of innovation due to strict rules that standardize the technology.

F1 is trying to cut back on innovation and reliance on technology. Now WRC is doing the same. It's the slippery slope all over again.

--Alan