Ilmor
Ilmor is an engine supplier for various motorsport series and boat engines, founded in Brixworth , England in 1984 . The company's company is made up of the names of the two company founders, the Swiss Mario Illien and the British Paul Morgan . Both were former Cosworth employees.
history
After the company was founded by Mario Illien, Paul Morgan and Roger Penske in 1984, the first successes in the PPG IndyCar World Series were quickly achieved. The first Indy 500 victory followed in 1988, whereupon Ilmor began to prepare for entry into Formula 1. After initial attempts in 1990, cooperation with Mercedes-Benz began in 1993. The double world championship title in 1998/99 for Mercedes was experienced by Mika Häkkinen with the V10 engine from Ilmor.
In 1998, Ilmor expanded its business area, initially with a project to produce parts for Roger Penske's Nascar team, followed by two other successful projects for Triumph Motorcycles , Harley-Davidson and a number of other customers. From 2001 the GM -IRL engine was developed for the new 2003 regulations, from which a partnership with Honda developed. The Special Projects Group developed from the development and production of these engines and formed an independent business department.
At the end of 2002, DaimlerChrysler decided to take over Ilmor in phases, after Daimler-Benz had already taken over 25 percent in 1994. After completing this takeover and renaming the Formula 1 department as Mercedes-Benz HighPerformanceEngines , in June 2005 DaimlerChrysler sold the Special Projects Group and the Ilmor naming rights to Roger Penske and Mario Illien. Penske and Illien formed a new Ilmor Engineering Limited from this. In addition to Moto GP engines, Ilmor has since continued to develop Indy engines for Honda (2003-2006) and Nascar engines for Penske Racing.
Champ Car
With financial backing from Roger Penske , an American businessman and racing team owner, Ilmor's first engine was created in 1984, the 265A, better known as the Chevrolet Indian V8 (named according to the 2.65 l displacement permitted by the regulations). After initial problems, this engine and its further developments B, C and D won 98 races in the US Champ Car series between 1988 and 1994, including six Indianapolis 500 races, as well as another six races under the name Ilmor-Indy IC108.
Outstanding among them in 1994 was the engine named by Mercedes 500I and by Ilmor 265E, which was used under the brand name of Mercedes-Benz for the 500 miles of Indianapolis. An engine was specially developed for this race, which, due to its conceptual disadvantages, was allowed to have more displacement and boost pressure than the modern design of the competitors' engines. The disadvantages were that he only two valves could have per cylinder of an underlying camshaft via tappets or rocker arms , bumpers and rocker arms are operated had not four valves and overhead camshafts as the others. For this reason, bumper engines were allowed 3.43 l displacement instead of 2.65 l and a boost pressure of 1.86 bar instead of 1.52 bar. With these regulations one wanted to favor engines derived from American high-volume engines, whose maximum speed and thus possible liter output was lower. They had to be built up with some series parts (“stock block”) until 1991, but this restriction no longer existed.
This cleared the way for newly developed engines designed for high maximum speeds.
The new engine called 265E for camouflage made 763 kW (1024 bhp) (about 20% more than the engines of the other participants) at 9800 rpm and delivered a maximum torque of 790 Nm at 8000 rpm.
The three Penske-Mercedes drivers Al Unser Jr. , Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy qualified with average speeds of 228.011 mph, 227.303 mph and 222.71 mph and, according to their own statements, had to brake for the first time on the oval course. The engine made its last trip to the museum after the race, as the motorsport authorities closed the loopholes for obvious reasons.
Since 2004 only vehicles with the Ilmor V8 engine (produced for Honda 2003-2006) have won the Indianapolis 500 .
formula 1
As early as the end of the 1980s, due to the Indy successes, there were considerations for activities in Formula 1 , including negotiations with GM , but they could not decide on a brand whose name the engines should bear.
From 1990 onwards, the Leyton House (later March) Formula 1 racing team was initially equipped with type 2175A engines under its own name, and only in 1992 the Tyrrell team .
The Ilmor engines were not yet among the most powerful at that time. For example, 1993 was the Renault -Motor Williams estimated 559 kW (760 hp) during the Ilmor engine claims to 512 kW (696 hp) developed. After all, they were better equipped than those teams that used engines from Ford-Cosworth or the companies Judd and Hart .
The Ilmor Formula 1 engines were always comparatively small and light.
The cooperation with Mercedes-Benz in Formula 1 began in 1993 under the name Concept by Mercedes-Benz , which was emblazoned on the Sauber racing car. During this season the further development 2175B was used with financial support from Sauber. It was not until 1994 that Mercedes-Benz fully acknowledged its Formula 1 involvement after the restraint of the previous year: the Sauber racing cars bore the Mercedes-Benz logo of the engine supplier, but the engines were supplied by Ilmor. In addition, the 2175A engine experienced a second spring in the Pacific-Ilmor .
Mercedes-Benz has held a 40% stake in Ilmor since 1995 and was McLaren's official engine supplier until 2014 .
Since the beryllium material for the manufacture of Formula 1 engines was banned in the 2001 season , Mercedes (i.e. Ilmor) have had great difficulties in building on the performance and reliability of other engine manufacturers. This has often been attributed to the increased use of this toxic light metal at Ilmor, which Mario Illien once admitted in an interview.
It wasn't until the 2005 season that, apart from the still poor reliability, it was possible to develop an engine again that was one of the best engines in the field in terms of performance. The engineer Enrico Benzing used a diagnostic program to determine that the Mercedes engine had a maximum output of 674 kW (917 hp) in the last race of the 2005 season.
After the death of co-founder Paul Morgan on May 12, 2001, his widow sold ten percent of her shares in Mercedes-Benz in 2002 before the vehicle manufacturer also acquired the remaining shares from Liz Morgan, Mario Illien and Roger Penske in 2005. At the same time, Mercedes-Benz again sold the shares in the company that were not involved in the production of Formula 1 engines - as well as the Ilmor naming rights - to Mario Illien and Roger Penske. Illien and Penske then founded the new company Ilmor Engineering Ltd., Mercedes-Ilmor was renamed Mercedes-Benz HighPerformanceEngines .
In 2015, Ilmor worked with Renault to improve the 2015 Renault Energy F1 . Whether Ilmor's suggestions will be used for the further development of the engine in 2016 is unclear for the time being after the disagreements between Renault and the Red Bull Racing customer team .
At the end of November 2015 it was announced that Ilmor was applying for the alternative engine, which will be used in Formula 1 from 2017.
MotoGP
From 2006 Mario Illien tinkered with engines for motorcycle racing and competed under the team name Ilmor SRT X³ from 2007 with a machine developed with Eskil Suter and Andrew Pitt and Jeremy McWilliams as drivers in the MotoGP class. The 800 cc four-cylinder V-engine had its premiere in the motorcycle called X³ on October 14, 2006 with Garry McCoy at the penultimate race of the MotoGP 2006 in Estoril . This project has been discontinued.
literature
- Karl Ludvigsen: Prime Movers: Ilmor and Its Engines. Transport Bookman Publications, 1995, ISBN 0-85184-053-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://jalopnik.com/this-innocent-looking-race-car-caged-the-last-innovativ-1577926747
- ^ Ilmor working with Renault 'is great' - Horner. In: motorsport.com. December 18, 2014, accessed December 4, 2015 .
- ↑ Ilmor is applying for the 2017 alternative engine . November 20, 2015, accessed on December 4, 2015 .
- ↑ NZZ, May 28, 2011