Diesels

[Martin-MC]

With all the talk in different threads about Diesel power whats everyones thoughts?
Should a series such as BTCC or WTCC be run for one fuel type? Me personaly I want to hear a high reving engine that pops bags backfires on overrun etc. Dont want to see a taxi engine smoking the straights and crawling round bends.
No disrespect to Seat the cars generally good but incar shots bore me and watching it from outside at a circuit bores me too. Its all turbo that keeps it where it is, as Alan Menu said in an article they crawl round corners then the turbo kicks in on the exit and they power down the straights.
To me a diesel is what powers my truck nothing more!

[VkmSpouge]

I don't mind having non-petrol cars in touring cars as long as the rules manage to equalise their performance (no easy task). I would happily welcome diesel, gas (remember John George's 2004 effort?), hybrids or electric cars to the BTCC. Perhaps in the future we'll be having this discussion about hydrogen fuel cells :D

[AndySpeed]

hydrogen fuel cells :D

I'm not sure... they're explosive!

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I'm not sure... they're explosive!

Not the petrol isn't flammable ;)

[Mp3 Astra]

Not the petrol isn't flammable ;)

Hydrogen can do this:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/investigations/hindenburg/hindenburg03.jpg

I doubt petrol would do ths same thing!

[VkmSpouge]

Yeah, yeah, not to turn this into a debate about hydrogen fuel cells but it is a bit safer than the old airships :p :

[LiamM]

As long as its properly managed hydrogen is fine, and I believe at the minute the car industry is looking as storing as sea water, which if I'm not wrong isnt flammable

[Rollo]

If you ran the cars to a 300bhp horsepower limit like the WRC regulations specify, then it doesn't really matter a lot as to what the fuel regulations are.

Your average punter cares nary a tinkers fart as to what they bosh down the filler, and in all honesty after seeing Indycars run on methanol, I care even less.

[Mark]

At its heart touring cars is all about racing production cars, the types you see on the road, and like it or not a significant proportion of them are diesels, and turbo diesels at that, which is why they should be represented in the BTCC.

[VX_Rules]

But for the Diesels to be competitve they need to have the turbos, but petrol and penalised not allowing them to have turbos. Its all very debatable and dont know the answer.

[SEATFreak]

I am rapidly starting to be turned of diesels. In the WTCC anyway. Is it really worth running it if it means you will have limitations applied when you won't have any limitations imposed if you run petrol?

Which is better "have a faster car but have limitations imposed" or "have a slower car but have no limitations imposed"? It seems that appears the choice faced by teams by the Touring Car Bureau.

[driversdomainuk]

With all the talk in different threads about Diesel power whats everyones thoughts?
Should a series such as BTCC or WTCC be run for one fuel type? Me personaly I want to hear a high reving engine that pops bags backfires on overrun etc. Dont want to see a taxi engine smoking the straights and crawling round bends.
No disrespect to Seat the cars generally good but incar shots bore me and watching it from outside at a circuit bores me too. Its all turbo that keeps it where it is, as Alan Menu said in an article they crawl round corners then the turbo kicks in on the exit and they power down the straights.
To me a diesel is what powers my truck nothing more!

Don't they use diesel in a few Le mans cars?, which is a much higher level sport than BTCC. I do agree though, they sound dull!

[LiamM]

Don't they use diesel in a few Le mans cars?, which is a much higher level sport than BTCC. I do agree though, they sound dull!

Yes but we've seen the same thing as in WTCC at Le Mans, the diesels run off and hide and not giving any petrol cars a look in

[Les]

I suppose half the problem is that are so new and equalisation is not an exact science. The bosses will have to tweak and tweak until it's right.

[CroftPilgrim]

I'm with Martin-MC. Part of the fun is the noise, and diesels are just too quiet.

The average punter may not care what goes in the tank but that's because it doesn't really matter when you're talking petrol, methanol, LPG or bio-ethanol - they're still noisy! Diesel is different though....

[VkmSpouge]

Yes but we've seen the same thing as in WTCC at Le Mans, the diesels run off and hide and not giving any petrol cars a look in

At least the ACO has seen sense and is planning to do something about it.

[Allyc85]

I dont mind having a few diesels in the mix and im all for inovation, but too many and the quietness would be a big turn off.

[Rollo]

Me personaly I want to hear a high reving engine that pops bags backfires on overrun etc. Dont want to see a taxi engine smoking the straights and crawling round bends.

The OP needs to join the: Federation Against Rotaries, Turbos, Ethanol and Diesels... or F.A.R.T.E.D. :D

[Abo]

I am rapidly starting to be turned of diesels. In the WTCC anyway. Is it really worth running it if it means you will have limitations applied when you won't have any limitations imposed if you run petrol?

Which is better "have a faster car but have limitations imposed" or "have a slower car but have no limitations imposed"? It seems that appears the choice faced by teams by the Touring Car Bureau.

Not wanting to teach people to suck eggs but that's what racing regulations are all about anyway; levelling the field. Imagine touring car racing without any regulations on engine modifications for example; you'd end up with something like Group B rally madness-power taken further by 21st century knowledge and technology. Although I've no doubt the cars would be ultra-quick and sound ing marvellous, you'd end up with a couple of teams opening a technology gap with the other teams unable to catch up. So regs are imposed to keep things somewhere near level.

Putting restrictions on the diesel cars is just an extension of this. If one is complaining about it then one should also be complaining about success ballast, penalty on RWD cars, penalty on sequential shift cars or indeed the whole differential base weight regs.