[WRC] News & rumours (part III)

[Mirek]

Paddle is just a piece of plastic or aluminium. That costs nothing Depends what is operated by the paddle. There are plenty of different systems used in road, rally or racing cars operated by paddles. What was expensive on the old WRC cars was the complicated hydraulic system which operated both gearbox and central active differential.

[nafpaktos]

On the other hand even "cheap" R3 cars are allowed to have paddles (not hydraulic though). Pneumatic ones are used in DS3 R3 and were homologated also for Civic R3 but they are not used there for reliability reasons (JAS guy told me once on Barum).

I know its a little bit difficult but can you expalin me a little bit the differences between the two systems .the gear time change differs among the two systems?if not then the only reason to use the hydraulic is its reliability compared to pneumatic.

[Mirek]

Frankly I have no idea how fast the pneumatic system can be compared to hydraulic one. Anyway with new WRC cars we speak about different stuff than with the old ones. There is no central differential and the hydraulics/pneumatics would be used only for gear change which shall be quite simple system. I don't think it would raise the cost significantly but maybe I'm wrong.

[SubaruNorway]

The gearboxes used these days must be some of the most reliable they've ever used, can't remember any big problems apart from the Fiesta gearbox cracking on launch a few times. So why go back to the expensive system again...

[lewalcindor]

Paddle is just a piece of plastic or aluminium. That costs nothing Depends what is operated by the paddle. There are plenty of different systems used in road, rally or racing cars operated by paddles. What was expensive on the old WRC cars was the complicated hydraulic system which operated both gearbox and central active differential.

Thanks Mirek. I would also imagine that the system would be somewhat less expensive without the need to account for the active central diff, but we can't say for sure. It's seems that even the simplified S200-derived WRC cars are not significantly less expensive than the complex WRC cars from before.

The gearboxes used these days must be some of the most reliable they've ever used, can't remember any big problems apart from the Fiesta gearbox cracking on launch a few times. So why go back to the expensive system again...

I agree. I haven't heard of a gearbox failure in quite a while, so someone must be doing something right. The only recent failures that I could recall of are alternator problems (seems to be a running theme with the M-Sport Fords) and Hyundai's soft suspension bits (which are partly the problem of the rocks the Hyundai drivers run over).

I recall watching the "Engineering the World Rally" miniseries that followed Subaru's 2006 WRC effort. It was perhaps the worst advertisement for Prodrive's engineering expertise. One of their more notable foibles was when their expensive gearboxes managed to fail multiple times in a single rally.

[Mirek]

The gearboxes used these days must be some of the most reliable they've ever used, can't remember any big problems apart from the Fiesta gearbox cracking on launch a few times. So why go back to the expensive system again...

According to M-Sport Fiesta WRC gearbox needs a rebuild every 400 km so it's not so reliable as one might think (in S2000 it is 1000-2000 km). Anyway in my opinion the gearbox can stay almost same with only the gear shifting mechanism being replaced. I don't think this would be some big deal.

[lewalcindor]

According to M-Sport Fiesta WRC gearbox needs a rebuild every 400 km so it's not so reliable as one might think (in S2000 it is 1000-2000 km). Anyway in my opinion the gearbox can stay almost same with only the gear shifting mechanism being replaced. I don't think this would be some big deal.

Yes, but the lifespan of the gearbox doesn't necessarily tell you how reliable it is. It simply indicates that the gearbox can run xxx kilometers before it needs to be overhauled. An unreliable gearbox would be one that can fail at any moment in a rally regardless of its lifespan.

That said, 400 km is a ridiculously short lifespan for a gearbox. Essentially, the teams have to rebuild a car's gearbox after every rally. No wonder WRC cars remain so expensive to build and maintain.

[OldF]

I’m not an expert but I believe not so many components would be needed for a paddle shift system. The WRC cars already have a hydraulic or pneumatic system for the handbrake. As I see it the system need a hydraulic or pneumatic cylinder connected to the existing hydraulic or pneumatic system. The cylinder’s piston & rod would do the job what the manual gear shift lever does today. The paddle switch connect the current to one of the cylinder’s solenoid.

This is a simplified explanation but that’s because I don’t know more.

Electro



Hydraulic

[Juha_Koo]

The pneumatic version in DS3 R3T has incredible power, I don't remember the actual pressure but the force was impressive!

[dimviii]