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Unconventional racing wisdom for Le Mans—seriously unconventional.
Soon after a 16-year absence, Nissan will return to the top class in the Le Mans 24-hour race this year, joining Porsche and Toyota among others in the chase for all round victory. Like the Porsche and Toyota, Nissan’s challenger will feature a hybridized powertrain. But the similarity ends appropriate there.
For instance, drivers of the Nissan GT-R LM will be sitting behind the power sources, rather than in front of them, peering out over a vast expanse of hood. And all of that power will be vectored to the front wheels, at least as the auto is at the moment configured. Nissan is keeping its choices open regarding the possibility of altering the mechanicals to send some of the thrust to the rear wheels. As opposed to several race vehicles, the wheels are wider at the front (13 inches) than the rear (9 inches), the greater to put power on the pavement.
Power appears to be an open situation. The internal-combustion element is a twin-turbo 3.-liter direct-injection V-6, burning gasoline rather than the diesel favored by the other LMP1 heavyweights. Nissan is not discussing specifics yet, but output for the engine alone is anticipated to be in the neighborhood of 500 horsepower. Nonetheless, the engine development team prioritized efficiency as considerably as sheer thrust, because the arcane guidelines laid down for LMP1 hybrids by the sanctioning body—France’s Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO)—limit fuel capacity to 68 liters (17.96 gallons). As a consequence, reaching maximum laps per tank is critical, specifically on a lengthy track like the 747-mile-long Circuit de la Sarthe.
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According to GT-R LM designer Ben Bowlby, the DeltaWing designer for whom thinking outside the box is an everyday activity, the twin-turbo V-6 will burn about 30 percent much less fuel than a equivalent Nissan gasoline engine that ran at Le Mans in 2013. But 500 horsepower is only a fraction of what it will take to turn competitive laps at Le Mans. The balance of the energy, expressed in joules, will come from the custom Kinetic Energy Recovery Program (KERS) fabricated by Torotrak, which will harvest energy from the front-wheel brakes.
Minding Joules
A joule is a unit of operate, equivalent to a newton-meter. And the important to making the Nissan competitive is how numerous joules it can add to the power equation, or, a lot more accurately, how many megajoules. Megajoules (MJ) are the Catch 22 in the ACO guidelines for LMP1 hybrids. The ACO formula enables for deployment of a specific quantity of megajoules per lap, and there are incremental thresholds: 2MJ, 4MJ, 6MJ, and 8MJ. Every single threshold reduces the quantity of fuel the car will burn to sustain lap instances, and increases the thrust obtainable for powering out of corners.
The downside is mass. The larger the storage capacity of the KERS technique, which will reside beneath the driver’s legs, the more it weighs. Minimum weight for the GT-R LM’s class is 880 kilograms—1940 pounds—and, as Bowlby has pointed out, “We’re going to be very challenged to make our weight target when half of the weight of the automobile is the powertrain.”
This leaves out the mass related with 4-wheel drive. Not to mention the challenge of getting all the hardware lined up. As Bowlby notes, MJ systems are not the sort of point you can acquire off the shelf at Pep Boys.
Bowlby and others at Nissan are vague about how significantly total system output the GT-R LM will bring to the FIA WEC Endurance Championship when it opens on April 12 at Silverstone, in the UK. Estimates location it someplace in the vicinity of 1250 to 1500 horsepower, down considerably from earlier objectives that reached as higher as 2000.
Aeromass
Bowlby explains that the front-mid-engine style was conceived to support the front-wheel-drive idea, providing the vehicle a forward weight bias to assist the huge front tires provide optimum bite when huge megajoule outputs flash into the driveline. The identical consideration affected aerodynamic improvement. Starting with the simple car concept, Bowlby says that “the aero center of pressure, the mass center of gravity, and the tire capacity are all in harmony.”
Aside from an adjustable rear wing, aero specifics—coefficient of drag, frontal region, downforce, and lift—have not been revealed, and most likely will in no way be. But a good several other specifications have been. For instance, the auto is 182.9 inches lengthy, 74.8 inches wide, and 40.6 inches tall. The bodywork is carbon composite, the windshield fabricated from polycarbonate with a tough coating.
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The suspension is composed of Penske dampers with 4-way adjustability, and also characteristics a hydraulic rear antiroll bar. Six-piston calipers squeeze the front brakes, with 4-piston calipers at the rear. The brake-by-wire NISMO method is integrated with the KERS function, and involves driver-adjustable front-rear bias.
Cosworth supplies the ECU and the controller for the 5-speed sequential gearbox, which feeds energy to the wheels by way of a hydraulic restricted-slip diff. Tilton supplies the 4-plate carbon clutch. Like the brakes, the throttle is drive-by-wire, and the drivetrain consists of driver-adjustable traction control. The steering wheel is by NISMO, and the LCD information graphics come from Cosworth.
PlayStation at Speed
Nissan has yet to flesh out its WEC driver lineup, but its initial appointee is as innovative as the auto itself. That would be young Jann Mardenborough, a 24-year-old hotshoe from Darlington, England. Mardenborough has created his racing bones with the Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver improvement program in GP3, and also drove the Nissan LMP2 vehicle at the 2014 Le Mans race.
But his route to a top sports-auto ride is special. It started with Nissan’s GT Academy, which sifted driving talent through efficiency in video games. Mardenborough’s ability in PS3 was tops in season 3 of the system, which propelled him into race cars. No karts. No schools.
All in all, Nissan’s Le Mans quest is practically nothing if not special. Bowlby calls it his “boldest undertaking” to date. Hmm. How do you say understatement in Japanese?
For a lot more on the GT-R LM Nismo, including an inside appear at the creating of its Super Bowl industrial, check out the following links from our buddies at Road & Track:
http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a24902/establishing-the-nissan-gt-r-lm-nismo/
http://www.roadandtrack.com/auto-culture/entertainment/a24901/the-inside-story-of-the-2015-nissan-gt-r-super-bowl-industrial/
http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/g6076/2015-nissan-gt-r-lm-nismo-photo-gallery/
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