Cosworth Valkyrie 1000Hp Supercar Engine

[bobbymike]

Nice detailed video on building a piece of amazing IC tech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk8ZrN__nmA

 

[Richard N]

I fear that engine, not because of its power or sound. I fear its sheer complexity and the financial ruin you would suffer if just one of its gazillion parts failed or ran out of lubrication or was in just the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy talked proudly about running frame members between tiny spaces between the engine and the radiators. If this car ever hits anything and the parts are all jammed up against each other it might have a hard contact chain reaction that breaks parts from one end of the car to the other. The engineer seemed to revel in complexity and it seemed like he took every possible opportunity to apply some esoteric expensive technology or material treatment anywhere he could.

I had a conversation with a guy who in a previous career overhauled warbird engines. I asked him what he thought of the comparison between the Rolls Royce and the Allison engines. He said that he would rather work on an Allison anytime because the Rolls had twice as many parts while they basically did the same thing. This English monster and its handler shows you that the English haven't changed.

My most memorable encounter with a supercar was back in the 70s. I was driving along and heard this terrible backfiring and racket. As I stopped for the light, I looked to my right and pulled up into a gas station was a Lamborghini Miura with its hatch up and the driver was poking around but having no effect. The light turned green and I stepped on the clutch and shifted into first and drove away from the awful noises of the Miura in my Volkswagen and said to myself "I'm glad I'm not that guy."

 

[bobbymike]

Well Cosworth has been building racing engines since 1958, but yes it is a complex piece of equipment.

 

[Richard N]

And as if it weren't complicated enough already, at the end of the video the joker said that they were adding an electrical assist module to make it a hybrid! Just imagine the price of a servicing on this thing. Far too high a fiddle factor with this parts nightmare. No, No, No to this silliness!

I don't know if you have looked at a modern brushless electric motor, but they are tiny compared to the power they put out. Also, they have only 1 moving part, the core. Electric motors get full torque instantly at startup and don't require gearboxes. They have regenerative breaking so your motors become generators and charge the battery when you decelerate. You could even put 4 small motors in the wheels for 4 wheel drive and have much more room in the car or the whole car can get smaller. I know I will have an electric car at some point. Electric cars are quiet. I live out in the sticks where it is quiet. I like quiet.

 

[Archibald]

My most memorable encounter with a supercar was back in the 70s. I was driving along and heard this terrible backfiring and racket. As I stopped for the light, I looked to my right and pulled up into a gas station was a Lamborghini Miura with its hatch up and the driver was poking around but having no effect. The light turned green and I stepped on the clutch and shifted into first and drove away from the awful noises of the Miura in my Volkswagen and said to myself "I'm glad I'm not that guy."

I' m the driver of a 68 hp Grande Punto and the other day on the crowded bordeaux motorway I spotted a Maserati miserably stuck in a trafic jam. I sneaked past it on a faster line and roared my 68hp engine as loud as i could (5000 rpm, VROOOAAAR) before speeding away...

 

[bobbymike]

I think the price point on the car is 2.5 million pounds. Don’t know if repair bills are on the owners minds.

 

[sferrin]

My most memorable encounter with a supercar was back in the 70s. I was driving along and heard this terrible backfiring and racket. As I stopped for the light, I looked to my right and pulled up into a gas station was a Lamborghini Miura with its hatch up and the driver was poking around but having no effect. The light turned green and I stepped on the clutch and shifted into first and drove away from the awful noises of the Miura in my Volkswagen and said to myself "I'm glad I'm not that guy."

I' m the driver of a 68 hp Grande Punto and the other day on the crowded bordeaux motorway I spotted a Maserati miserably stuck in a trafic jam. I sneaked past it on a faster line and roared my 68hp engine as loud as i could (5000 rpm, VROOOAAAR) before speeding away...

 

[Hobbes]

I like it. Sure, it's a hugely complicated bit of kit and it's optimized for power at the expense of all else, which means it isn't practical, etc. But so what? This is a masterpiece, literally: a bunch of master craftsmen showing what they're capable of when they ignore the constraints they're usually under.

And that attitude creates something that's special to drive, even when you're not driving it at full speed. I've had test drives in a few exceptional cars, and driving them is an occasion even if you're sitting in traffic.

 

[TomS]

Rowan Atkinson famously drove his F1 as a daily driver (41,000 miles, 2 crashes, milk and school runs, etc.).

 

[sferrin]

While not as crazy, it's pretty close:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jhB9Yx0hyY

 

[Foo Fighter]

My most memorable encounter with a supercar was back in the 70s. I was driving along and heard this terrible backfiring and racket. As I stopped for the light, I looked to my right and pulled up into a gas station was a Lamborghini Miura with its hatch up and the driver was poking around but having no effect. The light turned green and I stepped on the clutch and shifted into first and drove away from the awful noises of the Miura in my Volkswagen and said to myself "I'm glad I'm not that guy."

I' m the driver of a 68 hp Grande Punto and the other day on the crowded bordeaux motorway I spotted a Maserati miserably stuck in a trafic jam. I sneaked past it on a faster line and roared my 68hp engine as loud as i could (5000 rpm, VROOOAAAR) before speeding away...

Well my 72 VW has/had when new, a whopping 55 BHP. On saturday I cruised efficiently past a BMW M6. I know, never on power but wth, I like my car and lifetime emissions will be beating the average electric milk float, sorry, car for some time to come due to lower mileage over quite a lifetime taking care of production impact etc. My beast will see me out and I hope go on too.

 

[Archibald]

;D sferrin i havre no idea what you mean....

 

[Richard N]

Maybe he meant this:

 

[Richard N]

Well my 72 VW has/had when new, a whopping 55 BHP. On saturday I cruised efficiently past a BMW M6. I know, never on power but wth, I like my car and lifetime emissions will be beating the average electric milk float, sorry, car for some time to come due to lower mileage over quite a lifetime taking care of production impact etc. My beast will see me out and I hope go on too.

The VW I was driving was a 73 Sports Bug, a limited edition Super Beetle with 5 1/2" wide rims and Pirelli Cinturato tires. The included seats were Recaro replicas and it was painted Marathon Metallic Blue. The son of the VW dealer I got it from did autocrossing and I got into that and VWs do really well on short tight courses. They also dabbled in would be called supercars today. In their service department I saw a Lamgorghini Espada, Jensen Intercepter, Porsche 911 RS IROC, Porsche 904, several Porsche 356s, and some Porsche Speedsters. I had a Porsche 356 for a while, but couldn't keep it running and regrettably had to sell it.

I still have the Sports Bug, but it is not running and or in great shape, but I keep it for sentimental reasons. My last three rides have been minivans and my current one is a 2009 Honda Odyssey. I like doing long road trips and that is the best vehicle for carrying all my gear and has room for sleeping and bringing back treasure. I drove up to Oshkosh a couple of years ago and spent one night in my tent and the rest in the Odyssey because it rains a lot at Oshkosh and the van was warm, dry, and quiet. My longest road trip was three weeks, 6000 miles from Texas to New England into Canada at Montreal back west to Windsor and to Dayton and home and covered 17 aviation museums and shot 11,000 pictures.

 

[Archibald]

found the joke thanks to the caption. sferrin you old prankster. Well it is amazing what can be done with only 68hp - such as hitting 175 km per hour on roads limited to 130 (for a start). as long as the road is flat and crowded, I can poke fun at more powerful cars... and drive 500 miles, to paris, without a refueling. gasoline in France ain't cheap by any mean - hint, yellow jackets riots...

 

[TomcatViP]

The single converging point regarding personal commuter, green energies and road congestion is... speed. Invariably we will go down that road, speeding well over 300kph on motorway and city belts. Big engines have a future as I have demonstrated on some occasions.
The CARMAGEDON that face cities like Paris or Bordeaux everyday is only the logical backlash of a long perverted planing policy.

So, when Cosworth spend some money developing such monster, it is an investment in future technologies such as rapid development and production.

 

[Richard N]

I fully get that this is not a car for the common people. Usually supercars have some quality of style that makes even those who could never afford one desire it just on looks and lines. Can anyone say they got their money's worth when the car comes out looking like this thing. Really, with that high upper lip line it looks like they took cues from the face of Futurama's Phillip J. Fry and smeared them on an unlucky car. That lowrider tea tray isn't going to have a good time when it meets up with a piece of debris taller than a squirrel. I've unavoidably encountered big pieces of retread and a dog sized raccoon that did a lot of damage and would clean this off in a second.

Here are a couple of my style favorites from back when I was driving my 73 Sports Bug: The Lancia Stratos and the Isdera Imperator.

 

[sferrin]

Growing up, the owners of the gym I went to owned one of these babies. I marveled at the speedometer that went all the way to 200 mph. I saw the wife on the road in it once next to a Corvette at the light. Looked like a tiger pulled up next to a Saint Bernard.