Firing Order on a Formula 1 V10

October 9th 2006

Pierre-Jean Tardy

Brief presentation of our 2005 World Champion F1 Engine

V10 3 liters displacement Naturally aspirated 4 valves per cylinder Variable trumpets Max Speed : 19250 RPM Max power : ~900 hp Weight : ~107 kg

Engine Performance
A good engine has to help get good lap times : peak power is not sufficient, therefore we created a lap time performance index. Lap Time - Effect of power curve shape
104 102 100 98 96 94 92 90 88 86 84 82 80 78 76 74 72 70

Engine Power (%)

Engine Engine Engine Engine Engine

# # # # #

1 1 2 1 3 3

Same peak power, but 0.45 gap on Barcelona track

15000 15500 16000 16500 17000 17500

Same lap time, but gap of 27 hp

18000 18500 19000 19500

14500

Engine speed (rpm)

Role of firing order

Parameters of firing sequence :
Crankshaft design ( sequence between each cylinder on 1 bank) Ve angle ( sequence between 2 cylinders on 1 Ve) Camshaft design ( choice between firing or scavenging TDC)

The firing order impacts :

Reliability (dynamics) Performance, because of :
Free acoustic couplings between intake ports Acoustic coupling between ports and plenum

Therefore, it is important to understand:

Eigen modes of the plenum Excitability of these modes Influence of these couplings on volumetric efficiency

Simulation
Functional specification:
Being able to characterize firing order and plenum design on a whole performance curve within 1 day Reactive design : ability to guide new evolution designs from the analysis of 3D acoustic phenomenon

Simulation tools :
Since 2000, we have been designing and evolving a specific software GT-Mesh able to translate a plenum CAD into a GT-Power model. It can also help the posttreatment with 3D visualizations and animations from the gp files. GT-mesh allows the building of specific meshes to be used on 3D linear acoustic softwares (Plenum Eigen modes and frequency responses) or Star-CD Fine analysis work with Star-CD / GT-Power coupled simulations Plenum design DOE and optimization using morphing tools

GT-Mesh

Basic firing orders

There are 24 basic firing orders divided into 2 symmetric groups of 12 Firing Orders:
Firing Sequence Firing order 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 7 7 7 7 7 8 7 8 8 8 9 9 8 9 8 10 9 9 10 10 9 10 10 10 3 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 3 3 3 4 4 3 4 3 5 4 4 5 5 4 5 5 5 4 9 8 10 8 10 7 9 7 10 9 7 8 10 10 9 9 8 10 8 9 7 7 8 7 5 4 3 5 3 5 2 4 2 5 4 2 3 5 5 4 4 3 5 3 4 2 2 3 2 6 10 10 9 9 8 10 8 9 7 7 8 7 9 8 10 8 10 7 9 7 10 9 7 8 7 5 5 4 4 3 5 3 4 2 2 3 2 4 3 5 3 5 2 4 2 5 4 2 3 8 8 9 8 10 9 9 10 10 9 10 10 10 7 7 7 7 7 8 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 3 4 3 5 4 4 5 5 4 5 5 5 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 3 3 3 4 4 10 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6

Simulated Power Curves

Firing order
100% FO1 FO2 95% FO3 FO4 FO5 FO6 90% FO7 FO8 FO9 FO10 85% FO11 FO12

80%

13500

14500

15500

16500
Engine Speed (rpm)

17500

18500

19500

Simulated performance index

As expected from high speed power figures, lap time performance index shows 3 groups of firing orders. In the first group N4 gives the best results: compared with RS24 firing order (N1), the performance gain increases with max speed.
RS25 GT-Mesh / GT-Power Simulation : performance offset with base plenum
V10 - RS25 : max speed = 19000 rpm
104.0 103.9 103.4 103.3 103.0 103.3

0.6

0.5

Lap time performance index gain (%)

Performance index GTpower

102.0 101.7 101.0 101.4 101.6 101.5

0.4

0.3

100.0

100.8 100.5 100.6 100.2

0.2

99.0

delta between FO4 and FO1 0.1

0A1 0A2

98.0 0A3

OA4

OA5

OA6
Firing Order

OA7

0A8

0A9

OA10

V OA11 OA12

0 18000

18250

18500

18750

19000

19250

max engine speed (rpm)

Volumetric efficiency cyl. to cyl. FO4 vs. F01

100%

95%

90%

FO1 FO4

85%

80%
13500 14500 15500 16500 17500 18500 19500

Engine Speed (rpm)

Analysis
Correlation between performance at high revs and number of consecutive firing neighbors on 1 bank (free acoustic couplings). For example, FO9 (1-3-5-2-4) is the worst whereas the ideal one is FO4 (1-2-3-4-5).
High revs power = f(firing order)
1 0 1 Nr of successive firing neighbours 2 Power category 3 4 5 19000 rpm power category 6 7 8 number of successive firing neighbours on a bank 0 1 2 3 2 3 4 5 Firing order number 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 4

Analysis
Nevertheless, the correlation is not perfect: free acoustic couplings between ports do not explain all! For example, firing order N12 (1-43-2-5) and N1 (1-2-4-5-3) have very different performance whereas they both have 2 consecutive firing neighbors. This is due to other acoustic couplings between ports and plenum.

Analysis
Coupled Star-CD / GT-Power simulation allows to confirm that a port can help the volumetric efficiency of his neighbor when the later fires next

Conclusion
The simulations were confirmed on the dyno, with a good power and performance index improvement. Therefore, despite increased external vibrations, Firing Order N4 was adopted on the RS25, which was a little step (among many others) towards the world championship

Thank you for your attention

Pierre-Jean Tardy