Comments on: Databytes: Why the ECU cannot do the job of a F1 fuel flow meter

By: midwest

midwest — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 02:39:26 +0000

Racing government bodies need to begin at looking at managing emissions rather than fuel consumption.

By: davegt27

davegt27 — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 06:12:34 +0000

Why the ECU cannot do the job of a F1 fuel flow meter

next your going to tell us Jet engines cant have electronic fuel control

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 12 Apr 2014 04:00:05 +0000

If I understand the way the Red Bull team used the ECU as a backup to the fuel flow sensor correctly, then the team used an engine map approved by the FIA to function within the regulations. Not knowing the specifics its hard to say if the FIA would homologate only a single engine map or several for a team, or how much an FIA homologated engine map would hurt or help engine performance.

If the FIA did simply accept values from the ECU then teams would quickly look to fudge the numbers in the ECU to favor more HP; reminds me of the days of butterfly air flow sensors that could be modified fairly easily to trick the ECU into running a richer mixture. F1 would obviously be a bit more sophisticated about it but the idea is the same, trick the ECU and tune the car mechanically.

Seeing that some teams are having more trouble then others makes me wonder about mounting and how sensitive these ultrasonic sensors are to external vibrations.

By: Kyle Jeffries

Kyle Jeffries — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 20:15:08 +0000

While everything written here is true, this is still the “backup plan” for when the sensor fails. If it is good enough as a backup, why isnt it good enough for the regulations? If an underdeveloped and unreliable sensor is the only method currently good enough for the regulations why then, arent teams required to run multiple sensors as in the WEC?