WHY THE F1 PISTON COSTS £50,000!
This single f1 piston costs 50 000pounds and for good reason, it has to withstand over 200g when moving up and down in the engine at over 80 miles an hour f1 engines cos over 7 million pounds each and each of these pistons are one of the keys components that help them produce over 1 000 horsepower but why does it cost1 000 times more than the piston out of your road car turns out there are many very good reasons for insane costs if you're into f1 then you'll know that you can't start an f1 engine like you can with a normal roadworthy incredible tolerances mean the pistons are seized in the cylinders until the car is warmed up so the engineers have to take at least 30minutes to warm the coolant and the oil before they can start the engine a big thanks to fuel fans for so how come you don't need to do this in your road car as we know engines create power by burning fuel and oxygen.
the cylinders, this action releases a lot of heat and causes the gas in the cylinder to rapidly expand the piston is forced downwards pushing the conrod which turns the crank and ultimately powers your car to allow the pistons to move you need a gap between them and the cylinder however if that gap is too big it would allow a lot of gas to slip past the edges resulting in a loss of pressure and much fewer power pistons have rings that sit in these grooves they seal the gap between the piston and the cylinder and maintain the pressure needed to create so much power they also ensure that minimal oil from the underside of the piston can get into the combustion chamber and be burnt away if it's too big you produce less power the engine will wear very fast and can have a whole range of problems if it's too small the engine can cease so this is where the engine designers come.
I they specify the size of the gap and then set the tolerances on all of these parts if you produce apart, in reality, it will never be made to the exact sizing as designed it will be somewhere above or below the designer's dimensions this is because tools and machines are never perfect so the designers define a tolerance this is how big or small the part can be and still, be acceptable so let's say this piston is 40 millimetres tall but may have a tolerance of plus or minus0.1 of a millimetre meaning that if it'sabove40.1 mil or below 39.9 milit can't be used the same goes for every another dimension of this part will interact with loads of other parts if it were even slightly too big or small it could cause serious issues this is especially important in something like a piston gap between the piston and the cylinder in an f1 engine as little as 0.15 millimetresso the gap is only slightly wider than the width of a human hair the tolerances on the diameter of this piston and the cylinder will be as little as 0.01of a millimetre.
This means the engineers can be sure these parts will fit perfectly together and work correctly every time however there is more to it than that thing expand when they get hot so allof this will change when the engine gets up to temperature and due to the various different materials and the varying sizes of the component they all expand at a different rate in a normal road car needs to be able to start from a wide range of temperatures the engineer's design in large clearance between the piston and the cylinders this means that the pistons can work effectively from cold and when at normal operating temperatures but anf1 engine is all about maximum power and efficiency so the designers use a much smaller clearance they design the components so that there is a perfect gap only when running at normal temperatures this is why the engine block sizes when it's cold the cylinder block expands more than the cylinders and they free up when the engine is warm hence explaining why the teams pump in warm coolant and oil for about 30 minute before the starter is used to fire up the engines it's safe to say these pistons are best with a snug fit and the perfect temperature if you want a snug fit and the perfect temperature with your f1merchandiseat.
Don't expandevenly some areas have thick materialand expandmore so the pistons are designed to beslightly oval-shapedso that when they heat up they becomeroundas with any component of an f1 car itneeds to be as light as possiblebut inside an engine weight is even moreimportantthe pistons in an f1 car changedirection over 300 times a secondand each of these times the piston isdragged from a standstillat the top of the cylinder to over 85miles an hourand immediately back to a standstillagain all in just a few centimetres oftravelthe g-force at either end of the strokecan reach over 200 gmeaning that a 300-gram pistoneffectively weighs600 kilograms which is not much lessthen the weight of the entire f1 carso every gram that can be shaved offmakes a massive differencethe more weight that's rotating in theengine the slower it climbs through therevs and the longer the response time tothe driver's inputsthey can shave off weight byremoving a lot of the metal inside thepistonthe top face can be as thin as fivemillimetres and much of the square areais removedleaving only the essential metalremaining they also need to be extremelystrong but probably not for the reasonsyou'd expect if you were to guess you'dprobably expect the forces on the pistonto be highestjust after the ignition of the fuel justafter the bankwhen the pressure in the cylinder is thehighest well you're nearly right theforcesafter the combustion are huge butthey're actually higher at another pointin thecycle so you know the cycle the pistonis forced down by the rapid expansion ofthe gasesit reaches the bottom of the stroke andthen moves back up to the topagain here the piston wants to flystraight out the topof the engine and the connecting rod isdragging it back downthe piston actually has to be strongenough to withstand its own weightthe massive acceleration actuallystretches and deforms the metalthe piston actually tries to pull itselfapartif the material is not strong enough itcould fail and destroy the enginef1 engines use an aluminium alloy forthis as it's strong enough and muchlighter than steel different f1 enginemanufacturers use different methods tomake the pistonsso machine them directly from a billetof aluminium and someforge it first forging is where they geta billet of aluminium heat it up andpound it into shape atunbelievable pressures the pistons areforged slightly oversized and themachined down to exact dimensions forged pistons can be stronger than billet pistons but can be trickier to create accurate parts and can weigh more both methods are much much stronger than cast pistons in a normal road car where the metal is melted and poured into a mould however, casting is much cheaper which is why you can get a replacement piston for your road car for as little as 50 pounds so as not too forget each piston has thousands of dollars of materials used tens of hours of machining and forging time already put into them the pistons along with other engine components are then measured by a cmm machine these measure the parts to within 100 nanometers this is about 1000 times thinner than the width of a human hair then if one of the hundreds of measurements are higher or lower than needed it's melted down and started again the component manufacturers will also x-ray the piston to check for cracks and other imperfections all of this ensures that all of the pistons produce reach high quality standards necessary and work effectively at 15 000 rpm these factors are why they cost so much the time of the genius engineers days of skilled machinist time specialist equipment and extremely expensive materials a huge amount goes into creating each of the components in an engine that can create over 1 000 horsepower road car pistons can be made of cheaper materials and use faster processors meaning they can make them 1 000 times cheaper than f1 teams can if you enjoyed this check out this other video which I think you'll love Click here and I'll see you in the next one if you've watched a couple of our videos why not subscribe to drive61 and help support the channel Cheers and I'll see you next time
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