DISCUSSION CLOSED: Require a solid throttle cable

[JSG1901]

Type

Proposal for a new rule

 

Existing rule section (if applicable)

This could go either way, modify or new...

 

Mandate a solid throttle body cable making all throttle by wire illegal!

 

Proposed change

Mandating a solid throttle cable for all GTS race classes.

 

Reason

As stated in the dyno declaration form...

 

Location and nature of the throttle stop, including means of adjustment

 

and

 

Settings used for this dyno run and how to verify at the track

 

All forms of professional racing already have this in place as it levels the field by removing one more way of cheating. Certain models such as the e46 m3 utilize the throttle bodies to govern the power out put. Which is impossible for any one to check at track or impound for that matter. It is too easy to utilize a factory placed "sport" button to run the car with increased throttle percentages thus making more power.

 

There will be the debate that certain front runners will threaten to stop racing, in response to that. How many more people will enter knowing there is an opportunity for decent finishes. This is aimed at increasing competition and increasing entries. With that also increasing higher potentials for contingency sponsorships.

 

Proposed new wording

No throttle by wire, if power needs to be decreased to meet class requirements a mechanical throttle stop or restrictor must be used.

[Alan_Wolfe]

Not Sure!

 

I've just about got my 2003 MINI ready for GTS and this would add additional time and expense. I'm assuming this conversion can readily be accomplished.

 

I understand something needs to be done if cheating is going on, but damn!

[thehounder]

Couldn't you just require dyno runs with sport and sport-off modes?

[Eric W.]

Sport mode doesnt add horsepower. FYI.

[abad46]

Sport mode doesnt add horsepower. FYI.

 

As intended from the factory.. True.

[gjkasten]

I will admit not having all of the technical knowledge on this topic, but I am looking at going from TT to GTS in the next year or so with a 2006 Cooper S that is throttle by wire.

 

Is it even possible to make this type of conversion? If it is, that sounds on the surface like a very expensive change to make.

 

I would vote down on this. There has to be a better way to control this problem.

[irarosner]

I think this proposal that would require significant modifications to many modern cars This does not affect my car in the slightest, but strikes me as a huge imposition on those who have such cars. I suspect that the required changes would be extensive and raise a safety issue by requiring the fabrication of a mechanical linkage that would be unknown in its engineering, quality and reliability. One only needs to review the unintended acceleration issues that plagued major manufacturers such as Toyota to realize the hidden complexity of these systems. Moreover, I would suspect that removing an e-throttle could have unanticipated effects on the engine management system.

[KTL]

"Sport" mode isn't the impetus behind the proposed rule change and you guys know it...... Anybody who's had their modern engine tuned, knows there is a considerable benefit from doing it. Add to that secretive ways of switching their maps or rev limits undetectably (to the eye and the dyno) there's no way of catching them.

 

Despite what I say above, I still vote NO. Not keen on the idea of people having to figure out how to make their car run w/mechanical throttle. ALMS cost of admission says to me sky is the limit to make those changes. Not in GTS.

[MPower6er]

Agree with K. Lehman.

[minibeast]

Against

I understand the reasoning. But until there is a cost effective way to make the change I believe you will lose more than you gain.

Mark Bivings - Florida

GTS3

[Luke P.]

This isn't the problem we're after guys, but it's in the right direction. There is potential for people to be running tricks they are unaware of.

 

Edited to backpedal a bit

Edited October 14, 2013 by Guest

[Greg Smith]

A lot of people running these tricks don't even know they're doing it...

Can you expand on this? Has there even been a documented case of 'cheating on track but not on the dyno'?

[Luke P.]

A lot of people running these tricks don't even know they're doing it...

Can you expand on this? Has there even been a documented case of 'cheating on track but not on the dyno'?

 

Sorry, didn't mean to make a false accusation. I guess a better wording would have been that there is potential for people to be running tricks they are unaware of.

[gobuffs]

So you are wanting to make GTS racing have technology that stops in the late 90s? Yeah you can fit a throttle cable to an S54, but you can't on the newer motors.

[UKRBMW]

Against.

 

While I appreciate GTS3 being dominated by E46M3s because of detune, etc - same can be done but apparently have not yet on P-cars. I'm pretty sure all the latest ones are throttle by wire as well. I'm sure in no time a Randy M for Porsches will be in business and this will be a non issue.

[zabuomar]

Against: adding a throttle cable that would de-modernize newer gts cars and incur a financial cost to the team/owner

 

For: a rule preventing the potential of drivers running various maps on their engine tune whether aware of it or not.

[scottbm3]

Cars/motors after 2001 are TBW including all the Cup cars that are now running in GTS. Forcing guys to try and convert or spend the extra money to convert and then have to completely re-tune their cars is counter productive to our series. Also the S54 running on a stock ECU cannot be properly restricted by just using something to restrict air intake that's not how Siemens MSS54 ECU works.

 

 

 

-Scott B.

[zabuomar]

Against: adding a throttle cable, which in effect would de-modernize newer GTS cars and incur a financial cost to the team or owner

 

For: a change to the rule book in regards to running switchable tunes (whether the driver is aware of them or not)

[autodoctor911]

I agree with the intentions of this proposal, but not only would it make compliance expensive, and even impossible for some cars, it still would not eliminate the problem. There are many ways to back out power with the software, not just the throttle. Other ways I can think of right now are adding fuel, retarding ignition, eliminating camshaft adjustment, or even lowering rev limit.

 

I think the engines that have been "detuned" to provide a flat horsepower output across the usable rev range have more than enough advantage over an engine that is using it's normal power curve that is not always at peak power even without cheating . If you make 300hp from 4500 to 9000 RPM, you could out accelerate a car with 320HP at 8500RPM naturally, and only 250 or so at 4500RPM. I know that the people already doing this are going to say, it's only a matter of time before the Porsche guys are doing it too. Are we going to relegate all older cars to the middle of the pack, or further back. I nthink the original intent of the Horsepower to weight ratio rule was not to build an engine with a lot more power and tune it down to an unnatural state. It was to limit the amount of effort and money spent making horsepower in the first place. Now we have to spend a bunch of money and time making more horsepower than needed, then even more money trying to get it detuned to have an artificially flat horsepower graph.

 

If you could implement the Black boxes with either GPS or accelerometer recordings, it would provide a means for catching anyone cheating and making more horsepower than their dyno sheet says.

 

If someone could write a good little software program to interpret the data, and calculate the average horsepower output while on the track(at full throttle, which may require an extra input, and an extra sensor for some cars).

 

This could even be a way to regulate weight to horsepower in a more fair way, that eliminates the advantages of tuning an engine to have an unusually flat horsepower curve, or any disputes about cars with more torque than horsepower, etc.

 

If everyone is regulated to a precise average acceleration rate in M/s^2 that corresponds to the horsepower to weight ratio for the class, cheating would be pretty much eliminated, and everyone would have the same engine/drivetrain performance in each class.

 

There would still be some cars that accelerate better coming out of the turns ,and some that accelerate better near redline, but their average acceleration would be the same, and thus competitiveness would be concentrated on other areas of car construction, and driver skill, as the class is intended, not ways to cheat, or how to get an engine tuned for the rules.

[Rokket H.]

Against..I have a cable, but it would be a serious hardship for racers (or prospects) to perform this revision. If I had a throttle by wire car & it was illegal, I would run with a different group

[jvanhouten]

Against.

 

All German cars since 2001 are DBW and while the S54 has conversion kits available, many others do not. Why make the backward step in technology to aid those cars that are 13+ years old as of next season?

 

While there is the issue of "easy" cheating with DBW, there are a multitude of other ways cheating can occur with today's sophisticated electronics. If you are specifically concerned with throttle open angle and RPM limits, it's easy enough to track those parameters. Every DBW car will have a throttle sensor you can piggyback on the output of and you can get RPM off a coil. There's the issue with calibration, compliance, etc., but if you are already going down the path of black boxes, it's not that big an add. Certainly easier than trying to add throttle cables to cars that don't have them.

[hamflex]

I agree with the intentions of this proposal, but not only would it make compliance expensive, and even impossible for some cars, it still would not eliminate the problem. There are many ways to back out power with the software, not just the throttle. Other ways I can think of right now are adding fuel, retarding ignition, eliminating camshaft adjustment, or even lowering rev limit.

 

I think the engines that have been "detuned" to provide a flat horsepower output across the usable rev range have more than enough advantage over an engine that is using it's normal power curve that is not always at peak power even without cheating . If you make 300hp from 4500 to 9000 RPM, you could out accelerate a car with 320HP at 8500RPM naturally, and only 250 or so at 4500RPM. I know that the people already doing this are going to say, it's only a matter of time before the Porsche guys are doing it too. Are we going to relegate all older cars to the middle of the pack, or further back. I nthink the original intent of the Horsepower to weight ratio rule was not to build an engine with a lot more power and tune it down to an unnatural state. It was to limit the amount of effort and money spent making horsepower in the first place. Now we have to spend a bunch of money and time making more horsepower than needed, then even more money trying to get it detuned to have an artificially flat horsepower graph.

 

If you could implement the Black boxes with either GPS or accelerometer recordings, it would provide a means for catching anyone cheating and making more horsepower than their dyno sheet says.

 

If someone could write a good little software program to interpret the data, and calculate the average horsepower output while on the track(at full throttle, which may require an extra input, and an extra sensor for some cars).

 

This could even be a way to regulate weight to horsepower in a more fair way, that eliminates the advantages of tuning an engine to have an unusually flat horsepower curve, or any disputes about cars with more torque than horsepower, etc.

 

If everyone is regulated to a precise average acceleration rate in M/s^2 that corresponds to the horsepower to weight ratio for the class, cheating would be pretty much eliminated, and everyone would have the same engine/drivetrain performance in each class.

 

There would still be some cars that accelerate better coming out of the turns ,and some that accelerate better near redline, but their average acceleration would be the same, and thus competitiveness would be concentrated on other areas of car construction, and driver skill, as the class is intended, not ways to cheat, or how to get an engine tuned for the rules.

 

 

I agree 100% perhaps this Idea is too radical but its the proposal of such rules that will start the debate that something should be done. Its just a funny sight watching gts3 cars pull gts4 cars down the straights....

[bmwjoon]

Against.

 

Basically every car with a motor less than 10 years old will need to be custom tuned to run the cable.

 

That being said the GTS rules are based around peak HP so yes, a car in a lower class could pull your car, cable or not.

 

If you're going to ban TBW then you might as well ban turbo cars too.

[tcdesign]

So how do you know what power level the GTS-4 was at? There is a lot more to "pulling cars down straights" then just HP. What tires were both cars on, slicks, widths? What was the exit speed? What was the gearing between the two cars? What aero devices are on each car? This rule proposal is a knee jerk reaction to a problem that they really don't know much about.

 

 

 

-tony

 

I agree with the intentions of this proposal, but not only would it make compliance expensive, and even impossible for some cars, it still would not eliminate the problem. There are many ways to back out power with the software, not just the throttle. Other ways I can think of right now are adding fuel, retarding ignition, eliminating camshaft adjustment, or even lowering rev limit.

 

I think the engines that have been "detuned" to provide a flat horsepower output across the usable rev range have more than enough advantage over an engine that is using it's normal power curve that is not always at peak power even without cheating . If you make 300hp from 4500 to 9000 RPM, you could out accelerate a car with 320HP at 8500RPM naturally, and only 250 or so at 4500RPM. I know that the people already doing this are going to say, it's only a matter of time before the Porsche guys are doing it too. Are we going to relegate all older cars to the middle of the pack, or further back. I nthink the original intent of the Horsepower to weight ratio rule was not to build an engine with a lot more power and tune it down to an unnatural state. It was to limit the amount of effort and money spent making horsepower in the first place. Now we have to spend a bunch of money and time making more horsepower than needed, then even more money trying to get it detuned to have an artificially flat horsepower graph.

 

If you could implement the Black boxes with either GPS or accelerometer recordings, it would provide a means for catching anyone cheating and making more horsepower than their dyno sheet says.

 

If someone could write a good little software program to interpret the data, and calculate the average horsepower output while on the track(at full throttle, which may require an extra input, and an extra sensor for some cars).

 

This could even be a way to regulate weight to horsepower in a more fair way, that eliminates the advantages of tuning an engine to have an unusually flat horsepower curve, or any disputes about cars with more torque than horsepower, etc.

 

If everyone is regulated to a precise average acceleration rate in M/s^2 that corresponds to the horsepower to weight ratio for the class, cheating would be pretty much eliminated, and everyone would have the same engine/drivetrain performance in each class.

 

There would still be some cars that accelerate better coming out of the turns ,and some that accelerate better near redline, but their average acceleration would be the same, and thus competitiveness would be concentrated on other areas of car construction, and driver skill, as the class is intended, not ways to cheat, or how to get an engine tuned for the rules.

 

 

I agree 100% perhaps this Idea is too radical but its the proposal of such rules that will start the debate that something should be done. Its just a funny sight watching gts3 cars pull gts4 cars down the straights....

[tcdesign]

Against!

 

We do have a DBW throttle system, we don't use it to control our detune.

 

-tony