Interesting Cosworth Formula One head design

[BigMuz]

Desmodromic?

[Billzilla]

Desmodromic?

Ducati already have desmo valve gear.
The only odd valve actuation I know about that Ferrari were mucking around with was the ballistic valve gear, I don't think they persisted with it too long as it's really hard to control the valves.

[Rdyno]

hi guys i dont think th op pic has much to do with valves but rather port flow

[BigMuz]

Cheers.

[gmh265]

hi guys i dont think th op pic has much to do with valves but rather port flow

Since 1999, Cosworth has used a ‘beam head’ design on its F1 engines. This concentrates metal in a tall, slim beam projecting up from the head along its entire length. The advantage is it gives the engine the maximum structural strength as a chassis component in the car with the minimum amount of material. It was an effective way of retaining stiffness, while lowering the overall weight and the centre of gravity of the engine. When introduced, Cosworth was able to boast having shaved 30kg off the weight of the whole engine, making it probably the lightest in F1 at the time. This design dictated much of the rest of the cylinder head, the camshafts being bolted each side of the beam and enclosed with carbon fibre cam covers.

[Momus]

Cosworth went away from the beam head when centre of gravity height rules were introduced in F1- their head was light enough to lower the overall cog more than allowed.
That design was the first layout to see over 20000 rpm as well.

Apparently the difficulties in sealing the cam covers was considerable. I think both Jaguars caught fire on the grid at the AGP 10 years or so back due to oil leakage there.

[MickyD]

http://f1tcdn.net/files/2011/bmw-f1-engines-200x.pdf

BMW paper on their F1 engine development