(engine revving)
- Cosworth, the company behind many kick-ass cars
like the Ford Sierra Cosworth,
the Audi RS4
and too many Formula One wins to count.
They're engine builders that have a knack
for taking fun cars and turning them
into insane performance beasts.
They have a brand that thrives off
of making unusual engines work
and have been playing the game for many years.
The name of that game,
innovation.
A while back, Aston Martin announced a new hypercar,
the Valkyrie,
this ultra car uses a 6.5 liter 12 cylinder engine
built by Cosworth.
The naturally aspirated V12 has 1000 horsepower
and hits a maximum of 11,000 RPM,
making it the most powerful naturally aspirated engine ever.
The car has some absurd numbers for sure
but the craziest part, while designing the Valkyrie's V12,
Cosworth accidentally made the best
three cylinder engine ever,
using ideas that came from the 60s.
(engine revving)
How was Cosworth able to build such a crazy engine?
How do they use old school ideas on new technology?
How do they accidentally build
the most reliable three-cylinder ever?
Well, I'll tell you.
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Now let's get back to 'Wheelhouse'.
Cosworth is fascinating to me
because of their unique methodology
when it comes to engine building.
And to get a clear picture of what I mean,
we need to look at Cosworth's most important invention.
Their double four valve or DFV engine.
We did a whole up to speed on Cosworth
which explained how the company was started
and touched on this engine.
But here's the short version.
Back in the late 1950s
when everything was still in black and white
Keith Duckworth was a young guy
who got a job working for race car builder, Lotus.
At the time, Lotus was building cars
specifically to enter into Formula One.
With Duckworth as the newest employee,
he was assigned to the hardest job,
fixing one of Lotus's notoriously unreliable transmissions.
The issue was that like every job
that requires you to think outside the box,
every single solution Duckworth offered to his boss
was deemed either too expensive or not worth the resources
but Duckworth still tried his best.
Duckworth became buddies with one Mike Costin,
a coworker at Lotus,
and the two eventually left
to form their own engine building company Cosworth.
Get it? Costin, Duckworth, Cosworth.
It's a bit better than Worthcos, that would've been weird.
It was a match made in race car heaven.
And lucky for them, Lotus actually hired Cosworth
to tune their engines almost instantly.
It's like if you dropped out of school
because you're a failing math
and then your school hired you to teach math for them.
The Cosworth-Lotus relationship
eventually culminated in the greatest Formula One engine
of all time, the DFV.
Lotus convinced Ford to give them £100,000
to fund the Cosworth-Lotus production
of a four cylinder engine for Formula Two
and a V8 for Formula One.
Cosworth devoted all of its resources
over an 18 month period to build these engines.
Early on, Cosworth realized they could kill two birds
with one stone.
When you think about it,
a V8 is basically two inline four engines
with a common crank.
So instead of building two separate engines,
they first built a really solid inline four
and then turned it into a bigger V8.
Keep in mind, engine production involves a lot of tweaking
and working to make sure the block combusts the fuel
perfectly.
By using the same base for both engines
they could test the larger V8 using the smaller inline four.
(upbeat music)
Cosworth engines became the gold standard in Formula One,
Formula Two, Indycar and many other types of motor sport
and made Cosworth a well-known company.
This company started in a freaking barn
and a few years later they were dominating racing.
Talk about an underdog story.
They were competing against companies like Ferrari,
Maserati and Honda.
The way they were able to come out on top
of their competition was their focus on high revving,
efficient engine design. (engine revving)
The DFV and subsequent engines
had set a high watermark for Cosworth.
They knew this kind of design process
was the key to success.
Instead of designing engines entirely from the ground up
it is usually easier and cheaper
to take existing modular technology and modify it.
Cosworth's expedited workflow
meant they can produce performance engines
for large OEMs with ease.
For example, in the early 1970s,
Chevrolet had a car called the Vega.
The Vega is like the peak boring Malaise era compact car.
The decision to give the Vega a performance model
came from a man by the name of John DeLorean.
Long before he was producing stainless steel
Goldwing dreamboats in Ireland,
DeLorean was General Motors' general manager
and vice president.
DeLorean sent engine designers to England
to find new and exciting ways
to improve the Vegas performance
in light of the 1973 gas crisis.
New and exciting is Cosworth thing,
so it seemed natural to the team in England
would help Chevy do something cool.
The Cosi Vega was designed at the twilight
of the muscle car craze.
While everyone else was trying in vain to find speed
and hamstrung big block V8,
Cosworth gave the Chevy a European touch
and filled out the engine bay with a four cylinder.
This car had double overhead cams and fuel injection
which made it stand way out
when compared to some of the barges of the smog era.
This was one of the ways Cosworth
completely innovated performance car culture.
(upbeat music)
A few years ago, Nissan approached Cosworth
and asked them to build them a V6 engine
for their GTR LM Nismo racecar.
Nissan wanted to do something new
with this Le Mans competitor.
And when you want to try something new, where do you go?
You go to Cosworth.
Well, most of Le Mans prototype cars
have engines mounted behind the driver,
Nissan wanted to try a front engine design
to drastically improve aerodynamics.
Cosworth didn't have time to build several different V6s
to test combustion ratios and emissions and all that.
So the idea they came up with
was to start with engines designed to be tested, or mules,
to study combustion characteristics on a smaller scale
before going through the trouble to make a large V6.
The engineers started by taking
one of their four cylinder engines,
cutting off one of the cylinders
and creating a three cylinder engine.
With a small three cylinder to study,
they could refine what they needed to
before they built the real engine for Nissan.
This three cylinder took just five months
to go from idea to testing on the dyno
to soon after its design was adapted into a powerful V6
for the rather ugly looking Nismo.
I love ugly cars, so I can say that.
It's a lot like the original DFV and FBA engines
of the 1960s,
the same engineering properties apply.
Now, let's talk about supercars.
The same mule idea used on a Nissan V6
would be used to create the Aston Martin Valkyrie V12.
Aston Martin asked Cosworth to build them a powerful V12
and Cosworth knew two things,
one, they weren't going to put turbos on it.
And two, before they went ahead
and built the gigantic 12 cylinder engine,
they were going to build a small three cylinder engine
to test out how it would perform.
It's especially important
to do this sort of development work for road cars.
To meet emissions regulations,
you need to be precise about when the engine combusts.
With a three cylinder,
Cosworth can ensure that fuel and air is combusting
exactly when it should.
They can mess with things and hit targets
without going to the trouble of building a large
and expensive V12.
Once the three cylinder achieves the desired numbers
you can make a V12
and have a very good idea of how it'll perform.
Now, the Valkyrie's engine is just amazing.
I mean really, but the engine Cosworth made to test it out
is coincidentally maybe one of the best ever built.
And I mean ever.
I mean, think about it,
there's a reason Hondas are so reliable and high revving
with their four cylinder engines.
A three cylinder made to test the power going into a V12
is a recipe for performance heaven.
But here's the sad part of the episode.
Cosworth has no plans to sell this three cylinder mule
as its own engine.
It was designed to test combustion
for large supercar engines but think about it,
if Cosworth was going to pull a 90s Cosworth
and take a hot hatch, like the Ford Fiesta,
slapped their accidental three cylinder into it,
it would be amazing.
It'd be like the Fiesta ST already is super fun,
but with this ripper in there
it'd be high revving and a blast to drive.
Hot hatches especially in the US are kind of a dying breed.
Cosworth already has this engine made.
All they need to do is market this as Cosworth built
and mentioned the engine as part of Aston Martin
and they'll sell like hotcakes
or other things that sell very well.
While Cosworth has innovated
and created a lot of engines in their time.
It's interesting to think what would come
if this mule engine set out on its own.
Also, what other engines can you think of
that were created to be thrown away
just for testing purposes?
Very strange, but cool.
Strangely enough, the Aston Martin Valkyrie
is not the only insane V12 powered car
Cosworth has been working on lately.
Former Formula One design guide, Gordon Murray,
has been putting together his own beast of a vehicle
called the T50.
Murray, seeing the work Cosworth did for Aston Martin
and along with the years of sweet engines,
said I'll have what they're having mate.
While the Valkyrie is a six liter V12
his T50 uses a 3.9 liter V12, a smaller displacement,
that means higher revs.
The engine is capable of doing over 12,000 RPM
and just like last time,
a mule was used to perfect this engine.
I can't wait to see this thing on track.
Murray recently posted a teaser of them testing the T50,
just kind of like putting around
on the old top of your test track,
that thing, going to be a ripper for sure.
Once again, Cosworth had to build something
capable of insane numbers that was only made
so they can make an even bigger
and more insane version of it.
That's like a nesting doll of HRSPRS.
Most people talk about Cosworth as a joint venture
between two successful Lotus alum,
but it's actually a lot more than that.
It was the inception of a new way of thinking.
It was the origin of one of the most efficient F1 engines
ever built.
The engineers at Cosworth are some pretty cool people
who take chances that usually pay off
and their ideas are still shaping engine design
to this very day.
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Thank you very much for watching "Wheelhouse".
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Let me know in the comments
what your favorite Cosworth car is.
Dude, those Vega Cosworths are pretty sick.
Just because an engine makes more power
doesn't make it more reliable
for those about to talk about another three cylinder engine
that makes a lot more power.
Checkmate, already got you.
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See you next time.