147: Inside the Art of Bespoke Engine Building
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There are also a lot of people now that are coming back to the
natural aspirated with very high revving, with very good noise,
with very good power delivery, beautiful to drive,
not just to destroy the new world record in the speed
or in the 0 to 300 kilometers, you know.
Welcome to the HPA Tune In podcast, I'm Andre, your host and in this episode
we're joined by Ricardo from Etel Technica from, you guessed it, Italy.
Etel Technica is a company that is involved in the design and manufacturing of bespoke engines.
They're a very low production rate engine supplier and this is quite rare,
it's not that often that we get to talk to someone that's this involved in the design
process of bespoke engines.
So we decided to take this opportunity to leverage some of Ricardo's knowledge and see
what we could take away from this that we as mere enthusiasts can then apply to the
modification of existing OE production engines, which is what we tend to do.
In this episode we find out about Ricardo's background and how he actually got involved
in engine design in the first place, let's be honest, it's not exactly an easy career
to get into.
We then talk about some of the aspects of engine design that I know there's always a lot of
controversy around and a lot of misunderstanding, for example compression ratio, how important
is it and how do we balance the compression ratio of our engine versus the knock sensitivity.
Let's talk about rod to stroke ratio, which again is a very misunderstood term I believe.
Talk about rod to stroke ratio and its importance and when we should, if ever, be looking to
try and optimise or modify that.
Likewise bearing clearances, again there's a lot of argument and debate about what we
should be doing with bearing clearances and admittedly when we're looking at a bespoke
designed engine for a particular purpose, the bearing clearances for that application
may be a little bit different to what we need when we take a stock engine that makes 300
horsepower and revs to 7000 RPM and now we want to make 1000 horsepower and rev it to
11000 RPM.
Regardless, we talked to Ricardo about the ins and outs and what we need to know.
We also talk about cylinder head design because really this is where the airflow in and out
of the engine comes from and optimising this is where the engine's power comes from.
There's a lot to understand, we talk about valve actuation styles and the pros and cons
of each.
We also talk about the consideration for road legal engines of emissions and how that's
likely to impact the power production of the engine.
So there's a lot packed into this particular episode.
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Alright, enough with our introduction, let's get into our interview now.
Alright, thanks for joining us today Ricardo.
And as always, let's start by finding out a little bit about your background and specifically
how you got involved in engine development and interest for cars in general.
Yes, let's say that I started doing the mechanical, let's say training.
So school, high school, I was in the scientific lithium, so in the technological department of studies.
But actually, I was not born here in Turin, in Piedmont.
I was born near Venice.
And then I have to choose the university and I was about to choosing the Padua University,
which is quite near me, my home, which is where all the guys go because it's a big university,
also quite important.
But then I saw that there was in Turin, the automotive university, automotive engineering.
And then I got interested in that and I said, why not?
Why just don't go there and see if I am also interested in cars and engines and all this kind of stuff.
So hold on, hold on, hold on. You chose this automotive university, automotive based university,
and then developed an interest in cars and engines that didn't sort of go the other way around?
Yeah, it went more or less like this, yes.
I mean, not that I was not involved in nothing, but I was more involved in physics, mechanics,
but more in a general way. Then I found like an application of this in cars and engines.
Okay, interesting. Yeah, I would not have picked that.
All right, so at the time you decided to go to this university,
what did you sort of have in mind as your career trajectory?
What did you sort of think you were going to come out of this university and end up doing?
Obviously, where I'm going with this is obviously automotive in general is a very broad range of topics
that you could be involved in.
Yes, yes, that's what you think when you go to the university.
It's so wide the ambient you are looking at that it's very difficult to say,
okay, I will be in that specific branch and that specific topic,
especially in automotive where you have a variety of things you can do completely different.
You can do engines in the mechanical way, you can do engines in the electronic way,
you can do vehicle construction, you can do race track engineer, you can do basically everything.
You can do salesmen for automotive companies.
I have some friends that did that, but I was more focused on the mechanical parts and on the engines part
because they represent the truly engineering I think in the car, so I went for that.
Could you give us a sense of some of the topics that you were covering in this degree?
Yes, but first in the first three years it was like mechanical engineering, so general mechanical stuff.
And then in the specialist degree it was more like on the engine, so it was engine design, it was combustion systems,
it was everything related to components design and also manufacture and emissions.
On the last years it was emission courses which are very important, very relevant for the world we live in today.
Definitely, becoming increasingly important.
Also when I did it like five years ago there was already something for hybridization and electric motors
which I know now that took the major part of the courses, the electrical part of the car.
Okay, once you graduated what sort of work career looked like?
Have you had other positions before getting employed by Otel Technica?
Well, no, I didn't have any working positions for company.
I worked one year let's say for the Politecnico, so for the university itself as let's say a researcher
in a project that was the continuation of the thesis project and I went on with that project for one year.
In this project we were collaborating with Otel Technica, so I knew them on doing that project.
And then I asked them if I could enter, they asked me if I could join them, so it was like...
Match mode in heaven.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, let's talk about Otel Technica in a little bit more detail.
Can you give us a bit of an understanding of the business?
So let's start with maybe a brief history, where did this business come from?
Yes, it came from the owner, Mario Cavaniero, building his own company
because he was working on another company before as the chief of the workshop in Conrero
which was a very known Opel racing car developer for Opel,
and he started his own company in 1985, Ital Technica,
and he started collaborating with Peugeot Sport for the rally cars.
And so this collaboration, it was the end of the 80s, start of the 90s, the rally was going very good
and Peugeot Sport was going very good, so the business grew quite fast.
But then the rally suddenly, let's say, dropped a lot in the end of the 90s,
and so Mario had to change a bit its strategy.
At this time for Peugeot, was this about engine development for Peugeot Sport for the rally program?
It was not really engine development, it was more like vehicle construction and setup for the racing
because everything was given by Peugeot,
and I'm not sure if here we made some modifications on something, on some components,
but it was more about following the cars on the racing and setting up the cars for the racing.
And then it started the collaboration with Ferrari Maserati, especially with Maserati Corsa,
with which they developed the Maserati MC12, the iconic racing car with V12 naturally aspirated.
It was co-developed here in Ital Technica on our test bench with Maserati Corsa that was designing the engine,
but we were helping them in optimizing it.
And then we started a collaboration, a very big collaboration with General Motors in the early 2000
because they were doing diesel engine calibration and also testing of different components
like connecting rods, pistons, valves, valve trains, and they made us build seven test benches for them.
We were running 24 hours a day, and we still have seven test benches here.
Sounds like quite a lucrative contract.
Yeah, we were working 90% for General Motors.
And then it went on for 15 years, then in 2019 after the diesel gate made its effect of destroying a lot of things.
And here in Turing, General Motors had the division of diesel department from one day to another.
They say, oh, we don't do this anymore, and okay, you go on by yourself.
So business went from 100 to zero pretty much overnight?
Yeah, yeah.
And then there was the COVID, so from 2018 to 2020 it was very, very difficult years.
But in 2020, the good thing is that we started with the RESTMOD project, which is the Chimera EVO-37,
with which the company technical invented a bit its competencies.
Let's say we came back to the engine design.
And with the son of Mario Carlo, which is my colleague, is 32, I am 30, so we are quite the same age.
And he is embracing the all the activity.
I mean, Mario is still here and is still very, very strong.
But Carlo is taking the company, especially the engineering part.
And we are doing these RESTMOD projects.
And we started with the Chimera EVO-37 with the four-cylinder engine.
Now, people will be able to find some information about this EVO-37 on your website.
But can you give us a quick rundown on what this is for those who haven't studied the website just now?
Yeah, the EVO-37 basically is one of the first and I think the most successful RESTMOD project,
which means that you take one iconic car of the past.
In this case, the Lancia 037 Rally, Group B Rally car.
And you redesign it in a modern way.
So to have a modern engine, modern aesthetic and comforts.
And you put it on the market like that.
Of course, it's very expensive, it's a niche market car.
But it's an invention of the old icons that it's a bit of the lacking market that there is today.
So OEMs now don't put on the market this kind of cars.
And there are some companies like Chimera that started to fill this gap that was present.
In fact, a lot of companies now do that.
And we started with them with this car.
And yes, it has a four-cylinder reminding a lot like the original 037 car.
But this one is turbocharged plus supercharged.
The old 037 was just supercharged.
So this has more power.
Let's just talk about the engine for a moment.
This is kind of relevant to my interest as I actually currently have a Ford RS 200 Evolution sitting on my dyno.
And particularly here in New Zealand, you don't get to see Group B rally cars, never mind actually tuning them.
So that particular car is a four-cylinder turbocharged 2.1 litre.
And it's been actually resto modded essentially as well in that it's got a suite of modern electronics
being MoTeC ECU dash PDMs.
It's got a modern Garrett ball bearing turbocharger.
The engine itself however is still pretty well as it rolled off the production line.
And straight away just knowing what a Garrett G30 900 turbocharger is capable of doing
on an engine of circa 2.1 litre, you can tell that this cylinder head probably is not that efficient
given the amount of boost that I had to use to make 500 wheel horsepower.
So in taking a resto mod approach from a Group B car from the 80s, what do you change in the engine?
How do you design a better mousetrap essentially?
We change everything.
The engine was made from scratch on the new car.
At first we started on the first I think three engines by taking some original design castings.
I mean the casting was new but on the original design to maintain the, especially for the block,
to maintain the originality of the project.
But then it was very heavy, the block and it was quite difficult to adapt all the accessories
we had to adapt and all different layout that we had to comply with.
And so we went with remaking the block.
Of course the cylinder head is, aesthetically it's the same from outside
but inside is completely re-engineered so it's much more efficient.
Just in terms of the cylinder head, the way I sort of always consider an engine is
the block essentially is there to support the power.
It's basically just a big pump and realistically the amount of power that we can make
is going to be dictated by the airflow in and out of the cylinder head.
So what has changed I guess from the 80s and 90s to modern era
in terms of the approach to designing a cylinder head?
In other words, how are we making more power with a modern cylinder head design
and what did they get wrong back in the 80s?
Well I think back in the 80s, well things were much less efficient
let's say also turbochargers and all these machines.
Let's say they were not maybe machined as well as we are doing today.
Now I don't remember the 037 car but I can't remind if it was machines
the ducts inside the head or just casted.
But yes, it was different conceptions of imagining this pumping capability of the engine I think.
I mean the theoretical staff was there because they knew that there are pressure waves
and all this kind of stuff and that if you make the correct size inlet ducts and exhaust ducts
you can gain more power but I think also the computational power was very low
and maybe it was much more trial and error on the real parts
than on doing the simulations from the beginning and doing the correct dimensioning from the beginning.
So I think in that doing that you lose quite a lot along the road I think
that is I think the main difference.
Yeah I could assume that back in that era designing the engine virtually using CAD and CFD probably
probably wasn't there manual computations and probably a whole lot more prototyping and testing
which obviously gets labour intensive and incredibly expensive so we probably live
in a much easier time these days with the technology that we've got available
which is obviously also what we're going to dive into.
So to bring us up to speed we've talked about this Resto Mod Chimera engine current era 2025.
What sort of engines are you offering and how do these get driven I suppose
and what I mean by that is is it a case of a customer coming to you with an engine project in mind
you developing that engine for the customer or are you seeing a gap in the market
for a particular engine platform developing it and sort of a build it and they will come mentality?
No for the moment it was always the customer coming to us with a project in mind
and so we had to design the specific engine for the customer for example the Chimera
it was the first then we had the Totem V6 then we have the Nardone V8
and then we have the Jamar V12 engine that is now just produced
and so we had a lot of different projects keeping us very busy in the past few years
and now we are seeing some opportunity in creating our own engine
which will be V12 naturally aspirated and we will present it in November
and yes just now we are thinking about offering our own engine off the shelf let's say
without having a project behind to support it let's say
without being a proprietary of someone in a project
Coming back to your naturally aspirated V12 project
so obviously I can only assume this is going to be a very expensive engine for a customer to purchase
when you're coming up with a concept like this and you're going to bring that to market
what is the use case that you see for that naturally aspirated V12
is this going to be for perhaps a race series, a controlled class
or someone wants to build a one off project and just wants an amazing sounding engine
or is it a combination of all of the above?
Yes it's more like that let's say one off projects or a few numbers, supercars, hypercars
we are now targeting more like homologated products that will run on the street
as new cars compliant with emission regulations and everything
because we think in that field there is a gap that no one is following
because in the racing there are a lot of engine producers
and I don't want to say that everybody can make an engine and go for the racing
but it's much more let's say easier and there are much more names out there that can make that kind of service
but we are more targeting the company that wants to put a company or a person
a small number of people that come to us and say we have this in mind
we want to realize this supercar with this project that is street legal
that we can run with a reliable engine
and so that's the kind of target we have now and for the future projects.
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Alright let's get back to the episode.
Okay a bunch of things that I want to dive into there but before we do just a little bit more detail about this V12
obviously it's a project and idea only at this stage by the sounds of it
but can you give me some numbers around what you'd expect in terms of power, output, RPM range etc?
Yes we will have basically two versions on our mind.
The first one will be homologated version, it's a 6.7 liter and it will be homologated version going to 9500 RPM with 850 horsepower
and another version going to not homologated thought for the racetrack going to 10200 RPM with 900 horsepower
so basically these are the two versions we are thinking about now
so we keep always a door open in both the categories, homologation for street use and racetrack use.
Okay the numbers are certainly impressive.
On that note though I can see there's been a trend with the supercar and hypercar market
realistically these days where the numbers just keep spiraling out of control.
I think almost the naturally aspirated engine with very few exceptions is a thing of the past.
You know turbocharging in north of 1000 horsepower is kind of, if you want to get anyone interested
is kind of required.
I personally don't see 1200, 1500 horsepower really being that useful for a street driven car in most instances
so to me it's a moot point.
But how do you weigh that up when the demand is, or the expectation I guess is more than the demand.
The expectation is 1000 plus horsepower turbocharges obviously an easy way of achieving that.
How do you sort of reconcile that with building a 6.7 liter naturally aspirated V12?
Well because we saw that not everybody likes turbocharged and a lot of horsepower just to throw it on the street
and destroy the tires and all that things but there are also a lot of people now that are coming back to the
let's say the V12 engines or maybe also not V12 but naturally aspirated with a very high revving limit
with very high sound pitch with very good noise with very good power delivery.
Beautiful to drive not just to destroy the new world record in the speed or in the 0 to 300 kilometers.
I think you've kind of just hit on something there that I think is really important.
These hypercars where you're spending $1, 2, 3, $5 million doesn't really matter.
For the most part these cars are probably going to do no more than 500 or 600 kilometers of use a year.
Probably the majority of them aren't going to see a race track or be used how they're intended.
And at that point it doesn't really matter how much power they've got so I think you've got it all together.
We'll also focus on the other aspects of the engine that's going to bring enjoyment to the person who's just
shelled out all of this money and a lot of that is the aural sensation, what the thing sounds like.
I mean I think Gordon Murray's probably hit the nail on the head with that one with his T50.
You listen to that thing on YouTube or running up the hill at Goodwood, I mean it just takes you back
to the naturally aspirated F1 era so I think there's a lot to be said for the whole package,
the sound of the engine. Yes it still has to have high specific power but 8,500 horsepower is obviously plenty.
You just don't get that sort of sound with turbochargers I don't believe.
Yeah you don't get that kind of sound and if you think about that 900 horsepower 20 years ago it was like
already on over the top of everything apart the Bugatti Veyron maybe but it was the top of that you could have
and so now you think that it is quite a normal supercar okay, 900 horsepower, not so much you know.
But if you think about that and then under those power maybe on a light car and very responsive chassis
it's something that not so many people can drive and can appreciate in its limits let's say.
Yeah absolutely, just with my reference back to the T50 from Gordon Murray,
obviously there's some parallels that I can't help but draw here and I don't know a lot about this
just while we've been talking I just quickly had a Google to refresh my memory.
So he's used a Cosworth based V12 which is bespoke for his project in I think 3.9 litres
in the 12,100 RPM rev limit.
When you're dealing with a naturally aspirated engine and you want to make a lot of power
realistically RPM is your friend because it is a multiplier of torque.
So if we can get air flow at high RPM that's how we're going to make a lot of power which is
why the very small capacity Formula 1 engines were still up at that 8,500, 900 horsepower mark.
On that note so how do you sort of decide on what a realistic RPM rev range is going to be
for an engine like this?
Why settle on 10,000, I think you said 10,200 RPM for the race one?
Yeah yeah, 10,200 yeah.
How do you decide on this because the other aspect is as the RPM range increases
the stresses involved do also increase so you've got to think about component reliability
and longevity as well.
Yeah that's basically one of the main drivers of the rev range choice.
I mean of course you have to go up with the power to reach a good power with an
aspirated engine but then you have to realize that you are creating an engine that needs
to be road driven with a certain reliability and with certain comfort also for the passengers.
So deciding the correct RPM range is always a big trade off between how much power do you
really want, do you really need for that kind of application and instead how much will be
appreciated the engine for its reliability, for its low RPM torque, for its all the other
things that are not pure power at the top end and it depends on the application but for a
road legal car already 10,000 RPM is quite a lot.
Yes Cosworth went to 12,000 but they are Cosworth and basically they can do that.
The other consideration here that I assume comes into this and this is sort of more around
your homologated emissions compliant engine design.
So in order to get torque at high RPM, we need airflow and usually this comes down to
your head design, your ports and a big driver of this would also be cam design as well.
Where I'm going with this is generally a cylinder head that's going to flow really well at 9,000,
8,000, 10,000 RPM, I would have assumed is going to be very difficult to be emissions compliant.
So again talk to us about that trade off.
Yeah well if you want to have very high airflow at high RPM you have to do very big intake
ducts especially intake, yes also exhaust that follow but the intake ducts must be very
big and very straight if you want to have a lot of power at the high RPM.
So you start maybe from saying oh this is the best I can do for the power so very strict
ducts and very wide, very big valves, very big ports and then you have to go back and
saying okay if I want to pass emission regulations I need very good combustion efficiencies so
very good mixture preparation so very good let's say turbulence inside the chamber and
you would like to have less airflow maybe faster airflow at low RPM so smaller valves
low port velocities and you have to find a good trade off between that.
A good help now comes from the new studies for the tumble for the tumble generations so for
motions inside the cylinders and these they can be simulated also with software so basically
you try to while having big ducts you try to enhance the combustion stability and speed
also at low RPM by creating more velocity inside the cylinders with the tumble motions
and that is basically how you can deal with having a good head for the higher flow on
the higher RPM and a good head also for the emission compliant for the emission regulations yes.
So you've got two design criteria that are almost at opposing odds at each other.
It's safe to say that designing an engine like this where you have to retain emissions
compliance is going to be dramatically more difficult than a non-homologated race engine.
Yeah that's incredibly incredibly more difficult because if you have to design for power you
just do things as straight as possible as big as possible you know as as much as possible
of everything and you have as power as possible as you if you are able to do that you can
obtain very good numbers but if you have to homologate you have to know what happens inside
the cylinder you have to know how to obtain homologation so how to avoid the pollutants
formation and all this kind of stuff so it's much more difficult and combining the two
things is the most difficult part of course. Yeah yeah absolutely.
How about the use of a technology such as variable valve timing within engine like this
is that something you're leveraging? Yeah of course now it's mandatory I think to have
variable valve timing if you want both of this so power and emission compliant you have
to do variable valve timing because you know at low rpm you want to have almost zero overlap
between intake and exhaust so you don't have gasoline flowing out in exhaust or unburned
going out in exhaust and so you retard a lot the intake usually and then you have to adjust
the timing of course going up in the rpm when you are outside of the of the emission control
you can look for the power so you adjust the timing for the maximum power but when you
need it for emission control at example at the idle or light load you really need to
do a good work with variable valve timing yes. Yeah okay I'm interested in just bringing
in another topic that you may or may not be leveraging here something that I think probably
many of our listeners probably haven't heard of which is Atkinson Cycle and a very brief
high level it's essentially a design of engine where the intake stroke is reduced in comparison
to the exhaust stroke so mechanically achieving that is very complicated.
The idea behind it is that we're reducing the amount of air and fuel ingested into the engine
so we're actually reducing specific power output but we're actually gaining efficiency
because of the increased expansion stroke. This can be achieved to a degree with variable
valve timing as well. Is this something that you leverage with your emissions compliant engines?
Well we are well aware of that. Let's say that these strategies are used for lowering the CO2
emissions because the engine is more efficient so more efficient means that it consumes less
fuel so it produces less CO2 but since we are producing a very very low number of engines
let's say that CO2 is not something that we are very strict about. Basically when you
play with valve timing you are playing with Atkinson Cycle in which the expansion stroke
is longer than the compression stroke so the engine gets more efficient and you obtain
that by retarding the intake so you have the dynamic compression let's say lower than
the actual expansion of the engine but let's say that we don't target that specifically
but we obtain it as a side result by doing the variable valve timing to pass the emission test.
So it's not necessarily a drive towards Atkinson Cycle but with the variable valve timing
you are able to achieve a degree of that and then it's a case of optimizing the valve timing
to give you the performance and emissions that you need to be legal.
Yeah let's say that you target Atkinson Cycle or Miller Cycle as you want to call it. If you are
targeting low fuel consumption with very efficient engines with more like OEMs are doing on the
lower powered vehicles let's say actually I don't know if now they do it also on supercars
or maybe some strategies but actually on our case we don't target it specifically.
It's a side step actually I think it's beneficial also in our engines but we are not targeting it.
Okay just to I guess fill in the whole picture there for those who are fresh to this concept
as I mentioned Atkinson Cycle you essentially got a different length intake and compression
stroke compared to the expansion stroke or power stroke and exhaust stroke and achieving
that obviously with a fixed geometry crankshaft is not going to be possible.
We're achieving this to a degree, the Atkinson effect by retarding the intake cams so that
essentially you've got your intake stroke, it's ingested fuel and air but if you hold
the intake valves open as the piston starts coming back up towards top dead centre we're
forcing some of that fuel and air back out so we've actually got less intake charge so
that's sort of how we mimic the Atkinson cycle effect using variable valve timing.
Yeah that's one way to do it or there are also other ways but always by playing with
the variable valve timing you get also other ways that I think are also more efficient
because you don't push out the air to the intake but you act like a spring inside of the cylinder
so you create a slight vacuum when you pull down the cylinder and then you have to back up
when it's coming up but anyway it's always to target that yes.
Alright I want to dive into some of the specific parameters around engine design
and just get your take on their importance and how you consider them.
We're going to deal with them in isolation but of course when it comes to designing and
building an entire engine you can't do that, all of these concepts have to sort of come
together and work in harmony but we'll just cover some of the main topics that people will
have heard and probably have to consider.
Let's start with a really simple one, our compression ratio.
I'm just interested, how do you sort of decide on a target compression ratio when you take
into account fuel octane, maybe target power level and RPM range and also of course if the
engine is forced induction with supercharging or turbocharging?
Well of course now we are targeting for 95 octane on almost all our engines because they
need to be rod legal so pump fuel is almost everywhere 95 octane.
You can find also 100 octane but you need to tell the customer that you really need to use
100 octane and then you don't know when they put 100 and the way they don't so we design
our engines on the 95 octane usually and of course the compression ratio.
We have from experience some targets that we reach for the naturally aspirated engines
and for the turbocharged engines.
Of course you make some simulations with zero one dimensional models but let's say it's
more like an experience thing designing the compression ratio of the engines.
Okay, how important is the compression ratio in terms of power production?
What I'm getting at here is if we were to go from let's say an naturally aspirated engine
10.5 to 1 through to 11.5 to 1, obviously it's going to be very dependent on a bunch of other
parameters but could you give me an idea, just a ballpark of what typically you would expect
to gain in terms of percentage of power.
Is it possible to ballpark that?
We're talking one point compression ratio rise might give us a 3% increase in power
or is it 5%, 10% or is it just not possible to ballpark like that?
I would say yes, around 5% is what I would expect in increasing from 10 to 11.
I expect yes, if the engine is resistant to knock and to everything, I would expect that.
It depends on from what to what because if you increase from 7 to 8 is one thing.
If you increase to 13 to 14, the increase, the benefit is much less evident.
I would say if you increase from 7 to 8, you have a lot more power.
It sort of follows a curve as you'd expect and the gains become iteratively smaller
as the compression ratio rises.
The efficiency of the engine increases but not so much if you are already very high
in compression ratio.
You mentioned this comes from simulation and also experience.
I'm just interested with simulation in the virtual world.
Are you able to simulate where the engine's knock threshold is going to be?
Basically, can you work out with a degree of accuracy
at what point the engine is going to become knock limited?
Well, the software could do it.
Yes, the difficult things is to set up the correct model for it because
these are let's say OEM studies.
To reach that kind of precision in the model, determining the knock threshold
by software is a very demanding skill for the model that you set up
because if just one parameter is not correct, you obtain results that are not precise at all.
The software is capable of doing that, it can do a lot of very good stuff,
but we usually don't simulate also the knock threshold on software
because we don't have the budgets and also the time to develop it
because let's say that you would need to develop a real model of the engine that you design
and with that model put it on the test bench and calibrate the virtual model on that engine
just to have the model calibrated on the software.
So then from there you can start to improve, to modify,
but you need to have a good base of the model that reflects the real engine
because there are a lot of parameters that really you cannot guess
by putting it in the software and hope that they are correct.
I guess that's, as you mentioned, a very complicated thing to model
and it sounds like it's another case of, with your simulation, garbage in, garbage out.
So it would be very easy to get misled if you don't have that model
and all the simulation absolutely perfect.
Yeah, I think OEM World, they do that, I think,
because they have the, of course, the budget, the time for developing the engine and so on
and they go on developing the engine for many years also after it comes out
so they have much more power in doing that, yeah.
Okay.
Alright, moving on, the next parameter I want to talk about is rod to stroke ratio,
which there's a lot of debate about the importance, significance, relevance
of rod to stroke ratio, generally for us in the aftermarket,
what we can do with rod to stroke ratio is somewhat limited
because we're dealing with an OEM production engine block crankshaft,
the geometry is fixed within reason.
So for those who haven't heard that term, it is literally exactly what it sounds
like, the ratio between the length of the connecting rod and the stroke.
So the theory is that a longest rod to stroke ratio is preferable for higher RPM ranges,
for a conventional road car engine, 7000, maybe 8000 RPM rev limit,
maybe a rod to stroke ratio in the range of 1.5, 1.6 might be typical for a sport bike,
maybe a 14000 RPM rev limit, maybe sort of closer to 2 to 1 or somewhere in that range.
So is this important, do you consider it, should we be worrying about it as much in the aftermarket
or is this more driven by the other geometrical constraints of the engine design?
Well in our case from what I've seen, it's an important parameter of course
because for example, the shorter the rod is, the much more intense is the lateral push on the pistons and on the liners.
And yes, that is one of the main characteristics.
If you go very high RPM, you start having a lot of inertial forces pushing around
and having a short stroke is quite painful I think for the pistons and for the liners.
Yes, we consider it but in my opinion it's not the driving parameter.
I think we have a lot of different parameters and one of them is the engine dimensions
which is, it should make quite big engines as we do.
Every millimeter that you can shave, let's say, it's very good also in terms of weight.
But of course if you go high with RPM, it's a very good thing to have a longer rod because of what I said before.
And in the aftermarket, I mean if the OEMs already thought about that, I mean if you don't completely redesign the engine
I think with the power output, if you don't triple the power output or the RPM, I think you should be quite fine.
I don't know if you are used to change the rod stroke ratio or something like that because you need it
or just because you heard that it could be better.
I think my take on it is those who sort of have heard of the concept probably put more weight into its importance
for a modified road car engine than it probably warrants.
I come from a Mitsubishi 4G63 background with my drag racing and there's a range of variants of that engine
and for a start it might be even worth just talking about how we might be able to change the rod stroke ratio.
As I mentioned previously, when you're stuck with OEM geometry, there's a limit to what you can do
but in that 4G63 world, there is a range of options and one of them is to use the 4G64 block
which is the 2.4 litre block and that's got a higher deck, a 6mm taller deck.
Normally matched with a 100mm stroke crankshaft versus the factory and what we can do is put a factory
2 litre crankshaft in that 2.4 litre block and then we can make that with a longer connecting rod
to get the deck height of the piston back to correct and that's quite a common option
with the drag racing engines that are going to perhaps rev to 10, 11,000 RPM.
I've tried various combinations and I haven't really measured a viable or significant difference
on my dyno, I wouldn't say that my testing's exhaustive, having said that I probably also
wouldn't run a 2.3 stroker which is where we put the 100mm stroke 4G64 crankshaft
in a 4G63 block, the shorter deck block and you can get away with that by raising the wrist pin
in the piston.
So that actually makes your rod to stroke ratio worse than a 4G63 out of the box.
Probably wouldn't rev that to 11,000 RPM but that's not to say that people haven't done it,
might just not like it at 10,000, 11,000 RPM, it might not last that long but yeah,
that's my take on it, it's probably not quite as important.
If you're designing a bespoke one off engine that's going to rev to 12,000 RPM and you're not constrained
by OE parts as much, then at that point maybe that's a different deal.
So that's kind of where I see it but I'm also not an engine designer.
Yeah, yeah, sure, that's also my point of view.
Let's say that it's not a parameter that if you get wrong, you destroy the engine or have poor results.
It's some fine tuning on the mechanical parts of the engine.
So for the most people I think it's not so relevant or it's always overlooked.
Alright, moving on.
Next one is bearing clearance and again this is a topic that's pretty fiercely debated.
I think there's a lot of difference as well when you come from a modified OEM engine world
to something that is bespoke and designed for a particular purpose.
I will, despite using the metric system here in New Zealand, I will talk in imperial measurements
of 1000s of an inch just because that's kind of still our biggest market.
And for me the nice easy one to always remember is that a sort of a good rule of thumb
for oil clearances on the crankshaft is 1000s of an inch clearance per inch of journal diameter.
So if we have a two inch journal diameter, we're probably going to find that the clearance
should be 2000s of an inch or thereabouts.
Okay so obviously when we're building an engine we use the factory workshop manual as a reference
that's going to tell us the target clearance and the range of clearance that we can get away with
which is all well and good for a factory engine.
Again coming back to my 4G63 engine, we took a, what do they make, 300, 350 horsepower
off the showroom floor.
Mine was at the end of its development, closer to 1200, 1300 horsepower, reving to 10,500 RPM.
So to get away with that, the general direction that we go in the aftermarket is to build the engine
with looser than stock clearances.
And then that'll typically see a reduction in oil pressure because it's easier for the oil
essentially to escape so we kind of make up for that by moving to a slightly thicker
heavier viscosity oil.
When we deal with bespoke racing engines designed for that purpose, the general trend is to go
the opposite way with a tight bearing clearance and a very lightweight viscosity oil for reduced
frictional losses.
I'm interested, can you give me your take on where you sit with oil clearances, their importance
and the general trend that you see?
Yeah, of course they are very important.
They are fundamental for the engine life, let's say.
And I think the rule of thumb is quite correct.
We also use in a metric system 100 of millimeters, each 10 millimeters of pin diameter.
So it's, I think, pretty much the same on our engines.
Yes, we are used to do that.
Of course, if you can manage to have tighter tolerances and you are sure that the formations
of the components are controlled and are in some tolerances, you can go lower with the
clearances.
And what I think the approach of the aftermarket is that if you increase the power on stock
parts, let's say, all the deformations and all the movements of the crankshaft and the
block are higher than the stock ones.
So you have to avoid the contacts between metals and enlarge the clearances, I think,
for that reason mainly.
But also on OEM cars, on modern cars, I think it's the opposite trend.
So reducing the clearances as much as possible and reducing the oil viscosity.
Now I think I've seen 0W8 on some Toyota's.
And I think they are very, very strict clearances.
But you have to keep in mind that OEMs have a quite complex system of assembling the engines
with different classes of bearings and everything.
So they can reliably put the same clearance everywhere and they can be sure that everything
is working properly with that bearing clearance.
So you're talking here about graded bearing shells, so that depending on the minute tolerance
differences between a journal diameter on a crankshaft and maybe the bearing tunnel in
the block, you can choose the correct grade bearing to get that clearance exactly right
on every bearing.
Yes, that's what they do.
And so they can lower a lot of the viscosity of the oil, so reducing the friction, reducing
fuel consumption and CO2 emission.
That's always the target now of OEM cars.
Of course.
I guess you've got the flexibility though that unlike the OE manufacturer, and again I'll
come back to my 4G63 example, Mitsubishi are designing that engine with the intent of
350 horsepower and 7500 RPM.
So it's fit for purpose, the clearance is a suitable fit for that.
And when I take it to 1200 horsepower and 10500 RPM, it's not that.
And as you sort of alluded to, you look at a crankshaft or an engine block sitting on the
bench in your workshop and everything seems really rigid but the reality is under those
stresses, the crankshaft probably resembles a bit of a noodle.
So we're trying to build in that extra clearance so we don't end up with metal to metal contact.
That's not going to end very well for anyone.
You've got the ability however to know exactly what your engine is going to rev to, exactly
how much power it's going to produce so you can design the components with the rigidity
to not resemble that wet noodle at RPM, correct?
Yeah we can do that.
Let's say we keep safe margin on that so we do not go as low in the clearances as they
do in OEMs but we keep the general rule of thumb of a bit smaller than the aftermarket
because then as you said, if you go wider with the clearances you need much more oil flow.
And the oil flow needed goes up very, very fast with the clearances.
If you double the clearance, I think the oil flow will become 10 times not double.
So you have to keep in mind that...
There's some negative repercussions with the increase in oil flow as well.
I can only imagine that you aren't designing your engines to require custom bearing shelves
to be made as well.
Assume you're designing around existing off the shelf bearings?
Yeah, yeah.
And how do you decide on what to use there?
Basically what I'm saying is have you got sort of a known range of bearing options from
different engines that you've tested, proven they work.
You've got the graded options as well so you can see your clearance is exactly right
and those are just what you design your journal diameters around?
Yeah, let's say that for choosing the bearings we start with all the constraints that we have.
Usually the constraints are the pin diameters because the crankshaft has to be rigid enough
and has to be able to withstand the power level of the engine.
And so the diameters are pretty much the carrier of the bearing decision.
Then you have the width of the bearing in which you calculate the width by the maximum pressure that the bearing can take.
So when you have the combustion pulse coming down, the combustion force applying on the bearings,
you know which is the pressure on the bearing and you can determine which is the most correct bearing.
Then of course you have the dimensional constraints.
So you will have some maximum dimensions that you can fit in your design
and you have to adjust everything to make it work with all these compromises.
And you have to find the other important parameter that I'm forgetting,
but it's not less important is the availability of the bearing that you choose.
Yeah, it'd be real handy if you can actually get them.
Yeah, if you choose a bearing that on the catalogue is present,
but then it's no more produced because the engine is discontinued and no one buys them,
you have made the wrong decision because you cannot find them and yeah, you don't have the bearings.
So you have to take also that into account, yeah.
Alright, next topic, V angle.
And again something that we don't need to consider in the aftermarket because you get what you get.
You're dealing with a specific engine and the angle between the bank of cylinders is set by the engine designer.
You've obviously got more flexibility here and you can set the angle between the banks
essentially within reason wherever you want it, but there are some combinations that are common.
For example, if we're taking a V8, if we divide 8 cylinders by 720°,
we end up with 90° which is your typical angle between the banks.
If you go somewhere else other than 90°, we end up with an odd fire engine
which is not necessarily the end of the world, there are plenty of odd fire example engines out there.
What drives your bank angle decision? Is this sort of just a packaging determination?
No, it's not just packaging.
I think that, okay, the first thing is the customer requirement
because sometimes the customer requires to have strange V angles.
Maybe not strange, but strange for that number of cylinders.
For example, the V12 for turbos was requested to have 120° V angle.
Should normally be associated with a V6 as well?
Yeah, to fit the hot V so the turbochargers inside the V to have the space for that.
So that was customer requirement.
But usually, yes, you start from the ideal degrees
and then you look at your constraints that you have to modify this V angle.
For example, in a V12 that you would have 60° of V angle.
But if you look on the market, all the V12 that are available are not actually 60°
but they are 65°, 70°.
Because, for example, you need to make room for the intake trumpets.
60° would be very, very narrow, wouldn't it?
Making not a lot of room for anything between the banks.
So you have like 65° which is what we are designing right now,
the V12 naturally aspirated to make room for other things
because we saw that going 5° more than the 60° is not impacting the engine very much.
It's not doing basically anything to this as practically no impact.
Also on the sound, we saw that the sound is not much affected by 5° of widening the V.
So we went with that, we have more space inside the V to accommodate direct injection,
for example, and intake trumpets and ducts.
So there are also always other things to consider, always trade-off.
I'm guessing for a racing engine as well, a wider V angle is going to help reduce the center of gravity height.
So that'd be beneficial?
Yeah, sure, wider V angle of course pushes the engine down.
If you go with boxer engine or 180° V angle, like some old Ferraris,
you have the engine sitting very low on the ground, so that's helping of course, yes.
Yeah, and I guess it's a trade-off as well because then packaging constraints become problematic in a different way as well.
At the end, engineering is always a trade-off between a lot of things.
Not specifically related to the V angle, but just as you mentioned, the hot V with the Quad Turbo V12.
Is there sort of any pros and cons of the hot V configuration where the exhaust exits in the center of the V
and the intake manifolds are on the outside and vice versa?
It's something we sort of tend to see a lot with European V configuration engines
and the opposite, I guess, with JDM engines.
Well, it's pros and cons, I think, are not so driving.
Yes, you can find some pros and some cons doing one thing or the other, but not particularly, let's say.
Let's say if you design the car, the vehicle accommodating for a hot V,
maybe it's then easier to design the exhaust line and everything going up.
Maybe you want to design a car with the upper exhaust muffler, let's say, in the upper part,
so there are many, many supercars, hypercars, they are doing that now.
And so having the outside on the internal part of the V, you have the exhaust coming out straight to the upper part of the car,
which is where you want to have it or the opposite on the opposite way.
So essentially, it's not an engine design consideration, it's packaging for the application specific?
No, from what we've seen at the moment.
For naturally aspirated, of course, it's a constraint on the engine because if you want to have a good air flow inside the engine,
you need to have the air coming from the upper part where you can also take it dynamically
and going straight down to the engine so it's the best for the naturally aspirated.
Of course you want a cold V layout, but for a turbocharged engine, it's not so evident the advantage.
Alright, moving on.
Next one I want to talk about is the head design and we've kind of touched on a little bit of this already,
but more specifically I wanted to talk about valve saturation methods.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that everything you're building is all for valve,
but there's a variety of different methods of actuating the valves, some with their own pros and cons.
Have you got your preferred method that you essentially utilize on all of your engine designs?
Well, let's say that we have different methods depending on the application.
On the lower revving engines, we use bucket lifters, traditional bucket lifters,
that are quite simple, quite cheap, quite reliable and everything.
Are these mechanical or hydraulic?
We use mechanical, usually, that are more simple and much lighter.
But when you go up with the RPM and you want to have a very steep ramp on the camshaft,
so opening and closing ramps on the camshaft, you need to have a very low inertia
and you need to go to finger follower design, so basically you have a finger with a pin
and the camshaft presses on the finger and the finger presses on the valve.
So you have just the finger to move the valve and it's much, much lighter than the bucket design.
And it has its own disadvantages, of course, because it's much more difficult to set up for the reliability
and it's more costly because parts need more different materials and different treatments and coatings to not wear.
But for high performance engines, it's the best.
So as I understand it, the finger follower actuation's sort of the typical method
in Formula 1, is that correct?
I think so, yes.
So essentially here, the finger follower, the advantage is the lower weight, lower inertia
versus the bucket and shim style, or bucket is a one piece if it's mechanical,
kind of to set the lash.
Is there also limitations with the bucket valve actuation in terms of the diameter of the bucket
versus the cam profile you can run on it?
Yes, of course, if you run with very high valve lift, especially,
and the lobe is very pronounced, you need to have a very good diameter of the bucket
because you have to avoid that the camshaft work outside of the perimeter of the bucket because of wear.
I guess along with that, as you increase the diameter of the bucket by rights,
the weight of the bucket is going to become greater as well.
So you're sort of making more problems for yourself.
Yeah, greater as well.
Also the dimensions and everything on the head becomes a problem, yes.
You mentioned coatings with the finger follower,
so can you talk to us a little bit about the coatings you use and how they work?
Yes, usually on the finger followers you have to apply a coating,
so you have to use a very hard steel, first of all, with a temperate and everything
because he has to withstand the very high amount of pressure that the cam is pushing on.
And on top of that, for wear purposes, you have to do the coating.
So usually it's DLC coating, so diamond like carbon coating.
So it's a very thin layer, some microns of layers of very hard surface, like diamond art.
Let's say there are different hardness of these coatings,
but the best ones come close to the diamond hardness.
And so they avoid that the cam wears the finger because it's a very big problem.
And also setting up the system in a way that it doesn't wear is not so simple
because also with the DLC coating, if you don't do things right, it can become a problem.
A part of that comes also from oiling the surfaces.
You need a good lubrication, so we have sprays of oil directly on the camshaft's contact point with the finger.
And that is crucial because we made a lot of tests on the cold test benches here
to accomplish the target because it's very, very difficult, yeah.
As you're talking about this, I'm sort of thinking to myself again,
I don't know why I keep coming back to the 4G63, but maybe it's what I know best.
They use a sort of a roller, rocker style valve attuation.
Could you incorporate a roller into a finger follower or is the mass that that would add sort of make it detrimental?
Yeah, the mass would become much higher because at that point to accommodate a roller,
you would need a much stouter finger and it would be much heavier.
I think OEMs do that for NVH because it's much more quiet and then standard traditional cam.
So NVH for those who haven't heard the term noise vibration and harshness,
which is a very, very important parameter for OE manufacturers to make the car quiet, vibration free and just nice to drive.
We don't care about that in a race car.
No, we don't care about that. Yeah, sure.
The harsh are the better.
Yeah, and they put the rollers so the wear is not a problem and they are much more cheaper.
On that note, just in terms of wear, what's your sort of design life cycle between reboots on your engines?
I'm guessing it probably varies between the different engines, but can you give us some idea?
Well, it depends, of course, on the engine.
But for a road user, let's say we advise a rebuild at, let's say, 20,000 kilometers for the Chimera engine.
Let's say it's that kind of kilometer.
Then for racing, of course, much sooner.
Let's say some thousands you need to rebuild.
I think my rebuild life cycle on my drag engine was about four kilometers.
So that sounds pretty good to me.
About every 10 runs down the drag strip, it was coming apart.
Not always because it needed to, but always better to stay on top of these things
than find out the hard way that you should have rebuilt it.
Well, four kilometers, I think, in drag racing is quite a long distance.
It was enough.
In terms of some of the other engine components, I'm just interested to find out about your piston design.
Always typically you're going to find a cast piston inside those engines which has the benefit
of lower thermal expansion coefficient.
Basically it doesn't grow as much as it heats up, which allows us to set tighter piston
to cylinder wall clearances.
In the aftermarket, we usually throw cast pistons away and move to 2618 forged piston.
Downside of that is that they do expand more.
So we end up with a looser piston to cylinder wall clearances when they're cold.
This can result in a noise at cold start and some increased oil consumption as well.
What's your piston material go to?
Yes, we use four to the piston in 2618 alloy.
So it's the one expanding more, let's say.
It's not a cast alloy.
The problems with that, if you want to achieve emissions compliance?
No, we didn't find it harder.
I think you mean for oil consumption maybe or something like that.
Yeah, not an issue.
No, not an issue.
For the engine mission test, you need to warm up the engine very quickly.
So you design the first part of the warm up strategy to run very fast to the operating
temperature of the engine.
So I think in like 30 seconds, the clearance is already quite gone.
In terms of life expectancy of these forged pistons versus cast,
I'm assuming here that we're operating under conditions that the cast piston
would also be able to support without failing.
Is there a difference in piston wear and piston life?
No, I wouldn't say so.
We saw that the also forged piston with this kind of alloy is very durable.
Of course, you have to design it very carefully with the correct thicknesses
and everything, but they are very durable.
I mean, we don't produce so extreme engines that we put them under extreme conditions,
but I can say that they are very, very durable.
Okay, I'm interested just sort of coming back full circle with the engine design
and development process.
A lot of this is going to be done in software simulation as we kind of touched on earlier.
I'm just interested, so once you actually get to the point of manufacturing an engine
and putting it on a dyno, how well does the validation in the real world match your simulation?
Well, there are different stages of matching of things, let's say,
because you first have the simulations for the power,
then you have the simulations for the resistance of the components,
then when you design the engine in the CAD, make the CAD model,
it's basically like a simulation, also the CAD model, because you see the engine assembled,
but you have to think about how it will be assembled in the workshop.
And there they start to come out the discrepancies between the design and the reality.
So also on the mounting, some things don't work.
Let's say maybe a screw is impossible to screw on, something like that.
Not major things usually, but you start already on the mounting phase.
Then on the dyno, I think within 10% in the worst cases,
but in the 5% behavior of the engine on the simulation is correct.
I mean, for the power delivery, yes.
If you start looking at other things, as we said before, knock control and other things,
that's much more difficult.
But power-wise, as we said, it's the most easy thing to obtain at the end.
In terms of sort of prototyping and validating the engine,
are you going through a process of maybe building a single cylinder to test,
or are you committing to an entire engine?
I'm just guessing that it'd be quite an expensive process to build an entire V12 to prototype and test.
Yes, actually, at the moment, we've always done the first one good, let's say.
So we started with building the complete engine and testing it directly on the dyno.
The correct way would be to make a single cylinder and to test it and to improve it on the single cylinder.
But you need, of course, time, money.
So on the projects we did up to now, we did all the improvements, let's say engine by engine.
Let's say that we do some tests before on the cold test rigs.
For example, we have a flux bench where we can measure the flux of the cylinder heads,
which we 3D-print some samples before of a single cylinder.
We 3D-print a single cylinder ducts part to test on the flux bench, for example.
Then we can test the camshafts.
So we make a single cylinder camshafts rolling on the bench to see for breaking parts
or wear or writing of the parts.
We can test oil pumps.
We can test a lot of components, let's say.
So you've got the confidence, essentially, to take that out and then build the entire engine
and know that it's probably going to do what you want.
Even when it comes to production, though, speaking before we started recording,
I think you said your production is sort of in the range of maybe 10 engines per year?
Yes, in the end, yes, some dozen years or 20, 30, it depends on the project,
but that's the kind of numbers we are talking about.
Yeah, but we're not talking hundreds or thousands of engines.
So the consideration I sort of would have there is the technique that you're using
for manufacturing the blocks and the heads.
Generally in production terms these would be cast items, but that process,
I would say doesn't lend itself that well to short or low production runs.
The other option which we see in the aftermarket is billet components
which have their own sets of pros and cons.
You are using cast, so how do you sort of navigate that process with low production runs?
Yeah, well cast is the most difficult parts on the engines are the one casted.
This is very true for the low production numbers because making a cylinder block
but also even more the cylinder head is very, very difficult to achieve it
in a short number of pieces the correct design of the piece.
Not as much for the cylinder block because it's quite simple let's say
because it has not a lot of internal passages, a lot of internal cavities
and it's much more open.
But for the cylinder heads it's a very demanding task to design a correct part
to have it cast right at the first trial.
And to do that usually we go with rapid prototyping casting.
So nowadays it is made with 3D printed sand molds.
So you can 3D print one piece and have it cast and then look at the result
and then improve it on the next piece.
Of course it's always a bit of trial and error
but it's much cheaper than building the molds for the traditional process.
Okay, so rapid prototyping you were using for the production of every block in cylinder head casting?
Yeah.
And this is a technology I can only assume wasn't around 15 years ago.
That wasn't an option so you couldn't really be operating how you are now back in that era?
Yeah, well back in the era we didn't actually produce the parts ourselves.
So like 20 years ago we didn't produce engines in their complete form
but we were more like preparing the cars for racing.
Yes, so vehicle preparation.
Now that we have to build the engines from scratch we see that the task is much, much more difficult
than it can appear to a person looking from outside.
And the technology has come a long way since also 10 years ago.
I don't think that 10 years ago you could 3D print the sands and I don't think it was so widespread
but nowadays for prototyping also OEMs do that way so it's very popular.
Yeah, I don't know if it's possible for you to give some numbers around this
but I'm assuming that if you were in mass production, you know, thousands of engines
it's obviously going to end up being significantly cheaper once you've rapid prototyped
and you've proven your proof of concept to then go about actually having the patterns and moulds made
for conventional casting.
Do you know if there's where the crossover point is, the number of engines you'd have to be producing
for that to make more sense than rapid prototyping?
I think you are in the range of some hundreds of engines to take advantage of the steel moulds
that you have to make and the tools and the studies and tooling.
I guess ultimately to a degree for you it probably doesn't matter too much
the additional cost of the rapid prototyping just gets passed on in the unit cost of the completed engine.
Yeah, I hope in the future we sell a lot of our engines that we are developing now
so we can swap to traditional process of casting and that would be quite good to be to the target.
Alright Ricardo, I think we'll move towards wrapping this up
and of course we've got the same three questions that we ask all of our guests at the end
and the first of those is what's next in the future for you and Etel Technica?
Well for me now I think I'm in a very good position and I'm very happy about that now
that what I've done in these five years that I've been here
for the company I think we are also going quite well because we are growing
now we are 25 people but when I came here we were like 15, 16
and then this type of market really went well and we managed to jump out of the box let's say
and so in the future I think we will improve that in that kind of market
and we switch also in the supercar hypercar market which we are entering now
with the for example V12 4 turbos it's equipped on the hypercar
so we are entering this market and we see good possibilities now
because we are offering the engine with homologation so emission compliant.
So exciting times ahead.
Second question, is there any advice you'd give to a younger version of yourself to help
reach where you are today in your career faster?
I mean you're 30, you're pretty young it seems like that's tracking along quite nicely
but still any words of wisdom you can give us?
Yes, I would say that to search for what you are looking for
let's say not just go somewhere because you think you are not worth more
or just being happy with also of a position that you don't really like
just aim for more and also change the company, change the environment
if you think you are worth more than what they are offering you
and of a younger version of me I would say maybe work even more than I did
to reach this position faster but I'm quite happy with what went on in these years
so I would say that I would replicate it and it would be enough for me.
Yeah, sure.
And I think the upshot of that is similar to how I view things though
is if you do something that you love, something you're passionate about
the odd story will never work a day in your life.
Now that's not always entirely true.
I love my job but there's still great days and days that maybe are not as great
but I think you spend so much of your life working, you might as well be working
or something that you're passionate about and you enjoy.
The tricky side to keep in mind is you also need to be doing something
that has some economic value, in other words something where you can actually
earn a decent living as well but that's something that's not that easy
to navigate all of the time.
Alright, our last question for today, Ricardo, if people want to follow you
and see what you're up to, how they're best to do so.
Yeah, of course, we have social accounts on Instagram.
You can follow us at italtechnica.engineering.
You can find us, we upload weekly some posts or stories or reels.
Instagram gives you a lot of possibilities.
And then you can also check our website at italtechnicaengineering.com
where you can find all what we do and all our experience, our projects
and basically everything, what we are doing, who we are
and you can get in contact with us.
Also on Instagram we are very user friendly.
You can write to us as you basically did and it's completely fine for us.
Yeah, it worked for us, that's how we got you here.
As usual we'll put links to those accounts in the show notes to make it easy
for people to find.
Look Ricardo, it's been great speaking to someone with a level of knowledge
on engine design and development that you've got.
Certainly I imagine there's a lot of information in there
that everyone listening is also going to have benefited from.
So thank you very much for your time today.
Thank you to you Andre and to your team for this interview and opportunity.
We didn't expect it because we consider us still quite small
and you are well known in the field so it is a very pleasure for us to...
Our absolute pleasure.
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About this episode
Exploring the intricate world of bespoke engine building, this episode features Ricardo from Etel Technica, an Italian company specializing in custom engine design. The discussion dives into the nuances of engine design, including compression ratios, rod-to-stroke ratios, and bearing clearances. Ricardo shares insights on the challenges of creating high-performance, emission-compliant engines, and the evolution of engine technology. Listeners will gain valuable knowledge on how these principles can be applied to their own projects, along with a glimpse into the future of high-performance engines.
Original notes
Whether it’s a bespoke quad-turbo V12 or a modified OE production engine, the fundamentals remain the same—we’re all looking for those extra gains. Italtecnica’s Riccardo Breda is here to break down the core concepts that could help you take your engine build to the next level.
👉 Use the code ‘PODCAST500’ to get $500 OFF HPA's VIP Package: https://hpcdmy.co/podvip
In this episode of Tuned In, Riccardo discusses his journey into automotive engineering and his role as an engine designer at Italtecnica, a company specialising in resto-mods, engine development, design, and manufacturing, working with brands like Ferrari and Maserati.
The conversation explores the evolution of Italtecnica, the challenges and innovations in resto-mod projects, and the range of engines currently being produced and developed. That includes a new naturally aspirated V12 for racing, along with a homologated version for road use. He also talks about the challenges of balancing power output with emissions compliance in modern engine design.
We dive into key fundamentals of engine design, including compression ratio, bearing clearance, rod-to-stroke ratio, cylinder head design, and different methods of valve actuation. The conversation also touches on the Atkinson cycle and how it can be replicated with variable valve timing.
It’s not every day you get to tap into the mind of someone designing bespoke high-performance engines from the ground up. This episode is jam-packed with insight and a must-listen for anyone interested in engine building.
👉 Use the code ‘PODCAST500’ to get $500 OFF HPA's VIP Package: https://hpcdmy.co/podvip
Follow Riccardo here:
Instagram: italtecnica.engineering
Facebook: italtecnica
WWW: italtecnicaengineering.com
Timestamps:
0:00 Inside the Art of Bespoke Engine Building
4:35 How did you become interested in cars?
8:46 Once you Graduated what did your work career look like?
9:50 What’s the history of Italtecnica?
14:05 What is the Kimera EVO37?
17:43 What is different about modern cylinder head design?
20:19 What engines are you working on and offering in 2025?
21:52 The V12 NA engine you’re producing, who is the target market?
25:29 What sort of HP and RPM will the V12 produce?
28:12 It’s not all about HP figures and 0-60 times
30:10 How do you decide on a rpm limit for a bespoke v12 engine?
37:34 Atkinson cycle, How do we mimic with VVT?
41:44 How do you decide on a compression ratio when designing an engine?
45:03 Can you simulate knock threshold in a virtual model?
47:37 How much do you consider rod to stroke ratio?
53:36 What’s your take on bearing/oil clearances?
1:02:18 What drives your bank angle decision?
1:08:21 What type of valve actuation are you using?
1:14:40 What’s your lifespan between rebuilds on your engines?
1:15:46 What material do you use for your pistons?
1:18:25 How close are real world numbers to your simulations?
1:22:46 What are the cost challenges with cast parts and low production numbers?
1:27:14 Final 3 questions
Tuned In
High Performance Academy
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95:07