Originally Posted by
Betaversio
I had a conversation with pipe-minded friend. We discussed how did you decide between two different power curves before a race, given specific gear ratios, weather conditions, and track characteristics. We were thinking how you did this when working at Aprilia team.
When designing something for a motor—perhaps in a simulator—you often have to decide what to build. Or when testing on a dyno and comparing 30 different power curves that look quite similar to the eye (one with peak power, another with better range), how did you choose between them?
I am familiar with your power range-concept. Instead of that, my friend suggested pipe design based on gear ratios and least missed area under ideal acceleration curve (what would be if motor is always at peak power). However, this approach doesn’t account for human factors, such as the need for mid-range and over-rev. While it’s possible to include these considerations, the result becomes a bit of a hocus-pocus calculation.
When simulating, I once started writing code to simulate a driver’s path around a track. I made drag racing version of it. I stopped working on track version because factors like varying pipe temperatures after corners and use of over-rev would have made the motor simulation inaccurate. This does seem to be only option, if it would be possible to make both track and motor simulation accurate enough.
Another possible shortcut is to optimize the engine using log data. For example, if the engine spends 4% of its time at 12,000–12,200 rpm and 5% at 12,600–12,800 rpm, these rpm ranges can be weighted accordingly to guide improvements. For me, this is most promising one, according to what is possible in normal tuner's resources. But, then there is problem that even when when we have two equal designs in this concept's, and power in different places in curve, pipes are not equally fast on track.
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