I dug up an old roadtest of one of the famed BMW turbocharged Formula 1 cars from the turbochraged madness years of '85-'86. Those were the seasons when F1 engines were belting out the highest Grand Prix horsepower figures ever seen and probably were the most powerful roadracing engines of alltime outside CanAm Racing (Plz corect me if i am wrong - I have also heard that early '70s Indy Cars from McLaren used to generate as much as 1100bhp - but have too little info)

The test results are still shocking even after all these years. Don't forget also that the car was also running with all the massive downforce generating appendages in the test. Which would put the performance more in the right perspective.

But I would like to question the "auto-educated" people in the forum about the significance of the 700ft slalom test

The F1 cars chalks up a number of 70.7mph in this test while a Kawasaki ZX-10R stock pulled up a number of 121.6 mph while being tested by Road and Track Speed Magazine in its Oct' 05 issue.

But in reality on an average F1 track an F1 car even of 86 vintage would probably lap a superbike evry 3 laps or so. So plz clarify what properties of a vehicle does a 700ft slalom test reveal?

Many bike fans may be fooled that modern superbikes are as good as turbocharged F1 cars in a staright line seeing the Kawaski ZX-14 performance tying 0-100mph run in 4.8 secs. But then again the F1 car does 0-160mph in 8.4 secs while the Kawasaki manages that in only "11.4 secs" Anyway enjoy the test


http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/5018/dsc38636crap4.th.jpg (http://www.sportscarforums.com/%5BURL=http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc38636crap4.jpg%5D%5BIMG% 5Dhttp://img150.imageshack.us/img150/5018/dsc38636crap4.th.jpg%5B/IMG%5D%5B/URL%5D)

I am pretty sure i seen somewhere that F1 cars had engines developing anything up to 1400bhp but the source was a bit dodgy so am not positive, but yeah those days were turbo/supercharger crazy!!!

Probably true, some F1 cars in the height of tuning powers created 1500bhp, I think that was the most ever horsepower to date.

1500bhp sure dude?? The highest I ever heard was Honda developing 1200bhp in qualifying trim in '86- but mind you only in qualifying trim The race Horsepower of the turbo era cars were no that much more than the 2005 V10s may be around 50bhp advantage

1500bhp means frigging 1bhp per cc displacement I highly doubt that it has been ever achieved!!

I'll try and find it if I can, I think it was a Williams, it was in TG's most powerful cars of all time, and that was the most powerful ever, I'll see if I can find anything on it.

y do they say break horsepower and not just horsepoweR? is there a difference? sry im a noob but i dun think a superbike would beat an F1 car

I think brake horsepower is a European way of saying horsepower, I don't think there's much difference between the two, although I prefer brake horse power.

In the peak of the turbo era BMW's turbo F1 engine broke their dyno which was rated up to 1500 horsepower, very impressive stuff.

the peak of the turbo era was '86

hmmm, I'm definately sure I read it somewhere in one of my F1 books, I'll see if I can dig it out.

I'm still trying to find a link to the Williams that qualified with 1500bhp, it's definitely true, just trying to find a link for everyone else to see it.

Somebody with TG's magazine with the Ten Most Powerful Cars ever will.

8.4 seconds to 160 mph?

Holy ****.

y do they say break horsepower and not just horsepoweR? is there a difference? sry im a noob but i dun think a superbike would beat an F1 car

I think brake horsepower is a European way of saying horsepower, I don't think there's much difference between the two, although I prefer brake horse power.

Brake Horsepower/BHP = HP at the flywheel. Basically, the HP before the rest of the drivetrain waters down the HP into it's WHP/Wheel Horsepower.....

Wow, 1050BHP from a turbocharged 1.6 liter inline-4, that's insane! Wow, that's just...crazy.....

Renault had the most powerful F1 car if i remember correctly, i think i read it in the guiness book of records from around 2002.

I doubt F1 cars had more than 1500bhp in 2002, I think the fastest and most powerful cars were the V10s in 2004.

cars had 900bhp in 2005 with Honda being the most powerful at 960bhp and that's at the crank

I think Honda have the most powerful one this year, not sure exactly how much bhp, around 700-odd.

make that 750bhp

210bhp less and still, these F1 cars are beating last year's lap records, because cornering speeds are so mcuh higher than with the V10s, and the V8s were meant to be around 5 secs a lap slower than the V10s, which is totally wrong.

no the F1 cars are faster this year because they don't have to spend the whole weekend on the same set of tyres

F1 cars of 2006 are much slower than F1 cars of 2004 hope that puts things into perspective

A whole race weekend on ONE set of tyres? I thought they just couldn't change in the race?

A. Last year it they only had to use one set of tyres for the race but there was and still is a limit on how many they can use over a weekend.

B. I remember hearing the commnetators on the Italian GP saying that the 2006 times were down on the 2005 times.

C. It was a Renault engine that made 1500bhp. I just found out. Hardly conclusive but you know...

That’s why the F1 engines of the late 80’s achieved huge amounts of bhp.
The BMW 1.5 litre 4 cylinder and the Honda 6 cylinders achieved over 1200bhp at 60psi of boost.
In 1988, boost was limited to 2.5bar, so engines wouldn’t produce more than 700bhp.

That was in race trim I believe, in quali trim they hit 1500bhp


Renault made a 1.5 with 1500bhp used for qualifying.. it used a turbo (obviously!!) to do this. Drivers following these cars used to get covered in oil. They realised why: the amount of boost was actually pushing the heads off the bottom half of the engine just enough for oil to spray out! maaaaad stuff, thats a lot of boost

I also read on the internet tonight that BMW had a F1 engine running at 1500bhp.

post links man so that we can read it too

I can't remember where I got it from although the sources aren't the best, one is from an F1 forums and the other from a site explaining turbos.... I think.

Edit - It was from a Toyota forum, I did find another quote from an F1 forum but it wasn't as good.

http://www.ttmtechnical.com/overview_of_forced_induction.htm
http://toyotaownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=50000

Correct me if I am incorrect...

Was it lotus who developed the turbo F1 car? Thats where I first read the 1400bhp from a 1.4ltr engine stat - not sure about the source.

^ Nope, Renault ran the first Turbo F1 car

Renault first involvement in Formula One was made by the Renault Sport subsidiary with Gérard Larousse as Team manager. Renault entered the last five races of 1977 with Jean-Pierre Jabouille in its only car. The Renault RS01 was well known for its Renault-Gordini V6 1.5 L turbocharged engine, the first regularly used turbo engine in Formula One history. Jabouille's car and engine proved highly unreliable and became something of a joke during its first races, earning the nickname of "Yellow Teapot" and failing to finish any of its races.


yes I know its wikipedia but all the info in that quote I am pretty sure is correct.

I can't remember where I got it from although the sources aren't the best, one is from an F1 forums and the other from a site explaining turbos.... I think.

Edit - It was from a Toyota forum, I did find another quote from an F1 forum but it wasn't as good.

http://www.ttmtechnical.com/overview_of_forced_induction.htm
http://toyotaownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=50000


I think ttm techinical is right about the 1200bhp output from 1.5l fromula 1 engines of the 80s. This is the figure i have also come across while going thru other "educated resources" But mind you this was he output figure in qualifying trim. turbo formula 1 cars never exceeded 1100bhp in racetrim and the real output usually used to vary between 900-1000bhp

Brake Horsepower/BHP = HP at the flywheel. Basically, the HP before the rest of the drivetrain waters down the HP into it's WHP/Wheel Horsepower.....

Wow, 1050BHP from a turbocharged 1.6 liter inline-4, that's insane! Wow, that's just...crazy.....


1.5 liter to be exact.

Here's the engine donor for you.
They took the bottom end of the 2 liter turbo engine of which still some were lying around, weathered the block, machined it, reduced displacement to 1499 cc by building a short stroke kit and then added cylinder heads and all of the engine peripherals.

http://www.buyacar.ie/images/bmw%202002.JPG