A Harsh environment
The Formula 1 exhaust has two main functions or components, the first being removal of hot exhaust gases from the cylinders of the high revving V8 engines, which occurs as many pulses of exhaust gas exit the cylinder and flow down the tuned-length Primary pipes into the collector where each bank of four pipes merge (often referred to as a Merge collector)
The second component is the high velocity travel of the Pressure wave down the Primary pipe caused by a positive pressure when the exhaust valve opens and the reflections of that wave.
Taking full advantages of these effects of Physics, can greatly improve the scavenging of waste gases and inducing cylinder filling; thus maximising power/torque.
It all sounds simple but is it really? F1 Race engine builders will spend many hours calculating Primary pipe lengths and collector volumes and angles and many more hours on engine Dyno testing the various computations.
The environment that a modern F1 exhaust and its many components must survive are a constant change of temperature, stresses and vibrations, some caused by harmonics and others by riding over rumble strips and curbs all of which present the Exhaust specialist with many problems.
So what has changed over the years?
In the 80s and even into the 90s the biggest problem was packaging in the car, not to say that this is not still the case; but back then the exhaust was the last thing designers considered.
It was more the case of a couple of Fabbies rocking up with a box of bends , a hacksaw , an under powered portable sanding machine and a welder to mock up the exhaust on the car.
See you at the end of the week boys, we are firing up Friday night were often the mechanics words,with that we are working all nighters this week tone,only to find at the end of the week that the gearchange mechanism from the manually selected gear change had not been finalised so all our hard work just needed to be moved by 5mm.Or perhaps there was an electrical box of tricks or heat exchanger right where we thought our exhaust could be routed.
In exhaust terms 5mm is a mile, as changing the path of one pipe results in all of the pipes being moved, plus they must all be within a tolerance of plus or minus 5mm in (tuned )length from one and other. Easy!
There was no CAD designed exhaust then (although I did once see a hand drawn exhaust by John Barnard-impressive), so they were never really a part of the car as such as they are nowadays. Every single part of the car is now drawn on CAD and part numbered and then given a life span which is carefully monitored to reduce the chance of a part failure.
The exhausts were made from 321 stainless steel tubes, usually imperial commercially available sizes and the first exhausts that Pat made at Williams for the FW07C were made from poor quality bends from a local tube bending company which required hours of work to make suitable to make a Cosworth DFV exhaust from.
We did not have a bandsaw to cut the bends as the Ally department fabbies (fabricators) needed that, so this was good grounding for my days at Parallel Motion when I worked at F1 team premises mocking up F1 exhausts.In fact this kind of became my forte, as no one ever really put their hand up for this work- Pat informs us.
These exhausts really were hand made and lasted for quite a few races with running repairs.
Primary Designs has seen these very exhausts on FW07 cars used in Grand Prix Masters, they were exhausts that Pat had made, you can always tell your own welding or that of your colleagues it is like handwriting. (It improves with experience unlike handwriting)
Our fabricators still love these cars coming in to have new systems fabricated for them, sometimes to the original design and often to a new design that the current Cosworth DFV engine builder has dreamt up.
How they were made (that is a secret)
In some ways things have not changed much, in practice they have changed massively.
The use of 321 stainless tube continued until the late 80s,we start with a box of mandrel bent bends which are cut on a bandsaw into many sections as F1 exhausts cannot be bent as one due to the lack of straight tube required to grip the tube, between each bend angle and change of direction. These are carefully cut and fettled and then tack welded together in an assembly jig to follow the route that we had designed in our mock-up exhaust, when we were happy with the clearances and fit we would precisely TIG weld them with Argon as a shielding and purge gas to form Race worthy exhausts.
Depending on the team budget we would reproduce these relatively heavy weight Race systems, without any real changes all season.
Then came Nimonics and Nickel Alloys
March Engineering was running the Leyton House car in 1987 when they produced some Inconel 625 spinnings for Parallel Motion to consider the use of in F1 exhaust, Pat remembers trying many ways of welding this exceptionally thin odd material for hours fairly unsuccessfully which resulted in the MD buying/finding a new Miller TIG 50 machine for him to try.
We had used Nimonic 90 on the Ayrton Senna Lotus 97T and new that we needed to purge the tube with Argon just to make a tack weld, nobody had told us or possibly even knew that this applied to Inconel. We were up and running, we had cracked it.
But how or when do we get our hands on these spinnings or tube to bend? Well never,they were left over parts from some French Aeronautical project.
We were pressing very odd shaped components for the Lotus 97T and March Indy cars at the time and our expertise in this lent itself to forming Inconel bends from two pressed shells
Enter Inconel (Trade name of Special Metals for Nickel alloys)
At the time this exotic material was introduced there were only two companies in the UK making F1 exhausts, Parallel Motion Consultants and Good Fabrications (now Goodfabs) and a third in France so quite who pioneered the use of Inconel remains a bone of contention.
Pat and David Williamson obviously!
Content that we could now fabricate with this mega hard and difficult material, we started using it in the Leyton House car and as best remembered the Gustav Brunner designed Zakspeed cars.
Traditionally a stainless steel DFV exhaust took approx 45 hours to make prior to the-blown diffuser exhausts, the introduction of Inconel which could only be pressed at this time increased this manufacturing time and hence the cost by some 30-40 hrs per exhaust.
However we did have massive problems with Collectors failing and the odd Primary pipe falling apart as the old Cosworth DFR engine was renowned for vibration problems.
However as exhaust fabricators do (there are no rules when discovering new materials) we found ways of resolving the myriad of problems in using this new space age, exceptionally lightweight material which is now common place in the manufacture of F1 exhausts.
As the blown diffuser era emerged we saw even more issues that needed solutions as these had exhaust extractors mounted to the carbon fibre floor trays which formed the diffuser.
Some were simple and others had compound curve mounting plates and fabricated transitions which formed the exits, they were challenging times for the exhaust fabricator but possibly the most innovative.
We now had many engine builders on the scene, with a lot of projects that never saw the light of day like the Footwork Porsche V12 engine.
I would vote the Lotus Lamborghini V12 as the most challenging exhaust to manufacture of all times,with 120 hours of fabrication with trick collectors and huge floor exits, great fun to make and very satisfying..
The early 90s saw bad times for F1 with many companies dissolving; as a result the use of Inconel disappeared for a few years with the likes of Sauber, Arrows and Jordan returning to the use of Stainless steel.
Several teams came and went very quickly like Simtek, Pacific and Onyx.
Then as the world economy improved the engine revs and exhaust temperatures started to climb and once again in came the use of Inconel.
It is now 1998 and Primary Designs has been formed, Parallel Motion is working for Stewart Grand Prix and (an old favourite team of Pat) Sauber along with Toyota F1 but their founder has sold the company.
Primary Designs have learnt to mandrel bend Inconel tube which we were buying in from an external supplier or making by hand.
A phone call in 1999 and Primary Designs is rushing to the British Grand Prix to meet Colin McGrory ,who now runs metal finishing company Sandwell ;who was then Technical director for Stewart Grand Prix .
A few days later the newly formed vibrant exhaust manufacturer Primary Designs was busy making exhausts for their first F1 team and working through the following Christmas to make 20 dyno exhausts for Cosworth Engineering.
So how are they made now and from what materials.
This really is a secret!!
But we work closely with some of the best F1 engineers, from CAD models, using advanced materials and technology, producing the finest components to a higher standard than ever before experienced.
Pat Barrett, Managing Director and Founder of Primary Designs commented:
Until recently, our prime markets were Formula One and Le Mans, however due to recent corporate expansion we were able to respond to product demand which initiated the launch of our Supercar Exhaust packages. The materials and methods we use in the fabrication of our performance systems are exclusive to us and are road and track proven – with our F1 qualified engineers having a combined experience of over 70 years in the industry, we have the quality, precision and consistency to continue to deliver exceptional products, both to the motorsport industry and consumers alike.
The Primary Designs package typically incorporates the exhaust manifolds, uprated turbo’s (where applicable)and high-flow German manufactured HJS sports catalysts which are Euro 5, TUV and VOSA approved and sports silencer which are often ceramic coated using one of the the many colour options offered by Zircotec.
They also offer track day silencers for Lamborghini and Ferrari.
Primary Designs were appointed in 2010 as an official agent for
Turbo Dynamics, a leading supplier and manufacturer of turbochargers and associated tuning parts.
Supercar Exhaust products are available in 304/321 stainless steel, Titanium and Inconel DDQ or LCF. All of their systems are handcrafted by F1 experienced exhaust fabricators and precisely TIG welded using Argon Hytec gas for welding stainless steel and Inconel and are back purged with 100% pure Argon. The titanium products are welded in a zero% oxygen free welding chamber with 100% pure Argon. Neither of these processes are the cheapest option, but they are used in preference to ensure their clients of the highest quality and contaminant free precision welds.
TIG welding is the only option in welding the exotic materials that Primary Designs utilise, with superior arc and weld pool control. TIG allows the fabricator to create precise, clean welds where appearance and weld integrity are important. As the heat input is controlled by the use of a foot pedal, TIG welding allows precise control of the weld bead.
Supercar Exhaust system is currently available for Porsche, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Ferrari and BMW M Series and will increase power by as much as 30BHP.
For further details, visit http://www.primarydesigns.co.uk or telephone (+44) 1844 216057.
2010 has been a very exciting but demanding year for us,with many new challenges and developments from the World class Racing car companies and manufacturers we are priviledged to be working with.
With new customers and projects for 2010 we have been very busy honing our skills in working with a range of exotic materials,with many hours of highly skilled craftmanship going into each component of every Race exhaust or Supercar exhaust that we make.
The amount of effort that has been put in by the workforce and increase in our skill levels,especially amongst the younger members of our workforce who are in or recently finished Apprenticeships is very inspiring and gives us a platform from which to develop the company.
Despite the turndown in the economy,we are seeing new exciting opportunities and developments. Pat Barrett(Managing Director)
Primary Designs launches new Supercar range of exhausts in partnership with local company Buckinghamshire High Performance (BHP)
We will be building a range of Supercar exhausts for Porsche,Ferrari,Lamborghini,
Aston Martin and BMW M Series Cars for both Road and Track(track noise level compliant)
These will be available in High quality Stainless Steel,Titanium
or Inconel 625(as used in the construction of lightweight F1 and Le Mans car exhausts)
More details will be available over the next few weeks in our new Supercar section of the website.
We are privileged and enjoying working with a Championship contending team and producing Grand Prix winning exhausts during the 2010 season.
After many years manufacturing Formula 1 exhausts,we are now enjoying seeing cars with Primary Designs exhausts fighting for podium positions
In recent years we have supplied exhausts to over a third of the grid in modern day Formula One – and our experience of fabricating exhausts for contemporary high revving V10 and V8 race engines – together with our expertise in working with today’s top teams in F1 and experience in the use of exotic materials- means that the competition pedigree of our products is unsurpassed.