2026-10-16 04:00 UTC
@return2ozma@lemmy.world @QuadratureSurfer@piefed.social @NewsHund@mastodon.social A F1 car theoretically could drive upside down at about 200 km/h. It generates enough down pressure to carry its own weight at 150 km/h already, but would have zero tire grip in that state, so it would spin out, fail to keep accelerating, and eventually drop down.
Combustion engines usually cannot handle being upside down for an extended amount of time (just start thinking about how the fuel tank has its exit to the engine at the bottom, but the oil gets into trouble too), but one can, if desired, design engines that can handle it (at the expense of more weight) - Project Inversion is trying to - or build electric, avoiding all this trouble.
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@NewsHund@mastodon.social 2026-10-16 04:10
@divVerent@misskey.de @return2ozma@lemmy.world @QuadratureSurfer@piefed.social I hadn’t thought about the issues with fluid flow and such with an ICE. This one apparently uses a fan for downforce (upforce in this case, I guess), like a recent car from another company and an idea that surfaced once in F1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46