Search

A     B     C     D     E     F     G     H     I     J     K     L     M     N     O     P     Q     R     S     T     U     V     W     X     Y     Z




Formulas
All Tests
Motoroil-Finder



 Motor sports 1



One could assume that motorsport was a kind of adjunct at BMW, just born to win more customers for the product. One would still ascribe to the company 'Bayerische Motoren Werke' that their engines were designed to be particularly sporty from the start, but the rest of the vehicle was not. We are of course talking about the new class from 1961.

This may well be the case for the engine. It was designed by Alex von Falkenhausen, who was also head of the racing department and racing driver. According to the order, he was originally supposed to be content with 1,300 cm3, but designed the engine to 1,500 cm3 with the stipulation that it could later be expanded to 2 liters.

At first he was satisfied with an overhead camshaft, but already envisaged a chain drive and valves arranged in a V-shape by rocker arms. After initial doubts, he was convinced by the special features of the Apfelbeck engine and carried out successful record attempts with it in a used F1 chassis from Brabham at the Hockenheimring, but this engine never achieved any significance for BMW's racing activities.

The question of whether only the engine of BMWs from 1961 onwards has proven to be suitable for motorsport needs to be answered with a clear no. The fact that a smaller two-door was created after a larger four-door car had to make one sit up and take notice. Obviously, a vehicle for brisk drivers with children was designed here.

BMW did a lot of advertising with the new rear axle. Not only did this semi-trailing arm construction let the wheels slide into slightly negative, but never positive camber, it was also composed of light pressed sheet metal parts, completely new territory in the mid-range segment.

Later the spring struts are said to have been moved a little more inwards at the top. However, the source claims that this enabled more negative camber on the outside wheel. But that was only true if the strut bearings had also been moved a little further back at the same time. At the time, BMW allegedly owned a patent relating to the caster distance, which had additional relevance to the caster angle.

My assistant during my studies once told me that BMW was particularly lucky with the car, I think he meant the 02 Series. Sometimes it is the case that the purely physical values such as length, width, wheelbase, etc. are chosen so well that an excellent chassis is the result. Incidentally, he didn't drive a BMW, but a Peugeot 504 with a similar chassis.

How did one begin to qualify BMWs more for motorsport? Another rumor is that Burkard Bovensiepen from Alpina offered a set of two double carburetors to BMW early on. In 1965, BMW also developed its 1800 from 1963 via the TI with two Solex double carburetors and 81 kW (110 PS) to a 96 kW (130 hp) Sonder Aausführung with Weber carburetors, which was expressly only delivered to licensed racing drivers. Homologation was mentioned for the first time here.

The car already had the performance that the 2000 TII only achieved later. The combustion chambers were modified, the valves enlarged and the compression increased. The transition to a five-speed gearbox and shorter gear ratios was also typical for such a sporty vehicle. With this car, Josef Schnitzer jr. finished second in the German Circuit Championship in 1965. We'll have to talk about the Schnitzer team later. A year earlier, they had started selling BMW there.


236 Nm at 8000 rpm, 191 kW (260 hp) at 8500 rpm

Here the Apfelbeck construction derived from the 2 liter series engine M10. It has eight intake fittings with flat slide valves, i.e. two per cylinder, and thus does not supply the valves next to one another, but rather the valves opposite one another. For the Lola-BMW used in Formula 2 from 1966/1967, the engine was reduced to 1.6 liters. The injection pump comes from Kugelfischer.


251 Nm at 7500 rpm, 232 kW (315 hp) at 9500 rpm

This is the F2 M12/7 engine, used from 1970 to 1985. One deviated from the Apfelbeck concept and still achieved more torque and power. BMW had been out of Formula 2 since the end of 1970, but it was engine supplier. The engine was also used in the BMW 320 Group 5. A total of almost 1,000 vehicles were built by him. It was called the most successful BMW racing engine ever.

Vehicles with this engine have won three European championship titles.


kfz-tech.de/YBM27







Sidemap - Technik Imprint E-Mail Datenschutz Sidemap - Hersteller