Cosworth CA2010 Engine

The latest Formula One™ race engine from the Cosworth stable builds on the achievements of its 2006 predecessor to enable the CA2010 to deliver a reliable and competitive solution for four customer teams in the 2010 FIA Formula One™ World Championship.

A competitive Formula One™ engine needs to deliver on a number of fronts; reliability, power and good fuel consumption are key among the targets. Cosworth’s experienced team of engineers were tasked with achieving these objectives within the tight parameters of Formula One’s 2010 technical regulations.

The pressures, temperatures and strains experienced by the multitude of components within the CA2010 are extreme. Cosworth has employed specialist materials and state of the art manufacturing processes that to produce an engine that is capable of amazing resilience and performance.

The CA2010 will become the 52nd engine variant developed by Cosworth to race in the Formula One™ World Championship, the latest member of a dynasty that began with the legendary DFV in 1967.

The development of the Cosworth CA2010 engine has been the responsibility of Cosworth’s in-house engineering group headed by Technical Director Bruce Wood, with Dave Gudd taking responsibility for development and James Allen design.

The unit has been designed, developed, built and tested at Cosworth’s headquarters in St James Mill Road, Northampton, which houses world class facilities and capability; a testimony to over four decade of championship winning performances in Formula One

The secret to the stunning performance of a Formula One™ engine is its speed – operating at 18,000rpm it spins at over three times that of a standard road car engine. However it can be difficult to grasp the amazing speeds and the forces endured by the various components within the Cosworth CA2010.

The following real world facts and figures aim to give some useful comparisons to appreciate the extraordinary machine that is the Cosworth CA2010.

Valves:

The speed and precision of the engine valve movements (which allow air and fuel to enter and exhaust gases to exit the cylinder) are crucial to the power and performance of the CA2010. A pneumatic spring system is employed to enable the frequency to be achieved while maintaining absolute control over valve position.

At maximum engine speed, each valve opens and closes 150 times per second. That’s the same as a hummingbird's wing speed (the ruby-throated hummingbird).

Air Intake:

At peak power the CA2010 ingests air fast enough to empty a typical living room in about 60 seconds, a task that would take over 20 minutes for the average home vacuum.

(We don't suggest you use a CA2010 to clean your carpets!)

Piston Speed:

The speed of the piston is of course closely linked to overall engine speed. At maximum engine speed each piston will travel up and down the cylinder bore (a distance of 39.75mm) 300 times each second – that’s 30 times in the blink of a human eye.

Crankshaft:

The CA2010 crank shaft which transmits the engine power to the gearbox in the car, rotates up to 18,000 times each minute. During a typical race, at Monza for example, this crank shaft will spin approximately 22,000 times each lap and will have completed an amazing 1.17 million revolutions by the end of the 53 laps that make up race distance.

To meet the engine life restrictions that require each driver to use no more than 8 engines in the season, this same crank will then need to do the whole thing again at least twice more. This gives a lifetime total approaching 3.5 million revolutions in which the crankshaft transfers over 750 horsepower to the gearbox equivalent to 0.56 Mega Watts.

Connecting Rod:

At 18000 rpm the peak acceleration for each piston is 8600g (i.e. 8600 x force of gravity) – over 2000 times greater than the peak cornering and braking figures for an F1 car. This piston acceleration is equivalent to a weight of around 2.5 tons (or the weight of a Range Rover) pulling on the connecting rod.