Official Veyron Tops Speed... 218mph!

[13mac]

According to this weeks UK Autocar magazine....

Bugatti will cut the official top speed of its delayed Veyron to 350km/h(218mph). It follows rumours that the 8.0 litre W16 powered supercar was seriously unstable at high speed..... The firm is planning a special record-setting speed run to prove the original target (252mph) is possible.

-End of quote-

I always had the view that I would believe it was faster once I had actually seen it. Seems the F1 could remain top of the class for a very long time, although I am sure the Veyron could set all kinds of new benchmarks in 'special record-setting tests'.

Don.

[McLaren F1 Guy]

From Autoweek-

BUGATTI LIMITING TOP SPEED OF DELAYED 16.4 VEYRON

Bugatti is planning to limit the top speed of its delayed 16.4 Veyron to 218 mph, according to sources close to the Volkswagen-owned company. The move follows long-standing rumors suggesting road-going prototypes of the 8.0-liter W16-powered two-seater had experienced stability problems at high speed.

The decision to knock 34 mph off the Bugatti's top speed is said to be among a series of crucial changes instigated by new chairman Thomas Bscher. Despite reining in the top end, AutoWeek has learned that Bugatti will try for a world record for production cars later this year by pushing the Veyron to the 252-mph maximum originally quoted by former Bugatti boss Karl-Heinz Neumann back in 2000.

[McLaren Mike]

w18, what a joke, karma for thinking higher intelligence than GM.

-Mike

[mini magic]

good.

[FortechMini11]

is it a real W18 or is it one of those engines that they call a W like the VW W8 which isn't a W at all

[Peloton25]

W18 was a typo in his case I believe.

There was a Veyron W18 engine, but that idea was shelved long ago and replaced with the current design W16.

The difference is that the W18 was effectively three banks of 6 cylinders sharing a common crankshaft, but each bank having it's own head. It was sort of like three seperate inline 6's mated together. The original W12 from the Audi Avus concept was a lot like this engine. Here's a shot of the 3-bank W18:



The W16 is 2 banks of 8 cylinders, with each individual bank of 8 being more like a mini V8 as they each row is offset by 15 degrees, but all 8 cylinders share one head. The two main banks of 8 cylinders share a common crankshaft in this engine as well. Here is the W16 they plan to use:



If you are familiar with the VW narrow angle VR6 engine found in the GTI and now several other VWAG products, the design of the W16 is quite similar to that engine. It's also very similar to the W12 that is currently offered in the Phaeton and A8

And for reference to how the block of the W16 is layed out, here is a photo of the block from the VW W12 showcar that never reached production. It's kind of small, but you get the idea:



>8^)
ER

[ArchangelGTR]

It's interesting how Dr. Thomas Bscher.. a McLaren owner who has repeatedly done 200+ mph in his Mclaren and who used to win in the BPR series in a GTR, will limit "his" company's pride and joy to 218 mph.

Could it be that since he knows how a car is supposed to behave at over 200 mph, he doesn't think the Bugatti to be worthy? At least he knows that making claims like Ferrari did with their Enzo will only lead to a test which will further the legitimacy of the McLaren Principle (to achieve the ultimate street vehicle)

McLaren - 2
Bugatti - 0

It's only speculation and in no means meant to offend Dr. Bscher. (He's one of the principle and financial leaders in getting McLaren to "go to war"). Dr. Bscher seems to be a more of a realist than the folks at Ferrari. Wonder what Mr. Enzo Ferrari would have done if he were still alive.

[Mr. Bernoulli]

If an Audi TT becomes unstable at the rear at high speed, it follows that something with a broadly similar shape is going to do the same thing, especially at much higher velocity!

[Peloton25]

I totally agree with what Mr. Bernoulli has stated.

Archangel- I would counter that even though Dr. Thomas Bscher was very closely associated with getting McLaren Cars to go racing with the F1 GTR, I really don't believe in his new position he would make any compromises to the Veyron project to protect the reputation of the F1. That's a fairly absurd suggestion in my opinion.

As a late entry to the project, I fully believe he is playing the hand he was dealt in the best way possible at this point.

>8^)
ER

[ArchangelGTR]

Originally Posted by Peloton25

I totally agree with what Mr. Bernoulli has stated.

Archangel- I would counter that even though Dr. Thomas Bscher was very closely associated with getting McLaren Cars to go racing with the F1 GTR, I really don't believe in his new position he would make any compromises to the Veyron project to protect the reputation of the F1. That's a fairly absurd suggestion in my opinion.

As a late entry to the project, I fully believe he is playing the hand he was dealt in the best way possible at this point.

>8^)
ER

Well I think the absurdity was probably the way I phrased it rather than the thought.

If you drive a car at speeds well beyond the norm.. say even 150 on a regular basis. You become acclimated and knowledgeable about good vehicle high speed dynamics.... its behavior. If you drive another car that exhibits "strange" behavior, then that car is not considered stable and should be driven at lesser speeds more suited to its vehicle dynamics. Dr. Bscher has experience to know what good dynamics is. Theoretical calculations may be more inclined to be proven wrong than someone with real world experience.

I think the compromise may have been for customer safety than anything. To claim a vehicle can do certain speeds, when it can (but not safely) will only get customers to try and prove the claims. A lot (not all) of customers that are able to afford these high performance machines have little track or high speed experience. The Veyron may in fact be able to surpass 218, but with such instability that he does not want to risk having the Veyron name associated with deaths due to the afformentioned high speed instability. (The closest example would be the Mercedes CLK-GTRs of recent LeMans past. Super fast cars, but had the tendency to flip at a certain point on the Mulsanne straights. Fortunately, no-one perished. But there have been those that have perished proving a cars high speed.) All it takes is one death and the entire Bugatti name will go back into history instead of remain in the present.

As they say in racing: In order to finish first.. you must first finish.

[Peloton25]

Yes - those points make much more sense. Thanks for clarifying what you meant.

>8^)
ER

[Mr. Bernoulli]

I think that the suggestion that it took Dr Bscher's input, as a man used to driving fast, to demonstrate the car's short comings is a little short sighted.

The problem in these situations is that the current programs to calculate aerodynamic properties of a body passing through a fluid (CFD modelling) and those for modelling vehicle dynamics are not fully integrated so that each part has to be done separately. Since, especially at high speed, these variables are so interlinked, it can be very difficult to predict what is going to happen.

Of course in the case of the F1 they got it right because they did things the right way round. Free from the constraints of the marketing department they were able to develop the shape entirely in the wind tunnel before the world got to see what it was going to look like. It's a hell of a lot harder trying to make a car that already has a shape to be more aerodynamically stable!

[ArchangelGTR]

I'm certainly not going to disagree that it is a simplification of what happened to the Veyron top speed. But it certainly leads to speculation that since Dr. Bscher has been added to the Bugatti equation, the Veyron has been returned back to a "normal" speed. As I have stated, it's only speculation. (Must have been more amusing to me than others. )

[teflon]

Excerpt from Motor Trend 12.01.2003 written by Karl Ludvigsen
...A different, but no less enthusiastic, crowd saw a Veyron in action at the Monterey Historic Races in August. A lurid on-track spin that nearly cost the company one of its prototypes really got everyone's attention..

That 252 mph isn't quite ready for delivery, says a source close to the car's development. It's stable up to 200 mph, with its automatic rear-wing extension, but it needs some work above that. Nor is the complicated driveline ready: The engine's 920 pound-feet of torque are tearing up its transmission's gears, creating what one engineer calls "tooth salad." Michelin hasn't completed development of its critical PAX-system run-flat tires. But VW's Audi Group has the resources to solve these problems...

Note the date of the following article is August of 2003.

Article taken from Autoweek(16:04 Aug. 19, 2003)
Bugatti's president to exit in wake of continued Veyron delays
By GREG KABLE


Storm clouds are gathering over the Bugatti EB16.4 Veyron. Word out of Germany is that Bugatti president Karl-Heinz Neumann has received his walking papers from parent company Volkswagen's chairman Bernd Pischetsreider as a consequence of the supercar's launch delay.

Originally due to go into limited production earlier this year, the Veyron now appears unlikely to reach customers until this time next year -- some 12 months behind schedule. Nothing's official just yet, though Volkswagen sources say moves are already afoot to replace Neumann, who has headed Bugatti since plans for the Veyron were first announced in 2000.

German press reports suggest Bentley and Volkswagen Motorsport boss, Franz-Josef Paefgen, may be brought in to steer the new car's final development, although an official announcement is unlikely to be made until the Frankfurt motor show in early September. Problems with the reliability of the Veyron's complex 8.0-litre, W-16 engine and seven-speed gearbox are said to be behind the launch delay.

Bugatti was aware of stability problems months before Bscher was hired. The car's production debut was already significantly delayed and it is likely that VW couldn't come up with a solution for the Veyron's instability among other issues. They could waste several more months--or even years--trying to solve something that might be unsolvable and further delay the car, or reduce the top speed and perhaps have it ready for the public some time relatively soon.

It's pretty easy to see what the smart solution would be in this situation.

Greg A