BMW engine facts and figures

BMW Formula One engine development in facts and figures.
1,300 metres of paper for the BMW P83.

It packs more than 900 bhp, weighs less than 90 kilograms and has a maximum engine speed of 19,200 rpm. The BMW P83 engine with which the BMW WilliamsF1 Team is pitching for the 2003 Formula One World Championship title will be put out to pasture after the final race -- the Japanese Grand Prix -- in three weeks time.

Up to now, no more than broad skeleton data on this power pack from the Munich Formula One factory have been released. Ahead of the last two races of the season in Indianapolis (28 September) and Suzuka (12 October), its profile is now fleshed out.

Who would have guessed, for example, that 1,950 CAD drawings were made for this engine? Printed out and laid end to end, they would cover a distance of 1.3 kilometres.

Facts and figures:

*Output of the BMW P83 is over 900 bhp.
*Maximum engine speed is 19,200 rpm.
*In a race, engine speed is limited to 19,000 rpm.
*Idle speed is 4,000 rpm.
*The engine weighs less than 90 kilograms.
*It completes a distance of 500 kilometres before undergoing revision.
*Total production of the BMW P83 is 200 units, ten of which the team takes to each race.
*Before being phased out the engine will have received 1,388 upgrade modifications.
*It comprises around 5,000 individual components, 1,000 of them different.
*The air intake volume is 1,995 cubic metres per hour.
*Maximum piston acceleration is 10,000g.

*Piston speed peaks at 40 metres per second and averages 25 metres per second.
*Exhaust temperatures of up to 950 degrees are reached.
*Maximum air temperature in the pneumatic system is 250 degrees.
*The ultra-high-speed 130R turn at Suzuka with its lateral load of 4g poses the greatest challenge to the oil system.
*The BMW P83 endured the highest full-throttle proportion on the Monza circuit at 73 per cent per lap.

*At the Monaco Grand Prix, the transmission and engine have to withstand an average 3,100 gear changes.
*The engine block and cylinder head are made of cast aluminium and are manufactured at the BMW Formula One foundry in Landshut using a special thin-wall casting method.
*BMW Munich handles, among other things the manufacture of the crankshaft (steel), camshaft (case-hardened steel) and camshaft covers, as well as processing of the cylinder head and crankcase. The oil system and engine electronics also stem from BMW Munich.

BMW 83 engine timeline from concept to culmination:

*Concept: November and December 2001
*Design: January through May 2002
*Model construction at the BMW foundry in Landshut: March through May 2002
*Components manufacture: April through July 2002
*Initial assembly: July 2002
*First bench test: 31 July 2002
*Test phase development stage 1: August 2002 through January 2003
*First deployment in car: 18 September 2002
*Development to race readiness: October 2002 to mid-February 2003
*Further development: mid-February to season's final in October 2003

In the meantime the test phase for the BMW P84 engine was launched. Following successful bench tests, it was already being tested on the track in its 2004 season specification at Monza on 4 September 2003.

-bmw/williams-