Cosworth Projects
This is a quick post on some former projects.
I had the fortune of working for multiple industries since I started Metronomicon, and through those companies I participated in some very interesting projects.
Gordon Murray T50
I initially worked for Multax Ltd. leading their inspection department from 2021 to 2023, and later on I was contracted to help with the Quality Control of many of their products.
Amongst the predominantly F1 portfolio, they landed some contracts with Cosworth as well.
I have created most of the CMM programmes and Quality plans for pump housings and throttle bodies that eventually landed in the Gordon Murray T50.
The biggest challenge with the Cosworth components has been the variety of tolerances.
The general tolerancing is quite generous, but the more important features; bearing journals, dowel holes, sealing faces are tied up. Tolerances like 0.02 mm Total runout or 0.05 True positions are common on their drawings.
Some of the geometry that controls airflow into the engine is downright insane. I don’t have any idea how they ended up on the geometry that they’ve chosen.
I met Toby Nation, the lead designer and I have a feeling he operates in a different dimension than us mortals do.
Throttle bodies, fuel rails, the scavenge pump housing and many other supporting components gone through my hands over the years.
The Red Bull hypercar - RB17
A similar project, also through Multax’s relationship with Cosworth was the RB17’s prototype phase.
Cosworth has been testing the waters with some suppliers to try and manufacture some of the prototypes. It must have been a futile effort because they came back to us.
Again I found myself working through a new set of even more complicated Throttle bodies and fuel rails than the T50’s.
This project offered another big challenge. The prototypes changed multiple times during the tests, adding new revisions to the parts that already took days to programme, not to mention Cosworth’s tedious PPAP and FAIR processes a unique blend of different standards that they like to apply.
I did not see the end of the project as I was only contracted to create the first set of CMM programmes and documentation. The internal team handled the rest.
Nonetheless an interesting project.
Under the carbon there are some parts that had multiple revisions released to correct some important GD&T errors and oversights.
Cosworth was remarkably cooperative on changing tolerances and revise drawings to aid production and inspection.
Some of the changes purely happened, because the verification of some characteristics would have taken hours.
Again, credit to their design team, they happily arranged meetings to have a back and forth over the GD&T.
Some photos of the cars below
