LMDh project manager Urs Kuratle revealed that the improved durability of this year’s 963 has largely eliminated the need for a new version of the engine, designed to reduce vibration in the name of the reliability of the hybrid system. car.
“Maybe this project will be cancelled. If we go to Le Mans and don’t have any vibration-related problems, we probably won’t introduce it at all,” explains Kuratle.
“We’ve done every race this year and haven’t had any reliability issues, so why introduce it?”
The initial plan to have the engine in its fleet of 963s in time for the 24h of Le Mans on 15-16 June was shelved, but Kuratle had also reiterated since Qatar that the revised V8 would arrive sooner or later this season.
Porsche began development of the new version of the 4.6-liter V8 last year, following reliability issues with the mandatory hybrid system in the LMDh.
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
The company believed that 180-degree crankshaft vibration contributed to poor reliability, so much so that it decided to begin work on an upgraded 90-degree engine.
But improvements to the hybrid system, particularly the motor-generator unit (MGU) supplied by Bosch Motorsport, since the end of last season have transformed the 963 into a much more reliable car.
PPM took victory in the 24 Hours of Daytona in January, and Porsche had no issues with the hybrid over the course of the event.
The German manufacturer did not pursue the plan to have the new engine at Le Mans because it was supposed to race it for the first time at Imola last month. The organizers of the series, FIA and Automobile Club de l’Ouest, wanted to have it in play two races before Le Mans to evaluate the impact of the engine on the Balance of Performance.
Since only one homologation is allowed in LMDh, this would have meant introducing it simultaneously in the five 963s competing in the WEC and the four in IMSA, also because the Long Beach race of the North American series coincided with Imola.
There would have been no time to undertake the endurance testing needed to validate the engine before a 24 Hour race.
Kuratle explained that the logistical challenges of introducing the engine were a further reason why the idea would be shelved for the time being.
“We need to do endurance tests before introducing it and this costs a lot. It would be a big effort to put it on all the cars at the same time in both series and produce all the replacement engines. For now it has only run on the dyno, but never on a car real”.
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