Peugeot's 307 rally car
 

i was questioning in the "WRC back" post about the 4 speed tranny in this car. does anybody know any technical details of the 307? the coverage on speedtv stated that the 307 had a 4 speed tranny to minimize time lost shifting through 6 gears. but i thought that wrc car engines were limited to 2 liters. where would the 307 get the extra power to use 4 gears? any thoughts, or site where i could read up on this?

307 WRC

Engine

Type : XU7JP4
Position : transversale avant
Number of cylinders : 4
Capacity : 1 997cc
Bore x stroke (mm) : 85 x 88
Power : 300 Ã* 5250 tr/mn
Torque : 580 Nm at 3500 rpm
Cylinder head : aluminium
Valves : 4 per cylinder
Cylinder block : aluminium
Camshafts : 2 OHC
Fuel system : MAGNETI-MARRELLI STEP 9
Turbo : GARRETT HONEYWELL
Lubrication : Carbon wet sump
Fuel feed : Injection electronic control
Heat exchange : Air - Air

Transmission

Clutch : Carbone, 6" triple plate
Gearbox : transverse, 5 speed Hewland
Differentials : Active front, rear and central

Steering

Type : power steering, rack and pinion

Brakes

Front : Vented 370 mm diameter discs and 8-pot calipers (295mm*)
Rear : 370 mm diameter discs (295mm*) 4-pot calipers


Suspension

Front and rear : pseudo McPherson
Shock absorbers : Peugeot

Dimensions

Wheelbase : 2,610 m
Length : 4,4344 m
Width : 1,770 m
Height : 1,370 m
Wheels : O.Z 8x18" (7x15*)
Tires : Michelin 20x65x18’’ (17x65x15*)
Weight : 1 230 kg
Fuel tank capacity : 90 litres
Fuel : F.I.A
Lubrication : Total

thanks redbaron, but your's still says 5 speed hewland. but i know i heard 4 speed on tv. so i went digging around and i'm half right and half wrong. here's what i found from the peugeot portion of www.rallye-info.com:

In contrary to the longitudinal gearbox of the 206 WRC is the new hewland gearbox transverse mounted in front of the engine. A bevel gear transfers the power to the rear wheels. All three differentials are electronic. “We have homologated a 4-speed as well as a 5-speed gearbox.�, explains Peugeot’s chief engineer Michel Nandon. “Despite the short gear change times on the modern sequential gearboxes, the driver loses time with a gear change. With an exact engine set up in some circumstances 4 gears will be sufficient.�

my hats off to peugeot.

i work for peugeot....any question?
the turbo yes is a GARRETT HONEYWELL but honeywell develop only the air conduct...the body of the turbo...the heart of the turbo is only Garret...the injection control is magneti marelli is directly develop from the "old" 206 wrc. the gearbox is e-gear...more detail after. i wait for some new info from peugeot...ii have this opportunity....
is about 300 hp....peugeot work with two type of gearbox...4 speed and 5 speed....
both are ok for rally...is only to choose wich one for wich kind of rally....

Fra

Have all rally cars just 5 speed gearboxes? The roadgoing versions of the Mitsubishi and the Subaru have 6...
5 would be better, since they get only to 200kms/h

all the works rally cars have 6 speed gearboxes, peugeot is the only one that uses a 4-speed, which in my opinion is a foolish idea. i saw on the coverage that marcus gronholm was topping out the rev limiter in 4th gear on a really long straight, had he been able to utilize six gears instead of 4, the straight line top speed would have been higher and he wouldn't have lost so much time on that one straight alone. i don't know what peugeot were thinking when they said there's some superior advantages to having a 4 speed, cuz obviously there aren't. rally teams use six speed gearboxes for a reason :roll:

im sure you know a lot more about peugeot then i could aspire to...but....
off topic; but "air conduction" is the most important part of the turbo. garret makes the housing alone. years of development has gone into the impeller, and exahaust turbine designs; which also needed the housing itself to dictate airflow in the turbin to make hot spots a minimum.
how any t3, or t4, or t2.5 turbo differs from one another mainly is in meathod of cooling... oil, or water, and turbine wheel designs. if one company (such as honeywell, renowned for aircraft technology) designs a turbine which can spool up quicker, create less heat, and keep harmonic resonance to a minimum, then great benefits in the torque curve. keep in mind if any turbo reaches a given max boost... then all will have the same top end, it is the low revs that make the difference :)
basically, my 2 cents goes to honeywell is to garret as an IDE cable is to a cd-romm drive ~pardon my poor analogy :idea:

The reduction of gears of Peugeot stayed the whole day in my mind. The idea behind the reduction to 4 gears is interesting, but wasn't it Peugeot too who reduced its gears from 6 to 5 last year?? I think it would save some time, anyone knows how many times they shift on a stage? The times in the overall ranking gets closer, so maybe this will be the difference between a win or a lose!
They could also save weight with it. Or make the tranny more robust with the same weight of a 5-speed, last year many trannies broke down in general. Maybe this is the key to another year of succes, we will see...

It will be exiting to see in WRC Sweden the coming weekend, how Henning Solberg (Petters Solbergs older brother) will do in last years 206 compared to the new 307.

woh, only 4 speeds. This is something new to me. Consider F1 has 7 speeds. Big Difference!

The number of gears depends on the characteristics of the track. If WRC cars are limited to 300hp, the only way to go is to develop more torque. But it is too strange only 4 gears, since there were a lot of switchbacks and high speed zones. And if the rev limiter was on, that's a HUGE confirmation that something was understudied.

with 300BHP a 4 speed is plenty considering the car wont see more then 200kms hour