Cosworth

Superleague Formula needed a single electronics supplier to provide and manage the complete electronics package for every car on the grid. Timescales were tight, the test car would be on track in less than 3 months.

Cosworth was unique in its electronics solution: offering a "one stop shop" to Superleague Formula providing:

Sigma Elite J20 Logger & Controller
The main team chassis logger and also the central control unit for the car. The Elite J20 interfaces with all other on car units via CAN and allows teams to enter gear ratios directly as part of their Sigma set-up, rather than having to connect to an additional unit.

Pectel SQ6M12 Engine Controller
The Pectel ECU directly controls the brand new V12 4.2 Litre 750bhp engine. Ignition strategies fire a spark every 0.83ms at 12,000 rpm - 1,200 times every second. The Engine Control Unit also communicates with the Gearshift controller to cut engine power during up shifts.

Pectel GCU Gearbox Controller
The Pectel GCU directly controls the gearbox semi-auto pneumatic gearshift system jointly developed by the electronics team at Cosworth and Shifttec Ltd.
The unit responds to shift demands from the driver via steering wheel mounted paddles and excellent shift times are achieved of around 30ms (timed from driver
demand to reapplying full power). These advanced strategies repay the end customer over and over again by reducing gearbox service intervals by 50% and rejecting shifts that may damage the engine - e.g. a downshift when revs are too high.

Pi Carbon Steering Wheel
Superleague Formula wanted a F1-style steering wheel as the focal point on the car. Cosworth worked with Superleague Formula to design a custom carbon steering wheel with membrane switch panel and completely integrated electronics. All wiring is via the quick release connector with no external wires.

P192S Series Telemetry System
100% wireless coverage from every car at every event. Each car is fitted with a P192-S Telemetry radio transmitting to two receiving racks located at different points on the circuit linked by fibre. Data is provided to the TV Company for live on-screen graphics, to the engine supplier for health monitoring of the V12 and to the teams for monitoring their cars.

Wiring Harness
Often overlooked but an absolutely essential part of any race car. Wiring issues are both complicated to diagnose and difficult to repair so Cosworth ensured they were built to last with excellent reliability.

Pi Toolbox Analysis Software
All Cosworth electronics systems offload data for analysis in the powerful and simple to use Pi Toolbox Analysis software allowing all teams and suppliers to share a common analysis tool. To ensure that the complete system is as easy to use as possible Cosworth supplied custom workbooks designed to give answers, rather than numbers, from the data as quickly as possible.