Ferrari Mailing List: Cool Ferrari Christmas present

[Hans E. Hansen (FList]

My son gave me an engine valve (not sure if intake
or exhaust, but guessing intake because there is
no evidence of heat/burning on the top surface, just
on the face) from a F2001 formula one car.  Came
with a nice Lucite display base.

The head is quite thin by ordinary passenger car
standards, and flat - without the thickening toward
the stem usually seen.  The stem is absolutely tiny.

The metallurgy involved must be pure rocket science
for this delicate looking piece to not break at 
18,000+ rpm.    I am a bit curious, however, why 
titanium wasn't used.  Altho the mass is much less 
than a normal production car valve, it still has a bit 
of heft.  Titanium is used in production car based race 
engines, so why not here?

I've usually seen multi-angle valve seats which result
in a thin sealing surface.  The wear pattern on this
valve is quite wide, and surprisingly not symmetrical.
i.e. - the seating area on one side is noticeably 
wider than on the other.  I wonder if this is from
uneven wear, or if they were a touch sloppy when
the valve seats were ground.

Too bad I don't know anything of the history of this
particular engine.  But I'm sure it must have been
Schumacher's championship car. <g>.

Hans.