Judd (engine)


Judd is a brand of racing car engines built by Engine Developments Ltd., a company founded in 1971 by John Judd and Jack Brabham in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Engine Developments was intended to build engines for Brabham's racing efforts, and became one of the first firms authorised by Cosworth to maintain and rebuild its DFV engines, but has since expanded into various areas of motorsport.
Judd has provided engines for many major series, including Formula One, Indycar and other smaller formula series, sports car racing, and touring car racing. They have been associated with manufacturers such as Yamaha, MG, Mazda and Honda, although they have mainly been a privateer-engine supplier.

Lower formulae and IndyCar

As a result of Jack Brabham's long-standing relationship with Honda, Judd was hired by them to develop an engine for the company's return to Formula Two in association with Ron Tauranac's Ralt team.
After the demise of Formula Two at the end of the 1984 season, Judd continued to develop new engines for Honda. The first was the Judd AV, a turbocharged V8 engine built for Honda's CART campaign. It was first used on the CART circuit midway through the 1986 season, fielded by Galles Racing and driver Geoff Brabham. It was initially badged as the Brabham-Honda, and scored a fourth-place finish at the 1986 Michigan 500. In 1987, the engine was used for the first time at the Indianapolis 500. Rookie Jeff MacPherson finished 8th in the engine's first Indy appearance. Brabham scored second-place finishes in 1987 at Pocono and Road America, as well as a third at the season finale at Miami.
The engine became known for its reliability and superior fuel mileage. However, it was at a decided power disadvantage compared to the top engine of the time, the Ilmor-Chevrolet.
In 1988, Truesports with driver Bobby Rahal took over as the primary team, and the "Honda" name and support was dropped from the powerplant. During the 1988 season, Rahal took advantage of the engine's reliability in the 500-mile races, finishing fifth at Indianapolis and second at the Michigan 500. He then scored the first and only Indy car victory for the Judd engine, at the 1988 Pocono 500. Rahal's ten top-10 finishes led to a third-place in the season points standings. A year later, Raul Boesel drove a Judd to a 3rd place in the 1989 Indianapolis 500, which would be Judd's best Indy 500 result. In that race, all five Judds that qualified were running at the finish, with two in the top ten.
Judd continued to build upgrades to the AV into the early 1990s, even after Honda had stopped badging the engines. When Honda moved into the new Formula 3000 series, Judd again developed the company's engine. Based on the architecture of the AV, the new BV V8 was a naturally aspirated variant, and would eventually form the basis for the Judd CV Formula One engine.

KV

After the company's departure from Formula One, Judd returned to Formula 3000 in 1995 with the development of the 3-litre KV V8 engine. Judd built the engines that every Formula 3000 team used, although Zytek was tasked with maintaining the over 80 engines after they were built. Judd stopped production of the KV and the Formula 3000 series ended in 2004; contrary to rumour, Zytek did not use the KV engine as a basis for the A1 Grand Prix units in 2005, but used their own V8 designed by ex-Judd engineer Hiro Kaneda.

Formula One

In 1988, in conjunction with March Engineering, Judd made the move into the recently reintroduced normally aspirated variant of Formula One, which would completely replace turbocharged cars in 1989. By using the existing BV V8 as the starting point for their new F1 engine, Judd saved cost while at the same time producing a customer engine that could compete on track and in the marketplace with the Ford-Cosworth V8s that were standard equipment for the teams competing to the new rules.

CV

The first Formula One engine developed by Judd, the CV, was built to the 3.5-litre engine formula for naturally aspirated engines. The engine shared many design features with the Judd BV engine, but was expanded to 3.5 litres. March Engineering was the first team who signed to use the Judd CV. Reigning World Constructors' champion Williams was later forced also to turn to Judd, after they lost their supply of Honda engines for 1988. In addition, Ligier also bought CVs for use in the 1988 season. Judd-powered cars finished in podium positions four times during their debut season, with Williams' lead driver, Nigel Mansell, scoring Judd's first podium when he finished second at the very wet 1988 British Grand Prix. The other podium finishes were the March of Ivan Capelli finishing 3rd in Belgium. Capelli also finished a strong 2nd behind the McLaren Honda of Alain Prost in Portugal before Mansell again finished 2nd, behind Prost, at the very next race in Spain.
During the season, the Judd V8 was originally producing approximately , and through constant development work throughout the season saw power rise to around by season's end. Despite its comparative lack of power, the Judd V8 was commonly the fastest of the non-turbo engines, and the slippery, Adrian Newey designed March 881's of Capelli and his Brazilian team mate Maurício Gugelmin regularly recorded higher speeds through the speed traps than the Ford DFR and the superseded Ford DFZ powered cars, with Gugelmin recording the fastest "atmo" speed trap of the season when he hit during qualifying for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
It was at the race after Spain, the 1988 Japanese Grand Prix, where Ivan Capelli's Judd-powered March became the first naturally-aspirated car to lead a lap of a Grand Prix since, when he briefly passed the McLaren Honda of two-time World Drivers' champion Alain Prost for the lead on lap 16 of the 51 lap race after Prost missed a gear coming out of the Suzuka Circuit's final chicane. However, the power of the Honda turbo told and by the first corner, Capelli was back to second. Unfortunately Capelli's Judd engine then expired just 3 laps later, ending a solid second half of the season where the Judd engines not only regularly challenged the more powerful Ford DFR used exclusively by Benetton, as the engine to have in the "atmo" class, but also challenged the might of McLaren Honda who through their drivers Prost and that years World Drivers' Champion Ayrton Senna, both won and scored pole in 15 of the 16 races that made up the Formula One season.
For the 1989 season, Judd developed the all-new narrow-angle Judd EV, with a more compact 76-degree V angle, rather than the more conventional 90 degrees of the Judd AV/BV/CV, and the Cosworth DFV series. Construction of the CV continued as a cheaper alternative for smaller teams while power was upped to around. Team Lotus and EuroBrun were the only CV customers, with Lotus finishing sixth in the Constructors' Championship. EuroBrun was originally the only team to continue with the CV unit into 1990, but Life eventually bought CV units to replace their failed in-house W12 engine design.

EV

The previous Judd CV was designed with a conventional 90-degree engine block. Following the 1988 season it was decided that a narrower vee-angle would be adopted to give a more compact engine; the original intent was a 75-degree vee, but limitations in Judd's CNC equipment meant that 76 degrees was used instead.
March Engineering upgraded their 1988 CV unit to an EV in 1989, while Brabham was also supplied with the new engines. Brabham and March each scored one podium with the EV engine. Both teams continued with the EV in 1990, although March Engineering was renamed Leyton House Racing. Leyton House took the engine's only podium of the season, a second place at the French Grand Prix. For 1991, Team Lotus was the only team to use the older EV.

GV

In the normally aspirated 3.5 litre formula, ten and twelve cylinder engines had proved to be more powerful than V8s. This prompted Judd to replace the CV and EV V8s with an all-new engine in 1991 for the BMS Scuderia Italia team. The new 72-degree angle V10 engine would carry the GV name. The GV V10 engine was based on Honda RA101E V10 technology. The engine was powerful, helping the team to a podium finish in the San Marino Grand Prix.
Judd's agreement with Scuderia Italia ended following the 1991 season, leaving the GVs to be used by the Brabham team and newcomers Andrea Moda Formula in 1992. Neither team scored a point all season and Judd Engines pulled out of Formula One.

Yamaha partnership

Following Judd's withdrawal from Formula One in 1992, John Judd turned to Yamaha to continue production of his engines. Using the Judd GV V10 as a base, Yamaha developed an all-new cylinder head and branded the motor as the OX10, for use by Tyrrell Racing in. Once again, Tyrrell were unable to score any points all season. An improved OX10B for boosted Tyrrell's performance, as the team scored a podium and finished sixth in the Constructors' Championship.
Rule changes in saw the OX10C reduced to 3 litres, although the architecture of the engine was generally the same. Tyrrell's performance fell off again however, as the team scored five points and finished eighth in the championship. saw the same points total from Tyrrell, although the new Yamaha OX11 engine was an all-new design. After 1996 Tyrrell switched to using Ford-branded engines.
An updated C-Spec version of the OX11 was used by Arrows in. Featuring a new bottom end, with changes consisting of a revised sump, crankshaft, oil pump and water pump; the OX11C had an extremely low centre of gravity but was underpowered and most of all unreliable.
Consequently, a D-Spec was introduced for the fourth race, at Imola, with significant improvements in the airflow management of the combustion chamber area, which permitted the OX11D to gain 20 hp, which along with superior Bridgestone tyres propelled Damon Hill to a second place at the Hungaroring, the 11th race of a year that otherwise was pretty lacklustre with Pedro Diniz's 5th place at the Nürburgring as a last high point before Yamaha consequently pulled the plug on the failing project.