How are Dakar trucks arranged? What do racing and production cars have in common? How far do they accelerate and how much fuel do they consume? To answer these questions, on "Auto Mail.Ru» "dissected" the two leaders of Dakar-2014 - racing KAMAZ-4326 and sports IVECO models Powerstar and Trakker of the Dutch stable Team de Rooy. And this is what we saw...

KAMAZ for Dakar really has little in common with its serial counterparts. The frame and cabin here, of course, are domestic, from the military “two-axle” 4326, however, the sports engineers had to thoroughly redraw the cabin in order to shift it back as much as possible for better weight distribution, and the frame to be strengthened many times over. And even outwardly, the “combat” truck does not look like a “civilian” one! For serial models, the headlights are located on the bumper, while for the sports version, small xenon "eyes" settled on the front end, under the windshield. Some of the cars even come out with old "big-eyed" cabins.

There are rumors that the next generation of sports camions (in rally-raids it is customary to call trucks in French) will receive a cab from the latest KAMAZ-5490 main tractor, but there is no reason for pride here: this cab is completely and completely taken from the Mercedes-Benz Axor... So it's better to keep the existing authentic look. And to return a powerful structure made of steel pipes, on which a "chandelier" of six spotlights was hung! A modest arc holding four LED sections of additional lighting equipment deprived the racing KAMAZ of a deliberately aggressive appearance.

But the main disappointment from the current version of KAMAZ-4326 is the new engines. They are Swiss made by Liebherr! Two out of five machines are still equipped with YaMZ proven V-shaped "eights" (880 hp and 3600 Nm), but this unit has no future. The 18.5-liter giant barely fits into the existing smoke standards, and by the next edition of the marathon it will have to be retired completely - the organizers of the rally-raid will forcibly limit the volume of engines. That is why Anton Shibalov drove to the Dakar-2014 awards ceremony under a quiet murmur, and not under the famous powerful roar of the Yaroslavl diesel engine - Liebherr is already installed on his truck.

What is there to be proud of? Gearboxes on the cars of the blue-and-white squad have long been imported - German ZF. (however, exactly the same ones are put on serial products from Naberezhnye Chelny). The handout is also foreign, brand Steyr. The bridges are supplied by the Finnish company Sisu, and the uncompromisingly stiff suspension from the Russian BMD (airborne combat vehicle) had to be replaced by the Dutch Reiger struts as soon as the crews no longer had enough "margin of safety": with such a "hodovka" KAMAZ flew over giant potholes without shuddering, but the riders were shaking unmercifully, so that many have earned serious health problems...

Tires, steering gear, clutch and brake system are all imported as well. Unless the brake drums are native, KAMAZ ones. However, the latter were left rather out of hopelessness: they wanted to switch to disk mechanisms of an eminent European company, but they overheated too quickly. There is no need to talk about the interior of the cabin either: there is practically nothing left of the production car, including the speedometer, which is marked up to 200 km / h here. But the racing KAMAZ accelerates to a maximum of 180, spending up to 150 l / 100 km, and in the race the “maximum speed” is completely limited to 150 km / h.

It turns out that the "combat" KAMAZ-4326 not only does not look like serial equipment, but also almost entirely consists of imported components! But there is one "but". Liebherr engine, ZF gearbox, Steyr transfer case, Sisu axles and Reiger suspension can be bought and put on a military or construction truck by anyone. And only KAMAZ wins Dakar. Another excuse: the cars of the rivals are also far from standard... Do you think that IVECO, which took second place at the current Dakar, is almost a serial truck, as the team's PR people position it?

Not at all! This is the same hodgepodge of units from different manufacturers. Moreover, IVECO has nothing to do with the creation of a racing truck: it was built by the private sports team Team De Rooy - that is, the de Rooy family stable. And that is why Gerard's car is very different from others. What, however, is clearly visible in the photographs. All other vehicles are cabover and are based on the units of the Trakker construction dump truck, and the leader of the team built a “bonnet” for himself.

This, by the way, causes some dissatisfaction with the head office of IVECO, which wants the truck, which most often falls into the scopes of cameras, to look like mass models like the aforementioned Trakker. And so Ivek PR people had to come up with a legend that the “nosed” car was a sports version of the Powerstar heavyweight, a model for the Australian market. Although the carbon-fiber hood only imitates the appearance of the overseas prototype, and the cabin is taken from the long-range IVECO Stralis. But while such a machine wins, the bosses of the brand have nowhere to go.

Actually, the racing success of the "bonnet" is largely due to the layout - the car boasts an ideal, "50 to 50", weight distribution along the axes. What does it give? Firstly, the “nosed” car jumps and lands a priori better than its competitors, in which the cabin is located above the engine. Secondly, the crew does not sit "on the wheel", which makes it possible to reduce shock loads, and, consequently, to fly over obstacles at a higher speed. Those potholes that the crew of the sports KAMAZ overcomes, risking their health, the Ivek people do not notice at all ...

Continuing the theme of overcoming obstacles, we note that Gerard is a big fan of experiments on the suspension. Once he tried to transfer his camion to an independent scheme, and now he uses Donnere shock absorbers, rare for Dakar technology, although most of the competitors (including KAMAZ-master) choose the Dutch Reiger Racing. However, most likely, the French hangers simply offered the Deroev stable more interesting conditions than the Dutch fellow countrymen. Springs from Astra off-road trucks are used as elastic elements.

By the way, from Asters (this is a subsidiary of the IVECO concern, which manufactures military and super-heavy trucks), bridges were used on cabover IVECOs. But on a bonneted car, the bridges are different, of the Finnish Sisu brand: the team believes that the Finnish transmission components are lighter and more reliable than Ivek ones. The Dutch are also sure that disc brakes are better than standard drum brakes - all turquoise camions, regardless of the brand of bridges, are equipped with Knorr-Bremse ventilated disc mechanisms! Although other cargo stables consider the good old "drums" more suitable for the harsh conditions of the Dakar - they overheat less, and the mechanism itself is closed to dirt.

Otherwise, racing IVECOs are very similar to their serial counterparts. The Steyr transfer case, 16-speed ZF gearbox and ... even the engine are taken from the Trakker! This is an in-line "six" of the Cursor family with a volume of 12.9 liters, however, it is fairly forced. If the most powerful IVECO construction truck develops 500 hp. and 2300 N m, then the sports truck diesel produces 900 hp. maximum power and maximum torque is a fantastic 3800 Nm.

Does it even make sense to look for commonalities between sports and road trucks? As it turned out, there is: the trinity cabover IVECO (the best of which, under the control of Hans Stacey, took 7th place at the last Dakar), with the exception of the suspension, is really built from units of serial cars. But the Deroevsky “bonnet” is a 100% homemade product, only stylized as a mass model and assembled from components that, according to Gerard, are the lightest, strongest and most reliable today.

But it is pointless to compare racing and serial KAMAZ. There is almost nothing in common between them ... Foreign knots are hidden behind the Russian emblem, albeit intelligently arranged by our engineers. New trucks from Naberezhnye Chelny are becoming like this now: a Mercedes-Benz cab, a Cummins engine, and a ZF gearbox are installed on the domestic frame. So while the country cannot be proud of ordinary trucks, let's be proud of racing ones - "combat" vehicles do their job perfectly, confidently churning out victory after victory.

Alexey Kovanov
Photo and video of KAMAZ-master and Team de Rooy

Specifications

Model			IVECO Powerstar	IVECO Trakker Evo III	KAMAZ-4326 YaMZ	KAMAZ-4326 Liebherr
Layout			hood	cabover	cabover	cabover
Dimensions, mm		length	6800	7000	7220	7220
		width	2550	2550	2500	2500
		height	3000	3200	3180	3180
		wheelbase	4400	4400	4200	4200
Curb weight, kg			8600 (in 9400 race)	8600 (in 9400 race)	8900 (in 10000 race)	8900 (in 10000 race)
Weight distribution along the axles, front/rear, %			50/50	55/45	55/45	55/45
Engine			IVECO Cursor 13	IVECO Cursor 13	YaMZ-7E846	Liebherr
Working volume, l			12,9	12,9	18,5	16,2
Max. power, hp at rpm			900/2200	900/2200	880/2500	920/2300
Max. torque, Nm at rpm			3800/1100	3800/1100	3600/1400—1600	4000/1500
Transmission			ZF	ZF	ZF	ZF
Number of gears			16	16	16	16
Transfer case			Steyr	Steyr	Steyr	Steyr
Drive axles			Sisu	Sisu	Sisu	Sisu
Suspension	front			spring, with springs and shock absorbers Donnere		spring, with shock absorbers Reiger
	behind		spring, with springs and shock absorbers Donnere	spring, with springs and shock absorbers Donnere	spring, with shock absorbers Reiger	spring, with shock absorbers Reiger
brakes	front		disk	disk	drum	drum
	behind		disk	disk	drum	drum
Fuel tank capacity, l			700	700	1000	1000
Tires			Michelin 14.00R20XZL	Michelin 14.00R20XZL	Michelin 14.00R20XZL	Michelin 14.00R20XZL

Machine ready for action

"Spread the wings of your imagination and feel the unknown dimensions of speed and space"

In September 1988, the debut of the team from Naberezhnye Chelny took place at the Yelch rally in Poland. In that first rally-raid in its history, KAMAZ athletes competed on serial all-wheel drive off-road vehicles KAMAZ 4310 . Already in the early 90s, in close collaboration with factory designers and testers, the team created their own sports trucks: KAMAZ 49250 and KAMAZ 49251 . The basis for these machines was the most advanced equipment of the Kama Automobile Plant at that time.

In 1994, the team performed on a car with pronounced sports characteristics, fundamentally different from ordinary serial trucks - KAMAZ 49252 . It had an engine of 750 horsepower, a mid-engined car and large 25-inch wheels. The sloping platform of the SUV, designed to reduce aerodynamic drag, is an original stage in the design of a sports truck that has remained in history. In a year, three new generation sports trucks will carry KAMAZ crews to the winning podium of the Paris-Moscow-Beijing auto marathon. A few months later, in January 1996, the team for the first time will become the winner of the legendary Dakar rally marathon.

Experiments on technique were sometimes even too bold. For example, sports KAMAZ 49255 had a twelve-cylinder engine with a capacity of 1050 horsepower. His hyper-powerful heart broke the transmission, which happened at the 1998 Dakar. Very often, cars were born in an extremely short time. So, in 2002, the FIA ​​vetoed the participation in the Dakar of trucks with a mid-engine layout that provides good weight distribution and stability. The KAMAZ truck was just like that. But the biggest difficulty was that these innovations became known only six months before the start. In a short time, a combat sports truck was created KAMAZ 49256 with an 830 horsepower engine. He was born in pain, after each test, the car was taken away from the landfill on a trawl. And only a few hours before sending the team to the Dakar, the error was found and eliminated. As a result, the car passed the test for strength, bringing KAMAZ another Dakar gold.

A year later, the KAMAZ-master team made a new qualitative leap by creating a new model of a sports car. KAMAZ 4911 EXTREME became a combat vehicle that has no analogues in terms of cross-country ability, maneuverability and dynamics. For its unique technical and operational qualities, it was called the "flying truck". And indeed, in the hands of such masters as the pilot Vladimir Chagin, this car easily lifted off the ground at speed, pushing off from natural springboards. With an 830 horsepower engine, the car accelerated to 100 km / h in ten seconds.

Since 1999, the Desert Challenge rally in the United Arab Emirates has become a traditional testing ground for technical innovations, the conditions of which are as close as possible to those of the Dakar. The team began to carry out constant work to reduce the weight of the car, increase the smoothness of the ride and solve many other important tasks to improve technology.

In 2007, the Dakar organizers again changed the technical requirements for the trucks participating in the race, softening them somewhat. In particular, it became possible to move the engine back a little, which the KAMAZ-master team took advantage of, improving the weight distribution and maneuverability of the car, as well as increasing the smoothness of the ride. However, relief in one led to a tightening in another: new requirements for serialization were presented. If earlier, in order for a sports truck to pass homologation, it was enough to release fifteen such cars off the assembly line, now it was required - fifty within two years. Therefore, again, a car produced by the Kama auto giant for the needs of the army was taken as the basis for the new model.

At the end of 2007 was born KAMAZ-4326 VK . Only one fact testifies to the conscientiousness of the approach to the creation of the machine: the new KAMAZ combat truck was the first to pass homologation in its class. The pre-anniversary KAMAZ-4326 VK, which embodied all the best achievements of the team, proved its potential first at the stages of the Russian Championship, and then at Dakar 2009.

In 2016, the KAMAZ-master team presented a bonneted sports truck. The decision to create a new car was made on the basis of the growing trend in the use of bonneted cars in off-road sports discipline.

Detailed information and technical characteristics of KAMAZ-master racing cars.

Sure , even people far away, from;— KAMAZ , racing and trucks; have seen spectacular photos or shots more than once; where a Russian truck just flies over, and not rarely over, the dunes.

Yes,— critics of everything Russian, often say; - that in those cars there is nothing from, and that serial trucks from Naberezhnye Chelny barely crawl up a steep climb. And these people are very surprised when they find out that such a racing one they could even buy.

• About the price ofKAMAZ 4911

That's just buy a racing KAMAZ 4911, most of these critics just can't. The price of a serial - racing car, over 120,000$. And - yes, the series of these Russian animals is by no means high;— only 25 cars per year. But, having bought such a truck, you can drive from the left lane at leastS class, even Gelik.

This is not visible from the photo of the racing one, but in technical terms, the differences between those cars that go to private owners protect the honor Russia in competitions— minimal. They have the same suspension and engine (but more on that below), but for example, fuel tanks, for a racing car, are made of aluminum, and for cars going to private traders, they are steel.

Curb weight of the racingKAMAZ, — 7 250kg; full - 12 000 kg. And by the way, the rims here are aluminum. The flying KAMAZ is capable of crossing a ford of 1.7m.

• A couple of letters about the salon:

Power steering, like all steering, is imported here -ZF. But tell me what's wrong with that? Can this be the subject of criticism; when eminent manufacturers of European and American cars also use the components of this manufacturer.

Cars intended for private owners have a conventional steering wheel and seats; but those intended for competitions are equipped with buckets (see photo).

The gearshift lever here is very close to the front panel, but you don’t hit it with your hand when switching. In addition, there are absolutely no backlashes on the gearshift lever.

• Technical Specifications KAMAZ 4911

The most interesting thing about this racingKAMAZ 4911, — this is the engine. Here stands a huge, domesticv8,with a volume of 17.24 liters! It is noteworthy that both the diameter of the cylinders and the piston stroke are the same here;— 140mm. This motor is filled with 40 liters of oil. And imagine, he alone weighs 1,380 kg!

Reinforced with two turbinesBorgWarnen,this motor produces 730hp; and just monstrous torque, at 2,700N.M. And by the way, when driving at a stable speed of 60 km per hour, this beast consumes only 30 liters of diesel; but for such a machine,— it is really very, very little.

You can imagine that such a colossus, up to 100 km per hour; moreover, on almost any surface, it can break in just 16 seconds! The maximum speed of the racing KAMAZ is 180 km/h.

The main pair has a relation at 3.55:1; there are 8 upshifts and 8 downshifts. But since the engine is extremely high-torque, a lowering is rarely needed.

The clutch and transfer case are also imported here, but the gearbox is already our own.

Another interesting point is that the racks here are borrowed from the BMD! Doesn't that speak volumes about the endurance of the machine?

• Results:

So - what, such a car is not at all difficult to buy,— there would be money. And those who say that Kamaz fireballs are piece copies are right, as you can see, far from being partly.

Such cars are in demand among wealthy Arabs;— they like to drive them on the dunes (what kind of jeeps are there). But our rich people buy such cars extremely rarely (.

Say what you like, but Russian cars love extreme conditions for racing, almost for survival.

I remember that at one time, only on the Russian Niva, Finnish racers triumphantly marched through the African deserts - the tracks of the Paris-Dakkar rally. True, what the “serial” monster from Naberezhnye Chelny KAMAZ 4911 did at these races cannot be compared even with the victorious march of the Togliatti car.

According to the FIA ​​regulations, only production models can participate in the rally

Imagine an eleven-ton colossus, rushing at a speed of more than one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour. Imagine how it accelerates to “hundreds” in just ten seconds. Imagine it flying through the air (athletes skillfully use any natural elevation as a springboard) and landing on all four wheels without a “breakdown” of the suspension, and this is with eleven tons of curb weight.

Anyone can buy a civilian version of this monster - the price tag starts at $ 250,000

If you can imagine this at least approximately, then consider - you have a rough idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat it is - the pride and glory of the domestic automotive industry KAMAZ 4911 Extreme. Plus - the permissible operating mode in the "temperature range" from minus thirty to plus fifty degrees Celsius.

No magic, no fantasy

Usually, when talking about this legendary car, they stray into an enthusiastic tone and describe its capabilities accompanied by many exclamation marks. As if the eyewitness was faced with a clear manifestation of either a technical miracle, or met aliens who own clearly unearthly technologies.

In fact, there is no magic here, as well as science fiction. And for all the unique capabilities of the monster from Naberezhnye Chelny, there is a clear and scientifically substantiated explanation - the technical characteristics of KAMAZ 4911.

The YaMZ-7E846 engine is the heart of KAMAZ 4911

And they look like this. V - figurative "eight" produced by the Yaroslavl Machine-Building Plant (YaMZ) has a volume of more than seventeen thousand cubic centimeters and develops a capacity of about eight hundred horsepower.

By the way, the engine for serial "SuperMAZ" served as the basis for the motor.

In addition, two Borg Warner turbochargers and four valves, two intake and two exhaust, for each cylinder add extra agility. Total, on this engine - thirty-two).

Fly so fly

And the fast KAMAZ is equipped with hydropneumatic shock absorbers from the army BRDM, which are designed for parachute landing of multi-ton armored tracked vehicles, hence the fantastic “volatility” of a multi-ton truck. And besides, to ensure a smooth ride in the suspension, springs elongated to almost two meters are used, so huge jumps during the rally do not harm either the car or the crew.

The 4x4 wheel formula, accompanied by a sixteen-speed ZF manual gearbox and a Steyr transfer case with a center differential lock, give the truck fantastic cross-country ability. Since 2003, KAMAZ has climbed the podium in almost all world cross-country heavy truck races.

Everything is in superlatives

If we add to the above a lightweight supporting frame, equipped with inserts made of composite materials so that the rigidity and strength of the frame structure do not suffer, and the number of spring sheets - fourteen in front and ten in the rear, then we get an approximate description of a car that wins the most prestigious world rallies with enviable constancy.

True, in the “combat”, sports mode, the consumption of a monstrous 800-strong engine fluctuates somewhere within a hundred liters per hundred, but for big-time sports, this, you see, is particular. No wonder the car is equipped with a twin fuel tank with a total capacity of one thousand liters.

The glorious sports past and present of the Master-Kamaz team are inextricably linked with the periodically improved and reworked models of the production of the automobile plant located in Naberezhnye Chelny, and KAMAZ 4911 Extreme is a bright representative of the family of cars that literally elevated the Russian rally team to the empyrean world sports inaccessible to rivals .

Civil version of the racing version - KAMAZ 4911 Extreme

Since the end of the eighties of the last century, Russian KAMAZ trucks have been among the undisputed world leaders in the most prestigious and eminent races. And finally, a joke (they say that the employees of Master Kamaz are very fond of telling visitors in all seriousness): during the crash tests of KAMAZ 4911 Extreme, the concrete wall, against which it was planned to break the front of the car, began to quietly crawl away from the test stand.