Formula 1 Input Shaft

In a modern-day Formula 1 car the input shaft is the part that transmit the drive from the engine to the gearbox. From around the late ’90s, Cosworth’s Formula 1 engines dispensed with the traditional way of mounting the clutch on the back of the crankshaft and moved the clutch to the front of the gearbox. As a result, the input shaft ended up with a male spline drive at either end, which went into mating splines in the crankshaft and the clutch hub.

However, some rival engine manufacturers still carried on mounting the clutch on the back of the crankshaft. So what do you do if you want to install a Cosworth F1 engine like the TJ or CA into a car that the engine was never originally designed for?

Our solution is this input shaft, which has a male spline at one end to go into the crank and a female spline at the other end to locate in the clutch basket, with a cylindrical outer section to give axial support on two roller bearings. We produced a number of these shafts for our customer, who reported that they fitted with no issues and can easily handle the +800 hp that the engine will create.