Mercedes Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Hoffman900]

This was typically used for 2T engines exhausts for long time. As you are thinking to take advantage of the wave reflections inside the runner.
I'm not saying it will work as in 2T engines, but the same principle can be useful for this engine.

I doubt it's any of this and I suspect it's either the heat wrap cladding giving that illusion or the tubes transition to oval, but maintain the same area, to get the body work tighter.

2 stroke expansion chambers don't work on 4 strokes.

I'm not thinking in the ICE (I already know that this does not work on a 4T engine). But perhaps can be beneficial for the turbine to tune the waves on the runners.

Likely not. Velocity preservation and pumping losses are the name of the game here. Waves come from lengths.

In regards to velocity, you can never gain it back to the level it was. I believe it’s the cladding (which hides the tubing) or as I said, oval primaries of the same area as a round tube for aero reasons.

[PlatinumZealot]

The last time we saw fat chambers was on the V8 engines. They were like additional chambers branched off the side of the exhaust pipe. Probably to help the blown diffuser / coanda exhaust more than the engine.

http://www.somersf1.co.uk/2012/07/red-b ... n.html?m=1

[Hoffman900]

The last time we saw fat chambers was on the V8 engines. They were like additional chambers branched off the side of the exhaust pipe. Probably to help the blown diffuser / coanda exhaust more than the engine.

http://www.somersf1.co.uk/2012/07/red-b ... n.html?m=1

Not sure I buy all of that in the article, but what is going on here is totally different than what they need now. Also one thing to keep mind with these type of chambers shown is that the inlet into them are a lot smaller than the pipe’s id. It might be only 5mm or so.

[vorticism]

The V8s and V10s had stepped primaries.

[OO7]

Interesting difference in the design of the left bank and right bank exhaust manifolds:




The last time I recall the Mercedes power units running different manifold layouts on the left and right banks was 2018 as shown below:

[KAIZEN]

Is the Mercedes engine a triple scroll turbine?
I saw Platinum Zealot's idea before.

[vorticism]

Those Racing Point images were from different races, illustrated by the different wings. May have been change to the headers per race or as part of an upgrade. As well, the Williams vs the W13: maybe the customer teams can spec their own headers?

[Kalun]

Shell did an excellent job in E10 fuel blend. Seems like they were able to make this generation of renewable e10 fuel burn like a conventional fuel and extract extra performance out of it. While, Esso and BP did an excellent job too, but I assume that Esso fuel is cause some unreliability to RBPT fuel system.

Back to Petronas fuel. Seems like the Mercedes engine struggles with this E10 fuel.

One big difference between Petronas and the rest. Petronas has never sold an E85 fuel, let alone an e5 or e10 fuel to consumers, especially in Malaysia.

This begs a question, do Petronas has an experience to blend a E10 fuel and extra performance out of it? Does an additional 5% of Renewable Ethanol make a huge impact on the last generation of Petronas based fuel blend? Who knows..

We can only speculate. At the end, Petronas needs to get this fuel blend right.

[OO7]

Those Racing Point images were from different races, illustrated by the different wings. May have been change to the headers per race or as part of an upgrade. As well, the Williams vs the W13: maybe the customer teams can spec their own headers?

The images may have been from different races, but the PU certainly ran different manifolds. I remember it at the time as well.

EDIT:
Just managed to find the relevant image. The picture below shows the 2018 PU on the left and the 2019 PU on the right. The head on shot of the 2018 PU, illustrates the difference in the manifold layout between its left and right banks.


This is a completely different picture, not simply the one above from a different angle, so here the cars are arranged differently, with the 2019 car and PU furthest from the camera.

[vorticism]

Good find, OO7. Interesting because those asymetrical headers still feed into symmetrical collectors. Equalizing runner length wouldn't depend on firing order. Maybe the collectors are internally divided?

If per-bank firing order is integral to this, why not just dial the collector as needed to provide symmetrical primaries? That said it could be that these are not equal length primaries and there is some sort of firing order dependent pulse or wave tuning going on.

Still surprises me that they got away with log manifolds and seemingly no VIM the first season. Shows how far ahead they were.

..

[Polite]

This begs a question, do Petronas has an experience to blend a E10 fuel and extra performance out of it? Does an additional 5% of Renewable Ethanol make a huge impact on the last generation of Petronas based fuel blend? Who knows..

Petronas has its research center in Torin (Italy).. is was the old SELENIA research center of the FIAT group: so .. Petronas has the experience to E10 and more..

https://www.pli-petronas.com/it-it/pres ... mea-torino

[Tommy Cookers]

... Still surprises me that they got away with log manifolds and seemingly no VIM the first season....

not log manifolds
log manifolds were the thing 100 years ago - just look at that Apperson 'Jackrabbit' !

then look at what was used for the following few decades
yes it would be handy if someone had given it a punchy name

though new British (Ford Consul & Zephyr) designs in the 1950s had log manifolds

[vorticism]

... Still surprises me that they got away with log manifolds and seemingly no VIM the first season....

not log manifolds

What would you call them?

[Big Tea]

... Still surprises me that they got away with log manifolds and seemingly no VIM the first season....

not log manifolds
log manifolds were the thing 100 years ago - just look at that Apperson 'Jackrabbit' !

then look at what was used for the following few decades
yes it would be handy if someone had given it a punchy name

though new British (Ford Consul & Zephyr) designs in the 1950s had log manifolds

Did the ford 100E 'pop' side valve not also?

[gruntguru]

Still surprises me that they got away with log manifolds and seemingly no VIM the first season.

VIM was not legal back then.