Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[bauc]

McLaren is too small of a company to build an engine. You need a foundry, facilities to cast or machine the block, manufacture the sensors, an engineering team to design everything. Then all the tooling, the test benches, the trial and error.

They have to stay the course, any other option than what they have now is worse short and long term.

McLaren makes 1650 cars a year, they would need about 4500-5000 cars a year to make F1 a sustainable marketing activity like Ferrari.

Isn't Mclaren building its own engines for the road cars?

[mclaren111]

Now the problem with vibrations is from gearbox??.


The identity of this vibration is thought to be caused by the resonance including the driving system of the engine, the gear box, the tribe shaft and the vibration of the tire. In other words, it was not generated by PU alone.

This is quite sad on the part of McLaren! I had immediately ruled out resonance in the engine when it was suggested by a poster because that is usually picked up quite easily! And it would be outright careless of Honda to know it and provide the engine in such a state. Resonance problems can be designed out relatively easily too. But damn now we know the McLaren gearbox when combined with the engine and running gear produce the vibration. Sad. I reckon the complete drive train was never tested at all together until winter testing! And possibly not even simulated together in the computer! man oh man. McLaren needs to get their stuff together man.

Agree !! EB's job ?? EB failure !! ??

[PhillipM]

All these people pointing fingers at the gearbox, then the engine, valves, then the kers, then Alonso's helmet paint

Harmonics are a system issue, of course the upshifts sound rough when they're having to cut the engine out on shifts to stop damage, that doesn't mean it's the gearbox, just as much as it's not entirely the engine. If it was any component individually it would have been picked up on the dynos, it's the whole system that's causing issues, driveline or tyre vibrations flexing the whole box and engine (don't forget they're both structural pieces for the entire car), which is exaberated by a seamless upshift under power - they might be seamless in torque delivery but the speed and loading - and resultant force changes - in an F1 box upon a gearchange is immense, it's why so much work is done on the inertia of the shafts and geartrain.
It's probably a combination of everything that is just managing to excite a resonance in the engine enough that it causes damage. You can't point the finger at one single item as the cause. However, since only one component is apparently taking damage due to it, you can point the finger at one component for the fix...

[aral]

A number of posts have been removed as they were off topic. The thread is about the Honda PU, not about Mclaren road cars, Ricardo etc etc. Please try and stay on topic. You can discuss alternatives on the team thread.

[f1rules]

there is a really great interview with hasegawa on autosport prem. In short, everything worked well when honda tested on mono cylinder, they thought it was actually pretty easy, but the reality hit as they where to transfer from mono to the actual pu, suddenly nothing worked,
ive really really appreciated this thread! by far the most interesting to follow pre season, so thanks to all!

i really cant give more since its prem. but at the same time the non members here need see this so it can be in your future pu analysis

"As a matter of fact we were thinking [it was] too easy, [but] it was too difficult to achieve the new technology,"

"What we achieved in [the] mono-cylinder is at a very good level, but when we transfer exactly the same specification to the V6 engine it doesn't work.

"If you put [too] much fuel into the number-three cylinder you lose something from elsewhere. Theoretically, the exhaust pressure wave has more influence in a four-cylinder engine, but in a three-cylinder engine it doesn't - technically speaking. We didn't think there would be a big effect from mono-cylinder to V6, but as a matter of fact it affects very much.

"We have to avoid that area (rev range) - we have huge vibrations," Hasegawa explains. "The only thing I can tell is that on the dyno we didn't have such a big issue. When we have a gearbox, driveshaft and tyre, it has some resonance. Please understand I'm not blaming the chassis, we have to realise the situation on the dyno as well."

Hasegawa admits Honda has missed its power target, saying the new engine has "almost the same power" as last year's engine, which of course means it has gone backwards from its 2016 position of being 80bhp away from Mercedes, which in turn is believed to have added another 70bhp to its own performance over the winter.

Barcelona will be the "latest" point at which Honda introduces an updated specification.


the journalist points

The new combustion engine proved unstable and lacking driveability. Short-shifting to improve traction caused detonation at low revs; engine behaviour within the optimum rev range was so wild that the drivers had to over-rev the engine to tame it. But that meant less power. What's more, huge vibrations through the drivetrain caused the car to shake itself to bits, leading to persistent electrical failures.

[dren]

It's probably a combination of everything that is just managing to excite a resonance in the engine enough that it causes damage. You can't point the finger at one single item as the cause. However, since only one component is apparently taking damage due to it, you can point the finger at one component for the fix...

Wouldn't you rather fix the underlying issue? It also doesn't sound like only one component is taking damage. Having to run the PU in sub optimal ways to try and mitigate resonant vibrations isn't the way forward. It's a temporary reliability fix.

[godlameroso]

"Post by godlameroso » Tue Feb 14, 2017 12:20 pm

Lots of resonance, I wouldn't say broken..."


Honda should just hire me to help them, I don't want much, just a new Civic Type R and expenses paid.

If not fine, I'll buy my own

On a more serious note, so the new power unit that hopefully addresses some of the spec 1's shortcomings by Barcelona latest?

If they can tame the resonance there's at least 50hp hidden in there somewhere, but they'll still be behind. Man I wish I knew what the problem is specifically, I think a lot of us do, we all want to see Honda and McLaren competitive.

I still think the problem is ultrasonic vibrations, which of course wouldn't be picked up by any listening instruments, is causing fuel to vaporize in weird ways. That to shift the resonance from the ideal rev range requires revising the combustion chamber, particularly the pre-chamber. Or requires more understanding of resonance induced fuel vaporization, when it happens it makes combustion faster, which is hard to compensate with static engine maps(if in fact they strictly use a MAP sensor)

[Sasha]

Vibrations=trans(not strong enough to be load bearing chassis attachment point)

Horsepower=Honda's first F1 Pre-Chamber isn't working under load. 2017 PU made about 100 more HP than 2016 PU but pistons where not lasting.Good thing they found that problem pre-testing on the dyno otherwise the season would be almost over before the new head could be redesigned.

So the no running at the tests was McLaren's fault but they still blame Honda for the late delivery of PU and the PU having to be run detuned for the first quarter of season.

McLaren has dreams to be Ferrari(everything in house) but that takes money and still need outside help.(Ilmor)

[FW17]

So they are 150hp behind

The primary cause of the vibration is still the engine, weather the gearbox is able to dampen them or amplify them is a different story.

[GoranF1]

Vibrations=trans(not strong enough to be load bearing chassis attachment point)

Horsepower=Honda's first F1 Pre-Chamber isn't working under load. 2017 PU made about 100 more HP than 2016 PU but pistons where not lasting.Good thing they found that problem pre-testing on the dyno otherwise the season would be almost over before the new head could be redesigned.

So the no running at the tests was McLaren's fault but they still blame Honda for the late delivery of PU and the PU having to be run detuned for the first quarter of season.

McLaren has dreams to be Ferrari(everything in house) but that takes money and still need outside help.(Ilmor)

Your post make no sense....you are bassicaly admiting Honda has no power but are blaming Mclaren.
I agree the blame is not only to Honda but also to Mclaren.

[godlameroso]

There's power but it destroys pistons they can't make the combustion stable enough for whatever reason, so they run with higher margin less timing advance but also less power.

This is why I think resonance is causing combustion instability either too fast or too slow. Or otherwise not predictable by their sensors.

[Sasha]

So they are 150hp behind

The primary cause of the vibration is still the engine, weather the gearbox is able to dampen them or amplify them is a different story.

Wrong.....trans is just to weak to be a load bearing element.(lightened it too much to make up for the heavy chassis?)
Do not forget suspension attach to the trans so all the track caused vibrations are causing havoc too.

[FW17]

So they are 150hp behind

The primary cause of the vibration is still the engine, weather the gearbox is able to dampen them or amplify them is a different story.

Wrong.....trans is just to weak to be a load bearing element.(lightened it too much to make up for the heavy chassis?)
Do not forget suspension attach to the trans so all the track caused vibrations are causing havoc too.

Yeah right

a 13 inch tyre blown to 20 psi and further dampened with springs and 10th generation inerter causes high frequency vibration that destroys electrical systems

[ALO_Power]

So they are 150hp behind

The primary cause of the vibration is still the engine, weather the gearbox is able to dampen them or amplify them is a different story.

Wrong.....trans is just to weak to be a load bearing element.(lightened it too much to make up for the heavy chassis?)
Do not forget suspension attach to the trans so all the track caused vibrations are causing havoc too.

Heavy chassis ?!?! Really? I think it was cleared up that the interview of EB mentioning "heavy" chassis was just a wrong translation and it referred to drag as far as I recall. Meanwhile, in another bigger and more detailed japanese interview they mentioned that the MCL32 chassis is too light and they can place a ballast wherever they want. But that may mean that some parts are weak. Anyway, whatever the case, Honda is obviously the weakest link of this story. Let's just hope they can sort it out and give a respectable engine that will bring the team where it belongs.

[Sasha]

Reading all the media reports on the Honda PU,Honda needs to do.

1.New design pre-chamber head(flame front problem-knock, so either pre-chamber combustion is wrong or jet paths to main-chamber is) or (jet paths are wrong-hitting pistons like a shape-charge warhead plasma stream? - and leading to piston nuking)

2. Mapping

3.Still need bigger TC?

McLaren/Honda will also need to redesign trans(seamless shifting not working and the trans is too structurally weak)
YES....the TRANS is just as bad as Honda's ICE Heads!