Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Singabule]

Anybody can enlighten me a bit more on the timeframe of the drawing of 2014 PU rules?

IIRC discussions began in 2009 for a 2013 introduction.

They were originally going to be inline-4's (this was Renault's preference - and to be fair to them, that's a road-car sized engine in much of the world).
Ferrari objected to the lack of cylinders, which is why they became V6's (although the same capacity), and the change to a V6 was settled in 2011 for a 2014 introduction. At the same time the initially-proposed rev-limit of 12K was lifted to 15K rpm, even though no F1 engine in the modern era will go there because of the fuel flow rate limit.

It's obvious to me that certain engine manufacturers were doing R&D on fuel-limited turbo engines for a long time before the rules were decided upon, so the dates of actual talks themselves are somewhat moot. If you're a manufacturer (eg. Mercedes) and you know you've cracked most of the hard stuff with very lean burning engines on little r&d models, you go into the meeting to decide the next engine formula with that in mind, and you make it happen.

This goes back to my last post about the political power between the engine manufacturers for the 2021+ formula. You can bet that the new formula (lighter engines, no more ERS-H) will play to someone's advantage.

De-stroked HPD engine?

[Andres125sx]

Sudenly, it was one year before

Now you should rephrase your accusations... Is Honda 2017 at similar level to Mercedes 2015?


Anycase this is comparing apples to oranges, as Mercedes didn´t have any target to beat, while Honda need to beat three manufacturers with more expertise, so the requirements, the pressure and the targets can´t be compared

Yes it is unfair to compare but I think it is easier for the second manufacturer to have a best engine than the first in the same timeframe. I mean if manufacturer A starts at 2000 and manufacturer B starts at 2003. I think it is easier for manufacturer B to have a better engine in 2008 than the 2005 engine from manufacturer A. Simply because the newer manufacturer can already have learnt something from the others mistakes from public sources (TC too small, pictures of the engine, layout etc) and can also poach some engineers and knowledge of the other engine. It is harder to pioneer

Just to clarify some things:

“Nikki Lauda recently told me that Mercedes started on their hybrid in 2007” begins Luca

http://www.grandprix247.com/2017/02/01/ ... ince-2007/

Still this isn't an excuse for Honda. They should have known better, where they were getting in to. That's what I'm saying all the time. This current technology is being developed for decades, not years. So if they were late to the party, it was at least 10 years ago. Pretty much around the time they quit F1 the last time...

A little offtopic: Porsche developed nearly the same tech and got it working. Again in pretty much the same time, 2014.

For decades? TJI on petrol engines is decades old? MGU-H is decades old? Complex PUs with one engine, one motor, two generators and one battery with an ECU controlling how everything work toghether are decades old? Can you please provide some source? No obviously you cannot, because this PUs are NOT decades old... It was previous V8s wich were decades old, literally, as the design was frozen.


Apart from the usual ranting we´re used to in this thread, I find it curious you provided a link confirming Mercedes is working on these PUs for around a decade, while Honda experiece is limited to half of that, but you still blame Honda for not competing with Mercedes in only three seasons?


It´s curious some of you take F1 as "hey you´re F1 engineers, you should be able to perform some magic", but you don´t concede the same to Mercedes... What if it´s Mercedes who did some magic and that´s the reason Honda (AND Renault, AND Ferrari) are struggling to catch up, specially when you take into account Honda only enjoy half their expertise?

It works both ways

[godlameroso]

A lot of this talk belongs in the team thread, it has zero to do with anything technical regarding the power unit. Please don't pollute this thread with politics and Reddit style posts, even if they are amusing.

[RedNEO]

https://u24857990.dl.dropboxusercontent ... 990/PU.png

https://u24857990.dl.dropboxusercontent ... erious.png

https://u24857990.dl.dropboxusercontent ... ughter.png

https://u24857990.dl.dropboxusercontent ... 90/OMG.png

https://u24857990.dl.dropboxusercontent ... 0/Fans.png

Lol I can't rate this positive but I love it

[RedNEO]

Stop talking about advantages, because the technology is out there and could be bought by signing experts from Mercedes/Ferrari/Renault. They are in their 3rd year and it's still a big mess, there are no longer excuses.

True words

[GhostF1]

Stop talking about advantages, because the technology is out there and could be bought by signing experts from Mercedes/Ferrari/Renault. They are in their 3rd year and it's still a big mess, there are no longer excuses.

True words

I'll wait until I see how their 2018 engine goes, so their 2nd year with this new architecture before I completely write them off. I want to see a good step by Spa/Monza this year and I want testing performance next year to have a big uptrend.

[Jef Patat]

Brrr, preseason testing and Honda sends a big shiver down my spine

[drunkf1fan]

Really 2007? I had no idea. How defined were the rules for 2014 back in 2007? I thought they were drawn in 2011. I guess a bit before teams knew more or less were they should go. But before they are finalised teams can work a bit on it but have still no idea what to pursue completely.

2021 will have new engine rules but they are still not written I guess teams are already looking into that especially to then push their own agenda but they can really work too much on in until the rules are final. And we are already 3 seasons and a half away. 2007 to 2014 is 7 years difference.

Anybody can enlighten me a bit more on the timeframe of the drawing of 2014 PU rules?

From recollection the ERS guy that Ferrari poached from Lotus, who had been with Mercedes(they got him mid 2014 I believe) had been in charge of ERS research at Mercedes, but not for F1 specifically. I also seem to recall he joined or took that roll in 2007 or something.

The reality is Lauda likes to wind people up and those who aren't winning like to make excuses, there is zero chance the 2014 engine started in 2007. What probably happened is Mercedes as a whole started heavily investing into electric cars, so batters, motors and things like mgu-h/k for hybrids. Every car company should really and probably did research that. It's how you decide what counts, obviously if Merc has a load of R&D on electrical parts for cars they aren't going to start from scratch for the 2014 engine, but can you call that work, separate research in general part of the F1 program, nope, but when results of the F1 engine development used that research you could loosely say that is involved.

As with the 2020/21 engines now, it's pretty certainly going to be a twin turbo and if the engine makers have a brain they are throwing around ideas now with small teams and just getting a headstart on any final decision. I believe that is the only headstart Mercedes had for the 2014 engines, it think Brawn has said they started the real F1 specific program around 6 months before that final decision but everyone else was in on those discussions as they are now for the next engines. Renault didn't even start their program till 6 months after the engine decision was taken. But all the teams knew where the decision was going for months before hand, it was only Merc that chose to start work early.

This is one of the reasons I want Honda to leave F1 at least temporarily, Ferrari/Merc in particular have good enough v6 hybrids that they can put a small team to work on the next engines now and increase the size of that team over the next 18 months. Honda will struggle again in 2020 if they are spending all their time fixing this engine and even if this engine ever gets good... what's the payback. Personally I can't see any way this engine will make a big enough step by 2018, 2019 if they were finally good only gives them a year of competitiveness but they'll blow another 200mil getting to that point and have too few people working on the 2020 engines.

[drunkf1fan]

Stop talking about advantages, because the technology is out there and could be bought by signing experts from Mercedes/Ferrari/Renault. They are in their 3rd year and it's still a big mess, there are no longer excuses.

Ferrari hired expert from Mercedes but you know, they are still a bit behind of merc in terms of Pu power. So it is not that easy. Restricted time to make what you want to make, simply cause it to be immature/unfinished.
It is Honda's way of working that they take consultancy to take knowledge but they do their job themselves. These are what we are talking about but we ( at least me ) didn't read anything like that from Honda as excuse of power deficit. I think they have to be consistant of staying in F1. Ups and downs are everywhere.

As my previous post, from what I recall Ferrari nabbed Merc's ERS guy(and others, but he was the main one, though he was at Lotus at the time) at some point in 2014. 2014 Ferrari had a dire and undersized ERS, they brought the guy in and the difference in engine between 2014 and 2015 was night and day. It's hard to know what the difference is between Merc and Ferrari, the biggest difference between this year and last year is how competitive Ferrari's chassis/aero is, arguably the engine closed the majority of the gap it needed to in 2015, in less than a year and after replacing a lot of the engine team the turn around was huge and fast. It's been mostly the chassis/aero holding them back from 2015 till now and right now the engine/chassis are finally both pretty damn close to Merc.

The change in power, harvesting and outright performance of Ferrari's engine from 2014 to 2015 was massive and almost certainly heavily influenced by the engine people they brought in from other teams though mostly Merc. It's absolutely a viable way to make a huge and quick improvement, it won't necessarily get you all of the way there but I think it would make an absolutely huge difference to Honda.

[wuzak]

This goes back to my last post about the political power between the engine manufacturers for the 2021+ formula. You can bet that the new formula (lighter engines, no more ERS-H) will play to someone's advantage.

De-stroked HPD engine?

The next engine will probably be a twin turbo development of the current PU.

Maybe lose a few hp and some driveability, but they will be easier to develop, cheaper and lighter.

Although the rules are being formulated for 2021 and beyond, Liberty, at least,m are keen to bring it forward by a year. But there is no reason why they couldn't start in 2019.

In fact, they could do twin turbo next year, probably, if it was decided now.

The irony is that when the whole Red Bull engine thing blew up and the FIA put out requests for information on cheap alternatives (specs based around Ilmor Indy engine, basically) 3 suppliers said they could do twin turbo for the next season, but one did not like that idea - Honda.

[etusch]

This is one of the reasons I want Honda to leave F1 at least temporarily, Ferrari/Merc in particular have good enough v6 hybrids that they can put a small team to work on the next engines now and increase the size of that team over the next 18 months. Honda will struggle again in 2020 if they are spending all their time fixing this engine and even if this engine ever gets good... what's the payback. Personally I can't see any way this engine will make a big enough step by 2018, 2019 if they were finally good only gives them a year of competitiveness but they'll blow another 200mil getting to that point and have too few people working on the 2020 engines.

You are completely wrong I think.
Honda's big fault is leaving F1 and staying away from this high level development challenge. With your wrong advice they will be unexperienced once again, when they return F1. They have to keep going so that they can learn many things, have experience and experienced engineers. You are talking like that the next engine spec is already known by manufacturers. If so and ıf other manufacturers can establish an engineers team to work on that, what is the benefit of leaving F1 for next engine?
In the other hand Honda has good PU base I think. At least worth to work on it. This is at least a learning process and cease it is not good idea.

[etusch]

As my previous post, from what I recall Ferrari nabbed Merc's ERS guy(and others, but he was the main one, though he was at Lotus at the time) at some point in 2014. 2014 Ferrari had a dire and undersized ERS, they brought the guy in and the difference in engine between 2014 and 2015 was night and day. It's hard to know what the difference is between Merc and Ferrari, the biggest difference between this year and last year is how competitive Ferrari's chassis/aero is, arguably the engine closed the majority of the gap it needed to in 2015, in less than a year and after replacing a lot of the engine team the turn around was huge and fast. It's been mostly the chassis/aero holding them back from 2015 till now and right now the engine/chassis are finally both pretty damn close to Merc.

The change in power, harvesting and outright performance of Ferrari's engine from 2014 to 2015 was massive and almost certainly heavily influenced by the engine people they brought in from other teams though mostly Merc. It's absolutely a viable way to make a huge and quick improvement, it won't necessarily get you all of the way there but I think it would make an absolutely huge difference to Honda.

How Ferrari made such a big change with token system ? I remember that Hasegawa san declared he was surprised how Renault made a big step with only one token last year ?

[drunkf1fan]

How Ferrari made such a big change with token system ? I remember that Hasegawa san declared he was surprised how Renault made a big step with only one token last year ?

Between 14/15 they were allowed to change just over half the engine, 15/16 they were allowed to change a little under half iirc. They are also allowed to make changes without using tokens on the basis of reliability.

Honda didn't make massive changes between 15/16 because they doubled down believing they could get their flawed concept to perform well, not because they couldn't. The changes they made for 2016, arguably with the token system in tact they would have changed their turbo and smaller changes elsewhere and probably had more reliability, they made so many changes this was always going to be the outcome.

Ferrari made massive changes between seasons and so did Renault, I can't recall when Renault used the one token, one token in season but I believe they probably had a fairly decent base design it just had reliability issues. As they brought in reliability updates they ended up with the same design but working properly. Honda's issue was in 2015/16 they had a bad base engine that also barely worked, they patched it up into almost working but it was a bad actual engine design. Now they have a second massively rushed engine which may be a half decent design and also doesn't work, or maybe it's another bad design and doesn't work. Considering where performance was for lets say RBR before their engines died and considering where Mclaren performance is before their cars die.... I don't think that when it's working right it's going to be anything amazing.

[drunkf1fan]

This goes back to my last post about the political power between the engine manufacturers for the 2021+ formula. You can bet that the new formula (lighter engines, no more ERS-H) will play to someone's advantage.

De-stroked HPD engine?

The next engine will probably be a twin turbo development of the current PU.

Maybe lose a few hp and some driveability, but they will be easier to develop, cheaper and lighter.

Although the rules are being formulated for 2021 and beyond, Liberty, at least,m are keen to bring it forward by a year. But there is no reason why they couldn't start in 2019.

In fact, they could do twin turbo next year, probably, if it was decided now.

The irony is that when the whole Red Bull engine thing blew up and the FIA put out requests for information on cheap alternatives (specs based around Ilmor Indy engine, basically) 3 suppliers said they could do twin turbo for the next season, but one did not like that idea - Honda.

I really don't know enough about engines but, is the new engine really going to be much lighter? It's losing a mgu-h but adding a second turbo, though it will be two smaller turbos presumably vs a large one, still that means a lot more parts required for another turbo, will that end up any lighter than one large turbo and the mgu-h? Battery will be lighter as it will be able to generate what 1/3rd of the current power maybe on average, but then they'll be carrying presumably a lot more fuel to compensate for significantly reduced efficiency. Going from a 20-25kg battery to a 7-10kg battery but adding 20kg of fuel doesn't sound like it's really lighter, though of course throughout the race it will get lighter.

Then we have standardised cheaper parts... I'd put money on a mgu-k developed by Merc for themselves with a huge amount of cash will be lighter than a part developed as group to be cheaper and reliable, same goes for the turbo. Where Merc sell engines for 15mil, you get more exotic lighter/stronger materials but when it becomes say 8mil instead(not sure on the intended price of new engines, just guessing) then those twin turbos are going to be made of heavier and thicker materials to make sure they are durable and cheap.

The main goals appear to be price.... price, along with being simpler and noisier, then secondary to that they want them lighter but I don't really see where that will happen. With higher fuel flow and more power required from a seemingly v6 ice, then I don't see how the ICE will get cheaper or lighter, surely if fuel flow increases and RPM's increase, weight will go up for the same reliability they have now as well?

[ziggy]

Just to clarify some things:

“Nikki Lauda recently told me that Mercedes started on their hybrid in 2007” begins Luca

http://www.grandprix247.com/2017/02/01/ ... ince-2007/

Still this isn't an excuse for Honda. They should have known better, where they were getting in to. That's what I'm saying all the time. This current technology is being developed for decades, not years. So if they were late to the party, it was at least 10 years ago. Pretty much around the time they quit F1 the last time...

A little offtopic: Porsche developed nearly the same tech and got it working. Again in pretty much the same time, 2014.

Really 2007? I had no idea. How defined were the rules for 2014 back in 2007? I thought they were drawn in 2011. I guess a bit before teams knew more or less were they should go. But before they are finalised teams can work a bit on it but have still no idea what to pursue completely.

2021 will have new engine rules but they are still not written I guess teams are already looking into that especially to then push their own agenda but they can really work too much on in until the rules are final. And we are already 3 seasons and a half away. 2007 to 2014 is 7 years difference.

Anybody can enlighten me a bit more on the timeframe of the drawing of 2014 PU rules?

Yep. Ross Brawn knew all the facts about the new engines well before the others because he basically wrote the new engine formula. It all started when he took a sabbatical in 2007.