Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[GhostF1]

I think it was F1AT that has reported they were running updated engines and that they are sounding different also during the test (Also Honda saying they've added new components). As I overanalyse every soundclip I come across of the MCL32 running, this was porn.

https://twitter.com/McLarenF1/status/892761180430905345

It definitely does sound different to previous times.

Where are you reading the bit about Honda having added new components? I was hoping there might be some new PU hardware in the test but Honda's own site suggests otherwise...

http://en.hondaracingf1.com

"The McLaren Honda team was also able to run through a full programme, testing new components on the car, as well as software updates and engine mapping improvements to the Honda power unit."

There has been a bunch of reports there are updated components being fitted, what they are, I can't say and whether or not it's abolutely false, I couldn't say either as I'd really like to hear it from Hasegawa's mouth, however Yamamoto has said they've confirmed improved reliability and performance during the test and looking for a strong start in Spa. We "could" extrapolate from that I suppose, but it's true I'm not calling it gospel.

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/871951/1/h ... r-shutdown

This is one spin of the same story. There's like 10 to look at with similar headlines.

[wuzak]

Yes, the numbers are far away from present but the logic in using the waste gate in race and qualification is the same. But I don't think that Honda burn more fuel per lap in qualification. Rather all engines run at max flow rate but because Honda is not so efficient they extract less power from the max flow rate. In the race is happening the opposite: the different engines run at different flow rates thus the amount of the fuel on board starting to play key role. Only in thus way you can explain the diminishing gap in lap time toward the end of the race, and best laps of Alonso, who switches to qualification mode when the fuel on board is low while the other guys are still in race mode.

In the last 20 laps of the Hungarian race Alonso was faster than Vettel on 4 laps.

On lap 54 and lap 61 the advantage was less than 0.05s.

On lap 65 he was 1.4s faster than Vettel. This was a lap where Vettel was slower than the proceeding and following laps - perhaps he was in traffic. On lap 64 Vettel was 1.3 faster than Alonso, and on lap 66 he was 0.28s faster.

On lap 69 Alonso posted the fastest lap.He was 0.63s faster than Vettel.

On lap 68 Vettel was 1.4s faster and on lap 70 Vettel was 1.6s faster.

Alonso's fastest lap was 2.2s faster than the proceeding lap (68) and 2.5s faster than the following lap (70).

Though, to be fair, lap 70 saw his crawl across the line to celebrate with his team.

[Those who watch Sky F1 may have noticed Crofty screaming about Alonso setting the fastest lap on the last lap. the fact is that Alonso had crossed the line to set that time only a few seconds before Vettel finished the race, with the fastest lap time notification appearing after Vettel finished.]

[Bence]

So much smoother than before.

I can absolutely attest that. The engine sounds were an interesting aspect of this test. Not just Honda, but the others too.

First of all, the loudest engine at WOT is the factory Renault in Kubica's car - and by a healthy margin. The other Renaults sounded the same; much quieter, and nicely homogeneous.

The Mercs were basically the same, but again the factory team had a VERY slightly different engine note. Force India and Williams sounded absolutely close.

Ferrari had a nice, throaty, almost "bel canto"-like quality in 2014, but in the following years this nice frequency was lost. However, this year, they had a smaller percent of that tune back. Remember the classic Honda "ripping the thick, heavy fabric" acceleration sound out of the corners? Yup, Ferrari demonstrated this exact sound, but only once, in turn 1.

Now back to Honda. Well, the engine was NOT the same as in the race. This engine and/or mapping/cams/firing order/cam profile adjustment/etc. was significantly different. I've never heard a Honda with such a smooth engine texture.
It still sounds like a loud, shaky 10-liter milk truck while on limiter, but even doing practice starts, as the RPMs rise, the engine goes relatively quiet, but balanced and velvety. There is still something "steely" metallic tone in it, like you'd chew on a penny, but the smoothness is spot on. We agreed with colleagues, that it sounded the best.
It can still go raspy when they deactivate cylinders, but the earlier frumpy noises are missing. Unfortunately, I heard that specific destroyer resonance too, but only once. Overall, as I watched the MCL32 go by (from different parts of the circuit), I thought: now this IS a proper F1 engine. In the last 2 years, this feeling was definitely missing.

I hope that this improvement translates to competitive lap times, as the car is nicely balanced. Lando Norris is sensational, so I simply WANT to see him in a Honda-powered car, be it a ZakLaren or a Toro Rosso...

[gruntguru]

Harjan
Braking at Spa in 2016 was expected to be about 13% of the lap time, according to Brembo.
That's about 14 seconds of the pole lap. If they could harvest perfectly at 120 kw that would be around 1.7 mJ . Perfection isn't possible, how far short they fall I don't know but I would think somewhere in the 1.0 to 1.2 mJ would be in the ballpark.

This raises some interesting questions regarding harvesting during a qualy lap. To maximise the time available for wastegate open with "electric supercharging" it becomes necessary to look for novel harvesting techniques. (Remember, during a qualy lap there is no disincentive to waste fuel.)

- Apart from braking, the MGUK can be used to harvest at any time full power is not required (eg cornering) by simply using more throttle than needed and absorbing the excess power in the MGUK. Unfortunately the limit for ES storage from the MGUK is 2 MJ per lap.
- OTOH storage from the MGUH is unlimited and this can also be done at any time full power is not required, again by using more throttle than needed and diverting combustion energy to the exhaust rather than the crankshaft. This could be as simple as retarding the ignition timing or perhaps burning fuel in the exhaust manifold using unusual ignition and/or injection timing and duration.

[j.yank]

I didn't mean that Honda burn fuel at a higher rate than others. In qualification there is no limit to the quantity of fuel used which means that Honda can run at their lower power for the whole lap whereas in the race they run at lower power AND can't run it for as much of the lap. A double whammy. This means that they are closer to the front in qualifying than they are in the race. This double whammy effect, along with other compounding effects, like ability to add downforce, mean that even small improvements in power output can make big improvements in race performance.

I don't understand your point about diminishing gap in lap time.

In qualification there is not limit in the quantity but there is a limit in the flow rate. In this way it make sense for every one to run at the maximum flow rate but the difference in the quantity is not so big for 3-4 laps. Running at maximum flow rate in this case the more efficient engines will produce more power, as rightly stated above Wuzak. Because of the 100 kg limit per race no one could afford to run the engine at maximum flow rate during the race, so, in this case the efficiency is translated not to maximum power extracted from the engines but less fuel loaded.

About the diminishing gap: in all races the gap per lap at the beginning of the race until middle of the race between McL-H and the first cars is more than 2.5-3 sec per lap. The last ten laps usually it drops even bellow 1.5 sec on average. Obviously the ratio power/weight is improving with burning the extra fuel on board of McL-H.

[j.yank]

Yes, the numbers are far away from present but the logic in using the waste gate in race and qualification is the same. But I don't think that Honda burn more fuel per lap in qualification. Rather all engines run at max flow rate but because Honda is not so efficient they extract less power from the max flow rate. In the race is happening the opposite: the different engines run at different flow rates thus the amount of the fuel on board starting to play key role. Only in thus way you can explain the diminishing gap in lap time toward the end of the race, and best laps of Alonso, who switches to qualification mode when the fuel on board is low while the other guys are still in race mode.

In the last 20 laps of the Hungarian race Alonso was faster than Vettel on 4 laps.

On lap 54 and lap 61 the advantage was less than 0.05s.

On lap 65 he was 1.4s faster than Vettel. This was a lap where Vettel was slower than the proceeding and following laps - perhaps he was in traffic. On lap 64 Vettel was 1.3 faster than Alonso, and on lap 66 he was 0.28s faster.

On lap 69 Alonso posted the fastest lap.He was 0.63s faster than Vettel.

On lap 68 Vettel was 1.4s faster and on lap 70 Vettel was 1.6s faster.

Alonso's fastest lap was 2.2s faster than the proceeding lap (68) and 2.5s faster than the following lap (70).

Though, to be fair, lap 70 saw his crawl across the line to celebrate with his team.

[Those who watch Sky F1 may have noticed Crofty screaming about Alonso setting the fastest lap on the last lap. the fact is that Alonso had crossed the line to set that time only a few seconds before Vettel finished the race, with the fastest lap time notification appearing after Vettel finished.]

Exactly! The slow-fast laps pattern of Alonso is typical for qualification mode while the rest are driving in their race mode because they have their own battles. However, even without attempts to post BRL, on average Alonso is closer to the first comparing with the beginning of the race. This is applied to all races so far.

[wuzak]

About the diminishing gap: in all races the gap per lap at the beginning of the race until middle of the race between McL-H and the first cars is more than 2.5-3 sec per lap. The last ten laps usually it drops even bellow 1.5 sec on average. Obviously the ratio power/weight is improving with burning the extra fuel on board of McL-H.

You also have to consider that the McLaren often runs in traffic.

At the start of the Hungarian GP Alonso was stuck behind Sainz. That has some limiting factor on his lap times.

[henry]

Harjan
Braking at Spa in 2016 was expected to be about 13% of the lap time, according to Brembo.
That's about 14 seconds of the pole lap. If they could harvest perfectly at 120 kw that would be around 1.7 mJ . Perfection isn't possible, how far short they fall I don't know but I would think somewhere in the 1.0 to 1.2 mJ would be in the ballpark.

This raises some interesting questions regarding harvesting during a qualy lap. To maximise the time available for wastegate open with "electric supercharging" it becomes necessary to look for novel harvesting techniques. (Remember, during a qualy lap there is no disincentive to waste fuel.)

- Apart from braking, the MGUK can be used to harvest at any time full power is not required (eg cornering) by simply using more throttle than needed and absorbing the excess power in the MGUK. Unfortunately the limit for ES storage from the MGUK is 2 MJ per lap.
- OTOH storage from the MGUH is unlimited and this can also be done at any time full power is not required, again by using more throttle than needed and diverting combustion energy to the exhaust rather than the crankshaft. This could be as simple as retarding the ignition timing or perhaps burning fuel in the exhaust manifold using unusual ignition and/or injection timing and duration.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DDJ43WpUDWc/U ... iagram.jpg

I had the same thought. I think it is possible to set some bounds to what might be possible or practicable

I think the longest WOT circuit is Spa, around 70 seconds.

To use the 4 mJ from ES to the MGU-K for a qualifying lap you need the MGU-H to generate 63 kw.

If I assume it takes 40 kw to drive the electric supercharger to use it for 70 seconds you need 2.8 mJ. If you get 1.2 from the MGU-K via braking you might target the remainder from the strategies you suggest.

Part throttle time is around 20 seconds. And you only need 7 seconds of that to gain the maximum allowable 800 kJ at 120 kw.

The remaining 800 kJ would need to come from the extra gases to the turbine. Over 20 seconds that's 40 kw. That doesn't seem probable to me.

Spa is an outlier. So the numbers would be a lot different for other circuits.

To get this to work in the real world I'm guessing the engine manufacturers need to have large quantities of data on the maps for the turbine, compressor and ICE and to predict or correlate performance on the track this needs to be matched up to a simulator with track, weather, tyre, aero maps, suspension data etc.

So when Honda say they are working on software mappings I'm guessing there's lots to do and lots of incremental improvements to be found.

And if they change a component, new turbine say, they need all that mapping data available from the dynos to set up the software again.

Edit: for the pedants amongst us.
They don't start the lap with 4 mJ in the ES. but with 4 mJ minus whatever they use to get from the last corner to the start line. That quantity would need to be added to the charging requirement from the MGU-H.

[henry]

In qualification there is not limit in the quantity but there is a limit in the flow rate. In this way it make sense for every one to run at the maximum flow rate but the difference in the quantity is not so big for 3-4 laps. Running at maximum flow rate in this case the more efficient engines will produce more power, as rightly stated above Wuzak. Because of the 100 kg limit per race no one could afford to run the engine at maximum flow rate during the race, so, in this case the efficiency is translated not to maximum power extracted from the engines but less fuel loaded.

About the diminishing gap: in all races the gap per lap at the beginning of the race until middle of the race between McL-H and the first cars is more than 2.5-3 sec per lap. The last ten laps usually it drops even bellow 1.5 sec on average. Obviously the ratio power/weight is improving with burning the extra fuel on board of McL-H.

My point about fuel quantity in qualifying was that which gruntguru has highlighted above. They can burn extra fuel, within the regulation flow rate limits, at part throttle to charge the ES and drive the compressor at some other point in the lap. Obviously they have to balance the extra power against the extra weight in terms of lap time.

[Tommy Cookers]

don't we need far more than 40 kW to drive the compressor (eg electrically) for 4 bar MAP ?
even with the trickle of blowdown power making a mechanical contribution to said driving

but a small reduction in MAP will give a big reduction in the compressor power required
and the blowdown power's contribution will significantly increase
if the cooling rate is not increased and there's no internal distress in this brief excursion from race condition the ICE power won't fall
so the PU power and the amount of K motoring will be maximised

[Chanman141]

Honda, have a possibility of closing the gap to Renault before the end of 2017 according to data by Yusuke Hasegawa

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... -this-year

[Joseki]

It's the third consecutive year that they say it, maybe this time they'll do it.

[etusch]

He says he is talking by numbers. he also says they are closest from 2015 by now
Overtaking Renault is wonderful if they can do before the end of season. We saw at canada and a1 ring mercedes couldn't overtake redbul

[wesley123]

It's the third consecutive year that they say it, maybe this time they'll do it.

They never said so before.
see

[henry]

don't we need far more than 40 kW to drive the compressor for 4 bar MAP ?
even with the trickle of blowdown power making a mechanical contribution to said driving

but a small reduction in MAP will give a big reduction in the compressor power required
and the blowdown power's contribution will significantly increase
if the cooling rate is not increased and there's no internal distress in this brief excursion from race condition the ICE power won't fall
so the PU power and the amount of K motoring will be maximised

I don't know what the power requirement is. I took a stab in order to have number to illustrate the energy implications of deployment options. I gave a source for my stab

Are you saying that the same ICE power could be available over a range of air/ fuel ratios and that the choice of higher ratios, and hence higher MAP, is down to reducing the need for cooling? And the consequence of lower MAP would be reduced compressor power and would lead to higher MGU-H power and so longer MGU-K deployment?