Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[MrPotatoHead]

Everyone really needs to stop talking about updates bringing xxxbhp.
Peak power doesn’t mean much in this formula. It’s about power under the curve vs fuel usage.
Of course peak power matters but Honda could introduce a new spec with the exact same peak power and be much quicker around the track.

Honda will continue to move forward throughout the year.
McLaren will use Honda in 2018.
Alonso will score a podium before the end of 2017 and announce he will stay with McLaren for 2018.

Can we get back to facts and technical analysis now please?

[gruntguru]

Alonso will score a podium before the end of 2017 and announce he will stay with McLaren for 2018.

Can we get back to facts and technical analysis now please?

So is your first sentence a fact, technical analysis or the last piece of speculation before we get on with the facts and technical analysis?

[MrPotatoHead]

Alonso will score a podium before the end of 2017 and announce he will stay with McLaren for 2018.

Can we get back to facts and technical analysis now please?

So is your first sentence a fact, technical analysis or the last piece of speculation before we get on with the facts and technical analysis?

Haha not sure if speculation or hopes and dreams?

[Craigy]

Everyone really needs to stop talking about updates bringing xxxbhp.
Peak power doesn’t mean much in this formula. It’s about power under the curve vs fuel usage.
Of course peak power matters but Honda could introduce a new spec with the exact same peak power and be much quicker around the track.

Agreed.

I'd actually go a step further and say that given the constraints, it's entirely possible that the peak power number comes down and the overall car pace can still be better with a PU that gives a smaller peak number, but the power is available for longer.

A PU optimised for peak power is not necessarily the fastest way around the track - especially in race trim. This doesn't only apply to Honda, or even to F1.

[Joseki]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... ch-943360/

Hasegawa:

"We are changing our way of development, we're not too much insisting on mono-cylinder [dyno] development. We can check factors or elements or many concepts with the mono-cylinder [block] but we now understand we need to check with the V6 to finalise our specification. So we are no longer relying too much on the mono-cylinder results. As a reference, the mono cylinder test is important but to find the performance, we need to check the V6 results."

"The MGU-H failure took a very long time to solve, we had many small issues in the engine - and that area is difficult to understand on the dyno. We are about to solve that [MGU-H] issue, we just need to confirm on the circuit. But the MGU-H specification we have introduced includes solutions for the problem so I believe it's OK."

[ZakB]

It seems that Honda just assumed it should work, well it at least seems that they are finally on the right path.

[MrPotatoHead]

It seems they now agree with what I was saying months ago about the reliance on single cylinder testing.

[dren]

It seems they now agree with what I was saying months ago about the reliance on single cylinder testing.

We have no clue when Honda changed their approach. Honda said it wasn't seeing the single cylinder results transfer to the PU during development, so I'd assume they changed back then.

[bigblue]

Don't over-analyse each word - it's come via translation or at the very least from a non-native English speaker. It was apparent before the season that something had gone wrong in the mono to six cylinder scale-up, that's been stated before. Honda had assumed on past experience that this would probably work out, but it really seems to have gone badly. I think they realised there and then that things had to change, and this 'news' article is just recapping that, and reinforcing it - perhaps with some more experience through the season of the sensitivity of the current designs to being developed into a full engine. You can debate whether this was obvious all along, but I'd guess not, certainly previous experience or something else made Honda think it would work out. What's not in doubt is that the end result has been pretty painful, hopefully they're on a big upswing now.

[restless]

How possible is it in Friday one car to run with old spec and the other with new spec?
Validating and comparing...
I guess if they have even slightest doubt over updates, will try to make direct on track comparison

[gofast182]

How possible is it in Friday one car to run with old spec and the other with new spec?
Validating and comparing...
I guess if they have even slightest doubt over updates, will try to make direct on track comparison

Isn't that exactly what they did, or tried to do, in Baku?

[gofast182]

It's funny, not as much on this site but elsewhere on the net, to see people savage Honda for the single cylinder model as if they're smarter and could've done it better from the start: they are not and they could not have. Anyone who works in a field where R&D is done and the final assembly/product has multiple repeated structures/elements in it understands that you almost always do proof-of-concept on 'subset models' for the benefits of turnaround time, ease of analysis, and cost as you do iterative development. In most cases, a lot can be gleaned from these 'subset models' but in some cases, they do not translate to scale assembly, which is what Honda has found in this instance. Honda has learned and has moved on. Were they silly for attempting to develop this way in the first place? No, and anyone who thinks they are does not know as much as they think they do.

[Goosey]

Apparently Honda were using "Spec 4" throughout the whole Hungarian test.

Not totally sure if that means spec 3 with revised turbo and MGUH or the spec 4 with revised CC concept.

Guess we may find out more this weekend

[restless]

source about "spec 4 in Hungary"?
or "educated guess" ?

[Goosey]

An internal source. Not speculation.