Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[GhostF1]

Nothing in that article suggests it's a definite that Ilmor are working with Honda. It says Honda are open to outside consultants, however who and how will not be revealed. The Ilmor part is speculative.
The little bit about Toro Rosso suggests to me this is an old article posted later.
No way STR are going to suddenly swing back and say yes.

[ZakB]

Nothing in that article suggests it's a definite that Ilmor are working with Honda. It says Honda are open to outside consultants, however who and how will not be revealed. The Ilmor part is speculative.
The little bit about Toro Rosso suggests to me this is an old article posted later.
No way STR are going to suddenly swing back and say yes.

Learn to read.

Although Honda has not revealed exactly who it has been using, sources have confirmed that the highly-respected Ilmor operation is one of those that has been working hard to help it overcome its difficulties.

with the Italian team’s discussions with the Japanese manufacturer understood to not be totally over.

[Andres125sx]

If the words of Hasegawa can be interpreted as is, then it's simply frightening.

Honda should burn through countless complete development V6 units like no tomorrow, 30 hours in a 24 hour day. Strapped into dynamic dynos, static dynos, built in SF, LMP cars, aka MOVING dev-dynos, which are able to generate actual, comparable G-forces with F1 cars, they should monitor the combustion process with 50.000fps cameras screwed into the chamber, refining injector patterns, flame propagation, they should micro-print structurally absolutely perfect parts, cryogenically stabilize them... huh... build every imaginable sci-fi tech into that engine and car. Use even TT Brown propulsion units, who cares? If B-2s can increase their range with them...

But if the Hungarian test unit was an indicator of a proper Supekku Toree*, well, that was the smoothest Honda V6 I've ever heard in an F1 car.

*Edit: development of Sulee

OMG what a load of...

As explained on my downvote, I´m only missing one thing in your reply, a rant trying to understand the reason Honda didn´t build a time machine yet to return to the past and solve their problems...

[Joseki]

It has been a quiet summer break in terms of rumors about future updates, I remember that last year we already knew that Honda was bringing a 20 hp update at Spa with a new ICE/TC and then another update for October (the famous Spec 4 later postponed to 2017).
It's quite strange, isn't it? All the "leakers" went silent, I wonder if something changed at Sakura.

[Andres125sx]

To me it´s pretty obvious Honda strategy changed some time ago to stop any unfounded optimism before hitting the track and avoid subsequent dissapointments

[diffuser]

Since Spain, Hasegawa has been saying...and I'm paraphrasing "We'll bring whatever we can prove on the dyno."

[ZakB]

To me it´s pretty obvious Honda strategy changed some time ago to stop any unfounded optimism before hitting the track and avoid subsequent dissapointments

“But by the end of the season, we want to move past Renault,” the Japanese is quoted by Speed Week.

[Dimi]

Every time we see some signs of progress from honda, illmor or mercedes is helping them. Maybe illmor helps them with the indycar engine also.

[nzjrs]

Every time we see some signs of progress from honda, illmor or mercedes is helping them. Maybe illmor helps them with the indycar engine also.

I think that's the ridiculous narrative that many people are interested in pushing. I don't believe it to be true. The lone genius rescuing the project doesn't reflect the operation of any complicated engineering project I have been involved with.

[godlameroso]

A big, but not only, reason they'd move away from single cylinder, to focusing more on the v6 engine. Given the impractical nature of manufacturing countless iterations and testing them. I'd say that their ability to model the combustion process has improved, to the point they can trust the virtual results. It's a big reason why Honda seems more confident of being able to make up ground. Also why some are saying the vibration problem is still there latent somewhere, as you cannot model all phenomena on computer. Although the engine in the Hungary test did sound a lot smoother under power.

Maybe the vibrations are still there, but have been tuned to occur in a range where it can be tolerated by the parts. Afterall the current v6s are inherently prone to vibrations. Not to mention all the other spinning parts that interact with it, some of which have never been tried by Honda previously.

[gofast182]

Yeah buts It's not about Honda v people on forums though. It's about Honda v Mercedes Ferrari and Renault and seeing how they operate compared to the best.

And overall in the last three years it's been solidly mediocre.

My comment was about the pundits but yes, I certainly understand that. As it relates to competition, consider that they introduced a new engine concept this year and they've corrected paths on how they prove out developments. On balance, they had more scope to improve in the first place but the impressive development pace thus far (and what we understand to be coming) stands on merit. We'll know soon where that effort puts them in relation to their rivals.

Ok but Honda have yet to bring a significant update that's actually closed the gap significantly. Something Ferrari and Renault have managed to do under the token system impressively. Over the last three years I've been waiting to see that update that produced that same big jump in performance like Ferrari and Renault to really show they were making headway.

And this year it was supposed to be at the end of testing then in Australia then spec 3, now spec 4 then it will be spec 5,6,7 etc. My point is Honda will never catch if they only have the ability to make incremental steps. They need a big jump followed by incremental steps otherwise they won't even catch Renault who continues to get closer to the big two.

I would argue they had some big development last year under the token system. Still, they've made undeniable progress this year and, while they still need a lot to close the gap, I would not assume that incremental steps are bad. Doing so implies that each increment will be a finite size and their sum won't be good enough. Of course there was a plan this year and it hasn't worked out, we can't dwell on it; they seem to be on the right track now.

[Andres125sx]

To me it´s pretty obvious Honda strategy changed some time ago to stop any unfounded optimism before hitting the track and avoid subsequent dissapointments

“But by the end of the season, we want to move past Renault,” the Japanese is quoted by Speed Week.

What to me is showing that statement is not unfounded optimism, but a minimized target they should be acomplishing even if the upgrades are not as good as planned.

Or maybe that´s just unfounded optimism by myself, but after reading all statements from Honda since 2014 that´s my feeling, they´ve been extremely cautious about their claims in past and current seasons, so if they now make some optimistic claim, I think they must be completely sure about that.

That or they´re fools who can´t learn from past mistakes

[ZakB]

Every time we see some signs of progress from honda, illmor or mercedes is helping them. Maybe illmor helps them with the indycar engine also.

I think that's the ridiculous narrative that many people are interested in pushing. I don't believe it to be true. The lone genius rescuing the project doesn't reflect the operation of any complicated engineering project I have been involved with.

Stop mixing up Ilmor and Illien, nobody said it was the lone genius rescuing the project.

[nzjrs]

Every time we see some signs of progress from honda, illmor or mercedes is helping them. Maybe illmor helps them with the indycar engine also.

I think that's the ridiculous narrative that many people are interested in pushing. I don't believe it to be true. The lone genius rescuing the project doesn't reflect the operation of any complicated engineering project I have been involved with.

Stop mixing up Ilmor and Illien, nobody said it was the lone genius rescuing the project.

Thats the point. It's as cliche as "Japanese Work Culture". It might as well be added to the shitposting thread.

[harjan]

Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes have all build their engines with outside knowledge.

How come people in here go jumping up and down when they learn Honda has hired Ilmor. We should be glad that they're finally making decent gains, whichever way they've done it.

120 bhp down, breaking down in the warm up lap and then shouting: "but we haven't used any outside knowledge!" would have been a far bigger issue.