General Honda F1 Topic

[Capharol]

i'm sure everyone here knows what is the cause for hondas problems and how to fix them. or at the very least, better than honda themselves.

...that said, might as well, given how piss poor their reliability still is.

8 icu for both gasly and hartley last season.... EIGHT! almost two times more as is allowed without penalties. hopeless. utterly hopeless.

i'll be sad to see RB go.

it was generaly known that TR will be the driving testing team, and that is what Honda did with the okay of TR and RB officials, and that is why they used so many engine.... you should think and get your facts straight before posting

[Karim28]

i'm sure everyone here knows what is the cause for hondas problems and how to fix them. or at the very least, better than honda themselves.

...that said, might as well, given how piss poor their reliability still is.

8 icu for both gasly and hartley last season.... EIGHT! almost two times more as is allowed without penalties. hopeless. utterly hopeless.

i'll be sad to see RB go.

I believe that you missed (or didn't follow with just depending on stats) the Honda 2018 and its facts that TR was a testing team with the approval from the main company of RB
Yes , I won't deny that they've used 8 engines but don't you know that at least half of them were cautiously taken and tested ? . It's not necessary that using 8 engines means that they have 7 engine failure
PS : we all know how intelligent are Red bull as they won't take this step(Using Honda Engines) stupidly

[mzso]

I still find it amazing that people have so much faith in Honda, while they have produced 4 engines that clearly weren't good enough.

I really hope they will get their --- together, because F1 can't loose Honda and the two Red Bull teams.

What does faith have to do with anything? They showed promising improvement from Canada onwards.

[dren]

I'd say testing was promising, and the entire season was their best to date. The spec 3 looked to be quite competitive. Although Honda had some reliability issues, it was their best year reliability wise, too. They had two PU failures the entire season although they had a relatively large pool to choose from.

[RonDennis]

I still find it amazing that people have so much faith in Honda, while they have produced 4 engines that clearly weren't good enough.

I really hope they will get their --- together, because F1 can't loose Honda and the two Red Bull teams.

What does faith have to do with anything? They showed promising improvement from Canada onwards.

Yeah, I hear everyone talking about promising improvements. Looking at the results, I haven't seen it. They only seem to able to extract the extra horses in the quali, while dropping back heavily in the races.

[mzso]

Yeah, I hear everyone talking about promising improvements. Looking at the results, I haven't seen it. They only seem to able to extract the extra horses in the quali, while dropping back heavily in the races.

How would you from just the results? It's the car that races not the engine. And the race results don't necessarily signify the car's performance either.

[Krischnen]

Honestly, it would make sense because.. common the race pace was horrible. Using full power over 1 lap in Q1 and Q2 is not a big risk. But i you go 50+ laps with full power and having vibrations you know the engine won't make it to the end.

Also, i remember Carlos Sainz telling in an interview they they don't worry about Honda. He litterely said: in Qualifying they are strong, but we are in front in terms of race pace. Now tell me; how is that possible. Is the Honda engine not fuel efficient enough so they have turn the engine down? Or is it because the engine can't handle the power and is vibrating?

That's not entirely true, is it? Carlos literally said [after Suzuka] Honda's pace during qualifying was "worrying".
He then explained that he thought the Renault engine was still beter during the race, because he overtook both Toro Rosso's.

You could argue how much both chassis attribute to that, let's not get in to that, but he actually used the word worrying.

[Krischnen]

I remember taking some flack for saying the Honda in the Torro Rosso was absolutely nothing like the Hondas in the McLaren's since 2015. Something changed markedly, and it happened just before McLaren's split. The move to Red Bull had been in motion for some time. They had clearly brought someone in with much more experience to lead.

Asking what Illien does is one of the most laughable things I've ever seen written. Solving problems such as engine vibrations doesn't just get solved via software, and they are pains to track down. They have to be troubleshooted first. To now be dispensing with that track record of experience does not seem wise.

So vibrations because of bad part production?

i thought the vibrations were from the mapping issue, not sure, but I might have read something in that direction.
Something with that they haven't done all the mapping because it was all on short notice.

could be mistaken tho

The vibrations can have different 'sources'.
My take on this is that the vibrations that started with the C-spec have something to do with the ignition timings. And this is indeed something that needs to be solved with new engine maps.
IF they changed something about the combustion / injection with the C-spec, and rushed it (which it seems like they did for the sake of testing), it could very well be they were lacking knowledge about about the new combustionprocess. Not perfect timings result in vibrations.

Illien probably had a look at it, and didn't know how to help/didn't see anything wrong hardware-wise. While AVL is being dumped for not providing a simulator which can help solve these vibrations.

Anyhow, I certainly wouldnt see drama in some words used by a german tabloid. I'm pretty sure the real Ron Dennis isn't denying or talking down Honda's progress.

[Capharol]

So vibrations because of bad part production?

i thought the vibrations were from the mapping issue, not sure, but I might have read something in that direction.
Something with that they haven't done all the mapping because it was all on short notice.

could be mistaken tho

The vibrations can have different 'sources'.
My take on this is that the vibrations that started with the C-spec have something to do with the ignition timings. And this is indeed something that needs to be solved with new engine maps.
IF they changed something about the combustion / injection with the C-spec, and rushed it (which it seems like they did for the sake of testing), it could very well be they were lacking knowledge about about the new combustionprocess. Not perfect timings result in vibrations.

Illien probably had a look at it, and didn't know how to help/didn't see anything wrong hardware-wise. While AVL is being dumped for not providing a simulator which can help solve these vibrations.

Anyhow, I certainly wouldnt see drama in some words used by a german tabloid. I'm pretty sure the real Ron Dennis isn't denying or talking down Honda's progress.

thanks for the answer

[Espresso]

Well it's slack season. So just a summary from my readup from today. Both from F1technical as other sources.

Engine evolution:
The spec 2.x is an evolution build on the 1.x focused on improving engine performance and reliability. And a challenge to R&D to come up with something better
The spec 3.0 is R&D's answer. New designs incorporated combined with lessons learned.
The spec 3.1 is the testing crib for the 2019 engine. To understand performance, reliability and understanding managing the balance between engine components, chassis and how to achieve best on track performance.

As to vibrations:
The vibration issues are under control and can be mitigated. Vibrations are part of any engines but the issues appear on track and cannot (read are very hard) be simulated in a test bed, that''s why road testing (STR) is so important. Vibrations issues are now understood and can be mitigated, in part with help of consultancy from Illien, who is hired on demand.
The spec 3.0 had vibration issues arising. Not due to unresolved prior issues but due to a unexpected (45HP) performance gain. Previous learned lessons enabled Honda to mitigate the vibration issues asap.

AVL dynanometer laboratory Graz:
[Rumour on]
The relationship with AVL is most probably 'broken' for the same reason the previous customer Ferrari has broken with AVL in 2017. A development they wanted to keep propietary. Honda has a new propietary (patent-pending) combustion/ignition proces they also don't want to share with or give insight to an independent person/instutute like AVL.
[/Rumour off]

Sources: multiple sources
Mea culpa for just mentioning the main source...
Main source:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18874&start=15000
https://www.reddit.com/user/FCIUS:
[Japanese] https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=2018 ... 9-rcg-moto
[English] https://thejudge13.com/2019/01/08/secre ... proved-hp/
[English] https://www.scribd.com/document/396948033/RA618H

[Radley]

Engine vibrations are harmonics/ harmonic frequencies.

Back in the 1980's NASCAR engine builders went to 180 degree headers as they found more power on their dyno testing. Once they got to the high banked tracks they experienced a lot of engine blow ups. I had a friend who was an engineer and worked at an acoustical test equipment company. They were called in as a last resort to try and solve the problem. They found at certain rpm the reflections from the track caused harmonic vibrations and aidos engine.

[JordanMugen]

Back in the 1980's NASCAR engine builders went to 180 degree headers as they found more power on their dyno testing.

Any sound clips?

It's hard to imagine the good old boys racing cars that sound like Ferraris!

[carisi2k]

I still find it amazing that people have so much faith in Honda, while they have produced 4 engines that clearly weren't good enough.

I really hope they will get their --- together, because F1 can't loose Honda and the two Red Bull teams.

What does faith have to do with anything? They showed promising improvement from Canada onwards.

Yeah, I hear everyone talking about promising improvements. Looking at the results, I haven't seen it. They only seem to able to extract the extra horses in the quali, while dropping back heavily in the races.

The results had more to do with the chassis then the engine but the engine made significant improvements and even got a fourth place finish at Bahrain. 2 engines were lost due to being destroyed at Spain and Canada.

[godlameroso]

The engine went through puberty through the 1st half of 2018, in the second half the changes finished, and now they're busy in the gym working out, getting that strength and cardio.

[Capharol]

The engine went through puberty through the 1st half of 2018, in the second half the changes finished, and now they're busy in the gym working out, getting that strength and cardio.

exactly, but somehow I get the feeling people wanna to see Honda fail,no matter how good they do, at least it sound so in many posts i have read.
In my opinion if you're a F1 Fan you like to see all teams preform well (with a slight favouritism for 1 team of course) but wishing or hoping a engine/manufacturer blows up or having loads of problem is just pathetic.
We all want to see wheel-to-wheel battles on the track with 20 cars till the end of a race and till the end of a season.