Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[godlameroso]

Thickness? No clue, nerd's company can make them .5mm thin and still works well after 4,000 miles of use. Each F1 event is around 500 miles(practice sessions and the race itself), each engine has to last 7-8 events, 500 x 8 = 4,000? But that's what they offer customers, I'm sure F1 applications are more extreme, how much more? Who knows.

[etusch]

Anyone want to play another guessing game? How thin are compression rings in F1 engines? For reference, your average road car has ~1.2mm thick compression rings, and this is considered low drag high performance. Obviously F1 has to be on the cutting edge, a thinner ring has lower friction, less wear on the cylinder walls. The limit would be durability, and the ring's ability to seal.

Any takers?

Can it be produced with technology which is used at jet engines for getting high precise balanced and surfaced parts which are needed to keep working under high rev, high heat conditions ?

[63l8qrrfy6]

A thinner ring doesn't necessarily have lower friction. If the contact surface is smaller, the contact pressure with the cylinder wall is higher for a given ring tension which means that more time is spent in mixed/boundary lubrication regimes but it will seal better (and wear quicker).

A thinner ring is also more conformable so it will seal better against a deformed liner and a deformed ring groove. This is particularly important in racy pistons where the ring grooves are generally poorly supported by multiple ribs resulting in grooves which turn wavy under load.

Based on the CA which ran just fine at 20000 RPM with ~0.5 mm cast iron top rings I'd say current engines can get away with sub 1mm steel rings and still take a fair amount of knock. Unlikely you'll see gas ports on these rings as there would be nothing left of them!

In my experience I have seen plenty of standard broken top rings but never recall seeing a piston failure from a gas port so based on this I'd say ported rings are less safe.

[godlameroso]

A thinner ring doesn't necessarily have lower friction. If the contact surface is smaller, the contact pressure with the cylinder wall is higher for a given ring tension which means that more time is spent in mixed/boundary lubrication regimes but it will seal better (and wear quicker).

A thinner ring is also more conformable so it will seal better against a deformed liner and a deformed ring groove. This is particularly important in racy pistons where the ring grooves are generally poorly supported by multiple ribs resulting in grooves which turn wavy under load.

Based on the CA which ran just fine at 20000 RPM with ~0.5 mm cast iron top rings I'd say current engines can get away with sub 1mm steel rings and still take a fair amount of knock. Unlikely you'll see gas ports on these rings as there would be nothing left of them!

In my experience I have seen plenty of standard broken top rings but never recall seeing a piston failure from a gas port so based on this I'd say ported rings are less safe.

Then it's not just the ring surface finish, but the cylinder surface finish as well. If the cylinder finish has a nice plateau profile without too many peaks then the ring is supported by a higher surface area its load becomes more uniformly distributed throughout the bore. Cylinder finish can also affect oil retention, and the harder the material, the more difficult it is to hone, and the harder it is to get that good surface finish.

My experience, it's the ring lands that crack first. The rings take more abuse than the actual pistons(assuming they're AL pistons).

[63l8qrrfy6]

Hardness is not a big issue, for example DLC liners are coated post honing as the coating is thin enough to follow the valleys for a typical plateau hone finish.

[godlameroso]

What about non DLC coatings? What if the material you are using is very smooth but porous as well leading to flatter profiles but still having good oil retention? Then if you have excellent ring finish and excellent bore finish as well the load is spread out instead of forcing the ring past the peaks. The valleys are good because they retain oil, but it's still a gap in the material. As with most things automotive, it's a tradeoff, more valleys means more oil retention meaning easier to have hydrodynamic film, but less surface area for your rings to spread their load on. But if you have too much "bearing" surface you lower the chance of having a good oil film.

What if your bore material has excellent oil retention properties without the need for valleys, you could start getting the best of both worlds.

[etusch]

Honda’s final Formula 1 engine of this era will be a new design brought forward from a planned 2022 introduction to try to bow out of the championship by winning the 2021 title with Red Bull.

This season will be Honda’s last in F1, at least for now. While its technology is expected to continue with the team as Red Bull seeks to formalise a takeover of the Honda programme, the Japanese manufacturer’s official involvement will end this year. It became a race winner again with Red Bull but so far fallen short of its ultimate ambition.

This year it’s pulling out all the stops to change that: including using what might be termed a ‘2022 engine’.

https://the-race.com/formula-1/hondas-p ... 22-engine/

[Alexf1]

So to get this straight: the 2022 engine that is now (partly) brought forward to 2021 was initially planned for 2021 in the first place to go with the new rules, then pushed back to 2022 when the new rules were pushed back to 2022 but since the dimensions are the same it will fit in the current car so no problemo. Oh and part of the initially planned 2020 engine was postponed to 2021. Must be some firecracker of an engine in 2021..

[Wouter]

So to get this straight: the 2022 engine that is now (partly) brought forward to 2021 was initially planned for 2021 in the first place to go with the new rules, then pushed back to 2022 when the new rules were pushed back to 2022 but since the dimensions are the same it will fit in the current car so no problemo. Oh and part of the initially planned 2020 engine was postponed to 2021. Must be some firecracker of an engine in 2021.

I think it will be.

[Slo Poke]

So to get this straight: the 2022 engine that is now (partly) brought forward to 2021 was initially planned for 2021 in the first place to go with the new rules, then pushed back to 2022 when the new rules were pushed back to 2022 but since the dimensions are the same it will fit in the current car so no problemo. Oh and part of the initially planned 2020 engine was postponed to 2021. Must be some firecracker of an engine in 2021.

I think it will be.

I know it will be!

[godlameroso]

It certainly is at least on the test bench. There's always some trepidation that the track may offer up some unexpected issues. While we don't know the performance gap to Mercedes, Honda feels it has made a serious step over what they raced with in 2020. Think of the 2020 power unit, but optimized for a different concept. Layout is the same, but the concept itself is different.

Concept being the combustion process and how the ERS is utilized, how to get the most out of harvesting while maintaining good thermo efficiency. The 2020 concept was modified as the season progressed, so 2021 power unit is a continuation of that concept, the tweaks made to get the most out of the concept, and constant refinement of all the components is something that takes a good deal of time to validate and implement.

Regardless, as far as step forward, I'd say 2020-2021 power unit step is as if Spec 3 2018 PU suddenly went to 2020 PU spec.

[etusch]

Power unit manufacturers know their own power and I think it is good base to compare them to others. I think Honda know gap to merc pu and where they are now. only unknown is how many horses merc will add to their farm which is largest out there. So if Redbull will not do same trick with merso we have to see a clear gap from Redbull Honda over merc at winter test. Then a close battle at the season.

[godlameroso]

Red Bull seems to have a handle on the chassis side of things, 2020 was a good learning experience. They have a good grasp in how to get the most from the aero now, and you'll see that in their 16B. It's crazy how soon testing starts, it's 45 days now.

[Slo Poke]

It certainly is at least on the test bench. There's always some trepidation that the track may offer up some unexpected issues. While we don't know the performance gap to Mercedes, Honda feels it has made a serious step over what they raced with in 2020. Think of the 2020 power unit, but optimized for a different concept. Layout is the same, but the concept itself is different.

Concept being the combustion process and how the ERS is utilized, how to get the most out of harvesting while maintaining good thermo efficiency. The 2020 concept was modified as the season progressed, so 2021 power unit is a continuation of that concept, the tweaks made to get the most out of the concept, and constant refinement of all the components is something that takes a good deal of time to validate and implement.

Regardless, as far as step forward, I'd say 2020-2021 power unit step is as if Spec 3 2018 PU suddenly went to 2020 PU spec.

The height of PU output is actually nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum. Mr. Poke

[nzjrs]

So to get this straight: the 2022 engine that is now (partly) brought forward to 2021 was initially planned for 2021 in the first place to go with the new rules, then pushed back to 2022 when the new rules were pushed back to 2022 but since the dimensions are the same it will fit in the current car so no problemo. Oh and part of the initially planned 2020 engine was postponed to 2021. Must be some firecracker of an engine in 2021..

I often think how things would have been different (would Honda have left?) if they had not chosen to postpone the engine they planned to run in 2020.