Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[3jawchuck]

Mark Huges on Honda PU.
http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/ex ... into-2016/

Last time I was checking turbo speed was capped, and the limit was below "well in excess of 130,000rpm".

Code: Select all

5.2.4
The MGU-H must be solely mechanically linked to the exhaust turbine of a pressure charging
system. This mechanical link must be of fixed speed ratio to the exhaust turbine and may be
clutched.
The rotational speed of the MGU-H may not exceed 125,000rpm.

[noname]

My bad, thank you.

[Owen.C93]

Mark Huges on Honda PU.
http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/ex ... into-2016/

What is he on about heat?

[drunkf1fan]

A member of neighborly forum Autosport,named @scarbs(not sure if Craig!?) has said that compressor is actually not axial,but normal radial and very small one tucked in the V of the ICE,and that basically Honda did same mistake Ferrari did last year and whit the fix of that area he expect the same jump Ferrari did this year.

The 2 PUs are very different, Ferrari's turbine/compressor/MGU-H are external to the engine while the Honda's are encased. The symptoms are similar, not sure how identical "the same issue" actually is.

Honda's reliability is nowhere near where Ferrari's was in 2014. Honda grabbed 4 new PU total at SPA/Monza and I'm not certain they'll make it to the end of the season with those.

There are many unknowns which you don't see until you get there. As we've seen this year, Honda's PU has many short coming that at this time last year Honda didn't foresee.

In short I think to get to where Ferrari was at the beginning of the year, Honda has further to go than Ferrari did from the end of 2014. They can still do it, even surpass Ferrari, I just think it's less likely.

The outright design doesn't really have to be the same for the mistake to be the same. They blew the design of the turbo/mgu-h in design, size and ability to extract power and led to a crap engine. Ferrari stated during last season that they made the engine they wanted, they compromised the engine for aero just like Mclaren/Honda, which led to the compromised turbo/mgu-h which led to no where near the energy recovery required which led to the bad performance. It's the same sequence of events at Mclaren/honda, not necessarily the same design but certain the same sequence of mistakes.

I've also been saying this since the start of the season. My main worry is that Honda won't fix the engine for next year. My reasoning is, Ferrari seemingly learned what the problem was at the start of last year, fired some engine guys, brought in some specialists in ERS, fuel and had Allison leading the cars direction to help as well. On top of that as you say Ferrari made a solid engine, it was the wrong engine for F1 in 2014, but it was still doing what it was designed to do and not failing every race. Ferrari tested in the lab, came up with that engine and it worked as intended, reliably. After a year they came out with another engine which was again reliable and again did what it was designed to do. Key, it turned up to testing ready, reliable. Merc and Ferrari are testing in a lab, finding problems and bringing a reliable engine to track.

Now we think about Honda, they were convinced this layout/design was actually a secret weapon waiting to be unleashed, they finally thought they'd unleased it with upgrades and only right after the last upgrades started talking about a layout change. So it appears outwardly(not necessarily the case internally) that they are making the same layout switch Ferrari did but 5-6 months later, giving them 5-6 months less time to change the engine, test it and fix the problems they find. Other key differences, they are refusing to bring in outside help, experience is to a degree a short cut, their engine guys obviously didn't get ERS right, doesn't mean they can't but they didn't immediately see the problem so their guys have to learn while bringing in guys with that knowledge would be far quicker. The other key difference is Arai has stated they didn't find key reliability problems with the engine in the lab...if their testing is insufficient then I see them turning up next year again with a engine that hasn't found the problems which means they'll have reliability problems.

Can honda make a good and reliable engine, perfectly possible, but when you weigh up the differences, the lack of time, lack of bringing in help, testing problems, reliability problems. They have a hell of a lot more work to do than Ferrari and half the time to do it. Ferrari were starting from a reliable base, Honda aren't.

I hope they'll do okay and I'm sure they'll do the bigger compressor/bigger turbine/more space for mgu-h/better cooling that Ferrari adopted and this should improve power and could help with reliability also but I still think even if they jump 1.5 seconds a lap forward and get towards 5-6th in several races they'll have a significant number of failures.

[PlatinumZealot]

What is your definition of not that expensive? Honda Racing has invested over 15 billion yen just to develop this current PU with about 40 per cent of that going to develop and produce 50 of these MGU-H units. IMO, that's a lot of money.

They heavily overpaid.

I would not be surprised if Honda chose to work with people having almost no experience with this technology, this could explain the price

Infrastructure is also a major part of it. The infrastructure will serve them well for another thirty years. So not a bad price If one is thinking about long term benefits for Honda.

[PlatinumZealot]

Presumably the main barrier for exhaust recovery hybrids would be cost, for mixed driving conditions of city and highway it seems like it's probable that there would good economy gains by being able to deploy electric power in city driving, even with a small battery pack. The biggest gain would probably be in trucks/lorries, maybe even running a full diesel electric setup.

BMW are on the way to making their next generations of cars with MGUH... check it out. (Electric-supercharging they call it). It can actually be viable if the power levels are modest and it is done in premium cars first.

[djos]

I wonder if Mazda might do the same, they already have super capacitor storage in all their skyactive petrol engines.

[diffuser]

The outright design doesn't really have to be the same for the mistake to be the same. They blew the design of the turbo/mgu-h in design, size and ability to extract power and led to a crap engine. Ferrari stated during last season that they made the engine they wanted, they compromised the engine for aero just like Mclaren/Honda, which led to the compromised turbo/mgu-h which led to no where near the energy recovery required which led to the bad performance. It's the same sequence of events at Mclaren/honda, not necessarily the same design but certain the same sequence of mistakes.

In my opinion you're over simplifying it. You're just about saying that all PU problems are caused by compromises in size. It's always gonna be about size and/or weight about getting the most out of the least. Everyone does it and if Ferrari's approach last year was so wrong, why does the back of their car look even smaller than last year this year? It isn't the approach that's wrong, its the solution they came up with.

I've also been saying this since the start of the season. My main worry is that Honda won't fix the engine for next year. My reasoning is, Ferrari seemingly learned what the problem was at the start of last year, fired some engine guys, brought in some specialists in ERS, fuel and had Allison leading the cars direction to help as well. On top of that as you say Ferrari made a solid engine, it was the wrong engine for F1 in 2014, but it was still doing what it was designed to do and not failing every race. Ferrari tested in the lab, came up with that engine and it worked as intended, reliably. After a year they came out with another engine which was again reliable and again did what it was designed to do. Key, it turned up to testing ready, reliable. Merc and Ferrari are testing in a lab, finding problems and bringing a reliable engine to track.

I agree....But with all the mileage Merc and Ferrari have on their PUs, we've seen some cracks this year when they've introduced tokens. Proof that it isn't that easy to make changes on the fly like Honda have had to, in a BIG way, all year.

Now we think about Honda, they were convinced this layout/design was actually a secret weapon waiting to be unleashed, they finally thought they'd unleased it with upgrades and only right after the last upgrades started talking about a layout change. So it appears outwardly(not necessarily the case internally) that they are making the same layout switch Ferrari did but 5-6 months later, giving them 5-6 months less time to change the engine, test it and fix the problems they find. Other key differences, they are refusing to bring in outside help, experience is to a degree a short cut, their engine guys obviously didn't get ERS right, doesn't mean they can't but they didn't immediately see the problem so their guys have to learn while bringing in guys with that knowledge would be far quicker. The other key difference is Arai has stated they didn't find key reliability problems with the engine in the lab...if their testing is insufficient then I see them turning up next year again with a engine that hasn't found the problems which means they'll have reliability problems.

I think Honda tried to patch the KERS issue @ Canada and failed. They've probably known they have to redesign the KERS and TURBO since when they started to design the patch for Canada

Can honda make a good and reliable engine, perfectly possible, but when you weigh up the differences, the lack of time, lack of bringing in help, testing problems, reliability problems. They have a hell of a lot more work to do than Ferrari and half the time to do it. Ferrari were starting from a reliable base, Honda aren't.

I hope they'll do okay and I'm sure they'll do the bigger compressor/bigger turbine/more space for mgu-h/better cooling that Ferrari adopted and this should improve power and could help with reliability also but I still think even if they jump 1.5 seconds a lap forward and get towards 5-6th in several races they'll have a significant number of failures.

I'm not ready to concede "significant number of failures" but cannot deny the risk is there.

[Cannonballer]

Yes it's very compact, designed to fit the "size 0" concept bodywork. They will have a new PU for 2016 with radical changes.

Do you mean radical changes as:
a) as having new things that no one has ever ran before,
or b) as in very different from their 2015 PU but more similar to what other teams are running?

Very different from the current layout with certain design aspects that no one else is running.

From F1i.com:

Speaking exclusively to F1i, Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai says the belief is the failings of this year’s power unit can be rectified without a complete overhaul of the layout.

“Looking at this year and next year, we’ve already gone in to a plan on how to make it better based on the current layout,” Arai said, speaking via a translator. “The final plan may come in winter but we are already on it.

“It will be the base we work from because it’s the layout we’ve worked on from scratch with McLaren. We think there’s the possibility there, that’s why we fixed on that layout. So there is more potential to be had.”
http://en.f1i.com/news/27804-honda-unli ... -2016.html

Wazari, is Arai statement reconcilable with the information you have?

[GoranF1]

From @Muramasa-san(autosport forums)

[GoranF1]

Arai;

“Looking at this year and next year, we’ve already gone in to a plan on how to make it better based on the current layout,” Arai said, speaking via a translator. “The final plan may come in winter but we are already on it.

“It will be the base we work from because it’s the layout we’ve worked on from scratch with McLaren. We think there’s the possibility there, that’s why we fixed on that layout. So there is more potential to be had.”


http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view/ ... +1+News%29

[PlatinumZealot]

Gentlemen, if you look on the Honda air box it is very low in height compared to the Mercedes so if the airbox is redesigned to be taller there should be room to increase the size of the compressor. The trumpets can be made longer and the sliding mechanism linear instead of arced.

[Blackout]

They've already raised the front part of the intake plenum/airbox in order to fit the compessor. Will they raise the remaining part in 2016?
The turbo sits higher in the V than the Merc btw

[Tommy Cookers]

BMW are on the way to making their next generations of cars with MGUH... check it out. (Electric-supercharging they call it). It can actually be viable if the power levels are modest and it is done in premium cars first.

a road car electric supercharger is unlikely to be like the F1 mgu-h ?
it's better to seperate the low speed supercharging function from any exhaust turbo generation function (best at/from high speed) ?
isn't that (seperation) what the car makers are trying, in their various ways ?

[dren]

From what I'm reading (speculation) on other sites is the Honda compressor is smaller but was designed to operate at a higher RPM than the competition along with the MGUH. They had problems with running at such a high RPM reliably so they had to dial the system back. Arai is confirming they are sticking with the same solution but trying to improve it to run as they require. There is another, larger more conventional design working in tandem if they cannot make the original work.

Here is one site that sums it up:

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/ex ... into-2016/