Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[gruntguru]

How in particular? Where you place the injectors in relation to the intake valves? Valve seat geometry? Pent roof geometry? Piston crown? Structures on the piston face? Exhaust runners and ports? Spark plug angle? Multiple spark per cycle timing? Narrow spray injectors, with extremely high boost to prevent fuel film and wall quenching?

All of the above but particularly the structures that position the fuel cloud in the chamber and those that impart swirl and tumble to the air.

The main point was - Mercedes "secrets" (if any) will relate to components that have never been seen by anyone outside Mercedes High Performance Powertrains.

[Andres125sx]

I can't ascertain what the claim is.

Really?

A struggling manufacturer claiming they know the secret of the dominating team, IMHO, is a big claim

[Andres125sx]

How in particular? Where you place the injectors in relation to the intake valves? Valve seat geometry? Pent roof geometry? Piston crown? Structures on the piston face? Exhaust runners and ports? Spark plug angle? Multiple spark per cycle timing? Narrow spray injectors, with extremely high boost to prevent fuel film and wall quenching?

All of the above but particularly the structures that position the fuel cloud in the chamber and those that impart swirl and tumble to the air.

The main point was - Mercedes "secrets" (if any) will relate to components that have never been seen by anyone outside Mercedes High Performance Powertrains.

Exactly, and that´s the reason I said it´s a big claim.

Time will tell, if true Honda perfomance will improve dramatically during the season

[hurril]

This incessant blabber about how easy it would be for Honda (or some other engine maker) to simply get Mercedes Powah is fascinating. Split the turbo, Luke! Oh, and at the same time: nobody can know the real secret to the Mercedes Powah and to even claim such a thing would be ludicrous.

It is as if you guys digest information about this as if we were all playing a video game and simply knowing which door to pick (split the turbo) or having read the correct scroll (The Ultimate AMG Secrets) would instantly take the character to the next level.

Getting something as complex as a current F1 car to run screamingly fast is not easy. I don't think there are any easy wins and I'm also highly skeptical to there being Real Authentic Secrets in the sense that: manufacturer A does things that manufacturer B has never even heard of. (And implied: but now that B has, implementing A's best traits is trivial.)

[Thunder]

This incessant blabber about how easy it would be for Honda (or some other engine maker) to simply get Mercedes Powah is fascinating. Split the turbo, Luke! Oh, and at the same time: nobody can know the real secret to the Mercedes Powah and to even claim such a thing would be ludicrous.

1: No one said it would be easy.
2: How come nobody can know their Secrets? Ferrari, Renault and Honda Engineers are not stupid for one. Plus Merc lost Engineers to the other Manufacturers. Surely they brought some inside knowledge.

[hurril]

This incessant blabber about how easy it would be for Honda (or some other engine maker) to simply get Mercedes Powah is fascinating. Split the turbo, Luke! Oh, and at the same time: nobody can know the real secret to the Mercedes Powah and to even claim such a thing would be ludicrous.

1: No one said it would be easy.
2: How come nobody can know their Secrets? Ferrari, Renault and Honda Engineers are not stupid for one. Plus Merc lost Engineers to the other Manufacturers. Surely they brought some inside knowledge.

I meant it the other way around. I don't think there are any real secrets that way. I think one group of people managed to get more of it right and more right at that.

[Thunder]

Ok then Apologies, i clearly got your Post wrong.

I tend to agree. Merc got it extremely right in the First try. Bid Kudos to them.

Merc may have their little Secrets in how to do specific things but in General they work pretty similar. It's for the others to find the optimal Solution for their Package. Blatantly copying Merc can go horribly wrong. I don't know who was quoted with that "Merc Secret" Phrase but like gruntguru said i guess it has more to do with Internal Combustion characteristics than some big Piece Honda has overlooked until now.

[taperoo2k]

Ok then Apologies, i clearly got your Post wrong.

I tend to agree. Merc got it extremely right in the First try. Bid Kudos to them.

Merc may have their little Secrets in how to do specific things but in General they work pretty similar. It's for the others to find the optimal Solution for their Package. Blatantly copying Merc can go horribly wrong. I don't know who was quoted with that "Merc Secret" Phrase but like gruntguru said i guess it has more to do with Internal Combustion characteristics than some big Piece Honda has overlooked until now.

Less about copying Mercedes wholesale and more about figuring what they've done correctly (there were some stories that Brawn told the team to start again as they were going in the wrong direction with the PU and car design).
Then you can start assessing if you can translate that into your own design or not. I suspect Honda have probably
got the combustion chamber design mostly perfected. It's just a matter of improving the overall design and software, which is easier said than done. I expect we'll see Honda switching development paths later in the season with 2017 in mind.

[dragosmp]

Less about copying Mercedes wholesale and more about figuring what they've done correctly (there were some stories that Brawn told the team to start again as they were going in the wrong direction with the PU and car design).
[...]

It was not a wrong direction in so much as it was conservative, same as what Renault and Ferrari achieved. So technically Merc has made it in the 2nd try, they just started a year early and had a second iteration for 2014.

The Merc secret is not just a red herring imho or there's not just one secret. I'm not good with ICE terms, but it seems that Merc have perfected a head design that sped up combustion for the 2014 (their 2nd iteration) ICE. This trick alone when applied to a competitor's ICE gives an instant 40bhp gain...and blows up the engine within 5 minutes. More work is required to properly understand why/what/how, but the power is there. Does the fuel need to evolve? Injection pressure? Boost/knock strategy? Many bright minds are trying to figure it out 2 years after Merc won a race with it. It should be an interesting season

[Thunder]

Ferrari's RW Mount isn't smaller than the oneHonda has in it's Second Iteration. https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/707933738844426240 So it seems it realy was for added Strenght.

[godlameroso]

Well according to what has been discussed and speculated in the Mercedes power unit thread is that, they might be using a form of gasoline auto ignition. And given Boullier's comments about tuning with knock, I'm beginning to think that they are trying to run the engine on some quasi detonation state.

[basti313]

Ferrari's RW Mount isn't smaller than the oneHonda has in it's Second Iteration.
https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/707933738844426240

So it seems it realy was for added Strenght.

Thanks, very interesting picture. On this one the mount hole really does not look like a round pylon, but like a streamline device.

[FW17]

Honda perfected auto ignition at part load more than 20 years ago on a 2stroke, wonder if those control systems can be translated to 4 stokes high rpm

[basti313]

Well according to what has been discussed and speculated in the Mercedes power unit thread is that, they might be using a form of gasoline auto ignition. And given Boullier's comments about tuning with knock, I'm beginning to think that they are trying to run the engine on some quasi detonation state.

Can you please explain, what you mean with "quasi detonation state"?
To my understanding the main benefit of auto ignition is, that you do not have anything like pre-ignition. The fuel completely ignites once it is pushed into the combustion chamber. So there will not be any knocking problems on an engine with auto ignition.

[Postmoe]

Ok then Apologies, i clearly got Post wrong.

Impossible.

Merc may have their little Secrets in how to do specific things but in General they work pretty similar. It's for the others to find the optimal Solution for their Package. Blatantly copying Merc can go horribly wrong. I don't know who was quoted with that "Merc Secret" Phrase but like gruntguru said i guess it has more to do with Internal Combustion characteristics than some big Piece Honda has overlooked until now.

I think that, apart from having an exellent PU overall in tandem with the perfect match in gasoline, the key factor is adaptability.

They're just great as a team when rolling out.

What we need to understand is that every GP is a project and every single project has its rollout. They are implementing every single time, and they are better at it than the rest. Clearly superior.

How they have dealt with testing gives us a good measure of how good they are at it. They are amazingly good. They need less time to tackle problems, can run way longer and have the best on-track car availability by a big margin.

They have a very good infrastructure, by all means. I keep insisting, they must have a very solid software backbone to be that good at workflows. These PU cannot work well without it, no matter how important combustion is technically, you must manage a team to get this right every time, standarize, lean the protocols and keep the information in order to progress.