Honda V8 engine development

The headquarters of Honda Racing Development Ltd (HRD) doesn’t look very ‘Formula One’. Few people catching sight of this anonymous building, tucked away on an industrial estate in Bracknell, England, could imagine that it is home to some of the world’s most advanced engines. It is here that Honda built the engine responsible for powering Jenson Button to victory in the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Wander inside and you’ll discover a facility that’s neat, functional and businesslike. The technicians, dressed in Honda overalls that are self-consciously retro, betray the company’s heritage and so do the posters of F1 cars of yesteryear. For those who get their kicks from the technical intricacies of Formula One – as opposed to the glamorous fripperies – the HRD facility is nirvana.

Ray Dawson is the manager of technical manufacturing and has devoted most of his professional life to ensuring that Honda’s engines are built to the most exacting standards. Before joining HRD, he spent 14 years running Honda’s ultra-successful road car engine production facility in Swindon, England.

“Most of the design and development of the Formula One engine is done at Honda’s R&D centre in Tochigi, Japan,” he says, “but half the engines are built here.” HRD’s location in the southeast of England is far from coincidental. “There is a big aerospace industry here,” he explains, “and that helps us to source some of the more exotic materials as we work with a number of European suppliers.”

Dawson leads the way to the dynamometer, where one of Honda’s latest V8 engines is being put through its paces. “Every engine is tested on the dyno before it is used in the car,” he says. A handful of engineers peer expectantly at a series of computer screens, while the engine is operated in laboratory conditions.

From the start of the 2006 season, the 3.0-litre V10 engines, which had been used since 1995, were replaced by 2.4-litre V8 engines. The F1 rulemakers hoped to reduce both the speed of the cars and the engine costs, but for Dawson and his team, the change posed new issues.

“The vibrations caused by a V8 are different and worse than those of a V10. And because they’re less powerful, the cars spend more of their time at full throttle, which places a greater strain on the engine. The regulations banned the use of some materials, but they couldn’t stop imagination. We’ve ended up working harder than ever before.”

From behind a glass screen the engine looks impossibly small. Crafted from a variety of more or less exotic materials ranging from aluminium to tungsten, its mass is accurate to within a couple of grams and its centre of gravity is carefully measured. It seems hard to believe that this V8 powerplant delivers in excess of 700bhp.

The attention to detail is extraordinary and extends to the environmental impact of the facility. The energy generated by the engine when it’s on the dynamometer is used to create electricity, which feeds Britain’s National Grid. “Sometimes, we watch the electricity meter go backwards,” says Dawson.

Across the corridor, a modest room filled with more computers looks out on to a simple workshop where the engines are built. It takes up to five days to build each V8 and the technicians operate in a two man team. In most instances, a local employee is joined by an engineer from Japan.

“Our Japanese colleagues arrive on a four month secondment,” explains Ross Matthews, who was himself seconded from Honda’s production car plant in Swindon. “At first the language barrier can be a problem, but over time we get to know one another and we learn from each other.”

Matthews had the honour of building the engine that powered Button to his first grand prix victory and it’s an obvious source of pride. “There is a friendly competition between the engine builders here and those in Japan. We etch ‘Made in UK’ onto the engine block. The people who work in Formula One tend to be competitive and we have a passion for what we do that motivates us.”

His Japanese colleague, Sunako-san, agrees. This is his sixth visit to the UK and he will spend four months here building F1 engines. “It is a big honour to work in the UK,” he says. “This is my opportunity to teach the Honda way to my colleagues in the UK.” Sunako-san admits that the victory in Hungary was a special moment. “I had goose-bumps, there was a tear in my eye and my pulse rate was higher than normal.”

The Technical Director of HRD is also Japanese. Hiroshi Abe has over twenty years of Honda Racing experience. He worked with Prost and Senna in 1988 and 1989, developed the V8 engine for the US Champ Car series in the 1990s – an experience he says was invaluable – and became the project leader of engine development in 2002. He joined HRD in April 2006.

“The demands on the engine designers and builders have changed dramatically in the past 20 years,” he says. “In the 1980s, the engine power output was the most important factor. Now, we also have to consider its driveability and reliability, how it will fit into the chassis and how it will contribute to the aerodynamic efficiency of the car.” In other words, the engine has become part of a homogeneous package.

The technology has also progressed beyond recognition. “Everything moves so quickly in Formula One. Ten years ago, an engine capable of 20,000rpm was a dream. Today, that dream has almost become a reality. Formula One must always be the top category for a designer and engineer. We have to keep developing as individuals and as a team and find the best solutions we can within the regulations.”

At the end of this year, the regulations will change again. By the beginning of March next year, the team must submit an engine for homologation that will then be used throughout the 2007 and 2008 seasons. It will have a rev limit of 19,000rpm and additional modifications may only be made for reliability reasons.

For Abe-san and the talented team at HRD, it is yet another new challenge that must be met and overcome. There will be more late nights and more soul searching as the technicians combine their technical know-how with their all-consuming passion for their work. The HRD facility might look anonymous, but it is in no way ordinary.