Mercedes GP W02

[HampusA]

It´s the same engine as Mclaren, Force India.
I think it´s even Mclaren own ECU that all teams have right?

Oh no Humbert, see after dynotest HPE is shipping the top engines to MGP, I hear they can differ as much as 50 Hp.

Oh no ........, engines are homologated.

[wesley123]

Sure you get that, but dont you think that 50hp is a bit over the top? Unless Mercedes builds engines with Chuck Norris DNA for their works team i doubt it is in any way possible. these cars are rated on what, 750hp? a 50hp gap would mean that there is a gap of 6 2/3% between engines Mercedes builds, that cannot be right. IMO a difference of 15hp is pretty reasonable but still a bit over the top.

[xpensive]

I don't think so, if anyone of you gentlemen, Hump xcused, would remember your classes in statistics, you would know that a ten percent difference on a bell-curve is actually quiet reasonable. All engines have their own serial number btw and homologization does not limit power per se.

[HampusA]

.....

[beelsebob]

I don't think so, if anyone of you gentlemen, Hump xcused, would remember your classes in statistics, you would know that a ten percent difference on a bell-curve is actually quiet reasonable. All engines have their own serial number btw and homologization does not limit power per se.

Eh? You're trying to assert that all bell curves have the same spread?

Wouldn't this make computing the standard deviation rather irrelevant

[wesley123]

...........

And the reason behind that is?

To even think Mercedes can just squeeze out 50 more HP without changing any internals of the engine is pretty funny.
Or are you implying that Mercedes dumbs down their engines to Mclaren, a long time partner or perhaps Force India? Or even Brawn GP?

How about, GET REAL. 50hp just like that huh?

It is easily possible, by running different engine maps you can easily gain or lose HP. the engines can pretty much stress that, they run on 18k rpm where they were originally built for 19-21k revs. Therefore they can easily run 50hp more by engine maps, if it useful is a different thing.

It is easily possible for a manufacturer to give another team lesser materials, they can do that between teammates so why not between teams?

[xpensive]

Oh my, come now humpster, remember what Ciro wrote, we are friends here, are we not, just nickaming between friends?

@ Belsebub;
Obviously the standard deviation plays it's part, all I was saying is that a +/- 5% varianse would be nothing spectacular on a mechanical contraption such as an F1 engine?

[beelsebob]

@ Belsebub;
Obviously the standard deviation plays it's part, all I was saying is that a +/- 5% varianse would be nothing spectacular on a mechanical contraption.

±5% might be nothing spectacular on the average mechanical contraption, but on an engine so precision engineered that it can't even be put together if it's at the wrong temperature, it's an enormous margin. I would honestly be surprised if there was ±0.5% variation between F1 engines from the same manufacturer.

[xpensive]

If you behold the contraption as a unit, you might be right, but we are talking hundreds of mechanical components, each with their individual bell-curve. If you begin your selection already at that level, surely +/- 5% is possible?

[beelsebob]

If you behold the contraption as a unit, you might be right, but we are talking hundreds of mechanical components, each with their individual bell-curve. If you begin your selection already at that level, surely +/- 5% is possible?

By your logic, it would become impossible to build any suitably complex machine simply because errors in each component would multiply up to form too large an error in the total machine to ever have it work.

I mean... it's theoretically possible that you might have an engine that got all the largest cylinder bores, and all the smallest piston, and all the worst fitting valves, and all the slightly out of alignment cams, and ... but such a beast would be extremely rare, and sat on the edge of the bell curve.

In short – the distribution of the bell curve for the whole machine would be roughly the same as the average distribution of the individual components, because each engine will get good/well fitting parts in one place, and less so in another.

Bottom line – again, I do not believe that engines so precisely engineered as F1 engines have anywhere close to a 5% standard deviation in performance.

As an aside – even if they did have a 5% standard deviation in performance, that would put 66.67% of engines within that bracket, and would mean that McLaren's engines were inside the standard deviation, not outside it. Meaning McLaren would still not be getting engines 50hp short. Even if they could be distributed as you seem to think they can be, Merc would be getting the 16% that are more powerful than 787hp, and 16% that were between about 760 and 787. Guessing by graph shape (because I can't be arsed doing the maths atm) they would average out to ~770hp. McLarens being centred on the bell curve would average out to ~751hp. Thus – even if there were a 5% standard deviation on engine power (which I doubt), and even if they could distribute them as they chose (which I doubt), they would still only have engines about 20hp more powerful than McLaren – you'd need to be talking about a 10-15% standard deviation before they were getting engines on average 50hp more powerful, and that's getting way into the realms of fantasy.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

When you consider that production engines cant have a difference of more than 5% due to trades description, how is it that a finely tuned Mercedes F108X with supremely tight tolerances will have 10%?

Mercedes HPE and any other F1 manufacturer would be insulted with the idea that there is a 5% difference! let alone 10%!!

The diffeence in engine power will come from when teams choose to use new or used engines.

That is just ludicrous and I think X is pulling peoples chains with that.

If the difference is 1% it would be alot IMO

[marcush.]

We are friends here ,are we ? I will certainly NOT die when Exp is calling me names and he will most certainly not die due to digestive trouble caused by ingesting of a considerable amount of nomex cloth as it looks 50HP +/- will not make a difference.

We do not know and we will not know exactly.But I´m pretty sure the engines do not come out the same so mechanically there will undoubtably a certain tolerance and Exp has given a very plausible explanation for it.
Plus: something as knife edge as a F1 engine MUST be more vulnerable in terms of tolerance especially in critical areas such as pistonring friction .
And you have to consider the teams are designing and fabricating systems on their own such as water circuits and oil circuits.Decide on having a bigger backpressure or want to flow the water quicker. presto your engine output at the crank is going to change .Engine is running 3K hotter you may be never at the same point of the engine map and not at the same power level for a given track situation.The teams have their specific transmissions with different losses ,and they have dedicated exhaust systems all different AND important for the development of power with the overlap of the cams ..There are so many variables visible that we are a bit naive to think these engines will perform equal in three very different peripheries..
That´s my view of things.If I were Mercedes I would earmark the best ones for my own best interests and supply the soso products to those who don´t know any better.
Haven´t we heard of extreme power losses after the forst race distance? There is so many variables in this ...

[beelsebob]

That´s my view of things.If I were Mercedes I would earmark the best ones for my own best interests and supply the soso products to those who don´t know any better.
Haven´t we heard of extreme power losses after the forst race distance? There is so many variables in this ...

One more flaw in the theory – McLaren *do* know better – Mercedes didn't exist when the engines were Homologated, McLaren was customer no 1 – they would notice if suddenly they got a 50hp drop in engine output from supposedly identical engines.

[PhillipM]

@ Belsebub;
Obviously the standard deviation plays it's part, all I was saying is that a +/- 5% varianse would be nothing spectacular on a mechanical contraption such as an F1 engine?

You can made a clockwork watch with hundreds of tiny little springs and cogs accurate to better than 99.998% these days.

I'd be surprised if there's more than 1% between the engines on a dyno. Installed in the cars may be a different matter, obviously.

[HampusA]

Until we got some facts of what he claims i call this Fake.