2014-2020 Formula One 1.6l V6 turbo engine formula

[FW17]

I loved the last turbo era... I still love to watch the old channel 4 Equinox episodes "Turbo" detailing the development of the Cosworth turbo engine for the short lived Hass Lola team.

Its also a good reminder that the reliability of the 80s turbo cars was shockingly bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haas_Lola

If you look at the above Hass Lola wiki page ,they picked up points in 86, but were always many laps down.

We have become used to most of the cars finishing , but thats not how it has always been.

Rob

More cars finishing was after the engine freeze

[FW17]

Cant believe that after 4 days of testing we have not had a decent pic of the engine, turbo or intercoolers

[Holm86]

Cant believe that after 4 days of testing we have not had a decent pic of the engine, turbo or intercoolers

I can. This is testing and is not considered an event. During events (races) teams are not allowed to cover up the cars in the pits. They are allowed to now and will do all they can to cover up the engines etc.

I don't think we will see good pictures of engine installations till the first GP in Melbourne. Or if someone has a crash during testing which reveals the engine.

[danielk]

I think everyone is missing the point with the Renault unreliability: When everything is set in stone with regards to the engines, you can still make as many updates as you want to improve the reliability of the package, but not its performance.

It's clear then that it's better to have the higher risk, higher performance package. You can solve your reliability problems later, but you can't add performance in the same way. The way the others have run so reliably tells me they have not been aggressive enough.

Just like every other recent engine format Renault has been a part of, I think they will emerge the most successful in the end once the reliability issues are resolved. They have probably chosen a more performance-oriented approach at the beginning, which while posing a risk in the short term, will pay off in the long term.

The problem is Renault have no idea how well their engine performs. The other teams are able to test the way they deliver power etc and make the relevant changes. The other teams have thousands of kilometers worth of Data to now go back and figure out where they can improve the engine. The other teams can now go back and say well we can add more here and add more there.

Renault on the other hand can just go oh --- weve gone 2 extreme, we dont know what the limits are how much do we tone things down?

Ive seen no reports however that say Renault was struggling because of the immense amount of power and performance.

They were breaking down on install laps, so i do not see this as an indication that they have really good performance but not reliability, I just see it as they've got some of the basics wrong and they have no idea what the performance of the engine is yet.

You seem to be implying that the Renault engine has the best performance and thats why its breaking down. nothing ive seen so far convinces me of this. Indeed it could be the case but right now all weve seen is renaults going round well off the pace or breaking down, we havent seen them use the performance you talk of.

[bonjon1979]

I think everyone is missing the point with the Renault unreliability: When everything is set in stone with regards to the engines, you can still make as many updates as you want to improve the reliability of the package, but not its performance.

It's clear then that it's better to have the higher risk, higher performance package. You can solve your reliability problems later, but you can't add performance in the same way. The way the others have run so reliably tells me they have not been aggressive enough.

Just like every other recent engine format Renault has been a part of, I think they will emerge the most successful in the end once the reliability issues are resolved. They have probably chosen a more performance-oriented approach at the beginning, which while posing a risk in the short term, will pay off in the long term.

Everything about this is wrong.

You can't make unlimited reliability upgrades. There is a homologation date, after that some changes are permitted on a reliability but most of them have to be agreed with the other teams.

There's no evidence that they have chosen a more aggressive, 'performance-orientated approach'. If they had, then perhaps we could expect to see some blistering one lap pace but no longevity. We have evidence of neither.

[carvetia]

You can't make unlimited reliability upgrades. There is a homologation date, after that some changes are permitted on a reliability but most of them have to be agreed with the other teams.

For sure, but when it comes to ancillaries, even though they are much more integrated into the concept of a 'power unit', i think we will see plenty of leniency there, and this appears to be what they are having a problem with at the moment.

There's no evidence that they have chosen a more aggressive, 'performance-orientated approach'. If they had, then perhaps we could expect to see some blistering one lap pace but no longevity. We have evidence of neither.

Not yet . I'm just willing to give an engine builder with 12 world championship titles to its name, including 6 of the last 9, the benefit of the doubt . Plus, if you can get your engine to win 4 times in a row in a Newey-led car, you have to be fairly good at building something reliable - he doesn't take it easy on the mechanicals .

The problem is Renault have no idea how well their engine performs .... well we can add more here and add more there.

This is very true, it's definitely not a good situation for them to be in; I'm just pondering why they find themselves here.

You seem to be implying that the Renault engine has the best performance and thats why its breaking down. nothing ive seen so far convinces me of this. Indeed it could be the case but right now all weve seen is renaults going round well off the pace or breaking down, we havent seen them use the performance you talk of.

I'm not implying they have the best performance. I'm just invoking the very fundamental relationship between risk and reward. A miscalculated risk is a possible explanation of their present situation. If they have taken such risks, it is then plausible that they were doing it for some kind of reward. Perhaps a reward yet to be reaped, but will be through the coming seasons.

Their issues appear to stem from packaging; heat where it shouldn't be. They have not adequately replicated the running environment in their testing. We know what a priority Red Bull places on packaging, so it's almost unsurprising that if there were going to be issues, they would stem from being overly ambitious there. That's the (misguided) basis for my optimism regarding their package, but i'm not averse to being completely wrong . They could have simply made a stupid mistake. Maybe I just want to believe they've been overly ambitious instead of awful . Their history would indicate ambition, the current reality indicates awful. We shall soon see which it develops into!

[tuj]

Its not just RBR that's struggling, or you blaming Newey for too tight of packaging / not enough cooling, would be valid. But look at the other Renault teams: they only put in 151 laps total against the 876 laps by Merc engines and 444 from Ferrari. That data is invaluable for the teams. Supposedly Renault was only letting the teams go 250km; no more.

Word on the street is that there is a fundamental design issue with the Renault engine and it will take 16-20 weeks to remedy. This is major.

[Unc1eM0nty]

In that interview Ted mentions that without the MGU-H the lag would be 6-7s! With the MGU-H it is "under 1s".

I read somewhere that this could be reduced to virtually zero lag, do you think this is possible ? Or maybe its more efficient to put up with some turbo lag and use more electric power in the early stage of accelerating out of corners.

Regardless of the raw HP from each engine I think the real power war will be over engine maps, fine tuning when and how the engine, turbo & electric drive kick in and out, I expect this will be a season long battle over fuel economy, if you get this right the weakest of the 3 engines can still win races.

[ringo]

Redbull's power unit problems may stem from the same things we were arguing in this thread.
They may be putting too much mechanical control responsibilities in the hands of electronic control Boost control being one.
Listening to the Mercedes and the Ferrari, both cars seem to use typical mechanical control valves to control their turbo engine transients.
Renault is trying to play god and model boost control into a motor, which i think they will fall short at.

Interview with Rob White:

We have seen very little running from the Renault-engined teams this week. What have the issues been?

“We have not run enough laps, and when we have they have not been run at an acceptable performance level. The underlying causes are not straightforward: there isn’t a single component or system that has caused particular trouble. A number of related things have been troublesome, principally concerning the control and operation of the various sub-systems of the Power Unit within the car. For example on the first run day, we had problems with a sub-system within the Energy Store that did not directly concern either the battery nor the operation of the battery – it is an electronic part that was in the same housing as the Energy Store. We subsequently had problems with turbocharger and boost control systems with knock-on effects on the associated engine management systems, subsequently provoking mechanical failures.”

A motor is a load, I was concerned when they said it was being used as a form of boost control. I can imagine the heat soaking taking place on the exhaust side when the motor loads up the turbine to limit the speed. This is all speculation on my part however; the interview says it all.. the engine has too many electic controls and mechanical hardware has been added as a bandaid.
http://adamcooperf1.com/2014/01/31/rob- ... nce-level/

[George77]

Does anyone know how many r.p.m. used in Jerez and if they used full throttle and ERS?

[tuj]

I heard that no one went above 13k. I would imagine full throttle was probably used by the drivers, but I doubt the engines are loaded with 100% torque maps yet.

[OrangeArrows]

Does anyone know the v6 power output during the test. Only 600 HP? I hope higher.

[Mysticf1]

Power figures would be closely guarded secrets, no one outside of the teams would know.

[RZS10]

Wasn't it 600PS from the engine + 160PS ERS for a total of around 760PS ~ the power the V8s had? At least those are the numbers in most speculations i read ... i don't think way more than 600PS from a 1,6L engine are feasible ... that's 375PS/L ... the old turbos had almost 1PS/ccm though

[wuzak]

In that interview Ted mentions that without the MGU-H the lag would be 6-7s! With the MGU-H it is "under 1s".

I read somewhere that this could be reduced to virtually zero lag, do you think this is possible ? Or maybe its more efficient to put up with some turbo lag and use more electric power in the early stage of accelerating out of corners.

Regardless of the raw HP from each engine I think the real power war will be over engine maps, fine tuning when and how the engine, turbo & electric drive kick in and out, I expect this will be a season long battle over fuel economy, if you get this right the weakest of the 3 engines can still win races.

I guess it depends on the size and power of the MGU-H. It may be that the MGU-H when sized to the energy recovery requirements isn't powerful enough to spin up the turbo quickly, and thus the less than instantaneous boost. But a more powerful MGU-H may be able to make turbo lag inperceptable.