Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[godlameroso]

Honestly Honda isn't the engine building behemoth it used to be. Looking at their LMP2 engine, Super GT engine, Indy car engine and most of the things they have on the road, and sadly, even their motorcycles, I kind of expected them to struggle. I think McLaren is completely correct, and they should shove that useless corporate attitude into the nether realms if they expect to be on par with other engine manufacturers, not just in F1 but in a global sense.

[gruntguru]

What is the potential power of the McLaren-Honda PU? I tried to make some calculations using this calculator using the parameters of the Canada 2015 race speed trap of Alonso:
http://www.baranidesign.com/acceleratio ... ation.html

The speed trap is 333.9 km/h recorded around sixth lap when Vetel didn't succeed to pass him (with open DRS) for more than two laps. At this time the weight of the car should be arround 790 kg. The start speed is 133 km/h. If we put 1.3 for Car Frontal Area, 0.95 for Car CD (with closed DRS), 15% for Drive Train Loss the power is comming at 990 hp. Is it possible at all?

15% drivetrain loss sounds high.

[j.yank]

the mu-k action is always limited to a power of 120 kW (161 hp)
so the max total (PU) power cannot ever be more than max ICE power + 161 hp
the mu-k cannot ever be fed electrical power totalling more than sufficient to produce a mechanical power of 120 kW (161 hp)

'without limitations' only affects what fraction of the lap the mu-k can run at 120 kW (161 hp)
ie if there is enough recovered electricity to run the mu-k at 130 kW whenever the driver wants it, the design is wrong


gu-k action is also limited to a power of 120 kW and most tracks give insufficient braking time to reach the energy/lap limit
typically gu-h action supplies more electrical energy for mu-k action than gu-k action supplies for mu-k action

Read this: http://world.honda.com/Formula-1/powerunit/05/

No, you re-read what Tommy Cookers wrote.

The MGU-k mustn't ever put out more than 120kW worth of power. The `without limitation´ pertains to what fraction of the _energy_ comes from which source, namely: the MGU-h is free to transfer, without limit, any and all produced _energy_, to the MGU-k - it, the -k, however, is not allowed to develop power > 120kW.

Don't put energy and power in the same bag

Yes, you are right. The discharge rate is limited to 160 hp. My fault. In this case to reproduce these 333.9 km/h we should have 0.7 CDA (that number is being quoted for Monza), drive train loss of 5%, and still the Honda PU should be no less than 700 hp. If we apply the same parameters to the best speed trap in qualification (only with much lower fuel) we end with 710 hp for Mercedes PU. If Honda are capable to pull out 700 hp in the race, why they don't do this in the qualification. But most important: why a Mercedes powered car will not use in a qualification the full 760 hp that are believed to be available to them? Further to this, at the beginning of the season Renault was said that they have add extra 100 hp to boost their power to 860 hp. Obviously they have problems, but in any case: is it realistic to get 700 hp solely from the ICE?

[Abarth]

Read this: http://world.honda.com/Formula-1/powerunit/05/

I think _you_ should read this.....and click on the MGU-K where it is clearly stated that it can add max 120kW/160HP. To the 600 HP of the ICE (yes this is stated too there).

So, try to align your CDA to this value, lower perhaps the drivetrein losses as suggested by gruntguru, and you'll be much closer.
I still do not believe that anyone has more than 800 HP maximum power output (640+160), except for very short periods of time when driving the compressor with the battery and therefore reducing backpressure in the exaust, while also delivering 120kW to the MGU-K (wasn't this called overrun by someone?). This might be only used in qualification, as it is in no way self sustaining and the ES storage will be empty soon (<20s) when doing this.

[j.yank]

Yes, you are right. The discharge rate is limited to 160 hp. My fault. In this case to reproduce these 333.9 km/h we should have 0.7 CDA (that number is being quoted for Monza), drive train loss of 5%, and still the Honda PU should be no less than 700 hp. If we apply the same parameters to the best speed trap in qualification (only with much lower fuel) we should end with 710 hp for Mercedes PU. If Honda are capable to pull out 700 hp in the race, why they don't do this in the qualification? But most important: why a Mercedes powered car will not use in a qualification the full 760 hp that are believed to be available to them? Further to this, at the beginning of the season Renault was said that they have add extra 100 hp to boost their power to 860 hp. Obviously they have problems, but in any case: is it realistic to get 700 hp solely from the ICE?

[Cold Fussion]

You're using an incomplete set of data and are trying to draw conclusions from it. The W06 obviously has a lot more downforce than the Mclaren so unless their aero efficiency is much higher, they will have more drag to overcome.

To accurately work out the power levels you need to work out the downforce and drag coefficient for each of the cars. In my view to do this you would have to work out the downforce vs velocity curve of the car, which would be estimated off of the speed and trajectory of the car through corners. From there you would need to have a solver to work out the combination of power,cl and cd based off of car acceleration data.

If you had access to the GPS data (like the teams do) you could take a stab at this, or you could do something like the analysis that Reca does and estimate the speed from audio onboards and fit some sort of least distance curve within the bounds of the track.

[j.yank]

You're using an incomplete set of data and are trying to draw conclusions from it. The W06 obviously has a lot more downforce than the Mclaren so unless their aero efficiency is much higher, they will have more drag to overcome.

To accurately work out the power levels you need to work out the downforce and drag coefficient for each of the cars. In my view to do this you would have to work out the downforce vs velocity curve of the car, which would be estimated off of the speed and trajectory of the car through corners. From there you would need to have a solver to work out the combination of power and car cd based off of car acceleration data.

If you had access to the GPS data (like the teams do) you could take a stab at this, or you could do something like the analysis that Reca does and estimate the speed from audio onboards and fit some sort of least distance curve within the bounds of the track.

Yes, you are right but because we don't have access to GPS data, the only way is to make a calculation is on the straights where the speed trap is taken. In this case we have the speed on the corner before the straight, we have the speed trap, we have the length of the straight. If we do this calculation only for the qualification when we know that all of the cars are with lowest levels of fuel and with open DRS, then we can come with some numbers for the power that are valid for the most extreme case - qualification. The first problem is that if we take the 0.7 CDA (probably the lowest on the calendar that everyone wants to match) and that should be applied to Canada as well we will fall well below 760 hp. Why Mercedes powered cars are using in qualification around 700 hp instead of 760 hp? The second problem is that if we apply the same CDA settings to the race we are getting that Alonso had available roughly the same power like Romain Grosjean - the guy who was the best in the speed trap in qualification. The question is why Alonso did not deliver the same power to qualification if he can delivered it in the race? His qualification speed trap is 326 km/h - about 8 km/h less that in the race.

[Thunder]

Honda goes attack Mode:

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12479 ... erformance

I don't really know how they can be sure their reliability is fixed though.

[mclaren111]

Most probably the reliability on the dyno's

[ME4ME]

The question is why Alonso did not deliver the same power to qualification if he can delivered it in the race? His qualification speed trap is 326 km/h - about 8 km/h less that in the race.

Could be different wind conditions.

Could be different ERS deployment (MGU-K deployment all way down the straight because he got chased, which you wouldn't do normally cause of ineffective use of energy)

Could be temporarly running with open wastegate to reduce back pressure, compressor driven by MGU-H

Could be that he exessively sacrificed corner entry for best possible corner exit

I don't know the answer to what he did. But there are different possibilities to say the least.

[deschrijver]

Maybe there where more elektronic and gearbox problems on mclaren's side.
That we see as Honda's engine trouble, that plaqued the mclaren

[j.yank]

The question is why Alonso did not deliver the same power to qualification if he can delivered it in the race? His qualification speed trap is 326 km/h - about 8 km/h less that in the race.

Could be different wind conditions.

Could be different ERS deployment (MGU-K deployment all way down the straight because he got chased, which you wouldn't do normally cause of ineffective use of energy)

Could be temporarly running with open wastegate to reduce back pressure, compressor driven by MGU-H

Could be that he exessively sacrificed corner entry for best possible corner exit

I don't know the answer to what he did. But there are different possibilities to say the least.

I am not sure that any of these can explain such huge difference - we are talking about 70-80 hp. If these factors can influence your power performance at such magnitude the whole F1 would be like a roller-coaster. Yet the results are quite predictable.

[Thunder]

https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/619119157817286656 Supposedly 3 Tokens on the ICE for Hungary or Spa.

[Cold Fussion]

You're using an incomplete set of data and are trying to draw conclusions from it. The W06 obviously has a lot more downforce than the Mclaren so unless their aero efficiency is much higher, they will have more drag to overcome.

To accurately work out the power levels you need to work out the downforce and drag coefficient for each of the cars. In my view to do this you would have to work out the downforce vs velocity curve of the car, which would be estimated off of the speed and trajectory of the car through corners. From there you would need to have a solver to work out the combination of power and car cd based off of car acceleration data.

If you had access to the GPS data (like the teams do) you could take a stab at this, or you could do something like the analysis that Reca does and estimate the speed from audio onboards and fit some sort of least distance curve within the bounds of the track.

Yes, you are right but because we don't have access to GPS data, the only way is to make a calculation is on the straights where the speed trap is taken. In this case we have the speed on the corner before the straight, we have the speed trap, we have the length of the straight. If we do this calculation only for the qualification when we know that all of the cars are with lowest levels of fuel and with open DRS, then we can come with some numbers for the power that are valid for the most extreme case - qualification. The first problem is that if we take the 0.7 CDA (probably the lowest on the calendar that everyone wants to match) and that should be applied to Canada as well we will fall well below 760 hp. Why Mercedes powered cars are using in qualification around 700 hp instead of 760 hp? The second problem is that if we apply the same CDA settings to the race we are getting that Alonso had available roughly the same power like Romain Grosjean - the guy who was the best in the speed trap in qualification. The question is why Alonso did not deliver the same power to qualification if he can delivered it in the race? His qualification speed trap is 326 km/h - about 8 km/h less that in the race.

The race trap speeds in the Canadian race are higher because of the slipstreaming. The fastest race speed last year was 36x km/h from Ricciardo at Monza, but he was in a 3 car slipstream with the DRS open at the time. At the end of the day you are still making a guess at the Cd so there should be no expectation of accuracy (especially since Cd is changing with speed).

[taperoo2k]

Honda goes attack Mode:

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12479 ... erformance

I don't really know how they can be sure their reliability is fixed though.

They've got little choice but to push the performance of the Power Units at this point in the season.
Honda could make up the deficit to the others, but have Power Units explode on them, but given how badly the season has gone it's time to take a few risks. Data is the name of the game, the more they can gather the more they can feed into further developments for the seasons to come.