Renault Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Tommy Cookers]

.......For near stoichiometric, homogeneous mixture engines, the pre-chamber system works fine without the extra injector. Its just a matter of having a rich enough mixture in the pre-chamber. The advantages of rapid combustion with multiple remote ignition points still apply - you just don't get the lean-main-chamber benefits.

if this means that combustion speed is increased .....
isn't it saying the N/A people missed a trick that would have been priceless in their 17000 rpm fuel-unrestricted engines ?

[NL_Fer]

The unrestricted engine was about burning as much fuel as needed to produce the most power possible from a given cilinder displacement and rpm.

Current technology is to extract as much power from a given amount of fuel.

The n/a didn't have to be efficient, as long as more fuel means more power.

[trinidefender]

.......For near stoichiometric, homogeneous mixture engines, the pre-chamber system works fine without the extra injector. Its just a matter of having a rich enough mixture in the pre-chamber. The advantages of rapid combustion with multiple remote ignition points still apply - you just don't get the lean-main-chamber benefits.

if this means that combustion speed is increased .....
isn't it saying the N/A people missed a trick that would have been priceless in their 17000 rpm fuel-unrestricted engines ?

No because those engines were never direct injection.

You still need at least one direct injection injector to make a variant of the idea work. Port injection wouldn't facilitate this idea, at least not in any way that I can see.

[gruntguru]

The system described offers significant benefit in the areas of burn rate and knock resistance - without DI or a pre-chamber injector - provided the mixture is not too lean.

Pretty sure there would have been benefits for the NA F1 engines.

[Cold Fussion]

The unrestricted engine was about burning as much fuel as needed to produce the most power possible from a given cilinder displacement and rpm.

Current technology is to extract as much power from a given amount of fuel.

The n/a didn't have to be efficient, as long as more fuel means more power.

Once the RPM limits were introduced then surely engine efficiency becomes and important consideration as it will quickly become one of the only means of increasing power?

[aleks_ader]

Torro Rosso: US GP

huge Renault Air plenum. It must be VLIM sys...

[NL_Fer]

The unrestricted engine was about burning as much fuel as needed to produce the most power possible from a given cilinder displacement and rpm.

Current technology is to extract as much power from a given amount of fuel.

The n/a didn't have to be efficient, as long as more fuel means more power.

Once the RPM limits were introduced then surely engine efficiency becomes and important consideration as it will quickly become one of the only means of increasing power?

No, is suspect that the rpm limited v8 wasn't really increasing top power, but increasing the top powerband, without losing any power. Also the video's of the v8's in Singapore showed blue exhaust flames, those engines where running rich.

[PlatinumZealot]

Sky was babbling on that Renault has a very good turbocharger. And commented that most of their weakness is the ICE.

[Cold Fussion]

Sky talking nonsense? How unexpected!

[RicME85]

Yeah they said their ERS wasn't the best yet last week said it was the best in the field

[NL_Fer]

Sky was babbling on that Renault has a very good turbocharger. And commented that most of their weakness is the ICE.

Not a good turbocharger, maybe slightly bigger, having some more rpm left to compress the thin air. But Max Verstappen got in trouble with the engine temps, during the race, so it was just a gain in qualy.

Also i suspect the slippery track surface was harming the stronger engines more, because the cannot get their power to the road.

[ReoPTy]

6th back to back GP for the Renault PU , not that bad on reliability and just 12kms/h down on speedtrap !

[Nickel]

6th back to back GP for the Renault PU , not that bad on reliability and just 12kms/h down on speedtrap !

This is actually quite close to the v8 days, when RB ran way more downforce than everyone else...

[FoxHound]

To demonstrate just how utterly bad renault's ERS was in monza:

https://vimeo.com/138892993
7:50

Also, If you watch entire vid you can compare any end of straights speeds when the speed shows up and you'll see how much of a difference there is between renault and ferrari. RB also carried only like half the wing angle.

Did you see Raikkonen breeze past a Ferrari powered Sauber and the top speed for the weekend Force India?
Could've been a gust of wind...

[Blackout]

When you take a closer look to Renault's record in F1, especially since the early 90's, you will notice they always had the same philosophy; Renault always:
-looked at the engine from a chassis-maker point of view aswell
-worked very closely with its chassis partners
-been keen to trade power for more lightness/less consumption/compactness/driveability and even cost
So their goal isn't to produce the most powerful engine, they want an engine that makes the fastest engine-chassis package... Even in the Williams-Benetton/2005-2006/Milton Keynes-Enstone years...
Renault scarified 40hp for the diffuser blowing for Red Bull.

As Permane ans Key said in recent interviews, Renault does not really have customer teams, it has semi-constructor teams and it still works with each team in-order to adapt its power unit to each chassis and vice versa. The 'secondary' engine components are often placed where the teams want them to be. Just compare the STR10 and RB11 PU and you will notice they do not have the same ERS wiring/exhaust/wastegate design etc (which might be surprising since the PUs are frozen)... while Mercedes and Ferrari provide the exact same components to every team and let them deal with it. Everything is identical in the Merc Fer PU except the radiators/intercoolers (well the Ferrari V-intercooler is a particular case) which are considered to be bodywork parts and must be produced by the chassis makers. While everything is different for the Renault teams since 2014 aside from the V6.

Renault should have proceeded just like Merces and Ferrari in 2014 and concentrate all the resources in a single spec PU and team. They clearly underestimated the new challenge and/or couldn't find a real chassis partner in Red Bull. Its clear the latter wasnt cooperative and transparent enough.
That's why the Renault philosophy and its business model do not work anymore with the new Power unit.