Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[GhostF1]

I think Ferrari's engine is at a similar level to Mercedes and Honda is still behind, but the closest they've been so far.
Unless both Mercedes and Ferrari take a solid step over the winter, Honda has a good chance to close that gap further
and may actually overtake them towards the end of the year.

I think that will be at the beginning of the season with spec 1 or at the latest with spec 2.

I think it'll be early on as well. Renault have claimed they are at the edge of potential currently for this particular formula (although laughably, they also claim they have the most powerful PU...), Mercedes have said there are gains to be had from here but are high risk small reward so they need to be careful, Ferrari have been pretty silent about their PU development and Honda are confident there are good gains to be had from where they are now. To me, that bodes well for 2020.

[godlameroso]

I wonder if the throttle problem from the Honda had anything to do with fouling spark plugs. Tends to happen with oil drinking engines. If these engines are consuming .3 liters per 100km that's a quart of oil every 200 miles. Most oil thirsty road cars burn a quart of oil in ~1600km not 300km. Most road cars that burn more oil than that tend to have at least 1 plug that's fouling due to worn rings, or worn valve guide seals. Doubt Honda is wearing out the valve stem seals unless they're torching their valves or designing the valve guides loose as hell, but that ovals the valve seat and has horrible effects on compression.

According to regs, valve seats must be circular.

[Capharol]

I wonder if the throttle problem from the Honda had anything to do with fouling spark plugs. Tends to happen with oil drinking engines. If these engines are consuming .3 liters per 100km that's a quart of oil every 200 miles. Most oil thirsty road cars burn a quart of oil in ~1600km not 300km. Most road cars that burn more oil than that tend to have at least 1 plug that's fouling due to worn rings, or worn valve guide seals. Doubt Honda is wearing out the valve stem seals unless they're torching their valves or designing the valve guides loose as hell, but that ovals the valve seat and has horrible effects on compression.

According to regs, valve seats must be circular.

why are you comparing a road car with a F1 car ? F1 cars having a higher avg speed as a road car, F1 cars drive +300 km in around 1:30 hrs, a normal road car would need around 4-5 hours.
so of course a F1 car burns more oil and fuel as a road car .... your comparison is just ....... not realistic

[godlameroso]

I wonder if the throttle problem from the Honda had anything to do with fouling spark plugs. Tends to happen with oil drinking engines. If these engines are consuming .3 liters per 100km that's a quart of oil every 200 miles. Most oil thirsty road cars burn a quart of oil in ~1600km not 300km. Most road cars that burn more oil than that tend to have at least 1 plug that's fouling due to worn rings, or worn valve guide seals. Doubt Honda is wearing out the valve stem seals unless they're torching their valves or designing the valve guides loose as hell, but that ovals the valve seat and has horrible effects on compression.

According to regs, valve seats must be circular.

why are you comparing a road car with a F1 car ? F1 cars having a higher avg speed as a road car, F1 cars drive +300 km in around 1:30 hrs, a normal road car would need around 4-5 hours.
so of course a F1 car burns more oil and fuel as a road car .... your comparison is just ....... not realistic

These oil drinking cars are track specials, ie Porsche GT3, S2000 those cars spend a fair amount of time on track. Most track cars will chug oil but not a quart per 300km. Not every car out there is a mini-van, some people actually race their cars, true story.

[AMG.Tzan]

Ferrari and Mercedes both overhauling their engines for 2020! Honda staying the same and improving their concept! Of course that can mean a lot of things...the gap between them and Honda getting bigger for example!

But that could also mean that both Ferrari and Mercedes could end up with worse reliability in their quest to improve their new concept...that may be a chance for Honda to get ahead of them or at least get a head start in the 2020 season!

I'm curious to see how much of an improvement Honda's Spec 1 2020 engine will be over 2019 Spec 4! They sure have room for improvement in their concept i believe...

[Capharol]

I wonder if the throttle problem from the Honda had anything to do with fouling spark plugs. Tends to happen with oil drinking engines. If these engines are consuming .3 liters per 100km that's a quart of oil every 200 miles. Most oil thirsty road cars burn a quart of oil in ~1600km not 300km. Most road cars that burn more oil than that tend to have at least 1 plug that's fouling due to worn rings, or worn valve guide seals. Doubt Honda is wearing out the valve stem seals unless they're torching their valves or designing the valve guides loose as hell, but that ovals the valve seat and has horrible effects on compression.

According to regs, valve seats must be circular.

why are you comparing a road car with a F1 car ? F1 cars having a higher avg speed as a road car, F1 cars drive +300 km in around 1:30 hrs, a normal road car would need around 4-5 hours.
so of course a F1 car burns more oil and fuel as a road car .... your comparison is just ....... not realistic

These oil drinking cars are track specials, ie Porsche GT3, S2000 those cars spend a fair amount of time on track. Most track cars will chug oil but not a quart per 300km. Not every car out there is a mini-van, some people actually race their cars, true story.

you said road cars and road cars are for me cars that normal ppl drive, Porsche GT3 and S2000 cars are tuned cars aswell and still there is a difference
you can't compare a F1 car with a normal (Porsche GT3 and S2000 cars) car that would be comparing grapefruit with bananas

[Wouter]

I'm curious to see how much of an improvement Honda's Spec 1 2020 engine will be over 2019 Spec 4!
They sure have room for improvement in their concept i believe...
Ferrari and Mercedes both overhauling their engines for 2020! Honda staying the same and improving their concept!
Of course that can mean a lot of things...the gap between them and Honda getting bigger for example!

That will not be the case.
The spec 5 was a major upgrade, but was not used.
This spec has been further developed, so the difference will never get bigger, quite the contrary.
Moreover, it is not just about more HP, but the drivability is also very important, such as fast acceleration for example.
All the little "disturbances" that Max sometimes talked about and that reduced the speed / acceleration slightly,
have certainly been remedied, because that was not possible in the last races, but only before the start of the season
during the winter stop.

[lio007]

I'm curious to see how much of an improvement Honda's Spec 1 2020 engine will be over 2019 Spec 4!
They sure have room for improvement in their concept i believe...
Ferrari and Mercedes both overhauling their engines for 2020! Honda staying the same and improving their concept!
Of course that can mean a lot of things...the gap between them and Honda getting bigger for example!

That will not be the case.
The spec 5 was a major upgrade, but was not used.
This spec has been further developed, so the difference will never get bigger, quite the contrary.
Moreover, it is not just about more HP, but the drivability is also very important, such as fast acceleration for example.
All the little "disturbances" that Max sometimes talked about and that reduced the speed / acceleration slightly,
have certainly been remedied, because that was not possible in the last races, but only before the start of the season
during the winter stop.

Sounds good, really hope you are right.
Is it possible Honda may take a more risky approach? This year they increased performance of a new Spec only step by step instead of going full beans Form the get-go. But on the other hand reliability proved them right in their approach.

[godlameroso]

why are you comparing a road car with a F1 car ? F1 cars having a higher avg speed as a road car, F1 cars drive +300 km in around 1:30 hrs, a normal road car would need around 4-5 hours.
so of course a F1 car burns more oil and fuel as a road car .... your comparison is just ....... not realistic

These oil drinking cars are track specials, ie Porsche GT3, S2000 those cars spend a fair amount of time on track. Most track cars will chug oil but not a quart per 300km. Not every car out there is a mini-van, some people actually race their cars, true story.

you said road cars and road cars are for me cars that normal ppl drive, Porsche GT3 and S2000 cars are tuned cars aswell and still there is a difference
you can't compare a F1 car with a normal (Porsche GT3 and S2000 cars) car that would be comparing grapefruit with bananas

True you can't compare them but engines in road cars are still subject to the same laws of physics as race car engines. Letting oil slip past the rings and any unburned fuel causes deposits to form on the spark plugs.

[gruntguru]

Very unlikely there is any incidence of spark plug fouling - especially if the oil burning is a strategy to increase available energy - they would be using a clean-burning oil.

[Capharol]

These oil drinking cars are track specials, ie Porsche GT3, S2000 those cars spend a fair amount of time on track. Most track cars will chug oil but not a quart per 300km. Not every car out there is a mini-van, some people actually race their cars, true story.

you said road cars and road cars are for me cars that normal ppl drive, Porsche GT3 and S2000 cars are tuned cars aswell and still there is a difference
you can't compare a F1 car with a normal (Porsche GT3 and S2000 cars) car that would be comparing grapefruit with bananas

True you can't compare them but engines in road cars are still subject to the same laws of physics as race car engines. Letting oil slip past the rings and any unburned fuel causes deposits to form on the spark plugs.

lets agree to disagree on your theory

[PhillipM]

Most track cars will chug oil but not a quart per 300km. Not every car out there is a mini-van, some people actually race their cars, true story.

You must be joking, I work with loads of road-engined race cars and most of them will take a litre of oil every 500km. Hell a lot of them need way more than that. It's surprising how much oil a road engine will use/is designed to use under heavy loading even these days with all the emissions stuff. Had a BMW V10 at one point where you put a litre of oil in every time you filled the tank without even checking, it used more oil than the rotary we were running at the same time

[godlameroso]

Most track cars will chug oil but not a quart per 300km. Not every car out there is a mini-van, some people actually race their cars, true story.

You must be joking, I work with loads of road-engined race cars and most of them will take a litre of oil every 500km. Hell a lot of them need way more than that. It's surprising how much oil a road engine will use/is designed to use under heavy loading even these days with all the emissions stuff. Had a BMW V10 at one point where you put a litre of oil in every time you filled the tank without even checking, it used more oil than the rotary we were running at the same time

Those BMW v10s are junk, their rings sucked the big one. I've torn enough of those engines down and lo and behold the oil control rings get stuck because the CPUs run rich as hell and leave carbon deposits all up in the ring grooves, especially with age.

[saviour stivala]

“By 2002 expanded rings had been develop in order to reduce friction, oil consumption and blow-by-gas leaks produced by fluttering. This development allowed an increase of 1000 RPM before piston-ring fluttering set-in. these were ultra-fine rings of 0.9mm width and 1.4mm in thickness with a rear expander to provide tensile force. Development testing had shown that a ‘single’ ring configuration without an oil ring boosted power by more than 10KW, and that was over and above the BHP gains by the 1000 RPM increase permitted before fluttering set-in. But this ‘single ring’ configuration increased oil consumption to 30 KM/L range. It therefore (this single-ring configuration) could not be used in a race distance. And so was only used in qualifying”.

[PlatinumZealot]

I wonder if the throttle problem from the Honda had anything to do with fouling spark plugs. Tends to happen with oil drinking engines. If these engines are consuming .3 liters per 100km that's a quart of oil every 200 miles. Most oil thirsty road cars burn a quart of oil in ~1600km not 300km. Most road cars that burn more oil than that tend to have at least 1 plug that's fouling due to worn rings, or worn valve guide seals. Doubt Honda is wearing out the valve stem seals unless they're torching their valves or designing the valve guides loose as hell, but that ovals the valve seat and has horrible effects on compression.

According to regs, valve seats must be circular.

Direct injection engines tend to foul up faster than port injection engines so that could explain why.

For what they do, F1 engines burn little oil. The piston rings are really lowfriction and the gaps are small for turbocharged engines.

If you measure the grams per kilowhat hour of oil consumption i am sure it would be pretty small.