Honda - another disaster ?
Discussion
Otispunkmeyer said:
I am surprised at that. I mean 1-cylinder engines are typically research engines, things you use to try something wacky in isolation so you can understand it better. Something you use to prove a new concept.. i.e. stuff in the bottom few Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Its not something you should still be using a few months away from the start of the season!
In F1, even during the token era, they are constantly doing research. And it doesn't make sense every time you want to try a tweak to a head or a piston or a valve to build an entire IC engine just for that. All the teams will be using [several] single cylinder engines right now. I know it's fashionable to rant against Honda at the moment, but it really isn't much effort to hold off on things you don't know much about or to do the necessary research so that you do know.
tristancliffe said:
Otispunkmeyer said:
I am surprised at that. I mean 1-cylinder engines are typically research engines, things you use to try something wacky in isolation so you can understand it better. Something you use to prove a new concept.. i.e. stuff in the bottom few Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Its not something you should still be using a few months away from the start of the season!
In F1, even during the token era, they are constantly doing research. And it doesn't make sense every time you want to try a tweak to a head or a piston or a valve to build an entire IC engine just for that. All the teams will be using [several] single cylinder engines right now. I know it's fashionable to rant against Honda at the moment, but it really isn't much effort to hold off on things you don't know much about or to do the necessary research so that you do know.
- I am clearly not a engine expert, BTW.
budgie smuggler said:
I'm surprised though that they don't have a working, tested 6 cylinder version at all stages of development. Even if it doesn't have all the bells and whistles from their bleeding-edge single cylinder model.
That would slow the process down, cost a fortune in materials and labour, and ultimately result in a less well developed engine for the money put in.CraigyMc said:
budgie smuggler said:
I'm surprised though that they don't have a working, tested 6 cylinder version at all stages of development. Even if it doesn't have all the bells and whistles from their bleeding-edge single cylinder model.
That would slow the process down, cost a fortune in materials and labour, and ultimately result in a less well developed engine for the money put in.CraigyMc said:
slow the process down
No it wouldn't. You still have your newest work developed in isolation exactly the same as it would be anyway. The difference is, by regularly updating your test engine you get to run your new parts together and check that it all works together as expected. I.e. no vibration issues like those they currently have. And, if a problem does crop up, you have a 'known-good' fully tested spec you can revert to.CraigyMc said:
cost a fortune in materials and labour
Machining up a few pistons, a crankshaft or whatever every few weeks is chump change compared to Honda's wage bill, not to mention the PR cost of have your logo slapped all over car with the worst engine on the grid or paying a world champ $40 million a year to drive round mid-field while moaning about your engine.CraigyMc said:
and ultimately result in a less well developed engine
Nonsense, because as above, the issues could have been picked up earlier.The main issues at Honda as I see them are that they have a chronically slow development process, and a lack of sufficient testing. And it doesn't seem to have improved in the last three years.
Vaud said:
Hmmmmmnnnnn.............interesting possible direction changes going on here for lots of parties!!Shirley that's a particularly stupid idea?
If you were Zak Brown and you were running McHonda right now... Two races in, nil pois, you have an underpowered car which supposedly has one of the best chassis on the grid, and you have arguably the best driver who is especially experienced around Monaco- you would surely be looking at Monaco as not only your first potential points score of 2017 but possibly your best opportunity for a decent points haul of the entire season?
Yes if this happens they will announce Jenson for Monaco but I don't rate his chances of matching or bettering Alonso's performance.
If you were Zak Brown and you were running McHonda right now... Two races in, nil pois, you have an underpowered car which supposedly has one of the best chassis on the grid, and you have arguably the best driver who is especially experienced around Monaco- you would surely be looking at Monaco as not only your first potential points score of 2017 but possibly your best opportunity for a decent points haul of the entire season?
Yes if this happens they will announce Jenson for Monaco but I don't rate his chances of matching or bettering Alonso's performance.
HustleRussell said:
Shirley that's a particularly stupid idea?
If you were Zak Brown and you were running McHonda right now... Two races in, nil pois, you have an underpowered car which supposedly has one of the best chassis on the grid, and you have arguably the best driver who is especially experienced around Monaco- you would surely be looking at Monaco as not only your first potential points score of 2017 but possibly your best opportunity for a decent points haul of the entire season?
Yes if this happens they will announce Jenson for Monaco but I don't rate his chances of matching or bettering Alonso's performance.
Surely an underpowered car would fare better at Monaco than anywhere else?If you were Zak Brown and you were running McHonda right now... Two races in, nil pois, you have an underpowered car which supposedly has one of the best chassis on the grid, and you have arguably the best driver who is especially experienced around Monaco- you would surely be looking at Monaco as not only your first potential points score of 2017 but possibly your best opportunity for a decent points haul of the entire season?
Yes if this happens they will announce Jenson for Monaco but I don't rate his chances of matching or bettering Alonso's performance.
I suspect that this was planned maybe before the end of last season.
I cannot believe that the powers that be suddenly woke up last week and said "hang on lads, I've got an idea?"
HustleRussell said:
Shirley that's a particularly stupid idea?
If you were Zak Brown and you were running McHonda right now... Two races in, nil pois, you have an underpowered car which supposedly has one of the best chassis on the grid, and you have arguably the best driver who is especially experienced around Monaco- you would surely be looking at Monaco as not only your first potential points score of 2017 but possibly your best opportunity for a decent points haul of the entire season?
More like, they are in massive damage limitation mode to prevent Fred walking out the door and if that means letting him go off and do Indy, then why not!If you were Zak Brown and you were running McHonda right now... Two races in, nil pois, you have an underpowered car which supposedly has one of the best chassis on the grid, and you have arguably the best driver who is especially experienced around Monaco- you would surely be looking at Monaco as not only your first potential points score of 2017 but possibly your best opportunity for a decent points haul of the entire season?
Seasons pretty much a write off already I suspect, Alonso not doing Monaco isn't going to impact much on the rest of their season in all honesty.
CraigyMc said:
budgie smuggler said:
I'm surprised though that they don't have a working, tested 6 cylinder version at all stages of development. Even if it doesn't have all the bells and whistles from their bleeding-edge single cylinder model.
That would slow the process down, cost a fortune in materials and labour, and ultimately result in a less well developed engine for the money put in.budgie smuggler said:
CraigyMc said:
slow the process down
No it wouldn't. You still have your newest work developed in isolation exactly the same as it would be anyway. The difference is, by regularly updating your test engine you get to run your new parts together and check that it all works together as expected. I.e. no vibration issues like those they currently have. And, if a problem does crop up, you have a 'known-good' fully tested spec you can revert to.That's why 1-cylinder for R&D is how it's done in the first place.
It's simpler in every way, and faster to physically create (machine/hone) the resulting bits.
Even a CNC mill takes quite a long time to form things like complex crankshafts, and that process is simply faster the smaller and simpler the parts involved.
The engine makers know that it's not perfect (the interaction between bits of the engine you can't simulate on a 1-cyl or 3-cyl when scaled up to 6), but they still use it because it's cheaper and gets faster results.
Why do you think that it's the same amount of time to build a 6-cylinder engine as a 1-cylinder one?
budgie smuggler said:
CraigyMc said:
cost a fortune in materials and labour
Machining up a few pistons, a crankshaft or whatever every few weeks is chump change compared to Honda's wage bill, not to mention the PR cost of have your logo slapped all over car with the worst engine on the grid or paying a world champ $40 million a year to drive round mid-field while moaning about your engine.In terms of materials/machining/measuring/testing/QA, it's a lot of money, which all the PU makers spend on R&D rigs that get the necessary results rather than building full-sized engines which are generally going to be redundant the minute they've been run up and tested.
If resources weren't a constraint, then you'd have millions of engineers in millions of facilities doing all this stuff in parallel. Unfortunately, that's not the world we're in; money is the ultimate resource but there are also a limited number of pairs of hands, and an even smaller number of pairs of hands that know what they are doing, have the experience and skill to develop this stuff.
budgie smuggler said:
CraigyMc said:
and ultimately result in a less well developed engine
Nonsense, because as above, the issues could have been picked up earlier.Obviously you get more iterations of the interesting/novel stuff on the smaller engines than you would spending the same money on fewer, bigger test engines, which helps you develop more iterations of your concepts. Again, that's why they do it.
budgie smuggler said:
The main issues at Honda as I see them are that they have a chronically slow development process, and a lack of sufficient testing. And it doesn't seem to have improved in the last three years.
If Honda moved over from doing little test engines to full sized 6-cylinder ones, the pace of development would be slower, not faster, for the reasons I've described above.Honda do have many problems: isolation from F1 practise (trying to do practically everything internally), developing until too late to test things properly (specifically this year, they took it untill far too late to move from concept engines to race ones, and then integrating it with the tyres/wheels/transmission/chassis, and have said as much), coming late to development in this era of PU, under-funding/under-resourcing compared to the likes of Mercedes, the lack of a PU mule to get things moving forward, lack of F1 experience in the staffing, etc etc.
edited to sort out quotes. This new bubble-quote thing is doing my head in.
Edited by CraigyMc on Wednesday 12th April 13:43
Vaud said:
....and the rumors are that Jenson Button will be the replacement driver for Monoco 
John_S4x4 said:
Vaud said:
....and the rumors are that Jenson Button will be the replacement driver for Monoco Gassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff