Honda - another disaster ?

[eliot]

Isn't the Honda a split design now?

[Dr Z]

eliot said:

Isn't the Honda a split design now?

I haven't seen any Honda/McLaren personnel confirm it. Ferrari turbo whistle wasn't like the Merc one too, but need to look at more examples to be sure. May be the Honda is run a lot more muffled, which would explain less overtones in the higher frequency ranges.

Edited by Dr Z on Friday 19th May 19:43

[rubystone]

eliot said:

Isn't the Honda a split design now?

Definitely. Not that it's helped...

[HarryW]

Dr Z said:

Thank you. I suspected it wasn't as simple as I thought, given my rudimentary understanding of turbocharging, but what you said does jog the memory re: efficiency of the turbo. Also, lots of things could have an effect on the frequency of the sound emitted by the turbo, including microphone placement, no. of blades and indeed the turbine size. For clarity, I'm including screenshots of what I saw with the Honda and Mercedes turbo noises in the sound spectra.

Honda in China (turns indicated):



Honda in Spain:



Mercedes in China:



Mercedes in Spain:



It was pretty cool to see the differences. The Mercedes turbo has a lot of overtones, and almost two distinct harmonics...possibly due to the split design, seems to be working over a wide range. The Honda varies over a much shorter harmonic range as Alonso went through the gears but the sound is not as complex as the Mercedes turbo, but a pretty distinct noise nonetheless.

For the thick of us, can you explain the plots, seems to me you can see the revs build on the Merc but the Honda received noise seems to flat line at 9k5 rpm. Is that indicative of the engine/turbo or the acoustic signature you can detect?

[Dr Z]

HarryW said:

For the thick of us, can you explain the plots, seems to me you can see the revs build on the Merc but the Honda received noise seems to flat line at 9k5 rpm. Is that indicative of the engine/turbo or the acoustic signature you can detect?

The plots are showing the high frequency section of the recorded sound (6 kHz to 13 kHz). The measurement unit is Hertz (shortened to Hz, kHz = kilo Hertz = x 1000 Hz), which is the number of sound pulses (waves) per second. The recorded engine sound is a complex mish-mash of sound waves, but all have a mathematically defined property. What the sound analysis does, is separate out the individual sound waves and allows us measure how the different wave frequencies (number of pulses per second) change with time in our recording. And this helps us to have a look at what's going on in the engine.

For example, in our case, a four stroke V6 engine is spinning at 10,500 crankshaft revolutions per minute (RPM). We know that a four stroke engine needs to complete two rotations for a full engine cycle. Intake and compression in the 1st rotation, power and exhaust in the 2nd rotation. We've got two banks of three cylinders each, and assuming that in a given rotation, 3 cylinders are firing, 10,500 RPM = 175 rotations per second = 525 sound pulses per second.

In our sound recording, we should be able to detect 525 Hz as the fundamental frequency and several other 'harmonics' of that frequency, which are simply multiples of the fundamental. In the plot I showed couple of posts back, there were two frequencies in the 250 - 400 Hz range that were strong enough throughout the recording, which were simple fractions of the RPMs. This allows us to calculate the RPMs and the gear ratios, if we measure the frequencies in the full throttle sections.

Back to the turbo, the high frequencies I showed could be harmonics or fundamental frequency of the turbo or another component in the power unit. I think it's the turbo. If you listen to a simple wave in the 9 kHz range on it's own, it sounds an awful lot like the turbo whistle, doesn't it?

The Merc and Ferrari sounds have detectable waves in this frequency that's rising as the engine revs increase. The Merc sound has a lot of harmonics in this range too. The Honda remains fairly constant. Now, due to this relationship between the frequency and the rpms, we could deduce that the Honda turbo is very unlike the Merc and Ferrari, in maintaining a fairly constant RPM. I thought it's suggesting something abnormal, but jsf has provided an explanation otherwise. Hope this helps!

NB: I'm not a vibration analyst

[budgie smuggler]

Brundle said that the Monaco PU update has been st canned for now.

edit: seems to have gone from their site now...

edit: found it again
Honda had said they were hoping to have an upgraded engine by the middle of the season, with next month's Canadian GP reported as a possible target, but Brundle claims that is now not happening.

"I head yesterday that the big upgrade that Honda had coming is not working and has been cancelled," Brundle said after Practice One for the Monaco GP.

Edited by budgie smuggler on Thursday 25th May 13:19

[Trevatanus]

budgie smuggler said:

Brundle said that the Monaco PU update has been st canned for now.

edit: seems to have gone from their site now...

edit: found it again
Honda had said they were hoping to have an upgraded engine by the middle of the season, with next month's Canadian GP reported as a possible target, but Brundle claims that is now not happening.

"I head yesterday that the big upgrade that Honda had coming is not working and has been cancelled," Brundle said after Practice One for the Monaco GP.

Edited by budgie smuggler on Thursday 25th May 13:19

FFS... they have got to pull the plug on this soon surely.. it's doing so much damage to them Pr wise.

[rev-erend]

Correct me if I am wrong but have McHonda just managed a whole day without a single engine blow-up ?

[red_slr]

Ref merc plots above its also worth noting most of the teams know about their audio profiles so I would expect them to do certain things to make it harder to get that data. I know I would.

[Frimley111R]

rev-erend said:

Correct me if I am wrong but have McHonda just managed a whole day without a single engine blow-up ?

I think so and depressingly that's as good as news gets for them..

[ben5575]

Dr Z said:

... clever stuff ...

Genuinely fascinating. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

[MartG]

Whoops - seems like they still have a very long way to go

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-honda-engine...

[glazbagun]

Might explain why the turbo doesn't follow the revs as DrZ noted- they're trying to keep the MGU-H alive.

[Flooble]

Anyone else noted all the Honda failures at Indy?

[geezerbutler]

Another Honda failure for Alonso.....geez.

[skwdenyer]

That could actually be the end Alonso at McLaren - Honda let him down yet again.

[VolvoT5]

It is so tragic you have to laugh really.... I've never liked Alonso much but even I can see he clearly deserves better... but I think his time and his options are running out. Seems fairly clear that Ferrari/Merc/Red Bull have no vacancies (at least for Alonso) so he could well be stuck with Honda for 2018.

[NRS]

Flooble said:

Anyone else noted all the Honda failures at Indy?

At least they're the fastest engine there. Unlike in F1.

[Crafty_]

So, assuming that Alonso does really want the triple crown he's got a choice to make - get out of McLaren and go to Renault and get a better car and hope the investment that Renault is making starts to pay off or stay with Honda, stomach whatever comes and still have the chance to do Indy and other stuff.

I still think doing the 500 had more to do with Zak Brown doing his marketing thing than him really wanting to do it, but who knows.

[williamp]

Well a Japanese driver can win driving a Honda powered car. ..