![]() The RA619H was to be the first Honda power unit to be installed within more than one team and, whilst the relationship with Toro Rosso had been a good one, having Red Bull onboard would bring with it a greater weight of expectation. Meanwhile, Honda and Toro Rosso worked on the installation aspect too, as the former made concessions in terms of changing the location of the boost pipework, whilst Toro Rosso installed a 'saddle' cooler above the power unit in a similar fashion to how McLaren had done so in the years prior. The RA618H continued to build on the foundations of the power unit redesign of the previous season, with plenty of changes under the hood and the usual redesign of the inlet plenum and exhaust. But Honda's switch to Toro Rosso proved to be a turning point in its F1 fortunes. Nonetheless, even given the reduction in output, this transition was necessary, as the previous design had reached a dead end. Even with these substantial changes the 2017 power unit was actually down on total output when compared to its predecessor, which became the straw that broke the camel's back in its relationship with McLaren. The combustion chamber design was also altered in this redesign and, once again, you can see the inlet plenum and exhaust system were adjusted in correlation. This 'pancake' style arrangement, as it is known, gave Honda more headroom in terms of the turbo design but also created some more engineering headaches as the connecting shaft and MGU-H had to be redesigned to account for the greater distance between the turbine and compressor. This has resulted in a shorter and narrower cylinder head. This essentially allowed Honda to move the cylinders closer to one another, without the fear that cylinder integrity might be compromised. This not only led to a lower position for the crankshaft to improve CoG, it also coincided with a more compact layout that resulted in the design team adjusting the bore pitch. This had a dramatic knock-on effect, with the design team able to reduce the overall size of the ICE. This new cylinder coating helps to reduce temperatures and friction, and this allowed the F1 division to rethink the design parameters of the engine block, as they were now able to run the engine harder, for longer. ![]() Whilst cylinder sleeve plating is far from a new idea, that doesn't mean you can't still make advances in the field, especially when you're applying ideas and technology from the generally higher revving field of motorcycles to another project. ![]()
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