1989 Honda RA168E Engine

[Cammos]

Some good reading

http://www.zzw30.com/HondaRA168EEngine.pdf

[Everso Biggyballies]

Some good reading

http://www.zzw30.com/HondaRA168EEngine.pdf

Thanks for posting that.  Brilliant engine, and highly successful, although it never reached the mythical status of the BMW 4 cylinder turbo engines of the high boost days.  We have a thread of Classic racing engines that tells the story behind the myth of the BMW and others, here:
http://www.australianmotorsportforums.com.au/forum/index.php?topic=2334.msg39980#msg39980

Of course this Honda engine was in a different era, being in the end of the turbo era, and sadly the rules by then limited boost to 2.5.

However the Honda RA168E was certainly the classic engine of its time, and powered the McLaren MP4/4 to 15 wins, 15 poles and 25 podiums out of 16 races for Senna and Prost in 1988..... Such was the dominance that second place in the constructors was Ferrari with just 1/3 of the points, they managed one pole and one win using their turbocharged Tipo 033E engine. BMW didn't supply engines anymore, but the BMW was availible under the Megatron badge. Megatron engined cars only managed one podium though.  

A couple of pics of the engine.... (click for larger)




And this is what it looked like spread across the workshop floor!(click for larger)

[Cammos]

If anybody was going to get a kick out of that read, I knew it would be you.

I've washed it through an OCR program too so you can search text and copy and paste (it's only basic mind you) if you want a copy of that?

[Timbit]

Thanks a lot for that Cammos! I'll be sure to remember this for when I get back to Aus and have a good read of it (along with everything else I plan on reading )

[Millsie]

I read somewhere that McLaren found a way of running their engines with more boost than the 2.5 bar that was allowed. This is part of the reason why they were so much quicker than the other teams and especially Lotus, who ran the Honda engines un-modified. The only other team who were able to run their car with more than the allowable boost was Ferrari, who discovered what McLaren were doing, which IIRC was something to do with the way the pipes were bent or something, 1/2 way through the season. I think I read this a while ago in F1 Racing or something similar a couple of years ago.