Honda, Honda Performance Development, HPD, Roger Griffiths, Santa Clarita, California
“We’ve been on the
dyno to come up with
mixture specifications”
Roger Griffiths
“In 2005, they ran a small silencer which had
a 2-3dB effect. We’ve been looking at making
further improvements to the exhaust silencing
on the cars. We’re working concurrently with our
ALMS program and they have rather stringent
requirements. We’ve used some of the ideas to
try and quiet the IndyCar Series cars. We’ve run
on the dyno and gathered quite a bit of noise
data on the engine. We’ve got a track test
coming up where we’ll review how we’ve done
with the silencer project and then a decision will
be made whether or not this is something the
IndyCar Series wants to introduce for 2008,”
Griffiths says.
Perhaps the biggest project HPD has in the
off-season is working with gearbox
manufacturer Xtrac and Megaline, the
supplier of the system, to implement the
paddle shift system into the IndyCar Series
machines. HPD must be involved because the
software in the paddle shifter integrates with
the engine. The shifting system both cuts
engine power on upshifts and brings engine
revolutions up on downshifts.
“There’s quite a bit of work to implement a
system such as this into an open-wheel car. It’s
not just take something off the shelf, bolt it to
the car and run,” Griffiths explains. “If you
want to do a really nice installation and have
the system work as well as everybody hopes it
will, it’s a lot of work. It involves both the
design specifications and the coding of the
software that goes into the engine control unit
and also into the gearbox control unit, because
those two are communicating on a pretty
regular basis.
“There’s been a lot of work looking at the
wire looms on the car, how best to integrate
the Megaline system into the Honda wiring
looms. All the time bearing in mind that we
don’t want to make this prohibitively expensive
for the teams.”
Despite Scott Dixon being fairly happy with
the system during testing at Putnam Park – a
mere six weeks after the first serious
discussions between the parties involved – and
Barber Motorsports Park, development of the
system is ongoing. Griffiths notes that HPD is
still looking at how to control engine speed to
make the shifts not only fast, but smooth as
(Opposite) HPD
technicians hook
up a Honda Indy
V8 to the
dynamometer,
where every
parameter will be
measured (above
left). It all takes
place at HPD’s
facility in Santa
Clarita (top right),
where many of
the engines are
checked (top left)
and built (above)
well. Then comes more testing with more cars
because, as he notes, they need to develop a
system for all drivers, not just one.
Beyond what’s new for the coming season,
there is always enough work to occupy any offseason.
Reliability work is continuous, Griffiths
says, noting that HPD has already won a
2008-spec engine on the dyno with tests
exceeding the 1400 markers that HPD sets for
its engines. He also says that HPD asks the
teams to grade its performance each season,
adding that it’s key to customer support.
“In among all this we have a bunch of tidyup
administrative work we like to do, just to
prepare ourselves for the next season. We write
up team manuals on how to work with Honda
and how to work with the engine. There’s also
things that come up during the course of the
season that you don’t have time to react to,
things that when we get some time, we look at
fixing these little issues, which makes life for
the trackside engineer a little easier and a little
more efficient,” Griffiths says.
“And we like to try to get a little holiday
as well.”
Engine room
IndyCarSeries 2007 winterspecial 35
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