HONDA The Power of Dreams

1989 was the first year that F1 converted completely to 3.5-liter naturally-aspirated (NA) engines, following a transitional period from the turbo era. Honda supplied its new 3493 cc V10 RA109E to only one team, McLaren, to compete in its first year of NA engines.

Honda believed that, as long as it competed in F1, it should continue its challenge to the top relentlessly, and naturally, even in the first year under the new regulations, aimed to win the constructors’ and drivers’ titles for the third consecutive year following its success in the turbo era.

Research and development of the new V10 engine began in early 1987, and took two years to complete. Honda’s reasoning for opting for the V10 was very simple:

Since the early days of entering motorcycle grand prix racing, Honda had specialized in multi-cylinder, high-output, high-revving racing engine technologies. In the world of racing engine technology, the V12 engine, symbolic of multi-cylinder engines for cars, is generally considered to be a high-revving and high-output engine. On the other hand, the popular and more common V8 is positioned as a small and lightweight engine. High output is the holy grail of racing engine technology, while small and lightweight is the straight path to technological evolution. Honda started its challenge by planning the V10 as an engine that combines the advantages of both the V12 and V8. Winning back-to-back F1 titles spanning the turbo and NA eras required a strong will to keep on trying until successful, while admitting mistakes and starting over as a routine.

While research and development continued, the RA109E underwent two major design changes. In the initial design, the engine's V-bank angle was set at 80-degrees, but the engine was plagued by vibration. After review, the bank angle was changed to 72-degrees, and a balancer shaft, which was revolutionary for a racing engine, was incorporated to reduce vibration. Another design change was to replace the timing belt drive with a timing gear drive, as the team discovered in testing that the timing belt drive lacked durability and reliability. This drastic design change was made with only three months to the start of the 1989 season, and was implemented just in time for the season-opener.

Weight was reduced through the use of aluminum cylinder blocks. In the turbo era, cast iron was used to cope with high cylinder pressure, but this was changed to a material more suitable for the NA engines.

The completed RA109E was supplied to McLaren and put to the test in real racing. As the new V10 NA engine was subjected to intense F1 competition, many problems, including worn piston ring grooves, were discovered. In terms of dynamic performance, the engine suffered from sluggish acceleration, where the engine would not respond to the accelerator pedal quickly enough. Not every problem could not be solved during the 1989 season, and the engine development team worked hard to fix issues on the fly. Major improvements were needed for the 1990 season.

Overcoming these difficulties, the RA109E engine nonetheless gave Honda 10 of the 16 grands prix wins in 1989, and the drivers’ and constructors’ titles for the third and fourth consecutive years, respectively.