Woke up today, saw Max Verstappen's naked Toro Rosso and I felt the need to do this after having a private moment to myself. I think the two interesting things that can be gleaned from these images is the packaging on the Renault engine within the Toro Rosso and the turbo/exhaust design.
Charge Air Intercooling
Renault is still running air to air intercoolers on their power units. Air to air intercoolers offer some distinct benefits and drawbacks. Usually, they weigh less and are less susceptible to heat soak. However, since fuel flow is limited in this formula, the heat soak aspect is less important since teams cannot take advantage of the air-air cooling by running higher boost and fuel flow. Instead, it is more likely that the Renault engine may be highly sensitive to detonation/pinging, necessitating a lower charge air temperature. Disadvantage wise, the air-air intercoolers do have a longer tubing length, increasing turbo lag, and are far more difficult to package within the car. The difficult in packaging is highlighted here, nessecitating almost an entire sidepod to the intercooler and demanding running tubing precariously close to the exhaust manifold. Interesting to note is how the post-intercooler pipe is so low compared to the gold mylar wrapped intake manifold. The sheer size of the manifold itself might indicate that Renault have included variable length intake trumpets that were not legal last year.
ERS Cooling/Packaging
Toro Rosso has moved some of the minor control electronics outboard into the sidepod undercut space. However, I would hazard to say the energy store control electronics is still in a central position with the battery unit. This is based upon the pipes running from the ERS radiator straight into the centre. Given how important it is to cool the ES devices, they are likely to be all sharing cooling.
Engine Cooling
There are no shots of the right sidepod, although by elimination, the engine radaitor must be located inside that sidepod. More interesting to note is the complex engine oil cooling system Renault and Toro Rosso have taken. There are two engine oil radiators; one after the engine and one after the turbo. The engine oil radiator is fed by the lower duct of the roll hoop and it is easy to see why that duct is so enormous; the oil radiator appears simply enormous. A much smaller radiator is located above the turbocharger and cools the oil flow after the turbo before returning it to the engine. Shows the emphasis placed on controlling temperatures within the tight packaging constraints of the 2014 - 2016 PU's. Toro Rosso have done well by reducing the sidepod greatly by shifting the engine oil coolers so far inboard.
Turbocharger/Exhaust
Firstly, the 3 to 1 manifold is tighly packed right to the floor of the engine and is extremely heavily shielded. Judging by the very interesting position of the wastegate, the two manifolds are likely not to join until the turbine opening itself in a 2 to 1 join. By situating the turbo at the rear and the MGU-H within the vee of the engine, Renault has allowed Toro Rosso to jam their engine block right at the firewall unlike Mercedes or Honda which have to give some space for the compressor housing. Given the weight difficulties of these cars, this might be important for weight distribution. Interestingly, only the wastegate exhaust is heavily shielded with heat wrap. At the start of the year, the entire Toro Rosso exhaust was wrapped. Perhaps a marginal weight benefit in addition to some safety and reliability in allowing the exhaust pipes to cool quickly. Also shows the amount of energy that must be removed by the turbos. The air feeding the compressor is heavily shielded by the gold colored wrap, but does not appear to include any plenum.
Conclusion
Still air to air intercooled but could be changed over to air to water intercoolers; most likely that Renault engine is sensitive to knock. May have variable length intake trumpets. Toro Rosso has been very space efficient. Engine oil cooling has been moved to the middle of the car, allows for the beautiful sidepods Toro Rosso is running. Renault turbocharger is not split, but does fit forward in the engine bay which is helpful.
I'll ELI5 the conclusion if that helps!
So using a turbo heats the air because you're compressing it, like the opposite of a pressurized can going cold when you're spraying it. If you fed hot air into the engine, you'd igniting before the spark or burning roughly, which hurts the engine.
Renault and Honda's engines are probably more sensitive to this than Mercedes and Ferrari. So they tube the air to a radiator in the sidepod, for really effective cooling. Mercedes and Ferrari can get away with piping it through a water radiator which then goes to another radiator in the sidepod, which is better for complicated reasons.
Renault also has both the turbine and compressor of the turbo together at the rear of the engine, like Ferrari but unlike Honda and Mercedes that split it with a long shaft with the compressor at the front and turbine at the rear. This means that Renault have less space above and behind the engine because they need to take air from the roll hoop all the way to the back of the engine.
This means that they have crap all over the place when you compare the Renault engine to the Mercedes engine. So while a lot of people talk about Renault giving Toro Rosso and Red Bull a packaging advantage, I don't see that being true.
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