Scott Dixon’s win June 25 in the KOHLER Grand Prix gave Honda its sixth victory in the Verizon IndyCar Series this season, in what’s shaping up to be quite the competition with manufacturer Chevrolet.

 

After 10 of 17 races, Honda holds a 46-point advantage over Chevrolet in the manufacturers’ championship. Manufacturers earn the equivalent of driver points for their top two finishers in each race, plus a five-point bonus for winning a race and one point for winning the pole position (two points for the Indianapolis 500).

 

Honda’s success has come despite what its representatives admit are several engine failures this season as it pushes the limits to vie for its first manufacturers’ championship since Verizon IndyCar Series engine competition resumed with Chevy’s 2012 return.

 

During the KOHLER Grand Prix weekend at Road America, Art St. Cyr, the president of Honda Performance Development, said his group pinpointed the cause of the failures to an internal part that has been used for three years and not shown susceptibility until this season. A fix has been made, St. Cyr added, and will be implemented as Honda builds new engines to move into its rotation with teams for the remainder of the season.

 

Depending on where a car’s current engine mileage stands, some new powerplants will be installed in Honda cars in time for next week’s Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway. St. Cyr expects the bulk of the 13 fulltime cars that Honda supplies to have the updated engine in time for the Honda Indy Toronto weekend July 14-16.

 

“There is no plan right now to do a wholesale change of our engines,” St. Cyr said. “Right now, it looks like (the failure) happens in about one out of every eight engines that we have right now. If it does fail, it usually fails early, so when that problem arises, it shows up pretty quick.

 

“Our expectations are that once we get the engines in the spares pool, we will continue (using) the engines that are in the car throughout the remainder of their (mileage) lives. Then those will be replaced with new engines.”

 

St. Cyr did not identify the part in question, but said it had not shown reliability issues in past years. He called it “an intermittent processing issue that wouldn't show up in a simulation, (and that) resulted from a (microscopic component fault) in our engine that was obviously not designed in.”

 

While the part was not previously part of Honda’s quality control process, St. Cyr added, “I can emphatically say they now are part of the checks.

 

“It's not saying we won't have more failures, but we won't have that failure anymore.”

 

Pushing the limits of technology is part of the allure of Verizon IndyCar Series manufacturer competition, St. Cyr said. Both engine manufacturers have also produced aerodynamic bodywork kits for their teams since 2015, with Chevrolet displaying an aero kit advantage on many tracks that helped it win 14 of 16 races and its fifth straight manufacturers’ championship last year.