Honda's female chief engineer for the Acura RDX small crossover SUV
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Honda's female chief engineer for the Acura RDX small crossover SUV
Originally Posted by jruhi4
From The Detroit News:
Designer revs engines, blazes trails
Honda's chief engineer, one of few women in the field, got rid of lag in turbo-charged systems.
by Christine Tierney
Nobu Takahashi displayed a knack for engineering early on. As a child, she took apart clocks. By the time she was 18, she had torn down her first engine. Her idol was Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Co.
Engineering is still a man's world, but no one in Takahashi's family blinked when she took a job with the Japanese automaker.
"I had been telling my family since high school that I wanted to work for Honda," said Takahashi, 44, the designer of the turbo-charged, four-cylinder engine in the new Acura RDX sport utility vehicle.
She also knew she wanted to work with engines. "When you look at a car, that's the heart of the propulsion system. That's the place to be," she said, speaking through a translator. "When it came to engine development, Honda was the most advanced."
Honda has a free-spirited culture in comparison with most Japanese manufacturers. But even so, Takahashi's trajectory was remarkable.
"It's very rare to have a woman engineer in Japan, and even more rare to have a chief engineer," said Gary Evert, the project leader for the RDX. "We think she's the first (female) chief engineer at Honda."
Takahashi already was working on a turbo engine when Honda gave the RDX the green light. Honda had built a few turbo engines for cars in Japan, but never one for the American market.
Turbo-chargers boost an engine's power output by compressing the air flowing into the engine, increasing the amount of fuel that can be added to each cylinder.
Having owned a turbo-charged Lancia, Takahashi was familiar with the main drawback -- the turbo lag, or lull that precedes the burst of power while the turbine spun by exhaust gas gets up to speed. The challenge was to accelerate that process -- no easy task, particularly with a gasoline engine.
Takahashi and her team developed a system with a variable flow inlet to adjust the air flow depending on the engine's speed.
However, when the engineers tested a prototype, the turbo lag was still too long.
"It was a dark day for the team," Evert recalled.
Takahashi was frustrated but not discouraged. "I didn't feel bad. I wanted to figure out how to solve this," she said. "I started immediately to think about adjustments to the transmission."
That turned out to be the answer. The transmission had been designed to work with the different torque curve of a six-cylinder engine. Once the transmission was reworked, the problem was solved.
"She forms an opinion, makes a decision and follows that decision through. It's a great quality in an engineer," Evert said. "If people are wishy-washy, things stall. With her on the team, things kept moving forward."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...65/1148/AUTO01
I have a comment, though: If the transmission calibration was the turbo lag solution, and the Acura RDX is automatic-only, does that mean that she hasn't figured out how to fully conquer turbo lag on a manual-transmission vehicle?
Designer revs engines, blazes trails
Honda's chief engineer, one of few women in the field, got rid of lag in turbo-charged systems.
by Christine Tierney
Nobu Takahashi displayed a knack for engineering early on. As a child, she took apart clocks. By the time she was 18, she had torn down her first engine. Her idol was Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Co.
Engineering is still a man's world, but no one in Takahashi's family blinked when she took a job with the Japanese automaker.
"I had been telling my family since high school that I wanted to work for Honda," said Takahashi, 44, the designer of the turbo-charged, four-cylinder engine in the new Acura RDX sport utility vehicle.
She also knew she wanted to work with engines. "When you look at a car, that's the heart of the propulsion system. That's the place to be," she said, speaking through a translator. "When it came to engine development, Honda was the most advanced."
Honda has a free-spirited culture in comparison with most Japanese manufacturers. But even so, Takahashi's trajectory was remarkable.
"It's very rare to have a woman engineer in Japan, and even more rare to have a chief engineer," said Gary Evert, the project leader for the RDX. "We think she's the first (female) chief engineer at Honda."
Takahashi already was working on a turbo engine when Honda gave the RDX the green light. Honda had built a few turbo engines for cars in Japan, but never one for the American market.
Turbo-chargers boost an engine's power output by compressing the air flowing into the engine, increasing the amount of fuel that can be added to each cylinder.
Having owned a turbo-charged Lancia, Takahashi was familiar with the main drawback -- the turbo lag, or lull that precedes the burst of power while the turbine spun by exhaust gas gets up to speed. The challenge was to accelerate that process -- no easy task, particularly with a gasoline engine.
Takahashi and her team developed a system with a variable flow inlet to adjust the air flow depending on the engine's speed.
However, when the engineers tested a prototype, the turbo lag was still too long.
"It was a dark day for the team," Evert recalled.
Takahashi was frustrated but not discouraged. "I didn't feel bad. I wanted to figure out how to solve this," she said. "I started immediately to think about adjustments to the transmission."
That turned out to be the answer. The transmission had been designed to work with the different torque curve of a six-cylinder engine. Once the transmission was reworked, the problem was solved.
"She forms an opinion, makes a decision and follows that decision through. It's a great quality in an engineer," Evert said. "If people are wishy-washy, things stall. With her on the team, things kept moving forward."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...65/1148/AUTO01
I have a comment, though: If the transmission calibration was the turbo lag solution, and the Acura RDX is automatic-only, does that mean that she hasn't figured out how to fully conquer turbo lag on a manual-transmission vehicle?
Lexus Fanatic
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 6,231
Likes: 0
From: Los Angeles/Vancouver
thats great news
congrats to a female engineer
this is probably a big step in automotive technology i would say
can mitsubishi steal this idea and fix that damn huge turbo lag in the EVO?
congrats to a female engineer
this is probably a big step in automotive technology i would say
can mitsubishi steal this idea and fix that damn huge turbo lag in the EVO?
Lead Lap
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 4,428
Likes: 10
From: NC
Eh
I love how dance-2-the-beat-of-my-own-drummer Honda gave a female a chance but she really needs to work on that turbo whine/hiss. I have never driven a turbo before so I have nothing to compare it to but that acceleration noise was annoyingly loud.
turbo/superchargers arent going to be any quieter, thats how they are
Last edited by 4TehNguyen; Aug 30, 2006 at 06:15 AM.
Pole Position
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 278
Likes: 0
From: Maryland
Congratulations to her. To get that job, she had to be twice as good as "the boys."
As far the poster complaining about noise from turboed cars, it's hard to build a quiet car when you have a turbo hiss, less restrictive intake and exhaust, BOV, Walbro pumps, etc. That's my only misgiving about driving a Loud Lexus, since I don't like to attract attention in public. When I rode in my boss' two year old ES recently, I was reminded of how quiet a stock Lexus is.
As far the poster complaining about noise from turboed cars, it's hard to build a quiet car when you have a turbo hiss, less restrictive intake and exhaust, BOV, Walbro pumps, etc. That's my only misgiving about driving a Loud Lexus, since I don't like to attract attention in public. When I rode in my boss' two year old ES recently, I was reminded of how quiet a stock Lexus is.
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