Yes you are correct durring acceleration the 049 would alternatly retard the opening angle of the plates to improve drivabiliy. The alternation between right and left was to prevent one bank from working harder than the other.
Pete, You are correct in saying this is not a true big bang. The one thing to remember is the fact that at 12,000-19,ooo the power pulses are just milli seconds apart for power pulse 1 - 10 this keeps the crankpin loaded. Then looking at a photo of the crank you can see that the crank pin for 5 - 6 is 144 degrees away from the crankpin of 1 - 10. One thing we do not know is what the spark advance of a F1 engine lets just say that it is 40 Degrees BTDC if this is the case max pressure of 1 is at TDC 10 is just 32 degrees from firing its spark. This keeps this 1 crankpin fully loaded the net result the closest you can get to a big bang on a V-10 without weakining the crankshaft. By the time 5 - 6 is ready to fire 1 - 10 are both in blowdown and the driveline gets unloaded. Remember how the Honda engines back in 2001-2002 they had a quite nasty snarl to them compaired to the other engines on the grid. Honda was trying to run a true "Big Bang" and we saw how reliable they were those seasons. Just remember how the Hondas were fireballing thru Eau Rouge at Spa? The loads of the chassis and crankshafts were so extreme that the timing went so far off that it was the same as having the cam shaft severly mistimed. With a V-8 it will be a lot less difficult to big bang the engine since you can run a true flat plane crankshaft. One thing i see is that the V-8 will perhaps be much less stressful to the tires since it will give them more time to relax between power pulses.
