McLaren F1 Totally Explained

Everything about Mclaren F1 totally explained

ť For the Formula One team, see McLaren

The McLaren F1 was formerly the fastest street legal production car in the world, holding this record from 1994 to 2005, the longest period the record has been held by any street legal or production car in the history of automobiles. It was engineered and produced by McLaren Automotive, a subsidiary of the British McLaren Group that, among others, owns the McLaren Mercedes Formula One team. Today, it's still the fastest naturally aspirated car in the world.
The car features a 6.1-litre 60° BMW S70 V12 engine and it was conceived as an exercise in creating what its designers hoped would be considered the ultimate road car. Only 106 cars were manufactured, 64 of those were street versions (F1), 5 were LMs, 3 were longtail roadcars (GT), 5 prototypes (XP), 28 racecars (GTR), and 1 LM prototype (XP LM). Production began in 1992 and ended in 1998.
The McLaren F1 was at the time the fastest production car ever built, eclipsing the Jaguar XJ220. A standard version of the McLaren achieved a top speed of in 1994, holding this record for more than 10 years until it was finally eclipsed in 2005 by the Koenigsegg CCR.

History and Concept

Chief engineer Gordon Murray's design concept was a common one among designers of high-performance cars: low weight and high power. This was achieved through use of high-tech and expensive materials like carbon fibre, titanium, gold and magnesium. The F1 was one of the first production cars to use a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis.
   The idea was first conceived when Murray was waiting for a flight home back from the fateful Italian Grand Prix in 1988; Murray drew a sketch of a three seater supercar and proposed it to Ron Dennis, pitched as the idea of creating the ultimate road car, a concept that would be heavily influenced by the Formula One experience and technology of the company and thus reflect that skill and knowledge through the Mclaren F1.
   Quote from Gordon: "During this time, we were able to visit with Ayrton Senna (the late F1 Champion) and Honda's Tochigi Research Center. The visit related to the fact that at the time, McLaren's F1 Grand Prix cars were using Honda engines. Although it's true I'd thought it would have been better to put a larger engine, the moment I drove the Honda NSX, all the benchmark cars--Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini--I had been using as references in the development of my car vanished from my mind. Of course the car we'd create, the McLaren F1, needed to be faster than the NSX, but the NSX's ride quality and handling would become our new design target. Being a fan of Honda engines, I later went to Honda's Tochigi Research Center on two occasions and requested that they consider building for the McLaren F1 a 4.5 liter V10 or V12. I asked, I tried to persuade them, but in the end couldn't convince them to do it, and the McLaren F1 ended up equipped with a BMW engine." Later, a pair of Ultima MK3 kit cars, chassis numbers 12 and 13, "Albert" and "Edward", the last two MK3s, were used as "mules" to test various components and concepts before the first cars were built. Number 12 was used to test the gearbox with a 7.4 litre Chevrolet V8 to mimic the torque of the BMW V12, plus various other components like the seats and the brakes. Number 13 was the test of the V12, plus exhaust and cooling system. When McLaren was done with the cars they destroyed both of them to keep away the specialist magazines and because they didn't want the car to be associated with "kit cars".
   The car was first unveiled at a launch show, 28 May 1991, at The Sporting Club in Monaco. The production version remained the same as the original prototype (XP1) except for the wing mirror which, on the XP1, was mounted at the top of the A-pillar. This car was deemed not road legal as it had no indicators at the front; McLaren was forced to make changes on the car as a result (some cars, including Ralph Lauren's, were sent back to McLaren and fitted with the prototype mirrors). The original wing mirrors also incorporated a pair of indicators which other car manufacturers would adopt several years later.
   The car's safety levels were first proved when during a testing in Namibia in April 1993, a test driver wearing just shorts and t-shirt hit a rock and rolled the first prototype car several times. The driver managed to escape unscathed. Later in the year, the second prototype (XP2) was especially built for crashtesting and passed with the front wheel arch untouched.

Engine

History

Gordon Murray insisted that the engine for this car be naturally aspirated to increase reliability and driver control. Turbochargers and superchargers increase power but they increase complexity and can decrease reliability as well as introducing an additional aspect of latency and loss of feedback, the ability of the driver to maintain maximum control of the engine is thus decreased. Murray initially approached Honda for an NA powerplant with 550BHP (400 kW), 600 mm block length and a total weight of 250 kg, it should be derived from the Formula 1 powerplant in the then-dominating McLaren/Honda cars.
   When Honda refused, Isuzu, then planning an entry into Formula 1, had a 3.5 V12 engine being tested in a Lotus chassis. The company was very interested in having the engine fitted into the F1. However, the designers wanted an engine with a proven design and a racing pedigree.
   In the end BMW took an interest, and the motorsport division BMW M headed by engine expert Paul Rosche Other, more highly tuned, incarnations of the F1 produced up to 692 hp (509 kW). The engine has a red line and rev limiter at 7500 rpm. The engine delivers considerable torque (398 ft·lbf) from a low 1500 RPM.
   The cam carriers, covers, oil sump, dry sump, and housings for the camshaft control are made of magnesium castings. The intake control features twelve individual butterfly valves and the exhast system has four Inconel catalysts with individual Lambda-Sound controls. The camshafts are continuously variable for increased performance, the system is very closely based on BMW's VANOS variable timing system for the BMW M3; it's a hydraulically-actuated phasing mechanism which retards the inlet cam relative to the exhaust cam at low revs, which reduces the valve overlap and provides for increased idle stability and increased low-speed torque. At higher RPM the valve overlap is increased by the control of computer to 42 degrees (compare 25 degrees on the M3) for increased airflow into the cylinders and thus increased performance.
   To allow the fuel to atomise fully the engine uses two Lucas injectors per cylinder, with the first injector located close to the inlet valve -- operating at low engine RPM -- while the second is located higher up the inlet tract -- operating at higher RPM. The dynamic transition between the two devices is controlled by the engine computer.
   Each cylinder has its own miniature ignition coil. The closed-loop fuel injection is sequential. The engine has no knock sensor as the combustion conditions predicted wouldn't cause this to be a problem. The pistons are forged in aluminium.
   From 1998 to 2000, the Le Mans–winning BMW V12 LMR sports car used a similar S70/2 engine.
   The engine was given a short development time, causing the BMW design team to use only trusted technology from prior design and implementation experience. The engine doesn't use titanium valves or conrods. Variable intake geometry was considered but rejected on grounds of unnecessary complication.

Chassis

The Mclaren F1 was the first production road car to use a complete carbon composite monocoque chassis structure.

Aerodynamics

The overall drag coefficient on the standard Mclaren F1 is 0.32, compared with 0.36 for the faster Bugatti Veyron, and 0.357 for the current holder of the fastest car world record (as of 2008) -- the SSC Ultimate Aero TT. The vehicle's frontal area is 1.79 and the total Cx is 0.57 respectively. Due to the fact that the machine features active aerodynamics. It was decided that the ride should be comfortable yet performance oriented, however not as stiff and low as that of a true track machine, as that would imply reduction in practical use and comfort as well as increasing noise and vibration, which would be a contradictory design choice in relation to the former set premise -- the goal of creating the ultimate road car.
From scratch the design of the F1 vehicle had strong focus on centering the mass of the car as near the middle as possible by extensive manipulation of placement of i.a. the engine, fuel and driver, allowing for a low polar moment of inertia in yaw. The F1 has 42% of its weight at the front and 58% at the rear Airbags are not present in the car.

Performance

Further Information

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