Still more replies to McLaren F1 questions and com
Discussion
For anyone who might be interested in the clips:
Please don't expect anything especially memorable. I was doing a couple of medium-speed laps in order to assess changes in geometry, some different bushes and a larger steering wheel. I was not even conscious that my friend was filming it as I chatted away to him while he sat behind me.
I'm not sure what we'll select, but the maximum speed was about 150 and there wasn't much traffic to overtake. The audio seems the better part, as you can hear induction, exhaust and tyre sounds fairly clearly.
The camera was hand-held and it bounces around some, my friend's good efforts to keep it steady notwithstanding.
Please don't expect anything especially memorable. I was doing a couple of medium-speed laps in order to assess changes in geometry, some different bushes and a larger steering wheel. I was not even conscious that my friend was filming it as I chatted away to him while he sat behind me.
I'm not sure what we'll select, but the maximum speed was about 150 and there wasn't much traffic to overtake. The audio seems the better part, as you can hear induction, exhaust and tyre sounds fairly clearly.
The camera was hand-held and it bounces around some, my friend's good efforts to keep it steady notwithstanding.
Regarding the video, I have been advised that 2-3 minutes of running time would be about right, so that's what I'll aim for.
Seriously now, this video is just little old me doing a test lap in a road car that is under development, and I was not even aware that it was being filmed, so no one should get their hopes too high.
If you want to see a truly fantastic in-car video of a lap of the 'Ring, the Derek Bell one is fine, but there's one that was made this spring that is off the charts: Hans-Joachim Stuck, driving the M3-GTR in which he was shortly to win this year's 24-hour race, was filmed doing an absolute blinder of a lap. The DVD of it is available on some German website (Can someone help here with the address? If not, and anyone's interested, I'll try to locate it).
I would not be going to VMAX. As mentioned, the car is still under development. I have never done a standing-start blast either - in-gear acceleration is kinder to the car and, to me, a lot more exhilirating.
Buffalo -
The folks at the factory are car enthusiasts and good people. I think of them as friends and I hope they think the same of me.
I told them about my intentions before I embarked on the project (having previously over a long period sought to engage them to do it, which they declined), and I have kept them updated since then. Everything's in the open - in fact, I spent quite a bit of time with them a few days ago and they helped me to sort out some non-suspension matters.
Once all the suspension stuff is done I shall take the car to them and they will judge for themselves.
They are interested in what I am up to, but they have their own way of doing things and I very much doubt that anything that I have done would influence what the factory does to customers' cars.
>> Edited by flemke on Saturday 9th October 19:34
john p - Thanks for posting the address. The way that J-H shifts gears in that car is just the greatest, isn't it? Did you notice that there are, I think it is, three points on the Nordschleife in which he is in first? Special ratios, but still...
Muncher - Thank you for the encouragement and assurances, but in addition to the reasons that I cited, the car is not in the UK at present and I would not be prepared to drive it there for this event, I don't care for Bruntingthorpe because its abrasive surface devours tyres and you get more stone damage there than anyplace that I have been to, and, even without the above, I am a miserable curmudgeon who tends to keep to himself.
bor - Thank you for the reminder. TUV is being dealt with: it does not apply to most of the changes and for others (such as applicability of a road-legal but non-specified tyre) it is waived if the car owner has formally acknowledged that a non-TUV'd part has been fitted. At least that's what they tell me, and these guys know the rules.
Muncher - Thank you for the encouragement and assurances, but in addition to the reasons that I cited, the car is not in the UK at present and I would not be prepared to drive it there for this event, I don't care for Bruntingthorpe because its abrasive surface devours tyres and you get more stone damage there than anyplace that I have been to, and, even without the above, I am a miserable curmudgeon who tends to keep to himself.
bor - Thank you for the reminder. TUV is being dealt with: it does not apply to most of the changes and for others (such as applicability of a road-legal but non-specified tyre) it is waived if the car owner has formally acknowledged that a non-TUV'd part has been fitted. At least that's what they tell me, and these guys know the rules.
No one has that I have noticed.
On a circuit the car's suspension has been ineffective, which is part of why I have undertaken the insane project of changing it. Things would be different on a high-speed circuit, but what like that is there in Europe, the Lausitzring or Rockingham? I have not taken it to Spa, but even there I should think that a properly-driven GT3 would have its measure. Taking a normal, wing-less road-going F1 through Eau Rouge or Blanchimont at speed does not bear thinking about.
I only got it as a road car anyway and, in fairness to McL., that is what it was intended to be.
On the road it does not get overtaken except when the driver allows it, if you know what I mean. Once in Oxfordshire I found myself in a lovely run in tandem with a biker. We were both pushing on but in an entirely cooperative way. When we finally got to a T-junction he stopped to give me a thumbs-up. That is the only time to my knowledge that someone has made an effort to stay with me. (I am not saying that no one else could have done. As good a performer as the car is, I think that folks tend to presume that it is untouchable. That might be true in some ways, but along other dimensions the car is compromised, as I have tried to explain on PH.)
If it was on the damp Friday and the car was blue then it was mine.
Later that day it took what seemed like an hour to clean the grass clippings out of every nook and cranny.
I think a normal, randomly-generated reg. number suits the car. Pretentious numbers belong on 360 Spyders, RR Phantoms, and whatever Flavio Briatore is driven in (which is probably both of the aforementioned).
Some people may consider the F1 pretentious. To me it seems honest, and that is part of its appeal.
Later that day it took what seemed like an hour to clean the grass clippings out of every nook and cranny.
I think a normal, randomly-generated reg. number suits the car. Pretentious numbers belong on 360 Spyders, RR Phantoms, and whatever Flavio Briatore is driven in (which is probably both of the aforementioned).
Some people may consider the F1 pretentious. To me it seems honest, and that is part of its appeal.
The mention of Goodwood reminds me of something that happened relating to last year's FoS.
Maybe a month before the 2003 event, someone at one of the UK car magazines called me and said that they had been retained by Goodwood to put together that year's selection of road cars that sit on the lawn beside Goodwood House and do demonstration runs up the hill. He wanted to know if I would bring the F1 to be part of that. It seemed harmless, and I recalled how much I had enjoyed seeing an F1 in that place prior to when I got mine, so I was happy to oblige. I figured that in due course he would contact me with instructions.
It was, however, with only a few days left before the event that he called me again. He sheepishly said that when the magazine had presented their list of secured cars to the FoS managers, the managers rejected the F1. The FoS audience would not be interested in it, they said, because the F1 was "yesterday's car".
Ironic, is it not, that this was the response from the place whose whole reputation, and huge commercial success, have been built on celebrating the history of fast cars?
Lest I worry that Goodwood's standards might be slipping, however, I was reassured to see that amongst the road cars that were selected for the event was a 350Z, driven by Ruby Wax.
Life occasionally has a beautiful symmetry. About six weeks ago I got a phone call from Goodwood management: they were organising an exhibition exclusively for members of the Goodwood Road Racing Club and asked whether I might be willing to let them display my F1. Unfortunately I had to decline because I already had committed to do something else that day - breathing, I think it was.
Tony,
On some cars that I have driven at B'thorpe, including the F1, stones can be propelled by one's own tyres and strike parts of one's bodywork that are usually out of range. Yes, stones are stones, but it must be because of their quantity and the fact that on the latter half of the straight you're going faster than you would do most other places.
By the way, I feel a bit guilty criticising B'thorpe's surface. The folks who own the place and their team are exceptionally friendly and accomodating, but I thought that I needed to be candid about my experiences there.
It definitely gets driven. Whether I am capable of doing that "properly" or not...I have ridden on circuits with the two men who for the last few years have done all the chassis sign-off and driver training for the factory. THEY drive properly.
You can see in the video how much lateral flexibility the (standard road) tyres have. Often I turn the wheel a certain amount, then add a touch more, and then a moment later trim it back a bit. Because of the tyres' lateral flexibility, there's a delay between when the front wheels change axis and when the contact patch follows. One gets accustomed to the delay, but the goal is to eliminate it.
Matt,
The road cars came with 235/45 and 315/45 on 17" wheels. The tyres are Michelin and are only meant for the F1 and only sold to the factory. They are speed rated to, I believe, 360kph or so.
The racing GTRs used 18" wheels, as ride quality was irrelevant. Subsequently, the road-going LMs and other standard F1s that were fitted with the LM's splitter and rear wing also had 18" wheels, with 275/35 and 345/35. These road tyres are also only available for the F1, and through the factory.
I expect to use either 18" or 19" wheels. The problem with simply using the LM road tyres is that, according to some people, the ratio of 275 to 345 is too big, so the understeer builds up too slowly for a road car. If however, we don't use the LM's tyres we are left with only a few options -there are not many tyres that come wide enough (335 or greater for rear) and also have a sufficiently high speed rating.
We will test different wheel widths and diameters. We may end up using the Bridgestones made for the Enzo.
A major disadvantage of bigger wheels is that you almost inevitably add weight in the worst possible way (unsprung rotating). This may lead us to go for a lighter-weight braking system (ceramic composite). I would like to avoid this but it may be the right thing to do.
(I have tried to address these topics already, so apologies if I am <still> boring people.)
The original, standard car handles in a way that I did not like, including too-light straight-ahead steering, lack of understeer build-up below the limit, much understeer at the limit, rear lifts and shifts under hard high-speed braking, tendency to lift-off oversteer and general lateral instability at rear. It may be that in the hands of better drivers these things are not problems, but they bother me. I would add that, in public media, more than one world-class driver has been critical of the car's handling and has confirmed the same privately.
I have learned directly that what one reads in car magazines is unreliable, and the less that it is based on direct driving and living-with-the-car experience (as in this case), the more unreliable it is.
Most of the F1s get driven rarely if ever, so there just isn't a lot of evidence of how the car actually behaves.
The car was designed 10-12 years ago. The modelling and simulation power then available to chassis engineers wasn't a patch on what it is today. Likewise, perhaps even more so, a decade-old tyre design is inadequate by today's standards.
The car was designed to appeal to a wider range of tastes and needs than those of any one person.
I took my car to the man who is the best, ballsiest, smartest race driver that I know. He took the car out for an hour on his own, brought it back and said, "If you drive this car at speed in the wet, it will make you dead", (emphasising his point by drawing a forefinger across his throat). At this time I had already driven the car more than 20,000 miles, so I knew that this was tending towards hyperbole, but I also was relieved that I seemed not to have been crazy in my concerns.
There is a real limit to how much testing and development you can do if you're only going to build six dozen road cars, and matters are aggravated if you've never built a road car before. I am convinced that the reason that Ferrari's fall apart even today is that they don't build enough to do sufficient testing and development, and that's at a build-rate of 4,000/year.
Another factor that, in my completely ignorant opinion, profoundly influences the nature of the car is that it has wide front tyres but no power steering. There are benefits because of this, but there are problems as well: it required compromises.
What I can say is that at present the car's caster, camber, toe, springs, dampers and anti-roll-bar have been altered or adjusted, and the car feels much better to me. Driving the car now, the only source of instability is the lateral flexibility of the tyres.
Relative to the cost of the car, the cost of this project has not been that bad.
As regards unsprung weight savings, the starting point is that the standard wheels and tyres are quite light. As I recall, a standard 17" front wheel weighs something like 7.4kg. That is hard to match. I believe that the LM's 18" wheel/tyre combination adds over 20kg altogether to the standard weight.
I guess that the lightest-weight wheels for the job would be a version of the multi-spoke as used in Formula One. I don't think that they would look good on the F1, however, so I am aiming to replicate the originals in a larger diameter.
Yes, the F1 has monoblock aluminium calipers (four pot front and back), so there is little potential for weight-savings there. Pads are pads.
The big difference is in the rotors. The F1 has iron rotors like what you'll see on most everything else. The F1's might be a bit more efficient than "ordinary" rotors, but I doubt that there is much in it. Four ceramic-composite rotors weight about 15kg less than their iron counterparts. That amount is what I am guessing we will have added in order to get wheels and tyres that work better.
As the car's brakes will now fade after maybe four or five high speed stops, there is a bit of a performance gain in ceramics. You also benefit slightly from reduced wear, no corrosion, and no lag-time between pushing the pedal and when the pad begins to bite. Their biggest drawbacks are reduced feel and over-sensitivity.
It is perhaps worth remembering that G. Murray and his team made a big effort ten years ago to develop a carbon braking system for the F1, but mankind was not yet up to the task.
The original, standard car handles in a way that I did not like, including too-light straight-ahead steering, lack of understeer build-up below the limit, much understeer at the limit, rear lifts and shifts under hard high-speed braking, tendency to lift-off oversteer and general lateral instability at rear. It may be that in the hands of better drivers these things are not problems, but they bother me. I would add that, in public media, more than one world-class driver has been critical of the car's handling and has confirmed the same privately.
I have learned directly that what one reads in car magazines is unreliable, and the less that it is based on direct driving and living-with-the-car experience (as in this case), the more unreliable it is.
Most of the F1s get driven rarely if ever, so there just isn't a lot of evidence of how the car actually behaves.
The car was designed 10-12 years ago. The modelling and simulation power then available to chassis engineers wasn't a patch on what it is today. Likewise, perhaps even more so, a decade-old tyre design is inadequate by today's standards.
The car was designed to appeal to a wider range of tastes and needs than those of any one person.
I took my car to the man who is the best, ballsiest, smartest race driver that I know. He took the car out for an hour on his own, brought it back and said, "If you drive this car at speed in the wet, it will make you dead", (emphasising his point by drawing a forefinger across his throat). At this time I had already driven the car more than 20,000 miles, so I knew that this was tending towards hyperbole, but I also was relieved that I seemed not to have been crazy in my concerns.
There is a real limit to how much testing and development you can do if you're only going to build six dozen road cars, and matters are aggravated if you've never built a road car before. I am convinced that the reason that Ferrari's fall apart even today is that they don't build enough to do sufficient testing and development, and that's at a build-rate of 4,000/year.
Another factor that, in my completely ignorant opinion, profoundly influences the nature of the car is that it has wide front tyres but no power steering. There are benefits because of this, but there are problems as well: it required compromises.
What I can say is that at present the car's caster, camber, toe, springs, dampers and anti-roll-bar have been altered or adjusted, and the car feels much better to me. Driving the car now, the only source of instability is the lateral flexibility of the tyres.
Relative to the cost of the car, the cost of this project has not been that bad.
As regards unsprung weight savings, the starting point is that the standard wheels and tyres are quite light. As I recall, a standard 17" front wheel weighs something like 7.4kg. That is hard to match. I believe that the LM's 18" wheel/tyre combination adds over 20kg altogether to the standard weight.
I guess that the lightest-weight wheels for the job would be a version of the multi-spoke as used in Formula One. I don't think that they would look good on the F1, however, so I am aiming to replicate the originals in a larger diameter.
Yes, the F1 has monoblock aluminium calipers (four pot front and back), so there is little potential for weight-savings there. Pads are pads.
The big difference is in the rotors. The F1 has iron rotors like what you'll see on most everything else. The F1's might be a bit more efficient than "ordinary" rotors, but I doubt that there is much in it. Four ceramic-composite rotors weight about 15kg less than their iron counterparts. That amount is what I am guessing we will have added in order to get wheels and tyres that work better.
As the car's brakes will now fade after maybe four or five high speed stops, there is a bit of a performance gain in ceramics. You also benefit slightly from reduced wear, no corrosion, and no lag-time between pushing the pedal and when the pad begins to bite. Their biggest drawbacks are reduced feel and over-sensitivity.
It is perhaps worth remembering that G. Murray and his team made a big effort ten years ago to develop a carbon braking system for the F1, but mankind was not yet up to the task.
You may have read the "evo" article that R. Atkinson wrote about the F1 and C. GT a few months back. In it he proposes a sort of equivalency formula based on the idea that "Knowledge is power". He suggests that a tyre-pressure monitor, external temperature gauge and sat-nav (all of which the CGT has but the F1 lacks) are worth 50 bhp. An interesting concept.
With respect to superchargers, to my mind they (and some of its dubious design gimmicks) are what fatally flaw the new Ford GT.
After (if) we get the F1's handling sorted out I shall resume the search for ways to remove weight. Less weight gives better handling, better braking and more acceleration at the same time (well, not at the same time, but in the same car).
With respect to superchargers, to my mind they (and some of its dubious design gimmicks) are what fatally flaw the new Ford GT.
After (if) we get the F1's handling sorted out I shall resume the search for ways to remove weight. Less weight gives better handling, better braking and more acceleration at the same time (well, not at the same time, but in the same car).
Anniesdad,
The most challenging thing to me about the circuit is all its camber changes and bumps. Although it appears that the section that you mention (and the descent of the Fuchsrohre too) can be taken in a straight-ish way, you really need to work in sympathy with the topological changes or you have a problem.
Tiff Needell does oversteer for a living and is fantastically skilled at it. There are some places at the 'Ring where you can do it (see "Yellowbird" with Stefan Roser), but I am not the man for the job.
What you can notice (if I have mentioned this already, sorry for the repetition) are steering wheel corrections. What would happen is that I would turn the wheel a certain amount, then add a bit more lock as the car was not turning quite as much as I expected, and then a moment later the contact patches would finally align with the axis of the wheels, the car would turn that bit more, and I would have to trim the steering back slightly.
You can definitely get the car to oversteer if you wish, but I aspire (futilely) to smoothness and efficiency.
The tyres are now distinctly the source of lateral compliance and instability. I can, however, appreciate how the designers originally sought the same level of compliance throughout the car. You could argue that in its original form the car was more integrated (as in, consistent) in its overall compliance than it is now, even though my car now handles better than standard. It won't be right, however, until the tyres are sorted out.
>> Edited by fIemke on Friday 15th October 13:22
The most challenging thing to me about the circuit is all its camber changes and bumps. Although it appears that the section that you mention (and the descent of the Fuchsrohre too) can be taken in a straight-ish way, you really need to work in sympathy with the topological changes or you have a problem.
Tiff Needell does oversteer for a living and is fantastically skilled at it. There are some places at the 'Ring where you can do it (see "Yellowbird" with Stefan Roser), but I am not the man for the job.
What you can notice (if I have mentioned this already, sorry for the repetition) are steering wheel corrections. What would happen is that I would turn the wheel a certain amount, then add a bit more lock as the car was not turning quite as much as I expected, and then a moment later the contact patches would finally align with the axis of the wheels, the car would turn that bit more, and I would have to trim the steering back slightly.
You can definitely get the car to oversteer if you wish, but I aspire (futilely) to smoothness and efficiency.
The tyres are now distinctly the source of lateral compliance and instability. I can, however, appreciate how the designers originally sought the same level of compliance throughout the car. You could argue that in its original form the car was more integrated (as in, consistent) in its overall compliance than it is now, even though my car now handles better than standard. It won't be right, however, until the tyres are sorted out.
>> Edited by fIemke on Friday 15th October 13:22
Thank you for your comments and suggestions, guys.
The model appears to be a direct copy of the much-publicised presentation car, or "Clinic Model". That car was originally silver, of course, and later resprayed a metallic burgundy. I do not believe that it ever existed in a third colour.
Outwardly it differed from all other prototypes and production cars in its unique external mirrors (which lacked funtioning motors), and its front fog lights were not in any production cars. The Clinic Model also differed in having vents in the front wings just above the headlight housings, different tail-light lenses, and fewer horizontal vents in the rear bumper.
On the tyre front, the requirements for tyres are right size (ideally 335/35/19 for the rear), right construction, right compound, and right speed/load rating. Together these criteria narrow down the options really quickly.
Without knowing it for a fact, I suspect that run-flats are not made in the right size or speed rating. If they did meet those tests, I would wonder about their weight. I should think that they would be fairly heavy.
The experimental wheels should be ready next month. We shall first try out the Bridgestones that are made for the Enzo. Their drawback is that they are 345, which is probably a bit too wide. If so, to have enough clearance they would require a bit of surgery on the back corners of the tub, which I am loath to do. On the other hand, if they did not fit without alterations then we would probably be forced into a 18" wheel, with 345/35s. The problem there is that the outside diameter is rather small.
Because 19" wheels seem to be becoming much more common, I expect that within the next year or so somebody will produce just the right size. I would rather not have to wait that long, however.
Joust is right - it's tough to roll carbon fibre.
The outer edge of the wheel arch comes over and around the tyre corner, so to speak. We could achieve clearance by raising the body so that the wheel-arch edge is above the level of the tyre, but of course that would raise the CoG and tend to ruin everything that we have been trying to achieve in suspension improvement, so I don't think we'll be going there.
I hope that you are right, Dakkon, although I suspect that there just ain't enough room. There is enough room to contain a 345/35/18, but it appears that that tyre's smaller OD is what allows the clearance. An extra half-inch may make the difference
In order to embark on this quixotic project one had to be an optimist, however, so I live in hope.
Cheers.
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