RE: GMA reveals 725hp T.50s 'Niki Lauda'
Discussion
M4SER said:
Suggest watching my video on the car where Gordon explains they dialled the downforce back from 1900kg to 1500kg max to make it more drivable for regular drivers. Also, the gearing is a lot lower than in the T.50 road car and max speed at 12,100rpm in top can be as 'low' as 170mph if you choose the low ratio gearbox.
Are you sure you wanted to respond to me and not to Max? Either way, I have watched your video (of course
), good stuff! What is a shame, though, is that you didn't push Gordon more on how the business model is gonna work going forward. I would very much be interested in hearing about how he imagines that functioning. Paying back all the development cost with only 100 cars - very expensive cars as they will have to be - but without any of the headline grabbing stats, impact or significance of the T.50? I can't think of any car maker that operates like that. Pagani and Koenigsegg (for example) only produce hypercars and do so over many and many years. What are GMA gonna do really? Do the "light, simple, honest" British sports car trick, but costing 300k or more? I am really quite curious. Maybe some of those licensing deals will come through, but seeing as nobody seems interested, even after the T.50 publicity, I am not very optimistic for that either. It all better work out, though, because they have already committed to a big expansion, with all new HQ, manufacturing facility, etc. Fingers crossed, I guess...Edited by Isebac on Monday 22 February 21:12
Isebac said:
Are you sure you wanted to respond to me and not to Max?
Either way, I have watched your video (of course ), good stuff! What is a shame, though, is that you didn't push Gordon more on how the business model is gonna work going forward. I would very much be interested in hearing about how he imagines that functioning. Paying back all the development cost with only 100 cars - very expensive cars as they will have to be - but without any of the headline grabbing stats, impact or significance of the T.50? I can't think of any car maker that operates like that. Pagani and Koenigsegg (for example) only produce hypercars and do so over many and many years. What are GMA gonna do really? Do the "light, simple, honest" British sports car trick, but costing 300k or more? I am really quite curious. Maybe some of those licensing deals will come through, but seeing that nobody seems interested, even after the T.50 publicity, I am not very optimistic for that either. It all better work out, though, because they have already committed to a big expansion, with all new HQ, manufacturing facility, etc. Fingers crossed, I guess...
Not read this thread the whole way through, so just picked up on a recent comment. As for the business model of GMA, why should I question it? The price of T.50 and T.50s would have been set pre any publicity by GMA, the fact they received 100 £750k deposits on T.50 within 48hrs of the launch and the majority of the 25 T.50s being produced are already sold tells you something. Pagani took around 8 years to sell 100 Zondas..Either way, I have watched your video (of course
), good stuff! What is a shame, though, is that you didn't push Gordon more on how the business model is gonna work going forward. I would very much be interested in hearing about how he imagines that functioning. Paying back all the development cost with only 100 cars - very expensive cars as they will have to be - but without any of the headline grabbing stats, impact or significance of the T.50? I can't think of any car maker that operates like that. Pagani and Koenigsegg (for example) only produce hypercars and do so over many and many years. What are GMA gonna do really? Do the "light, simple, honest" British sports car trick, but costing 300k or more? I am really quite curious. Maybe some of those licensing deals will come through, but seeing that nobody seems interested, even after the T.50 publicity, I am not very optimistic for that either. It all better work out, though, because they have already committed to a big expansion, with all new HQ, manufacturing facility, etc. Fingers crossed, I guess...My take is I'm there to report on the car, not on the business model but if I were Gordon, I'd be kicking myself for limiting T.50 production to 100 units when there were another 200 customers wanting one but not able to buy one because they'd sold out!
Maybe production volumes will be go up on T.51 but then Gordon did say in my interview GMA would only produce 100 of any one car, so who knows..
Isebac said:
Max_Torque said:
really? I have some experience in this area (having worked on a fair number of rather high performance road at track cars, like the Mclaren P1/P1GTR and race cars specifically designed for "good amateurs" such as the AMR DBR9 etc
And, i can tell you, driving a full on aero assisted car, ie one with a ratio of over 1:1 (825kg mass, 1,000 kg aero) is not something that many "good amateurs" i have ever met and seen driven quickly feel comfortable with. At that ratio, should you loss downforce for any reasons, from a hitting a bump to poor driving and touchning a kerb or having the suspension not set absolutely perfectly for the track you are on, your are off, because you are suddenly going TWICE as fast as the car could corner with purely mechanical grip. And no one gets back from there, not even the likes of Hamilton or Senna. Watch the F1 accidents, that is the level at which we are talking for a car with more than 1:1 aero assistance!
The P1 GTR was 1,455 kg mass and a maximum of around 700kg of downforce a ratio 1:0.5 and that was,ime, too much for the majority of drivers to deal with.......
The problem is, when it goes wrong, we are talking about energies that are significant, in fact, life threatening, and killing your customers is something most companies try to avoid in general.
We have been here before of course, as the short lived Caparo T1 showed, that just because you can, doesn't mean you should, and engineers can today easily build a car that is simply too much for most people
The amount of aero is not really that extreme. It's 1500kg at top speed, but "only" about 825kg at 250km/h. Also, once you include driver and some fuel, the weight of the car is gonna be closer to 1000kg. In the end, you are looking at about the same cornering Gs as a GT3 car. Which, sure, is still more than most people can handle, but as GM said, the amount of downforce is adjustable and the cars will be specced according to the wishes of the owner. So the downforce could be considerably less than even 825kg. And, i can tell you, driving a full on aero assisted car, ie one with a ratio of over 1:1 (825kg mass, 1,000 kg aero) is not something that many "good amateurs" i have ever met and seen driven quickly feel comfortable with. At that ratio, should you loss downforce for any reasons, from a hitting a bump to poor driving and touchning a kerb or having the suspension not set absolutely perfectly for the track you are on, your are off, because you are suddenly going TWICE as fast as the car could corner with purely mechanical grip. And no one gets back from there, not even the likes of Hamilton or Senna. Watch the F1 accidents, that is the level at which we are talking for a car with more than 1:1 aero assistance!
The P1 GTR was 1,455 kg mass and a maximum of around 700kg of downforce a ratio 1:0.5 and that was,ime, too much for the majority of drivers to deal with.......
The problem is, when it goes wrong, we are talking about energies that are significant, in fact, life threatening, and killing your customers is something most companies try to avoid in general.
We have been here before of course, as the short lived Caparo T1 showed, that just because you can, doesn't mean you should, and engineers can today easily build a car that is simply too much for most people
In any case, it's pretty in line with some other track only car variants, like the Brabham BT62 (1000kg with - claimed - 1111kg of downforce at 250km/h), the Lamborghini SCV12 (1377kg with 1200kg of downforce) or the Senna GTR (1280kg/1000kg), and less than the Bugatti Bolide (1270kg/1587kg). Of course, whether any of these will ever be driven on the limit is another question.
The issue I think comes from how someone approaches driving fast. I know my general strength is judging where the grip limit is, which generally means I’m ok at jumping into stuff and pushing, but also can mean I overdrive in the bit where I’m comfortable with the car and trying to find the last 1% of performance. Others are more methodical, and like to objectively build speed with the backup of data, and some super quick guys are quick because of this. Someone tells them they can go flat. So they do. And generally a lot of amateur drivers are in this category but at the other end of the spectrum. Their internal G sensor is calibrated to mechanical levels of grip. So they drive up to 1.0g no problem, but pushing beyond to the 1.6-1.7 that a GT3 car will do proves difficult as they have no ability to drive beyond this normal experience. I think this is why it can feel like there’s this huge gap between mechanical and aero grip as to them, they can’t just push, push a bit more, a bit more and then a bit more. It’s either 1.0g or get their head around 1.6g and that seems huge.
To put it bluntly, the GT3’s on limit behaviour was basically the same as a GT4 car. It’s just that the limit is higher. So sure, you have to be a bit quicker at gathering it up, but genuinely it’s not like a switch. It moves around, it’s a linear curve up to 1.6g and you can drive anywhere up to that limit or beyond. As long as you can just push beyond an arbitrary limit that’s in your head.
So sure, not every amateur owner will be able to get close to the limit of the downforce. But I don’t think having such a high downforce limit will make the car undriveable. I think plenty will still be able to extract an enjoyable amount of performance from the car, and GT3 cars tell you that. There’s AMs on the grid of GT World Challenge who have very little driving experience compared to the pros and they’re within 1.5-2s of the Pro’s. But then I think the general public (and many engineers) have this perception that a professional driver is some huge chasm of talent above everyone else. I’d love to pretend that’s the case, but really it isn’t. An Am driver in the right car can be very very close to a pro.
Edited by RacerMike on Monday 22 February 22:00
M4SER said:
Not read this thread the whole way through, so just picked up on a recent comment. As for the business model of GMA, why should I question it? The price of T.50 and T.50s would have been set pre any publicity by GMA, the fact they received 100 £750k deposits on T.50 within 48hrs of the launch and the majority of the 25 T.50s being produced are already sold tells you something. Pagani took around 8 years to sell 100 Zondas..
My take is I'm there to report on the car, not on the business model but if I were Gordon, I'd be kicking myself for limiting T.50 production to 100 units when there were another 200 customers wanting one but not able to buy one because they'd sold out!
Maybe production volumes will be go up on T.51 but then Gordon did say in my interview GMA would only produce 100 of any one car, so who knows..
Yes, I didn't literally mean that you should have started questioning him about it, it was just a turn of a phrase, so to say, to start a discussion about their future plans with me hoping to hear what others think about it.My take is I'm there to report on the car, not on the business model but if I were Gordon, I'd be kicking myself for limiting T.50 production to 100 units when there were another 200 customers wanting one but not able to buy one because they'd sold out!
Maybe production volumes will be go up on T.51 but then Gordon did say in my interview GMA would only produce 100 of any one car, so who knows..
Indeed the reception of the T.50 has been amazing, which I am extremely happy about. But now being a fan I also worry. I would very much like for GMA to keep producing cars in lieu of the T.50, but at the same time I can't help feeling that replicating this success with a lesser - but nevertheless very expensive - models, is not gonna be easy.
It’s quite weird. It looks like a restomod F1 from the front and looks good. The rest is just a bit odd.
If McLaren launched this there would be 20 pages of non customers saying how sh1it it looks, how the side profile proportions are all wrong, how the rear looks like a kid drew it , front looks like everything else they’ve done etc etc
If McLaren launched this there would be 20 pages of non customers saying how sh1it it looks, how the side profile proportions are all wrong, how the rear looks like a kid drew it , front looks like everything else they’ve done etc etc
RacerMike said:
I drove a AMG GT GT3 Evo a few months back around Donington.
Whilst i understand where you are coming from, that car is nowhere near the mass to DF ratio of the T.50s if it hits it's claimed figures and is front engined, rear gearboxed so has a relatively high PMI, and it makes more of it's DF from it's overbody devices, which are obviously significantly less sensitive to sudden changes in load compared to underfloor ones!Mark my words, the T50s is going to be a PROPER handfull, probably a couple of handfuls tbh.... ;-)
Max_Torque said:
Idle has to be high to stop the crank snapping into a couple of peices in ultra low inertia (hence ultralow mass), but high BMEP engines!
(ie the fundamental torsional vibration frequency mode is likely to be inside the potential operating area for the engine.....)
I respect your technical knowledge going back quite a way, but really, cranks snap at idle in high BMEP engines? When they’re not producing a high BMEP, and couldn’t at those revs even if under load anyway?(ie the fundamental torsional vibration frequency mode is likely to be inside the potential operating area for the engine.....)
My understanding is also that neither this, nor the Valkyrie’s V12, produce a higher BMEP than, say, a 458 Speciale. Their power comes from revs, and those revs are actually not unreasonable in terms of mean piston speeds. The Yanks build pushrod V8’s with higher mean piston speeds.
Baddie said:
I respect your technical knowledge going back quite a way, but really, cranks snap at idle in high BMEP engines? When they’re not producing a high BMEP, and couldn’t at those revs even if under load anyway?
My understanding is also that neither this, nor the Valkyrie’s V12, produce a higher BMEP than, say, a 458 Speciale. Their power comes from revs, and those revs are actually not unreasonable in terms of mean piston speeds. The Yanks build pushrod V8’s with higher mean piston speeds.
From my understanding, the reason why race engines (as well as this T.50S engine) have a very high idle is because they don't want to/can't use variable valve timing. That means you are stuck with one cam profile, which is inevitably designed to create a lot of valve overlap at high RPM and therefore a lot more power through scavenging. However, at low RPM, this overlap will cause bad combustion because the valves stay open long enough for the exhaust gases to come back into the combustion chamber. My understanding is also that neither this, nor the Valkyrie’s V12, produce a higher BMEP than, say, a 458 Speciale. Their power comes from revs, and those revs are actually not unreasonable in terms of mean piston speeds. The Yanks build pushrod V8’s with higher mean piston speeds.
I think the idle on the road going T.50 is gonna be something like 1000RPM and would be shocked if it was higher than 1500RPM. But then again, my understanding is that of a layman...
Baddie said:
Max_Torque said:
Idle has to be high to stop the crank snapping into a couple of peices in ultra low inertia (hence ultralow mass), but high BMEP engines!
(ie the fundamental torsional vibration frequency mode is likely to be inside the potential operating area for the engine.....)
I respect your technical knowledge going back quite a way, but really, cranks snap at idle in high BMEP engines? When they’re not producing a high BMEP, and couldn’t at those revs even if under load anyway?(ie the fundamental torsional vibration frequency mode is likely to be inside the potential operating area for the engine.....)
My understanding is also that neither this, nor the Valkyrie’s V12, produce a higher BMEP than, say, a 458 Speciale. Their power comes from revs, and those revs are actually not unreasonable in terms of mean piston speeds. The Yanks build pushrod V8’s with higher mean piston speeds.
I once did a TV measurement on a certain race engine, using a simple system of fitting a crank trigger wheel to both ends of the crankshaft, and recording the output waveform of the two Varriable reluctance sensors into the left and right channels of a PC sound card, and then running the resultant wave file through a bit of Matlab to calculate the relative phase and calculate the modulation of that phase in the crank angle domain and found that the crank of that 4 cyl engine was actually twisting by up to 35 degrees along it's length, and it was worst at low speeds where it was close to it's fundamental and there was simply more time for the crank to deform!
When i showed the results to the crank manufacture their respose rhymed with "clucking bell"...... ;-)
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