The McLaren M838T engine is a 90-degree

twin-turbo Twin-turbo (not to be confused with a twincharger setup, which is a combination of a supercharger and a turbocharger) refers to an engine in which two turbochargers work in tandem to compress the intake fuel/air mixture (or intake air, in the cas ...

charged flat-plane V8, designed and developed in collaboration with Ricardo plc.

Development

McLaren bought the rights to the Tom Walkinshaw Racing developed engine, itself based on the Nissan VRH engine architecture, which was designed for the IRL Indycar championship but never raced. However, other than the bore, little of that engine remains in the M838T. In only 18 months, Ricardo went from a modified Nissan engine design to a running prototype. Developed with help from Ricardo, the engine redlines at 8500 rpm, but 80% of the engine's torque is available as low as 2000 rpm. McLaren claims that the engine has the highest horsepower to emission ratio of any current production engine. The engine is built at Ricardo's engine assembly facility in

Shoreham-by-Sea Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in West Sussex, England. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to its west by the Adur Valley and to its south by the River Adur and Shoreham Beach on the ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

. The turbochargers are supplied by

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Mot ...

(MHI), and are different units from those used in

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, popularly referred to as the 'Evo', is a sports sedan and rally car based on the Lancer that was manufactured by Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors from 1992 until 2016. There have been ten official versio ...

Applications

The engine was designed and built for the McLaren MP4-12C, where it produces @ 7000 rpm and @ 3000 rpm of

torque In physics and mechanics, torque is the rotational equivalent of linear force. It is also referred to as the moment of force (also abbreviated to moment). It represents the capability of a force to produce change in the rotational motion of t ...

. However, in 2012 McLaren released an update increasing power to @ 7500 rpm. For the GT3 racecar, the engine produces less power at only . The engine has a bore and stroke of and a bore spacing of . McLaren and Ricardo redeveloped the M838T engine for use in the

McLaren P1 The McLaren P1 is a limited-production mid-engine plug-in hybrid sports car produced by British automobile manufacturer McLaren Automotive. Debuted at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, sales of the P1 began in the United Kingdom in October 2013 and a ...

. The engine has been upgraded to optimise cooling and durability under higher loads. The engine block has also been modified to incorporate an integrated

electric motor An electric motor is an electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate force ...

as part of a hybrid drive train. The petrol engine produces at 7,200 rpm with an additional from the electric motor. At 4,000 rpm the engine is said to produce of torque while the electric motor can produce a maximum of from 0 rpm upwards.

References

External links

Official McLaren Automotive website
{{McLaren Automotive Engines by model Gasoline engines by model McLaren Group V8 engines