We already knew plenty about the W1’s all-new powertrain - the 928hp, 9,200rpm-capable, 4.0-litre V8 is very much at the centre of what makes the car special, after all - but McLaren couldn’t resist a second bite of the good news cherry. Partly, one suspects, because it’s nice to have your talents celebrated with a new owner at the controls (Abu Dhabi-based CYVN's takeover is officially still pending), and partly because there’s a good deal more to say about an engine destined to become familiar to buyers far beyond the lifespan of one limited-edition hypercar. Even if said hypercar is itself still some way over the horizon.
Of course, to hear McLaren tell it, the genesis of its new V8 and the W1 are very much intertwined. The same engineers admitted to PH last year that it had been working on the engine for four years, and lo and behold, among many (many) slides, there was one to back this up: the concept of a turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 was apparently fixed halfway through 2020, with proof of concept confirmed the following year. And while it goes without saying that McLaren already knew the configuration very well, it claims to have removed no alternative from the original drawing board without giving it due consideration; it just felt that a V8 provided the best compromise of compactness and lightweight and character that it was looking for.
Ah yes, character. This came up a lot on the slides, and well it might. Though its maker is quick to point out that ever-larger outputs, stricter emissions legislation and even more stringent weight loss stipulated a clean-sheet design, there is no question at all that it targeted a 'strong emotional connection with the driver’ from day one. To suggest that the M838T or M840T didn’t achieve this is mostly nonsense - but when you’re being compared like-for-like with the engines that Ferrari produces, being very good is not good enough. Now more than ever, McLaren knows it needs a V8 for the ages - and not just because it might be the last one it ever makes from scratch.
Right at the top of its slide deck, the brand reminded us that ‘supercars are emotional purchases’ and while its line-up must now be (lightly) hybridised, the prospect of a 90-degree, flat-plane crank V8 is meant to ensure that customers - especially those with financial access to anything and everything - are sufficiently bought in. It is partly to this end that McLaren has endeavoured to go beyond 9,000rpm with hollow intake valves (a first for the firm) and a stiffer crankshaft, and paid special attention to the (longer) length of its exhaust manifold runners - but also why it has spent a significant amount of time in a semi-anechoic chamber with an acoustic camera aimed at a running engine. Because part of the trick is removing the mechanical noise that you don’t want to hear, hence the relocation of the timing drive to the rear of the V8 and a preoccupation with modal frequencies. McLaren wants sweetness, not blare.
It also wants the kind of responsiveness that can hold a candle to super-fast EVs. So while there might be an emphasis on the ‘crescendo’ that is achieved beyond 6,000rpm, the MHP-8 - which earns direct and port injection, another first for McLaren - also delivers 30 per cent more torque than the most powerful derivative of its predecessor from as low as 2,500rpm. And beneath that the W1 has its new 347hp/325lb ft e-motor to call upon, one derived from Indycar and said to weigh just 20kg even with its control unit factored in - 50 per cent lighter than the equivalent module found in the Speedtail. In fact, at 23hp per kilogram, McLaren suggests that it’s comparable to the electric motors used in F1.
The e-motor is mounted on the side of the new eight-speed DCT gearbox, and delivers its power downstream of the clutches. This will be modulated in Comfort mode, but in Sport the manufacturer says that you’ll get 347hp ‘all the time’ - suggesting that you won’t have drained a fully charged battery even with a flat-out charge to the limiter at 217mph. Which is worth noting when you consider its dinky 1.384kWh capacity, designed specifically to administer and then accrue charge as quickly as possible. So while its electric-only ’stealth’ mode is only really good for getting out of earshot of your immediate neighbours, it will offer ‘consistent’ performance over a track session in ‘GP’, thanks to a recuperation process that begins the moment you take your foot off the accelerator (but without being connected to or compromising the brake pedal).
Of course, this being McLaren, and the W1 representing the pinnacle of what it thinks is currently doable, there is also a ’Sprint’ setting inside the Race mode, which turns everything up to 11 for one lap. Do this and the manufacturer is confident that you’ll open up a three-second gap to the ‘next fastest road-legal McLaren’ - which is almost certainly a projection at this stage of development but still looks great on a slide (and in your mind’s eye, crushing Senna owners). Naturally, that cheque is being cashed primarily by the combined 1,275hp output, although the engineers seem no less proud of the ‘class-leading’ 911hp/tonne power-to-weight ratio it has achieved not just by stuffing the battery’s cylindrical cells into the equivalent of a gnat’s suitcase, but also by subtracting mass from the new engine.
Granted, this only adds up to a 10kg saving in the final tally - not least because McLaren has ‘spent’ weight on the more sophisticated fuel injection system and larger turbos and on strengthening - but the lengths it has gone to speak to its renowned preoccupation with sweating the details. This includes the higher-end components you’d expect like the hollow camshafts and intake valves, and innovations like mounting the air filter directly over the engine and optimising the cooling system more generally - but it has also reduced the engine’s length by about 30mm thanks to marginally smaller cylinder bores and significantly smaller space between them.
So - lighter, smaller, stronger, faster to rev and sweeter to listen to. And not quite at its limit yet either, admitted one of its chief architects under questioning - before a colleague hastily suggested that the V8 was as far along as McLaren was able to take it for now, thereby preserving the W1’s apex predator aura. The manufacturer was much more forthright about the MHP-8 unit going the other way, reiterating that its hybridised 4.0-litre V8 would ‘power the next generation of McLaren supercars’ once its pioneering role in the hypercar was complete. Quite what form that will take first remains to be seen, although a follow-up to the stupendously good 750S is keenly anticipated. Doubly so if the W1 sounds as good as the slides would have us believe.
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