Mercedes AMG Hyper Car

[krisfx]

How are they going to deal with the fact that these F1 engines are going to have crazy high NOx emissions? If they go for a standard three-way cat then they will no longer be able to run full time lean, removing one of the core 'features' of these engines. Perhaps they will use some form of urea injection into the exhaust to catalyse the NOx. Whether or not that is reasonable for the target audience is unknown to me.

In a road car setup you won't need the extreme lean cycles.

Is it really an F1 engine though if it has markedly lower efficiency in it's road going version? We'll see how much of it comes from the AMG marketing department compared to the F1 team when it arrives I guess.

It's probably been mentioned before in this thread, but here goes:

The tolerances on F1 engines are (generally) well known to lead to a warm up cycle before the engine is fired up. Surely a road car can't have this and by definition, it won't be an "F1 engine" instead just an "F1 design"?

[roon]

Regarding the use of preheaters, I think F1 has used them more to ensure the lubricants are up to temp and flowing between all the surfaces that they should be. Less about working around thermal expansion & tolerance gaps. Unless they were using dissimilar materials at some point which would contract into interference below certain temperatures, but this seems unlikely to me.

Ultimately any engine will benefit from running at its intended operating temperature, and people install engine block heaters on their Subarus in cold climates for this very reason.

[mrluke]

Not sure why anybody thinks this car is going to do 200,000 miles and be driven to tesco for the shopping.

It's basically going to be a track day special and will no doubt come with a team of Mercedes engineers who will maintain it for you.

[krisfx]

Not sure why anybody thinks this car is going to do 200,000 miles and be driven to tesco for the shopping.

It's basically going to be a track day special and will no doubt come with a team of Mercedes engineers who will maintain it for you.

And what makes you think it doesn't have to do that during testing? I highly doubt a road car as AMG call it will have a team of Mercedes engineers on hand for every brisk Sunday drive.

[Cold Fussion]

Not sure why anybody thinks this car is going to do 200,000 miles and be driven to tesco for the shopping.

It's basically going to be a track day special and will no doubt come with a team of Mercedes engineers who will maintain it for you.

And what makes you think it doesn't have to do that during testing? I highly doubt a road car as AMG call it will have a team of Mercedes engineers on hand for every brisk Sunday drive.

I think mrluke was suggesting it could be closer to Ferrari's XX program, rather than being a real car. According to this article the electric motor(s?) are on the front axle and not on the rear so it would seem it's an F1 drivetrain in marketing and not in reality.

[mrluke]

Not sure why anybody thinks this car is going to do 200,000 miles and be driven to tesco for the shopping.

It's basically going to be a track day special and will no doubt come with a team of Mercedes engineers who will maintain it for you.

And what makes you think it doesn't have to do that during testing? I highly doubt a road car as AMG call it will have a team of Mercedes engineers on hand for every brisk Sunday drive.

I think mrluke was suggesting it could be closer to Ferrari's XX program, rather than being a real car. According to this article the electric motor(s?) are on the front axle and not on the rear so it would seem it's an F1 drivetrain in marketing and not in reality.

Bingo

[SR71]

I thought one of the links in this thread suggested that Merc will be going the opposite route of the AM/RB car and will NOT offer a track only version. Every customer gets a road legal car with matching performance.

[Just_a_fan]

Not sure why anybody thinks this car is going to do 200,000 miles and be driven to tesco for the shopping.

It's basically going to be a track day special and will no doubt come with a team of Mercedes engineers who will maintain it for you.

These cars are rarely driven. They're no different to paintings or other works of art. They're bought by the wealthy because they can afford them and because they hope they'll increase in value.

For example:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/indus ... 95-million
McLaren F1, 18 years old with 2800 miles under its wheels. Valued at £9m+ which is some increase over the £600k it cost originally.

Don't expect the Mercedes hypercar, like the RedBull example, to be any other than very expensive curate's eggs. A shame, but that's the reality at this level. Having said that, Rowan Atkinson did about 40k miles in his F1. Which is impressive when you consider a service is about £30k every 6k miles...there's always one or two petrolheads! =D>

[RicME85]

Twice crashed and rebuilt too

[WaikeCU]

I could imagine these hyper cars are meant to be driven hard and are not meant to be going around a roundabout. I could see it being useless in low speed in between traffic kind of use, but drive it hard on a track day and the car would come alive. More downforce, more grip, once you go faster and faster.

[SR71]

I could imagine these hyper cars are meant to be driven hard and are not meant to be going around a roundabout. I could see it being useless in low speed in between traffic kind of use, but drive it hard on a track day and the car would come alive. More downforce, more grip, once you go faster and faster.

You don't say?

But seriously what always impresses me is they still cold weather test these HyperCars. Can't wait to see spy photos testing in Sweden or Canada winter or something.

[godlameroso]

They have to, part of testing is making sure it can operate in extreme environments. It's SOP to send cars to the desert, ice, and everywhere in between to see what makes them fail.

[Just_a_fan]

Indeed. Testing/development is one of the reasons these low production run cars are so expensive. Spreading the many £thousands spent on development over e.g. <100 production cars means a big chunk per car.

[Quantum]

First time poster, long time lurker!
Reading this thread with interest and it seems there are 2 threads on the google search. Why 2?

It seems from Autocar's new article that this will have the 1.6 litre V6 from the W07. Tuned for road use, given that at 3000rpm the car will be hopping like a chinchilla making the owner look a mug, not something a 2 million dollar customer pays for, let's be frank.
It will also still retain a 10,000 rpm plus red line.
What interests me is the use of electric drive to overcome emissions testing, as effectively for 25km's this will be a "zero emission" vehicle. With mapping, the ECU could have various stages of CO2 emittance, as the car will not be subject to regulations while its lapping in GP spec W07 guise.
If charged, they can simply switch the electric drive(charged) on the front axles for 25 kms, then use the engine in a low mode to get to a decent figure.
As an aside, reading the previous thread and also similar(AMRB 001), will this car be subject to stringent tests in the same vein as a VW Golf, given that it's a 300 unit special edition?
The vaunted Buggati Chiron gets 520g/km with an efficiency far south of 30%. I don't see this car having a problem with 50%+ efficiency and energy recovery to get it's 1000bhp. Maybe I've missed something?

[roon]

Good points regarding emissions. I think there is specific concern from some users about NOx emissions. With direct & port injection plus fine boost control they should be able to switch between combustion modes. Road use & associated emissions testing scenarios would see the use of a more traditional, lower power combustion method in conjunction with catalytic conververs. Track use switches it to their higher efficiency/higher compression mode, along with a cat-bypass valve, perhaps.