How the McLaren F1 Got Its Sound | Hacker News Reader

How the McLaren F1 Got Its Sound

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161 pointsdmmalam40 comments

I grew up around motorcycle drag racing, which exposed me to the sound of both motorcycle and car race engines at extremes. Top Fuel and Funnycar auto engines can really only be experienced in person - you can't get that sound from any sound system. They make the ground shake!

I was fortunate enough to hear motorcycle drag racing during the diverse design days of the 1970s. The choppy thrum of a Kawasaki Z1, the shrill buzz of three cylinder two stroke Kawasaki 750s, the intense bass of a twin-engine top fuel Harley... these sounds are still part of my consciousness, decades later.

If I had only ever seen racing in TV I would have no idea what you were talking about. But I did have the pleasure of watching a few Indy 500 races in person. It is hard to describe the sound and feeling of the solid dirt/grass vibrating under your feet!

Yeah, and Indy cars are wimpy compared to Top Fuel drag racing. The power involved is kind of terrifying. And the failures, too! Watching a couple hundred pounds of supercharger blown right off the top of the engine and sailing through the air in a burst of flame...

I asked a crew chief once about driving a top fuel car. He said he only built them; the people who drove them were insane.

Stand anywhere near a Merlin V12 (think P-51 Mustang) when it starts up. It's an OMG visceral thrill. My dad used to drive them, said it was the best job in the world.

There is one of those in an airplane museum here in NL and I spent the better part of two hours looking at it, what a magnificent machine. If you look at it long enough you can reason out a lot of the functional bits (a part of the engine is cut-out so you get to see all the guts). Of course that's a static display, nothing to compare to hearing it run but I was just appreciating it as a mechanic. To fly it must be the thrill of a lifetime.

The Boeing Museum of Flight once offered rides in the back seat (very cramped) of a P51. I was first in line! Worth every penny (expensive). I didn't stop smiling for a week.

My dad being an ex-P51 driver, the local museum was kind enough to do a couple P51 low pass flyovers at his funeral. He would have loved it. One of his relatives remarked that he finally understood the fuss over that airplane.

http://i.imgur.com/QqlYM.jpg

There's even a book about the sound of the engine - "Sigh for a Merlin".

> The Boeing Museum of Flight once offered rides in the back seat (very cramped) of a P51. I was first in line! Worth every penny (expensive). I didn't stop smiling for a week.

Consider me very jealous.

> My dad being an ex-P51 driver, the local museum was kind enough to do a couple P51 low pass flyovers at his funeral. He would have loved it. One of his relatives remarked that he finally understood the fuss over that airplane.

That gives me gooseflesh.

That picture is really neat, the name of the plane seems to have worked out well!

Thank you for posting this.

All combat pilots have their OCD good luck charms, my dad's was naming his planes "Round Trip Ticket". And it did work, they always brought him home, despite sometimes getting holes in the airplane, and various other failures. He has a great picture of the side of his 'stang covered in oil, after it swallowed a valve. Fortunately, it was over the airfield at the time, as the 'stang wasn't going very far with the rotating junk that was left of the merlin.

> OCD

That's superstition, not OCD.

OCD is rituals for structure, Superstition is rituals in order to pursuade the powers that one imagines exist to look the other way in case of dealing misfortune (avoid walking under ladders, otherwise sensible advice, something might fall down) all the way up to praying to win the lottery or asking the priest to bless your land.

It's all centered around rituals. At least the OCD folks have (assuming it doesn't get out of hand) some positive benefits from their affliction.

> OCD is rituals for structure

No, it isn't. If you don't know anything about a severe, debilitating illness you should probably do a minimal bit of web searching before talking about it. There are literally hundreds of websites providing good quality information about OCD.

OCD is an illness where a person has obsessions (intrusive thoughts), and compulsions (rituals to cope with those intrusive thoughts).

This has nothing all to do with "structure".

OCD provides no benefit to people with the illness.

WHO have recognised OCD as one of the top 10 leading causing of debilitation (Years Lost to Disability) in people aged between 15 and 44.

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/11/en/858.pdf

> Of the 10 leading causes of YLD in the world among individuals of all ages, four are psychiatric conditions, with unipolar depression being the leading cause (2). Among individuals between the ages of 15 and 44, panic disorder, drug use disorders, and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) were included in the top 20 disorders.

> some positive benefits from their affliction.

As viciously stupid as saying "Cancer patients like the slimming effect of chemo".

Apologies, I had a friend in mind who has a mild case of OCD resulting in excessive cleaning because it makes her feel calm.

Obviously, it's excessive so a net negative and there are far more serious cases than that.

The technical achievements put the McLaren F1 at the top of the charts, but it was the artistic choices that made put the McLaren F1 poster on kids walls.

My favorite McLaren F1 related story: https://youtube.com/watch?v=y0XtNGuijqc

Apart from contemporary exotics like the FXX-K or the Huayra - the car I'd love to hear is the BRM 1.5l V16 (600bhp at 12,000rpm) designed in the 1940s!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Racing_Motors_V16

Mind you - I still think the best engine sound I've heard is from a Rolls Royce Merlin...

For me, it's the Lexus LFA. Thing sounds like a spaceship.

My favorite engine sound is the Toyota Hybrid TS030 going from electric to its V8. Also sounds like a spaceship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRECqhIZwIA

That's pretty awesome!

I couldn't stop smiling when I heard this. Incredible!

The only thing better about that car is hearing John Hindhaugh of Radio Le Mans start talking about it during a race and he says "1000 Brake Horsepower" (Gasoline Engine + Super Capacitor Hybrid System). you can hear the smile on his face as he says it.

The most unique has got to be a 4 rotor RX8 (rotary engine).

Back when I had an RX8, I wanted to convert it's stock 2 rotor over to a 3 or 4 rotor purely because of this engine sound!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Fgi1OQqao

The rotary engine is amazing. In the RX8, the powerband kicks in around 4500-5000 rpm, and pulls strong right up through the redline at 9500 rpm. The engine loves high rpm! You can sit in 3rd gear running at 8500 rpm at 80+ mph on the highway and it'll just take it without question. The BMI 4 rotor has a much higher redline, if I recall, near 11,000+ rpm.

A friend of mine has an '85 RX7 (last of the original series, and a GSE no less) with some mods, including exhaust replacement. It's such a great sounding engine. I love that a little redline alarm goes off not because you're in danger of blowing it up, but because you're out of the power band at that point. You can't really blow up a rotary engine like you can a piston engine - it doesn't have crap like spring-loaded valves to bounce. As long as it has oil, it's happy.

And no fake anything in that car! You really feel the road when you're driving, feel the mechanicals as well as hear them. I really should buy it from him one of these days.

> As long as it has oil, it's happy.

And thus we reach biggest complaint about rotary engines.

> And thus we reach biggest complaint about rotary engines.

Complaint? Never heard one from an RX8 owner (only shock from new owners who didn't read-up on how the engine operates, and thought they had a leak someplace!).

If you changed your oil out when you were supposed to, chances were you'd never notice it eating oil.

Ah, the "British Racing Misery". Super powerful but very unreliable. That, along with the three liter BRM H16 (which was too heavy to be competitive) were rather exotic engines. But yes, they must have sounded great, at least when they didn't break down, that is.

I really like the sound (in recorded footage, would love to hear it in person) of the Cosworth DFV, although it's a much more conventional engine. The (inherently unbalanced) flat plane V8 engine with an unusual valve arrangement, coupled with a tuned exhaust has a great sound. It's was a handful to drive with a very narrow power band, giving out only a few hundred horsepower at ~6000 rpm, and quickly jumping to 400+ hp at 7500 rpm when the exhaust tuning does its trick. You can hear from the exhaust note when it's about to kick.

Not your BRM, but have you heard the Cizeta-Moroder V16? A transverse-mounted engine in a road-going supercar: https://youtu.be/akzPztowNC8

Here we go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRNoRlLlsD8

Hadn't heard of that engine before. Was a very pleasant way to take a break from emails. Thanks.

What a truly incredible sound, with incredible sound quality, too. I highly recommend that everyone drop what they are doing, put on headphones, and listen to that. Just when you think it cannot get any better, it does!

I first came across about 5 MP3 files in the late 90's or early 00's that seem to have been taken from the same recordings as this. I was a teenager and listened to them regularly, dreaming of being a racing driver. That flyby around 2:00 still puts my hair on end every time. Lots of nostalgia in listening to this again, for me - truly glorious stuff. The best ground-going engine I've ever heard :)

Here they are, McLaren start-up sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGV9Qu6-7Oc

Those whines at the beginning :)

If you're going to fake it, just buy a SoundRacer accessory.[1]

Lotus put in a sound generator as original equipment on their electric prototype supercar.[2] Not only did it make fake "vroom" sounds, the driver had to shift, with a momentary loss of power during shifting. There's no shiftable transmission on that car; it was all faked in software. Everyone laughed at Lotus, and that idea went away, not to be heard again.

The age of "vroom" is over, now that no production gas car other than a few limited production supercars can out-accelerate Tesla's family sedan.

Now this is a startup sound.[3] M1A2 Abrams tank, turbine engine.

[1] http://www.soundracer.se/?p=98 [2] http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081736_fake-shifting-fo... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXE4tMEYCoI

BMW, VW etc. adding sound generators to their cars strikes me as basically cheating. This isn't the sound pipes, which divert engine noise into the cabin bypassing the firewall sound-dampening, but the artificial sounds injected into the car stereo speakers that try and make your turbocharged V-8 sound like a V-10.

In fairness, sometimes the fake noises are used because car cabins are much quieter today (and block a lot of natural engine noise). People who buy a sports car still expect the sports car sounds, but don't want to hear the road and other ambient noises.

Personally, I'd rather hear all the road noise and natural engine noise. You feel a lot more "connected" to the car and road that way...

> Everyone laughed at Lotus, and that idea went away, not to be heard again.

Well, it didn't totally go away (sadly). Ford fakes the engine sounds for 2015 Mustangs [1].

[1] http://jalopnik.com/the-2015-ford-mustang-ecoboost-fakes-its...

Faking the transmission is really a bizarre move, but actually having a multiple-gear transmission in an electric racecar is actually not a bad idea. Formula-E cars have 5-speed sequential transmissions in order to maximize torque [1], and this may be coming to electric road cars as well [2].

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/FormulaE/comments/2gbika/why_do_for...

[2]: http://www.motor1.com/news/48231/bosch-says-evs-will-soon-ge...

Bosch makes transmissions. They're getting worried.

Formula-E cars are required to use a specific McLauren motor.[1] The need for a gearbox may reflect its limitations. Formula-E rules also limit input current, so using huge amounts of electrical power for a few seconds of acceleration isn't permitted. In other words, they don't allow Tesla's "launch mode".

Early Tesla models had a two-speed gearbox. That was a disaster. The shock of changing gears over such a wide range wore out the gearboxes rapidly.

Electric locomotives have been transmissionless since the first GE locos. "You cannot strip the gears of a magnetic field", one of the early GE designers wrote. Some things just work better electrically. For a sense of this, here's part of the restoration of the biggest steam locomotive ever built, the Big Boy.[1] It sat at the Ponoma fairgrounds for half a century, and was then towed out and sent to the Union Pacific shops for a full restoration. It's being towed out by a standard sized modern AC Diesel-electric locomotive, which has more drawbar pull than the Big Boy. What's impressive is the precise control. The initial move is about one foot per minute, because they're pulling the old steam giant through a tight curve of temporary track. The Diesel-electric doing the pull has synchronous AC motors and solid state controls, and can apply huge torques smoothly at low speeds with no wheel slip. All the wheels are locked together by active control. You don't need a transmission to get low-end torque from an electric.

[1] http://www.mclaren.com/appliedtechnologies/products/item/e-m... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ji2aGJJAx8

The radius of that track is insane.

It's kind of distorted by a telephoto lens, but yes. That was temporary track to get the loco from the parking lot of the Pomona Fairgrounds onto Metrolink commuter tracks. They'd done enough work on the Big Boy that it would roll on its own wheels at slow speed. UP actually cut the Metrolink rails, spliced that temporary spur in, got the Big Boy out, put in a retired Diesel for display, and restored the Metrolink tracks. On Metrolink track, they hauled the Big Boy to a connection with UP rails, then hauled it to UP's Coulton yard. There it got enough repairs for a long tow at a reasonable speed, with the lubrication systems working. It's now at Cheyenne, Wyoming, where it will be fully restored and converted to burning oil, then used for fan trips and PR.

(Why did steam die out? Maintenance interval for the Big Boy - daily. Maintenance interval for the Diesel-electric towing it - 6 months.)

I watched the whole thing, thanks for the link.

Recently I took a little trip with this little guy:

http://www.hoornmuseumstad.nl/nw-24745-7-3474828/nieuws/vier...

Hard to imagine what it would be like to see that brute up close under power.

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