There was an event that they popped a boost hose, and another that they had issues getting deep into traction control and affecting the trap speeds (running NT05 rear tires).

There are a lot of maps in these ECUs that can limit real world performance in spite of the car putting down great dyno numbers. This is borne out in some of the tunes out there running the same trap speeds, ETs, and 60-130 times as stock. All of our stuff is super solid in that regard with proven results, repeatable on many cars.

There are other things that will limit the performance of a tuned car, which are mostly thermal/component protection features of the ECU. We keep those stock in all of our software, as keeping the engine safe is more important than squeaking out another 20-30hp on a hot car. These cars do a good job of cooling themselves when they're moving and the car will deliver 95% of maximum power over a 30min road course track session, but at slow speeds or in situations where they sit around a lot before going (like half mile racing) they can heatsoak pretty good.

 

Another thing is the huge "mclaren" markup, $3-4K for a ecu flash is a bit nutty. Cobb/ECuTek is half that cost for other platforms and allows 1000% more features/logging etc. Flashing a off the shelf map without logging has always resulted in a so so result (in my experience at least). Every tuner claims "like stock drivability" and also i have never seen this happen.

Would love to see a 5 run back to back vbox data/video for a 650s flash only.

 

IVe asked to see 5 different tuners vbox data... surprisingly, they all said they have none. In the Porsche world, that’s the Bible of tuning cars. PROVEN results, here in the Mac world, you’ll get a lot of “Oh, trust me... it’s way more power than stock” thanks for your $5k!

 

Here's three and a half minutes of a car running our EVT825 kit against a 720S:
The 650S is on Pirelli P-zeros so there is wheelspin on every launch as audible in the video (traction control hits hard). I have no idea what fuel was being run in each car, which is something we've seen have an impact. Pump gas will make the same peak power as our 100oct tunes, but the 100oct loses very little power after 6-7 dyno runs while pump gas will lose 20-30whp. The 720S is just barely quicker than it (freak of a car!), but excepting the difference in launches the two cars run basically the same in every run. So based on this, you can say we're at least as consistent as a stock 720S on a car making at least 100whp over what a 650S with a tune and exhaust makes. I would love to see this video again with Trofeos or Pilot Sport Cups on the 650 to take advantage of the midrange power on the launch.

We also have a timeslip that backs up our claims. Done in Arizona at 1200' elevation, we just pipped Brooks in the 720S featured in the above video: http://www.dragtimes.com/McLaren--all-Drag-Racing.html

I have vbox data from a few different cars on the street and 1/2mi events. I am ironically busy finishing a new 12C build, when I have a minute to search through the files I will post some up for review.

 

Pics!!!! Whats being done to the 12C? I love the fact that you are coming in here with some info that other tuners do not share. Thanks!

 

I believe they might be one of the only legit Mac tuners out there right now. I believe they’re a good stand on their word company.

 

The 12C is the next phase of all this. Built motor, upgraded fuel system, upgraded cooling system, and much larger turbos than we've previously used. Project goal is 1000hp and there's some room to grow from there depending on what limitations we run into with things like the stock intake/exhaust manifolds and cams. No photos of what we're cooking up yet, but it should be on the dyno and then straight to the track in the next two weeks.

I find it frustrating that there's little subjective data to compare to on modified Macs. We want to build the fastest cars, and it's hard to stake that claim when you're the only ones out there publishing real results. I think there's four companies claiming to build 'the fastest Mclaren' but we're the only company for the 12C/650S that I know of how fast our stuff is. There are a few 570S tuned by various other places that are doing about 165 in the 1/2, which is legit, but nothing beyond that. We just released our 570S software and are eager to see how it stacks up once we get more of them out there.

 

I ran my STOCK car last weekend at our 1/2 mile event... it ran a best of 159.63mph. I feel that’s a good representation of what these cars are capable of at a airstrip event. I’m calling Buuuuuuull*^##^}}% on all these cars running low 10’s and 135-137mph 1/4 mile times! I guess if I were to tune this car and it didn’t pick up a few mph and time in drag racing I’d say that was a huuuuge waste of money.

I ran a ****ty 1/4 mile last night, a few weeks ago a ****ty 1/8th mile pass. My launch control is a JOKE compared to my old Porsche Turbo S.... point being I need to see REAL data on these cars before I feel like spending cash on a tune.

 

Mclaren is pretty strict with warranties and as you know they won't supply anyone else with the tools needed to work on these cars , so you have to take it to mclaren ,

So throwing a tune on these cars will completely void any warranty on these cars , and if anything breaks you know how expensive it is to fix .. and let's face it these cars aren't porsches where they can take the abuse , they way more fragile .

Unless you really don't care about warranties and don't care about forking out the cash to fix things when they break , then getting some extra power is not worth the thousands you will need to fix ****..and with the 12c things will break

 

Yes, that’s true. I have a 650S and it’s extremely finicky. 5k miles and it’s had a new transmission installed due to a leak. Yes, they replaced a $35k gearbox with 5k miles on it for leaking. If my car had been tuned, even though that wasn’t the problem, I’d have been taxed with paying that bill.

 

There's no fooling a timeslip or a vbox run if you can get a published one. The fact is that there isn't a huge amount of top end power left in these cars stock. Depending on if you're changing the cats out or not, a tune+cats are good for 25-50whp peak depending on fuel being run, which isn't a huge increase on a >500whp car. It's good for 3-4mph and a couple tenths in the 1/4mi to get you down to that 10.2-10.3 @ 135-137 range from stock.

The huge difference you will notice with the tune is midrange torque. We run as much torque as we can muster with our tune (the stock turbos aren't capable of making as much torque as our big turbos, so no strength issues there). A 12C picks up 90-110wtq in the midrange which TRANSFORMS the type of car it is. It brings it from driving like a 458 where all the power is at the top of the rev band to feeling like a lightweight RWD 911 Turbo with a midrange gut punch. On the street, track, or from a roll this makes a giant difference in performance.

Lastly, the Steven Racing 650S was peculiar example of performance we expect to gain. Stock it ran 158mph all day long at the Shift Sector events with the stock ECU and high flow cats/Akrapovic muffler. We tuned it and gained 43whp and 76wtq. The car picked up almost 11mph in the 1/2mi from that relatively mild gain, ending up in the 168-169mph bracket. It may mean the dyno isn't representative of the true performance of these cars, or there are other things going on capping top speed during those longer runs.

 

And yeah, Mclaren are strict with warranties. If your car goes to the dealer with a tuned ECU, and the dealer connects to the car and sends data to Mclaren, they will void the powertrain warranty almost immediately.

There are a few ways to deal with this. First is that we can turn the ECU back to stock before going in, which has prevented any warranty issues in every instance I've done so to date. The second is that if it's for something brief/minor, the dealer may be able to do the service or get the claim through without sending data to home base--clearing faults, doing minor recoding, or minor diagnostics are possible this way.

Ultimately, modifying cars under warranty puts that warranty at risk, and with as expensive as Mclaren parts and labor can be it's a risk to be aware of and evaluate on your own. I can honestly say that we haven't seen any increase in failures above the stock baseline on modified cars, so at least there is that.

 

I appreciate you guys responding to all the questions being sent your way. Last Friday I ran a terrible 1/4 mile one week after being thrilled about my 159.63 mph pass in a bone stock car! My 1/4 mile pass was an 11.40 @ 128 mph. Worse still was my 60’ time. An embarrassing 2.20. Can’t figure this out. My Porsche making less hp ran 10.60’s @129mph. 1.50’s 60’ times as well... this McLaren is a mystery to me. Runs GREAT on the big end.... terrible on the low end.

 

Are you using launch control, and does the car have good tires installed (sticky compound and not aged out)?

Launching these cars is finicky. The launch control sequence takes a while, and if you miss the window the clutch temp goes too high and locks you out. Once away, they definitely do not have the grip a rear engine, AWD Porsche has. You really need a good tire like a Pilot Sport Cup 2, Trofeo R, or R888 to consistently get a good launch without wheelspin.

In most of our software we have variants that limit torque and play with power delivery in the lower gears to help get off the line, as the car will annihilate the tires otherwise. This was super important to allowing us to run a 9sec pass, as the car wanted to spin the tires in first and second gear.

 

Yes, using launch control... ZERO wheelspin. I think that’s the problem. At the 1/2 mile event it spun the tires hard through 1st gear... car pulled like a monster. At the drag strip, on PZero Corsas it won’t even eek out a tire chirp. Just feels suuuuuuper soft leaving at the drag strip. Very weird.