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The MCA Hammerhead has always been a crowd favourite here at World Time Attack.
It's gone through a couple of changes of ownership and it's here now as Tanuki.
We're here with David from GT Auto Garage to talk a little bit about the car and, specifically, the changes that have been made.
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David, for a start, the most obvious change here the engine.
It was SR20 VE Turbo.
It's not anymore.
What made you go down the path of the VR38?
It all came about with.
It's more of a reliability.
You know the SR is lighter, it can make decent, really good horsepower.
But we were wanting, as this year is, we wanted to dual drive, so the owner Wayne, have him in Pro-Am and then obviously Tim Slade Drive and Pro.
So that way, you know, with a VR 4.1
we can run 25 pounds all day basically with a.
You know it's unstressed so and that's the thing I think a lot of people would not really be aware of.
You know these engines are making a thousand plus horsepower or give or take.
They're thereabouts and you know we see these numbers thrown around like they don't really mean too much.
But getting that power reliably out of a two or 2.2
liter four cylinder engine, no matter what you're putting in it billet block or not it's hard work, right 100%.
Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, you can have everything under the sun, but you're on the edge of a four cylinder.
It's a lot of boost and it's a lot of you know, everything's stressed.
So ultimately, the VR 38 will now 4.1
liter version of the VR 38, you've just got more capacity.
You're making that power with much less boost, much less stress on the engine.
Yeah, we run 28 pounds max and yeah, and ultimately, what power are you producing now and how does that compare to where it was with the SR20?
I'm not too sure where they ended up with the SL.
I think they were close to the 1100.
I'm not, I don't know, but we're at 1080 at 25 pounds.
I would assume then that there's a little bit more left up your sleeve if you needed it.
Yes, oh yeah, of course you always have to leave.
You know you want the reliability where Jule entered the car, so we want to make sure that you know we can do the most over a long.
It's a long weekend like, yeah, we're doing only one or two laps, but it's a long weekend still.
Yeah, absolutely.
In terms of getting that power reliably out of the 4.1
VR 38, I mean obviously at 4.1
liters is incorporating a stroker kit.
What else is needed inside that engine to make that sort of power reliably?
It's pretty.
Actually the motor's pretty basic, in all honesty, in the scheme of what's available now.
Like the motor was built six years ago now.
So yeah, so the bottom end is pretty much other than crank rods, pistons, like it's got CNC heads on it, but the actual bottom end there's no billet mains.
There's nothing special at the moment.
Hencewise it is a little bit dialed down, so we want to keep it reliable.
Obviously we see these engines and roll, race and drag applications making two and a half thousand horsepower, plus with billet blocks, but you're not there.
Turbo sizing can you talk about what's fitted to it?
Yeah, so there's just a GT 1000 kit from HKS.
It's literally a factory streetcar bolt on kit and we went that route for because it's a very tight engine bay.
It's really compact kit.
In terms of the difference in weight and weight balance front to rear versus the SR20,?
I would imagine you're taking a bit of a hit there with the VR 38?
.
Yeah, like the balance.
We lost about 4% on the nose, but what we make up in torque, that does the weight balance issue.
Yeah, another big change is the electronics package.
Back in the MCA Hammerhead days it was running the Autronic ECU.
You've switched to the MoTeC platform.
Can you talk us through why you've gone that route?
We as a GT Auto, we run predominantly on MoTeC systems and we've got the GPRO in this one Again with monster amount of torque, like from 3000, it's a master, in all honesty, to control the amount of torque for Tim to drive it to his 100%.
Can you give us a high level overview of what that GPRO package allows in terms of torque management?
It allows basically everything like you can from, like your second gear, low stuff.
You can give it 500 newton meters at like two grand, or you can up it to a thousand newton meters, like wherever you need it.
It also incorporates you know, there's a tie friction modeling within that as well.
There's a heap of like, I guess, drive rates and car rates to really support everything.
And we've got a couple of videos on that GPRO and the torque based model and the traction model.
So if people want to dive into a bit more, we'll link to those as well.
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Other changes to the car.
The ERO package looks a little bit different, particularly in the front end.
Talk us through that.
It basically, to be brutally honest, it was to rebrand the car, like if we left what was on it, everyone would just you know, it's the same, it's the same.
So we had to reinvent the car, basically, and Andrew Brilliant, which I've worked with since when I was tuning an Emo back way back when it all broke the rules so, yeah, been working with Andrew since then we got him on board and to redesign the front end.
I mean the obvious one.
There is the infinity wing, so the front end is a lot narrower than the hammerhead.
Obviously it was named the hammerhead for a reason, I guess.
The other element that comes in here you've got a car that's gone through a couple of changes of ownership.
It was very, very well known and really successful as the MCA hammerhead.
Does that then create a bit of pressure on the team to sort of at least match or exceed its previous performance?
Yeah, 100%.
Well, I guess when we first took ownership in January this year, we as a crew briefing we wanted to beat the original lap record of the car and yesterday we went half a second faster.
So we're stoked yeah 100% stoked.
What is that lap time that you're done to?
At the moment, 120.45
.
This is a 19 in it today, maybe.
The way the conditions are today, we're pretty, pretty happy.
We're thinking we're close.
In terms of that, we're here.
It's early morning on the Saturday, which is the big day at world time attack.
It's pretty cool this morning.
Obviously, as the day goes on, the temperature increases.
From a running perspective, what's the ideal conditions?
Do you want that cooler temperature for the engine?
How does it affect the grip as the track heats up With the temperatures.
Obviously we've got a full brand new PWR cooling package in it.
The temps in the car don't really fluctuate during the day.
Yeah, there's a five six degree change depending on midday temps.
But again, yeah, grip levels obviously will suffer, especially towards the end of the lap, but so far, again, we haven't really found the limit of that yet.
New build, so first year out and yeah, I suppose that is actually something that's probably worth mentioning here is that the car hasn't had a lot of testing up to this point, so sort of world time attack has almost become a shakedown.
Yeah, well, we've literally done.
What are we now 40 laps up in Queensland Like we have done some testing, but not here.
Like you know, sydney Motorsport parks are different animal.
You know, queensland Raceway is pretty basic, so, yeah, so this is literally its first major shakedown.
One big change to the rules for this year, in 2023, is the move away from the dot control tyre to a full slick.
What's the learning curve been like with that?
I mean, I know, talking to drivers and teams, in the past, the dot control tyre was really good for three quarters of a lap and then it was sort of overheating and really start to go away dramatically.
It was only good for that one lap at best On a full slick.
Obviously you've got the ability to do more laps back to back.
So is there a process more about getting the tyre up to optimal operating temperature?
So previously, as I understand it I mean, I haven't driven here on those tyres, but the driver would have to sort of creep around the out lap, basically not putting too much energy into the tyre so it didn't overheat, and then sort of coming out of the last turn onto the front straight.
It was like all on and then you know, try and nurse it through a full lap.
So with a slick, is there a different process to that?
Well, yeah, we run tyre ones, so okay, so it's always up to temperature as you're rolling up that lane, correct, yeah?
so then the drive only has to worry about your brake temps and yeah, yeah, still getting obviously temps into your rims et cetera.
But yeah, like tyre warmers obviously help a lot.
Alright, look.
Thanks for the insight into the car, david.
It is a crowd favourite, it's one of our favourites, and we hope you can go a little bit faster at sub 120 today.
Best of luck, thank you very much.
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