The Iding Power V12...

[Peloton25]

Okay - this little item needs its own thread here.

Those who've been here a while may recall a brief mention of an engine photo and comment from someone's trip to Iding Power in January 2005 that was posted on another forum. It was included here in our Japanese Fleet thread in 2007, but it's kind of lost in there and if this is truly F1-related then it is quite a unique story.

BimmerForums thread: Trip to Iding Power (pics) - requires registration to see his pics

I will host the relevant ones here, but there are other F1 pics attached to his thread if you didn't see them the first time through.

His first mention of the engine is this comment, and what is thought provoking here is the picture he chose to attach to that post was this rear shot of the #029/#039 F1 that you see here:

I have pictures of a "Fully" custom built motor that Mr. Ide has spent building his whole carrier. I will just say that it is going into one of the cars that I have posted a picture of.

Sort of like - "hint-hint" - in my book.

He follows that post up with this one and attaches an image of it:

Picture of the Motor.



This engine is completely designed and built by Mr. Ide and the Iding Power staff. Not one single piece of this motor is takin from any other car on the planet. He would not tell me all of the specs on the motor but he did tell me the numbers.

V-12
Max RPM- 13,000
Max Power NA- 760 Ps/ Turbocharged- around 1,500 Ps
Total build cost- 18 Million dollars!

Now I don't know if that price is accurate - seems outrageous if true. Perhaps the $18M isn't the price of the engine, but rather the cost to develop it with all the hours of testing and custom fabrication that surely went into it.

And if there is truly any car in the world that might justify (but not necessarily need) an incredibly expensive custom built engine as a replacement, I can't think of anything else but the McLaren F1. Certainly the implication is there, and the engine appears to me that it would be a direct replacement for the S70/2 fitted to an F1.

Someone asks about the price and he reconfirms it:

Yeah, I asked again when he said 18 million and he said dollars not Yen.

When I posted this before in the Japanese fleet thread I didn't make a huge deal out of it or spell anything out like this because I just wanted to see what other's reaction might be, on their own. Therefore, I quite enjoyed Chris's reply there:

Originally Posted by mini magic

You don't think....


Do you?

Because 'YES', I absolutely did think then and continue to think now that this engine was destined for an F1.

After that, you can see the Fleet thread discussion shifts back to the chassis number after Le Man translated the color name from the ArtSports ad. Then Greg posts a few more photos from ArtSports showing an unmolested engine compartment in the funky brown F1 and that's the end of it.

Fast forward to tonight:
A new friend sent over that FANTASTIC black&white photo of GTR #01R in the pits at LeMans hosted in the GTR Articles thread, and it was linked from the Iding Power website of all places. I hadn't been there in quite some time myself because it was always "Under Construction" so I was surprised to see that was the source of new content.

Well indeed the website is finally done, and there's a little more reference to this engine again, including some new photos of it running on a dyno on their History page.

1993 makes the first mention of the engine in translated text:

[*] Developing original V12 engine (AMD648)

1994 makes no mention of the engine, but...

[*] McLaren F1 Test Drive Committee held a press conference and certification center as well as contract McLaren F1 Le Mans 24 hour endurance race run plan presentation

These shots are with that comment - I see chassis #003 still on UK plates with Creighton Brown behind the wheel in #2 - quite a special photo to me.



1995 makes a comment about the LeMans victory and is where the #01R shot was.

1996 is where it gets interesting again:

[*] New development: AMD648-V12-cylinder / 6.0L engine complete with starting actual capacity call (800 horsepower performance.)
(bit of Engrish there after translating it )

And as said, these great photos are included:





So - again all speculation on my part that it had anything to do with the McLaren F1...

Until, using the name "AMD648" via Google, I found this:

http://www.ishikawa-eng.com/648Pinf.html

Scroll down past the first pair of drawings and look at section 3 - note the engine being compared here at the far end of that table of info.

Then scroll up slightly and click on the second drawing of the 'AMD648B'.

More coincidence? Perhaps, but at some point this stuff starts to add up to something more than just a coincidence, right? Above that, it seems there is an "A" version that could be fitted to a different car, but lets focus on the one that looks like it matches the F1s engine here.

Towards the bottom of the page is yet another image of the Iding Power engine, date stamped 4-23-97. Looking at it, the lower mounting frame looks like it could be mounted into an F1 with a little bit of fuss over accessory placement, but I just think it is uncanny the resemblance to the S70/2 there.



Here are some reference photos I had handy for the S70/2 V12 from BMW - note the strong similarities here - especially in the disassembled "Components" photo of the piece for the lower front of the engine where the mounts would be - they are basically identical in shape and size barring the cutout on the left for one of the BMW engine's accessories.



So going back to Chris' comment - "You don't think... Do you?"

YES again; even more so than before. I really do think it indeed.

Now I have had no luck in the past when contacting Iding Power about their F1 history. In addition to the 'brown' one, they have also used another uniquely painted F1 in their product literature before - chassis #016. Now that their new website is launched I will make another attempt and hopefully get a response this time.

A little side note - the topic of modifying a McLaren came up in the FerrariChat thread just the other day, and while I had this little story in the back of my mind from way back when, since we never really learned anything more I chose not to mention was still seemed like it could have been just a coincidence. Might have to go post an update now.

>8^)
ER

[Peloton25]

Okay - I should have waited to enter my post, because now I found three more real photos on another webpage from Ishikawa-Eng:



http://www.ishikawa-eng.com/648engine.html

There are more drawings there too - again, look for the ones of the 648B.

>8^)
ER

[hurstg01]

Perhaps this is the one AT was talking about.........still doesn't look right though; perhaps we are so used to seeing the 'standard' F1 engine.....

[mini magic]

Awesome info Erik. I wish i had more to add

[F1GTRUeno]

I think this is horrible to be honest.

Can't he put it in an NSX or something?

[mini magic]

:facepalm

[F1GTRUeno]

You honestly don't mind someone yanking out the original engine?

What if it was an LSx GM V8?

[Peloton25]

Originally Posted by F1GTRUeno

What if it was an LSx GM V8?

...but its not. This engine, if the real specs live up to the hype, sounds pretty impressive. If you aren't generally familiar with Iding Power, they have never done anything second rate.

Usually when you think of modifying a supercar, you think of adding some form of forced induction - Diablo VTTT, Koenig F50, etc - not building an entirely new engine that seems to be one or two levels better than what it originally came with.

The great thing too, is that then you could put BMWs S70/2 V12 on display in your house.



Just stumbled on this neat piece of trivia:

"The Iding name comes from combining the first two letters of the founder/owner, Mr. Ide's name with "I" for Italy, "N" for Nippon (Japan) and "G" for Germany. Hense, the name "Iding"."

>8^)
ER

[cche2052]

Very interesting.

Although, I gotta say, if I had to choose an element of the F1 worthy of an 18million dollar investment, I'd put on better brakes. The BMW v12 was never a weakness.

[Peloton25]

I would agree with you there.

I was just mentioning to someone the other day that I am surprised McLaren did not do something about the brakes on the F1 when they upgraded just about everything else on chassis' #018 and #073. Just think of the number of other customer cars they could sell that upgrade to once they were finished developing it.

My guess in response to my own question is that any kind of carbon composite upgrade would require some sort of servo assist, and that dimishes the F1s pure and direct nature that Murray wanted on all of it's driver controls.

>8^)
ER

[cche2052]

What did they upgrade on #18 and #73? I've only ever read about an improved aircon unit and bigger fans (or something like that)

[Peloton25]

Those were the two road cars fitted with the Extra High Downforce Kit and the LM-spec engine. They both got new interiors, done to GT-spec. There are a lot of other little tweaks to that pair as well, and #073 even got a unique set of wheels.

>8^)
ER

[crimson_yachiru]

IIRC, Flemke still might be looking into carbon brakes, and he definitely wants to keep away from servo-assists. I imagine that the technology has matured enough over the 18 years since the intro of the McLaren for there to be some combination of pads and rotors that don't need servo power.

Heck, if my friend can find 300 dollar carbon disks for an rx-8, then i'm sure some type of carbon brakes are possible for the Mclaren.

[mini magic]

A little small intersting point that i don't think Erik covered that also (IMO) lends to the idea that this is going in a Mac is the color of the valve cover..... it seems to be fairly close to the color of the McLaren

[mini magic]

Little correction Erik if you don't mind. My friend just informed me that 760ps = ~749hp, not 800