One Of The Greatest Cars Of All Time Got Its Engine From This Often Overlooked BMW Platform – SlashGear

Concurrent with the BMW Motorsports team of engineers working their magic to create the S70 engine, English automaker McLaren was developing its F1: a street legal supercar from a company which had previously only built full-blown race cars. 

Since McLaren didn’t have deep enough pockets to develop its own engine for the F1, it needed to pair up with an OEM for the powerplant. Initially declined by Honda — an avid player in Formula 1 racing — McLaren then approached BMW, where it was able to strike a deal for the desired V12.

Like BMW’s mass-produced 5.0 liter V12, the McLaren engine was all-aluminum with a 60-degree angle between the cylinder banks, but the displacement grew to 6.1 liters. Besides being larger, the bespoke McLaren V12 — officially known as the S70/2 — also featured a dry sump oiling system, coil-on-plug ignition (common now, but a big deal at the time), and dual overhead cams in each cylinder head — as opposed to just one in BMW’s S70. 

No discussion of this motor would be complete without referencing its mailbox-size carbon-fiber intake manifold, which covers twelve individual butterfly throttle valves and 24 fuel injectors — two for each cylinder. The final product cranked out 618 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque, reportedly exceeding McLaren’s expectations for the venture.