Few projects have
grasped our attention as hard as Lanzante’s Porsche 930 TAG Turbo, which will
feature an actual turbocharged engine from an 1980s F1 car. Despite the global
attention, Lanzante has kept most the details away from the public but
Pistonheads had the chance to visit their workshop and find out more about this
very exciting project.
The inspiration
behind Lanzante’s latest creation was of course the original Porsche 930 TAG
Turbo, a prototype created by McLaren to reportedly test the 1.5-liter
TAG-Porsche Turbo V6 engine that powered its F1 cars in the mid-80s.
Thanks to
Lanzante’s strong ties with McLaren, the British specialist was able to secure
11 of these engines to pay tribute to the original car. Each of the 11 provided
engines have actually competed in F1 races, with nine of them being podium
finishers and one winning the 1984 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch with Niki
Lauda behind the wheel. If that’s not special, we don’t know what is.
Dropping a race
engine into a road car is of course a challenge, with Lanzante partnering with
Cosworth to redevelop the TAG-Porsche V6 unit. The goal was to make the
highly-strung engine more usable on the road and of course more reliable, even
if that means less power than the 1,000hp+ they used to make in qualifying
spec.
The reworked
engines will deliver 503 hp and 420 Nm of torque but will
still rev up to 9,000 rpm, making them the highest revving turbocharged
powertrains used in a road-legal car. Cosworth’s work includes smaller turbos,
a new crankcase and the necessary adjustment to the fuel-air mixture. Boost
pressure has been decreased by 25 percent, to 3 bar. Porsche’s G50/20
six-speed manual transmission will join the F1 engine, complete with bespoke
ratios and a limited-slip differential.
One of the
Lanzante’s biggest challenges was to design an all-new water cooling system for
the 930, a car with no existing plumbing. The radiator is mounted at the front
while the fog-light mountings on the bumper are now air-intakes for the oil
coolers. The chassis features coilover suspension and rides on the original
17-inch wheels, which are wrapped with modern Pirelli P-Zeros -225s at the
front and 255s at the rear.
Lanzante estimates
that the 930 TAG Turbo will weight around 1,100 kg, which is about
235 kg lighter than an original 930 Turbo. The engine is already 100 kg
lighter than the air-cooled 3.3-liter Turbo but Lanzante also added a carbon
bonnet and engine cover, as well as aluminum door skins. Power to weight ratio
is set at 457hp per tonne. The price of each of the 11 F1-powered 930 TAG Turbo
cars is set at US$ 1.45 million before taxes (£ 1,095,000) and potential customers
will be handpicked by Lanzante.
