Bill Lehman

One of the articles in the new Christophorus magazine discussed how the 917/30 finally whipped the McLaren M20 in the CanAm series. They did. I was Business Manager for McLaren Engines in 1972-1973. The McLaren engine was basically a hot rodded 427 Corvette Reynolds block motor bored and stroked to 509 c.i. It ran a Moldex crank, Carillo rods, Lucas mechanical fuel injection and a Vertex magneto. It had a dry sump system developed by McLaren with a little help from Chevrolet and made about 750 hp. We did build one motor which was bored for more displacement and used for qualy at Riverside. It was never raced and ended up in a Goodyear tire engineers pickup truck. Near the end of the 1973, financed by Chevrolet, we built a 430 c.i. Reynolds block motor using two turbos from our Offy Indy car motors. Gary Knutson, Chief Engineer, came up with using a series of 2 cycle reed valves on the intake manifold to try to minimize turbo lag. We got 1200 HP and dropped it into the existing M20 chassis and tested it at Road Atlanta where it promptly blistered the Goodyear tires of the day. McLaren never raced the car and I believe it was sold to a privateer and might have been driven at Mid-Ohio.

Mahler9th

I hope that that was the issue that PMNA/PAG was giving out at RR VI. As you likely know, there were at least 2 917/30 cars at RR VI, and one or more 917/10 cars. Several of those cars are have recently been at Canepa. At RR VI several of the 935, 917/10 and 917/30 cars were running 17 inch wide rear slicks (Hoosiers if I recall correctly). Last 19 inch Goodyears I saw were some NOS stones that JWE put on one of Mat Drendel's 935s for display/roll around purposes only. Lots 'o tire...

Nizer

Cool history. Thanks for sharing.

dgrobs

Nice read Bill. Thanks.

stownsen914

I ran across a couple cool documentary videos last year on youtube about the 1972 and 1973 Penske CanAm efforts. Nicely done, and cool inside look at the cars and their championship efforts.

1972 video =>
1973 video =>

enduro911

Really cool story Bill. How much boost were you guys running in order to get that kind of juice out of the engine? My other question is whether you had an intercooler. I don't think Porsche came out w/ an intercooler on the 17/30 until they ran it at Talladega. Thanks for sharing!

stownsen914

Pretty cool, by the way Bill, that you worked at McLaren. Their cars were awesome, and those were the days ...

Veloce Raptor

Wow Bill, thanks for sharing that! In 2002, I had the wonderful opportunity to drive an early McLaren CanAm car at speed at Roebling Road. It was an early small block car and yet was still intoxicatingly fast and loud

Bill Lehman

I don't know the boost but do know that there was no intercooler. Off topic but I spent the day instructing a McLaren event at NJMP today.