Mitch McKee: Why Tuning is Changing and McLarens Hurt Themselves

The Smoking Tire

Zack Klapman, Matt Farah

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4.8 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2023

⏱️ 104 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When it comes to engine tuning, Mitch McKee knows it. He spent years working for Vivid racing and COBB before opening his own company, M Engineering. They write software (and some hardware) upgrades for high-dollar exotics like McLaren, Porsche, and Lamborghini. As you'll learn from the show, they don't do simple reflash or throttle maps, either. They're so good, in fact, that OEMs hire them to prevent cheating in racing team ECUs. We talk about Mitch's unorthodox start; why his approach is different; the challenge that is tuning a modern ECU; OEM security; why McLarens explode; why he doesn't tune Ferraris; Pikes Peak; and more. From his page: Mitch is an engine and transmission calibrator with over 15 years of hands on experience. Mitch has contributed calibrations to multiple high caliber, championship winning teams over a wide variety of racing disciplines, including road racing, drag racing, hill climbs, rally racing, and drifting. As a reverse engineer, Mitch was the lead on a project that was responsible for bringing Porsche aftermarket engine and transmission tuning to the mass market. Mitch has also consulted with multiple OEM part manufacturers for various products. https://www.m-engineering.us/pages/about-us https://www.dynospectrum.com/ Recorded January 4, 2023 Go to https://www.vuori.com/tst and discover the versatility of Vuori Clothing. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any U.S. orders over $75 and free returns. Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TST10 for a 10% discount on your first case on the Off The Record app, or go to http://www.offtherecord.com/TST. Want your question answered? To listen to the episode the day it's recorded? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Tweet at us! https://www.Twitter.com/thesmokingtire https://www.Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman Click here for the most honest car reviews out there: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're known for McLaren's. It's what I see a lot of I mean you you obviously do Porsche and other stuff and but
0:08.2	What is it about
0:10.6	McLaren specifically that either
0:13.6	Leaves so much on the table to allow someone like yourself to play or what what lends itself so well to tuning with those cars they just
0:24.6	McLaren's kind of a funny platform because
0:26.9	They're not they're really fast. They can be I mean they're fast stock. They're really fast tuned
0:34.4	You know then you put parts on them and do everything else and
0:38.1	They're great, but they have so many caveats and little things
0:44.4	A big thing that we did with McLaren is that
0:48.5	My business partner Jason added a bunch of safeties to them where the factory issue didn't have things for
0:54.7	Like if it was detonating or if you know it went lean or whatever those cars just
1:01.7	They break in so many weird ways and so you know a big part of what we do is we've
1:07.9	Created this use system to make them faster, but also to make them safer
1:12.1	What's up everybody welcome to the smoking tire podcast today's episode is brought to you in part by Viori
1:18.6	I love Viori they make V
1:22.2	Best active where the performance apparel is perfect if you're sick and tired of traditional old workout gear
1:30.8	Everything is designed to work out in but it doesn't look or feel like it. It's so comfortable
1:35.6	You want to wear it all the time in fact I do seriously
1:39.4	It's more comfortable than whatever you're wearing right now like you may have noticed with me
1:44.4	In our in my videos that I went from wearing like lots of like logo tees and stuff and like swag merch that people
1:51.6	Gave me for going to their car events and whatnot and now I only wear these like solid color gray black and blue t-shirts
1:59.1	Those are all Viori like I've literally thrown out
	...

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