Delcam customer Zytek wins at Le Mans

Delcam customer Zytek took an emphatic LMP2 class victory at this year’s Le Mans 24-hours race. The Zytek-Nissan Z11SN entered by the Greaves Motorsport team of Karim Ojjeh, Tom Kimber-Smith and Le Mans newcomer Olivier Lombard won the category by a massive six lap margin. It was first time one of the Repton-based manufacturer’s racecars had been victorious in the world-famous race, although its V8 engine powered the LMP2 victor at Le Mans in 2007.

To underline Zytek Engineering’s success, the Greaves Z11SN was powered by one of the Nissan VK45DE engines developed and serviced by Zytek Engineering. These engines were introduced following this year’s change to production-based units for the LMP2 class.

The Greaves team, which led the class from the 11th hour, was one of the three cars with Nissan/Zytek engines that dominated LMP2 for much of the race. Following Zytek’s own chassis in second place was the Signatech Oreca-Nissan of Soheil Ayari, Franck Mailleux and Lucas Ordonez. The Greaves Motorsport entry finished in eighth place overall, beaten only by the larger cars of the LMP1 class.

Zytek has been a Delcam customer since 2004, when the company first started using the PowerMILL CAM system to program its range of Mori-Seiki machine tools. Since then, the two companies have worked together to develop novel machining strategies for motorsport components. The main focus for the partnership has been on more efficient five-axis machining of inlet and exhaust ports. The results have included reductions in machining times of up to 60%, together with better quality and consistency.