Making the Right Connections in Motorsport – Size and Weight Saving is Really Key

Image

For more than 50 years, we’ve been providing high performance connector solutions to every market sector where the application or the environment places huge demands on the integrity of the connection.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in motorsport, an industry sector renowned for its rapid pace of development and for the demands it places on its supply chain.

Recognising the “special” needs of motorsport in all its forms, our motorsport division is able to respond literally by return to requests for product no matter how small the quantity or how “unusual” the specification. Our motorsport division Lane Motorsport has at its disposal an almost limitless stock of the multitude of parts needed to build the connector as well as the facilities to assemble the finished product on demand.

We presently base our product offering around four manufacturers – Souriau and Nicomatic for the connectors, Weald Electronics for accessories like caps, gaskets and nutplates and HellermannTyton for the all-important heat shrink moulded shapes and tubing.

So What’s So Special About Motorsport?

Image

Connectors for motorsport, like those used in the mil/aero industry, need to operate across a huge range of environments – some at the same time! Extremes of temperature, vibration and loads of nasty liquids come together to provide the ultimate integrity test for a connector.

We know that these environmental demands are just one area that makes the motorsport sector a unique challenge for electronic connector manufacturers. Those designing the latest motorsport platforms keep requesting ever more complex cable assemblies and harnesses that not only have smaller and lighter connectors but also have more contacts, a higher current capability and much faster signal and data speeds to cope with the developments in comms and hybrid power.

8STA Connectors

We are a leading assembling, value add distributor for Souriau, a leader in the manufacture of interconnection products used throughout the motorsport sector. Souriau’s 8STA circular connectors find wide application connecting engine control units, communications equipment, data acquisition systems, fuel pumps, starters, alternators and batteries throughout all levels of motorsport.

Small is Really Small

The ultra-miniature size 01 Souriau 8STA circular connector offers a 20% saving in size and weight over the popular size 02 connector. Yet, it features all the size 02 performance advantages like anti-vibration and a high resistance to nasty motorsport fluids. 
 
In this tiny connector space, we have HellermannTyton’s size 01 heat shrink boots on an exclusive basis and Weald’s aluminium protective caps, which are ultra-lightweight, feature an anti-vibration locking design and the size 01 caps are about 50% lighter than size 02.

We also offer Nicomatic’s popular 2mm pitch CMM series rectangular connectors and have just added the even smaller and lighter 1.27mm pitch EMM series which offers as much as 20% space saving when compared to standard MicroD connector systems. This high performance connector system meets MIL 83513 and will find wide application where size and weight are a premium throughout the complete vehicle electronics systems.

Image

Along with these connectors, our fellow Lodge Group company Weald Electronics produces a range of ultra-lightweight 8STA compatible accessories like protective caps, nut plates and gaskets, and all the assembly tools required. 

As well as a catalogue of standard connectors and accessories, Weald provides a custom connector modification service that takes a standard product and alters its size and weight as required. Good examples include the increasingly popular single flange receptacle which has a single hole fixing making box mounting simple or Weald’s tiny nut plate designed to make installation easier. These are made by Weald in the UK and equal the high quality standards of Souriau’s connector systems. 

We know that most connectors need a boot so we supply the best. These are HellermannTyton’s heat shrink moulded boots made specifically for motorsport. We stock standard boots, glue lined boots, high temperature boots for fuel tank applications, both straight and right-angled variants and the very popular VG9500 twin pack epoxy used to glue standard boots - mostly for next day delivery. We are also the only distributor in the motorsport sector to stock the very small boot used on the tiny size 01 8STA Souriau connector.

Alongside these we also stock the comprehensive range of HellermannTyton heat shrink moulded shapes and transitions as well as their heat shrink tubing in the same high temperature and fuel-resistant materials for complete harness protection.

This comprehensive motorsport interconnection package is available to specify and purchase online.