Well as many of you know, we tested our 1960 Corvette project this past Thursday. While I don't have the exact numbers yet for the skidpad (our time was off the chart
) and I'm not sure just how much I can share W/O Primedia staffers hunting me down, so I'll speak in realitively general terms.
In 4 days Art and I drove 2500+ miles and were out at the track for 12 hours. Combine that with the fact that we didn't sleep all that well the two nights leading up to the test (nerves and wondering if the trailer would be there in the morning), it made for a very long week.
While the focus of the project was the "3G's", the two that we were really focused on was the skid pad and the braking test. The slalom, while outside of this was also important since all are true measures of what we do and what is available to you guys. The last g (acceleration) was going to be tough one.
The slalom was the first test of the day; 420' course with 70' cone spacing. What I can say is that we beat the current record by 2-tenths of a second! It was really cool to watch the car go through the cones, very little body roll the car just zipps around the cones, it was very trick to watch.
The skid-pad was where the excitement happened. When you go over 1g on the 'pad, oil builds up in the valve covers a whole lot faster than it can drain away. Lots of hot oil on even hotter headers can cause problems. But Steve was able to get some shots of the car pulling a 1+g corner on fire. While flames were visible, we were able to get the fire out w/o it damaging paint, the fiberglass (that would have been a HUGE fire) or burning any wires in the engine compartment. While there was drama, the car pulled 1+g in both directions, and possibly averaged better than 1.1, but still waiting for the final results to come in.
The braking test went great, we just had to build some heat into the front rotors to maximize effort. The car stopped sub 120' and turned the 14" front rotors a lovely shade of purple-blue. Very cool looking, but like Steve said from a magazine perspective it was boring - the car didn't dart around, the brakes didn't lock up, the car didn't dive - it just came to a stop very quickly. Wilwood brakes rule.
The drag test and 0-60 was the trick. 3100lb car (w/ driver), 538hp and a short sidewall on a less than perfect track was a challenge. Art was the driver and gave it every thing the car had. Hooking off the start was next to impossible, but the car was running 120 in the 1/4 which suggests an 11second time if you can launch it hard 0-60 was under 4.5 which is pretty darn good and 1/4 times were in the low 12's. We did blow the r/e housing out of the car, which sucks, but after such a successful day it didn't really bum us out.
So to sum things up:
We blew the slalom record out of the water
We did over 1g on the skid and are close to being on the top of that record
We did great on the braking course and in the realm of current day sports cars.
We did pretty good on the drag strip, more sidewall would have helped us out.
If we had to do it over again.....
My trick brake ducts for the front brakes work a little too good. Out on the highway or on a roadcourse they will work awesome, but for this test they were cooling the front rotors off a little too quickly.
Since our CF valve covers didn't have baffles in them oil could pass through the breathers too easily. A breather system like what SteveO has or one going to a can would prevent this from happening. The only time you would see this though is on the skid-pad as it is a constant load for realitively long periods of time.
The R/E issue stems from 500+ ft lbs, VHT and dry hopping the car numerous times. We have already come up with a solution to improve our product that we have available.
While we had awesome tires on the car - Michelin Pilot Sport Cups - they have a very high opperating temp (160-220 degrees) even when the asphalt was 105 the hottest we could get the tires to was about 110-125. The true potential of the tires was never seen however.
Performance testing a car like this is very tough, and it definitely isn't for the faint of heart. You are actively asking for somebody to abuse your car as hard as they can for an entire day. Our formerly pristene car is no longer. Parts of the powder-coated chassis look like they have been sand-blasted, there are rock chips and the wheels are pitted from all the gravel the tires picked up and flung around. When we take it back to Columbus, it definitely won't have that "fresh from the trailer" look anymore, which is cool. I was very proud of my Dad though, he handed the keys to Jason (Primedia test driver) and said "Go out there and drive it like you just stole the thing".
I have some killer in-car camera shots of the car going through the slalom course, Sony shot some film for GranTurismo and our ad agency shot lots of footage too. As soon as we can we'll post some clips up on our web site.
It was great getting a chance to say hi to M66 and rockdogz as well as Mark and Steve as well as all the guys from CAR, TCI and the Primedia guys. It was a great day and good to see so many from the boards out there!
So there you have it; the good, the bad and the ugly of performance testing.
And if we had the opportunity, we would do it again in a heart-beat!
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
3G Vette Testing
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