Suction Downforce!

[coolieman1220]

Just came across this on e-bay, thought it was cool. A corvette by Jay Leno that has an M1 Abrams cooling fan that pushes 10,000 CFM to suck it to the ground giving it 1.3g's on the skidpad! insane!

eBay Motors: Chevrolet : Corvette (item 330289643928 end time Dec-11-08 19:00:00 PST)

[Bob]

Very cool car. But there's one thing I don't understand- the engine. It's the 5.7 liter L98, an engine I'm very familiar with (same one is in my car but with slightly smaller displacement) and it's extremely limited by the intake. Swapping the TPI for a more reasonable system is simple and fairly cheap. This, combined with a cam swap and heads, would easily allow 350+ bhp. Yet with all the work that must have been put into this car, and with twin Garret turbos, they neglected to make the kind of power that the engine is very easily capable of. It doesn't make much sense.

[Bob]

Further thought... perhaps the massive fan requires a lot of power... in this case, you would need to have that power at ALL engine speeds... a very broad and flat power curve. In this case the TPI would be ideal, so maybe that's why they kept it and went for a very broad curve instead of a peaky one.

[cmcpokey]

there's a snowmobile engine powering the fan... check out the pics and you can see it.

[Bob]

I knew that was the case with the original 2J but the pics didn't work for me on this car.
original post stands then... i don't know why they didn't upgrade the engine more

[cmcpokey]

agree with that... but the L98 is such a crap engine anyway. LT5 is where its at.

[Bob]

basically the same besides the intake...

[cmcpokey]

and the 4OHC instead of pushrods....

[Bob]

My bad... should have referred to Wikipedia. I assumed the LT5 was similar to the LT1, didn't realize they're entirely unrelated. But using the LT5 is also an odd choice. If one were going to move to a completely new engine, why use something uncommon and 16 years out of date when there are more modern engines available that perform just as well?

[whiteballz]

Impressive lateral G's thats for sure.

I had to laugh when they described it as a beautiful car though.

It's fu(king ugly.

[cmcpokey]

i agree, but the LT5 is just such a cool engine. of course to get it you would need a ZR-1.

[coolieman1220]

this thing pulls more g's then a GTR!
isn't it like a big street sweeper?

[Kitdy]

The LT5 was consulted on by Lotus I think I read and it remains the only DOHC 4VPC engine that the Corvette has ever had I suppose - what professionality. Shame the C4 looks like such a dog. I"d love to drive the ZR-1 - I wonder how much they cost?

[cmcpokey]

The LT5 was consulted on by Lotus I think I read and it remains the only DOHC 4VPC engine that the Corvette has ever had I suppose - what professionality. Shame the C4 looks like such a dog. I"d love to drive the ZR-1 - I wonder how much they cost?

i think its dohc for each bank, so 4ohc. lotus designed it and it was built by mercury marine (the same guys that build the 502), since GM automotive didnt have the resources to build it.

ive always thought the later C4s looked good. the interior was really bad though. on all of them. zr-1s are still pretty expensive when compared to period C4s. and good ones dont come to market that often.

[Kitdy]

Yeah though, a DOHC means cams per bank I thought - for example, our TL is SOHC yet has a camshaft per bank. You could the ZR-1's layout quadcam though too I suppose.

Hmm, there is one on ebay for a buy it know of 47k. Not so bad really - UCP says there were 7000 odd built so they aren't super rare like L88s or other Corvettes of that ilk.

Does anyone know the planned production for the ZR1?