2013 SRT Viper GTS: In-Depth with the Men Who Made It Happen
Fang Time: Following a two-year absence, the Viper returns with a 640-hp set of lungs. We visit the plant and talk to the men who made it happen.
May 2012
BY JOHN PHILLIPS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROY RITCHIE
Russ Ruedisueli, 53, is sitting in his office at Chrysler’s Technology Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, although he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t sit so much as crouch, muscles tensed and twitching, as if he’s attached to a pair of unseen jumper cables beneath his desk. You’d figure the guy was in pain except for his perpetual smile.
“I remember when the original Viper got rolling [in 1989], and Bob Lutz [Chrysler president at that time] called a bunch of car-guy employees into the styling dome,” *Ruedisueli reminisces. “He rolled the car in, started it up, and said to us, ‘So, who’s interested in being on this program?’ I was so geeked, I about fainted. But at the time, I was working on a different Chrysler program, and they wouldn’t let me go. It felt like a huge lost opportunity. To be in this position today, 20-some years later, having this second chance, well . . .”
Ruedisueli’s voice trails off and is replaced by a smile so big that his ears move. He involuntarily hoists his butt another few inches off his chair, and now his head hovers just below a shattered yellow nose cone from his Formula Ford, currently serving as office sculpture. “That’s a casualty of a Turn Eight brake check at Road America,” he explains.
In 2009, the SRT guys began sketching the Viper before the program was approved—a practice usually forbidden. In the end, they incorporated the styling themes of three of the six final drawings. Ralph Gilles thinks there’s a bit of Halle Berry’s shape in the car. Is that weird?
Ruedisueli is Chrysler’s head of engineering for SRT and Motorsports, and he’s the vehicle line executive for the fifth-gen Dodge Viper. Except it’s not a Dodge anymore. It’s an SRT, because the Dodge name wasn’t deemed spiffy enough to be slapped on the rump of anything fetching just north of $100,000 (for the base SRT Viper) and $120,000 (for the more upscale SRT Viper GTS, as shown here).
The last of the previous-gen Vipers rolled out of Detroit’s rough-and-tumble Conner Avenue plant in the summer of 2010. As Chrysler madly stuffed corks in all of its financial leaks, the Viper brand was slated to be sloughed off to the highest bidder. To any bidder. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the brand not only survived but was resuscitated. But it took a lot of heart massage.
“I knew that the very last thing Chrysler needed during our bankruptcy was a 600-hp sports car,” says Ralph Gilles, the 42-year-old president and CEO of SRT and senior VP of Chrysler Product Design. “But I’m an optimist. I wanted to fight for a chance. We discussed it for a year. I got Sergio [Marchionne, Chrysler CEO] to drive one of the last Vipers. He jumped in and disappeared to God knows where. He came back 15 minutes later and said, ‘Ralph, that’s a lot of work.’ He meant it was a brutal car. But he didn’t say ‘Good riddance’ or anything. Then in late ’09, I showed him a video of a Viper breaking the Nürburgring record. He watched all of it and was impressed. I gave him a list of the supercars that the Viper had put away. It’s against the rules here, but we started sketching on the project. We never asked for permission, we just did it. Then, in mid-2010, I had a full-size model put together. We took it to the styling dome and had the place dimly lit like a nightclub, and I got the Chrysler management team sitting almost campfire-style. So we unveiled the car—with its 32-coat candy-apple paint—and you could’ve heard a pin drop. When people started talking, Sergio said, ‘Be quiet! Let’s just take this in.’
“Eventually we got tired of [Chrysler] execs telling us what the car should be,” Gilles remembers, “so we staged a research clinic with supercar owners—Audi R8 *owners, Nissan GT-R owners, Porsche and *Ferrari folks. They said, ‘The Viper doesn’t handle, it’s only a straight-line wonder, it’s hot inside, it’s badly made, it doesn’t have cruise control.’ It hurt my feelings, but we vowed that the new car would retain its signature rawness and purity, yet we’d bring it into the 21st century.”
Was an Alfa Romeo 8C platform considered?
Gilles: Yes, but when we got the drawings from Alfa, it was much taller, a bit narrower, the cab was too forward, and our engine would never fit. It would have stuck out of the hood.
Who did the final styling?
Gilles: It came down to six designers who I’d call the finalists. We had six clay models in a room—we called it “Area 51,” a kind of secret place that was off-limits. In the end, we melded the themes of three of the finalists. We wanted this car to look good for 20 years, like the original. You see any of Halle Berry’s shape in it?
Mark Trostle [head of design for SRT, Mopar, and Motorsports]: It’s the proportions that make it iconic—that long, exaggerated nose, then the cab tucked so far rearward. We didn’t need to reinvent it. The reason there was a secret room with two keys is because the program wasn’t approved! You don’t do full-size models unless you have the money.
Gilles: So when Sergio first saw the car, he said, “You son of a bitch. You went and did this car anyway!” But he didn’t look like he was gonna fire me.
Trostle: We really got the body down on the wheels, closed up the wells 10 millimeters. There are a lot of what we call “Easter eggs” on the car—little surprises the owner will discover later, like a subtle snakeskin motif on the rear turn signals and the “V” in the grille. When you see the headlights lit, it’s an evil look, a snake’s eye. I owned a ’96 coupe, and I loved to wash it by hand so I could feel all those muscular shapes. We wanted the new car to deliver that same heroic experience.
The architecture remains familiar?
Ruedisueli: Yes. Wheelbase is unchanged, although the front track is wider, and the car still rides on a steel frame with a lot of work to reduce weight and increase stiffness. A huge number of our customers run these cars on track days, and they bang them up. We stuck with the steel frame because it’s repairable. The cockpit is all-new. Rear suspension geometry is new. Wheels, tires, shocks. The only carry-over piece is the windshield.
Every body panel is fresh, too?
Ruedisueli: Every piece. One goal was to take out some weight. We’ve already got 100 to 140 pounds out. We have aluminum doors and sills now, and the hood, roof, and rear deck are carbon fiber. And we came back to the clamshell hood. We had so much response from customers who wanted to open that thing and clean stuff and show off the engine. Our intent was to improve the fit and finish, too. The old car had so much sheet-molding compound, but it shrinks and grows, making it difficult to get tight gaps and fits. With aluminum and carbon, we’ve really tightened it up.
Tell me about the new paint process.
Ruedisueli: The old car’s panels arrived at the factory painted—kind of mixed and matched—and if you wanted the car striped, it went to another place, and they put the stripes on top of the paint. Now they’ll do the stripes directly on the panels, and they’ll be under the clear coat. We really raised the bar on gloss level. It’s literally a hand paint job—hand-buffed and sanded, a custom job. I don’t think anybody else can make that claim. Maybe Aston.
The interior is all-new?
Klaus Busse [head of interior design, Chrysler Group]: Absolutely everything. This is finally a luxury car inside. Every Viper now has a full leather wrap on all major surfaces, including the dash. It’s one of the finest leathers money can buy—leather that Bentley would gladly take. Wait until you smell it. We stayed away from any metal trim because of the weight. The seats are made by Sabelt in Italy—genuine thin-shell seats rather than frame seats. They have fantastic lateral support and will accept a six-point racing harness available through Mopar. We also have a data-logging system so you can record your acceleration runs, top speed, g-forces. And as the tach approaches redline, a red viper illuminates behind it.
Gilles: When I first showed the car to Sergio, it had seats from a different supplier. When he sat in it, he said, “What the f**k are these Barcaloungers doing in here?” So we went to Sabelt—it does Ferrari’s seats. They’re expensive but worth it. Plus, we got 1.6 inches of height adjustment.
Ruedisueli: We have a lot of customers who are big, so we also got the seat down and back about an inch. That’s important if you’re wearing a helmet. Then we took the center console down an inch. I used to feel like I was sitting with one arm on a high console and my other arm on a tall armrest. Now they’re level. We worked on the shifter—the throws are shorter, lower effort, and we rounded off the detents. Cockpit volumes are a little larger because we moved the bulkhead a bit. Storage is better than ever. The cockpit feels more open. We reduced the heat in the foot boxes, too.
That fire wall is magnesium?
Ruedisueli: A magnesium casting. It’s the biggest automotive piece of magnesium that we know of. It’s light and stiff. On a frame car, the fire wall is key—the pedals and the steering wheel mount to it, so it has to be super-stiff. There’s also a big aluminum X-brace under the hood, which helped get torsional stiffness up by 50 percent. You can feel it on turn-in.
There are two models initially?
Ruedisueli: Yes, the base car and the GTS. The GTS has different wheels and two suspension settings—street and race. And it has a Harman/Kardon stereo, an ultrasuede headliner, red brake calipers, different-color brake ducts, optional interior colors. This is the first time for electronic stability control on Vipers. There are four positions, and you can turn it all the way off. We took a stand on that. The lawyers left us alone. [Note that the “off” position is available on all SRT products.]
Gilles: The stability control on this car will make gods out of the drivers. In fact, it’s so subtle and effective that I don’t want to flash a warning light. Drivers don’t need to know how often it’s working. To turn it off completely, you hold the button for five seconds below 25 mph. We can’t even say that in the owner’s manual. We’ll leave it to you guys to spread the word.
You’ve replaced the Michelins with Pirellis?
Ruedisueli: Yes, P Zero Corsas. Very strong at the track—18 inches in front [by 295/30] and 19 inches at the rear [by 355/30]. Pirelli has really opened the envelope. In Arizona, we drove into the hills and hit snow. The old tires would get hard when they were cold. With the Pirellis, I couldn’t believe the traction still available.
Describe the suspension.
Ruedisueli: All independent, with aluminum control arms. The front geometry is pretty much the same, apart from some steering tuning. A half-inch-wider front track. We’ve got new Bilstein shocks; spring rates are up quite a bit; and, at the back, there are geometry changes. We altered the toe link because we had so much grip that we were getting some compliance-steer. That improved the way the car points, improved its behavior under braking and acceleration. The brakes are the same size, but optional equipment is a cast-iron rotor with an aluminum hub. Matched to lightweight wheels, it takes out about 50 pounds.
You’ve driven the car on tracks?
Ruedisueli: All over the place but mostly in the U.S.—at Texas MotorSport Ranch, which has good elevation changes, at GingerMan, Willow Springs. All SRT products do a 24-hour run at Nelson Ledges. And at Nissan’s course in Arizona. The Nissan track offers two lanes. On one side, there are chatter bumps and potholes, and on the other side, it’s smooth. You can really hammer this car. I’ve been racing formula cars for a long time, and I was amazed how much traction it offers.
Was there a car—perhaps the Corvette—that was a performance target?
Ruedisueli: Well, sure. But remember that the Viper will never be a Corvette. We don’t ever want it to be. Our customers are very anxious about this becoming a Corvette. The Viper is more raucous. Of course, we looked at the ZR1 because it’s so capable. We looked at some Porsche 911s and at the Lexus LFA to make sure we were in the performance ballpark.
What’s new in the engine?
Dick Winkles [chief engineer, Viper Powertrain]: We’ve got an airbox that feeds directly off that big main hood scoop, then it leads to our new composite intake manifold, replacing the aluminum version. The approach angle to the ports is improved, and the runners are longer for high-speed tuning. The plenums have better distribution front to back. It’s very smooth on those inner walls compared with the cast aluminum. We got about 20 more pound-feet and 10 horsepower from the new manifold, and it’s also seven pounds lighter—weight that was previously up high. It doesn’t transfer heat like the aluminum one did. It keeps the charge cooler in stop-and-go driving. The final figures are 640 horsepower at 6150 rpm, with fuel shut-off at 6400 rpm. And 600 pound-feet of torque at 4950 rpm. [An increase of 40 horses and 40 pound-feet.]
You have the same cam-in-cam arrangement with variable valve timing?
Winkles: The same, although we altered the intake profile. It gave us 10 horsepower at the higher end. Mahle makes that cam. I don’t know of any issues in the field with it in the last three years of production. I don’t know anyone else using a cam like that.
Did you consider cylinder deactivation?
Winkles: Not really. On a V-8 with even firing, you can kind of skip a cylinder. But this is more like two five-cylinder engines paired, so what you end up doing is cutting one whole bank. That cools the cats, and when they relight, it’s dirty.
You got weight out of the engine?
Winkles: We got 25 pounds out, in total. The intake was big, but we’re also now using an aluminum flywheel. It’s quickened shift times and is 11 pounds lighter. Then we went to sodium-filled exhaust valves rather than stainless. Those valves are hollow, a tenth of a pound lighter apiece. That’s one pound right there.
You’re back to forged pistons?
Winkles: The cast pistons weren’t quite robust enough if an owner added a supercharger or a turbo, or if he was pumping nitrous. Those pistons weren’t indestruct*ible. Se we heard the owners’ cries, and we’re back to forged Mahles. Now we can protect the tuners from their own mistakes. We’ve also got a lower-tension ring pack with lower friction.
Ruedisueli: With the new flywheel, the motor spins up faster—it was worth a tenth of a second at the drag strip. And the engine is offset toward the passenger to help weight distribution when only the driver is onboard—like on the track. Overall, it’s 49 percent front, 51 percent rear [with the driver in the car]. The base car should come in at 3320 pounds. We’re looking at an optional track pack that will take out another 40 pounds.
[video=youtube;Nrpie6VUx2E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrpie6VUx2E[/video]
Fang Time: Following a two-year absence, the Viper returns with a 640-hp set of lungs. We visit the plant and talk to the men who made it happen.
May 2012
BY JOHN PHILLIPS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROY RITCHIE
Russ Ruedisueli, 53, is sitting in his office at Chrysler’s Technology Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, although he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t sit so much as crouch, muscles tensed and twitching, as if he’s attached to a pair of unseen jumper cables beneath his desk. You’d figure the guy was in pain except for his perpetual smile.
“I remember when the original Viper got rolling [in 1989], and Bob Lutz [Chrysler president at that time] called a bunch of car-guy employees into the styling dome,” *Ruedisueli reminisces. “He rolled the car in, started it up, and said to us, ‘So, who’s interested in being on this program?’ I was so geeked, I about fainted. But at the time, I was working on a different Chrysler program, and they wouldn’t let me go. It felt like a huge lost opportunity. To be in this position today, 20-some years later, having this second chance, well . . .”
Ruedisueli’s voice trails off and is replaced by a smile so big that his ears move. He involuntarily hoists his butt another few inches off his chair, and now his head hovers just below a shattered yellow nose cone from his Formula Ford, currently serving as office sculpture. “That’s a casualty of a Turn Eight brake check at Road America,” he explains.
In 2009, the SRT guys began sketching the Viper before the program was approved—a practice usually forbidden. In the end, they incorporated the styling themes of three of the six final drawings. Ralph Gilles thinks there’s a bit of Halle Berry’s shape in the car. Is that weird?
Ruedisueli is Chrysler’s head of engineering for SRT and Motorsports, and he’s the vehicle line executive for the fifth-gen Dodge Viper. Except it’s not a Dodge anymore. It’s an SRT, because the Dodge name wasn’t deemed spiffy enough to be slapped on the rump of anything fetching just north of $100,000 (for the base SRT Viper) and $120,000 (for the more upscale SRT Viper GTS, as shown here).
The last of the previous-gen Vipers rolled out of Detroit’s rough-and-tumble Conner Avenue plant in the summer of 2010. As Chrysler madly stuffed corks in all of its financial leaks, the Viper brand was slated to be sloughed off to the highest bidder. To any bidder. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the brand not only survived but was resuscitated. But it took a lot of heart massage.
“I knew that the very last thing Chrysler needed during our bankruptcy was a 600-hp sports car,” says Ralph Gilles, the 42-year-old president and CEO of SRT and senior VP of Chrysler Product Design. “But I’m an optimist. I wanted to fight for a chance. We discussed it for a year. I got Sergio [Marchionne, Chrysler CEO] to drive one of the last Vipers. He jumped in and disappeared to God knows where. He came back 15 minutes later and said, ‘Ralph, that’s a lot of work.’ He meant it was a brutal car. But he didn’t say ‘Good riddance’ or anything. Then in late ’09, I showed him a video of a Viper breaking the Nürburgring record. He watched all of it and was impressed. I gave him a list of the supercars that the Viper had put away. It’s against the rules here, but we started sketching on the project. We never asked for permission, we just did it. Then, in mid-2010, I had a full-size model put together. We took it to the styling dome and had the place dimly lit like a nightclub, and I got the Chrysler management team sitting almost campfire-style. So we unveiled the car—with its 32-coat candy-apple paint—and you could’ve heard a pin drop. When people started talking, Sergio said, ‘Be quiet! Let’s just take this in.’
“Eventually we got tired of [Chrysler] execs telling us what the car should be,” Gilles remembers, “so we staged a research clinic with supercar owners—Audi R8 *owners, Nissan GT-R owners, Porsche and *Ferrari folks. They said, ‘The Viper doesn’t handle, it’s only a straight-line wonder, it’s hot inside, it’s badly made, it doesn’t have cruise control.’ It hurt my feelings, but we vowed that the new car would retain its signature rawness and purity, yet we’d bring it into the 21st century.”
Was an Alfa Romeo 8C platform considered?
Gilles: Yes, but when we got the drawings from Alfa, it was much taller, a bit narrower, the cab was too forward, and our engine would never fit. It would have stuck out of the hood.
Who did the final styling?
Gilles: It came down to six designers who I’d call the finalists. We had six clay models in a room—we called it “Area 51,” a kind of secret place that was off-limits. In the end, we melded the themes of three of the finalists. We wanted this car to look good for 20 years, like the original. You see any of Halle Berry’s shape in it?
Mark Trostle [head of design for SRT, Mopar, and Motorsports]: It’s the proportions that make it iconic—that long, exaggerated nose, then the cab tucked so far rearward. We didn’t need to reinvent it. The reason there was a secret room with two keys is because the program wasn’t approved! You don’t do full-size models unless you have the money.
Gilles: So when Sergio first saw the car, he said, “You son of a bitch. You went and did this car anyway!” But he didn’t look like he was gonna fire me.
Trostle: We really got the body down on the wheels, closed up the wells 10 millimeters. There are a lot of what we call “Easter eggs” on the car—little surprises the owner will discover later, like a subtle snakeskin motif on the rear turn signals and the “V” in the grille. When you see the headlights lit, it’s an evil look, a snake’s eye. I owned a ’96 coupe, and I loved to wash it by hand so I could feel all those muscular shapes. We wanted the new car to deliver that same heroic experience.
The architecture remains familiar?
Ruedisueli: Yes. Wheelbase is unchanged, although the front track is wider, and the car still rides on a steel frame with a lot of work to reduce weight and increase stiffness. A huge number of our customers run these cars on track days, and they bang them up. We stuck with the steel frame because it’s repairable. The cockpit is all-new. Rear suspension geometry is new. Wheels, tires, shocks. The only carry-over piece is the windshield.
Every body panel is fresh, too?
Ruedisueli: Every piece. One goal was to take out some weight. We’ve already got 100 to 140 pounds out. We have aluminum doors and sills now, and the hood, roof, and rear deck are carbon fiber. And we came back to the clamshell hood. We had so much response from customers who wanted to open that thing and clean stuff and show off the engine. Our intent was to improve the fit and finish, too. The old car had so much sheet-molding compound, but it shrinks and grows, making it difficult to get tight gaps and fits. With aluminum and carbon, we’ve really tightened it up.
Tell me about the new paint process.
Ruedisueli: The old car’s panels arrived at the factory painted—kind of mixed and matched—and if you wanted the car striped, it went to another place, and they put the stripes on top of the paint. Now they’ll do the stripes directly on the panels, and they’ll be under the clear coat. We really raised the bar on gloss level. It’s literally a hand paint job—hand-buffed and sanded, a custom job. I don’t think anybody else can make that claim. Maybe Aston.
The interior is all-new?
Klaus Busse [head of interior design, Chrysler Group]: Absolutely everything. This is finally a luxury car inside. Every Viper now has a full leather wrap on all major surfaces, including the dash. It’s one of the finest leathers money can buy—leather that Bentley would gladly take. Wait until you smell it. We stayed away from any metal trim because of the weight. The seats are made by Sabelt in Italy—genuine thin-shell seats rather than frame seats. They have fantastic lateral support and will accept a six-point racing harness available through Mopar. We also have a data-logging system so you can record your acceleration runs, top speed, g-forces. And as the tach approaches redline, a red viper illuminates behind it.
Gilles: When I first showed the car to Sergio, it had seats from a different supplier. When he sat in it, he said, “What the f**k are these Barcaloungers doing in here?” So we went to Sabelt—it does Ferrari’s seats. They’re expensive but worth it. Plus, we got 1.6 inches of height adjustment.
Ruedisueli: We have a lot of customers who are big, so we also got the seat down and back about an inch. That’s important if you’re wearing a helmet. Then we took the center console down an inch. I used to feel like I was sitting with one arm on a high console and my other arm on a tall armrest. Now they’re level. We worked on the shifter—the throws are shorter, lower effort, and we rounded off the detents. Cockpit volumes are a little larger because we moved the bulkhead a bit. Storage is better than ever. The cockpit feels more open. We reduced the heat in the foot boxes, too.
That fire wall is magnesium?
Ruedisueli: A magnesium casting. It’s the biggest automotive piece of magnesium that we know of. It’s light and stiff. On a frame car, the fire wall is key—the pedals and the steering wheel mount to it, so it has to be super-stiff. There’s also a big aluminum X-brace under the hood, which helped get torsional stiffness up by 50 percent. You can feel it on turn-in.
There are two models initially?
Ruedisueli: Yes, the base car and the GTS. The GTS has different wheels and two suspension settings—street and race. And it has a Harman/Kardon stereo, an ultrasuede headliner, red brake calipers, different-color brake ducts, optional interior colors. This is the first time for electronic stability control on Vipers. There are four positions, and you can turn it all the way off. We took a stand on that. The lawyers left us alone. [Note that the “off” position is available on all SRT products.]
Gilles: The stability control on this car will make gods out of the drivers. In fact, it’s so subtle and effective that I don’t want to flash a warning light. Drivers don’t need to know how often it’s working. To turn it off completely, you hold the button for five seconds below 25 mph. We can’t even say that in the owner’s manual. We’ll leave it to you guys to spread the word.
You’ve replaced the Michelins with Pirellis?
Ruedisueli: Yes, P Zero Corsas. Very strong at the track—18 inches in front [by 295/30] and 19 inches at the rear [by 355/30]. Pirelli has really opened the envelope. In Arizona, we drove into the hills and hit snow. The old tires would get hard when they were cold. With the Pirellis, I couldn’t believe the traction still available.
Describe the suspension.
Ruedisueli: All independent, with aluminum control arms. The front geometry is pretty much the same, apart from some steering tuning. A half-inch-wider front track. We’ve got new Bilstein shocks; spring rates are up quite a bit; and, at the back, there are geometry changes. We altered the toe link because we had so much grip that we were getting some compliance-steer. That improved the way the car points, improved its behavior under braking and acceleration. The brakes are the same size, but optional equipment is a cast-iron rotor with an aluminum hub. Matched to lightweight wheels, it takes out about 50 pounds.
You’ve driven the car on tracks?
Ruedisueli: All over the place but mostly in the U.S.—at Texas MotorSport Ranch, which has good elevation changes, at GingerMan, Willow Springs. All SRT products do a 24-hour run at Nelson Ledges. And at Nissan’s course in Arizona. The Nissan track offers two lanes. On one side, there are chatter bumps and potholes, and on the other side, it’s smooth. You can really hammer this car. I’ve been racing formula cars for a long time, and I was amazed how much traction it offers.
Was there a car—perhaps the Corvette—that was a performance target?
Ruedisueli: Well, sure. But remember that the Viper will never be a Corvette. We don’t ever want it to be. Our customers are very anxious about this becoming a Corvette. The Viper is more raucous. Of course, we looked at the ZR1 because it’s so capable. We looked at some Porsche 911s and at the Lexus LFA to make sure we were in the performance ballpark.
What’s new in the engine?
Dick Winkles [chief engineer, Viper Powertrain]: We’ve got an airbox that feeds directly off that big main hood scoop, then it leads to our new composite intake manifold, replacing the aluminum version. The approach angle to the ports is improved, and the runners are longer for high-speed tuning. The plenums have better distribution front to back. It’s very smooth on those inner walls compared with the cast aluminum. We got about 20 more pound-feet and 10 horsepower from the new manifold, and it’s also seven pounds lighter—weight that was previously up high. It doesn’t transfer heat like the aluminum one did. It keeps the charge cooler in stop-and-go driving. The final figures are 640 horsepower at 6150 rpm, with fuel shut-off at 6400 rpm. And 600 pound-feet of torque at 4950 rpm. [An increase of 40 horses and 40 pound-feet.]
You have the same cam-in-cam arrangement with variable valve timing?
Winkles: The same, although we altered the intake profile. It gave us 10 horsepower at the higher end. Mahle makes that cam. I don’t know of any issues in the field with it in the last three years of production. I don’t know anyone else using a cam like that.
Did you consider cylinder deactivation?
Winkles: Not really. On a V-8 with even firing, you can kind of skip a cylinder. But this is more like two five-cylinder engines paired, so what you end up doing is cutting one whole bank. That cools the cats, and when they relight, it’s dirty.
You got weight out of the engine?
Winkles: We got 25 pounds out, in total. The intake was big, but we’re also now using an aluminum flywheel. It’s quickened shift times and is 11 pounds lighter. Then we went to sodium-filled exhaust valves rather than stainless. Those valves are hollow, a tenth of a pound lighter apiece. That’s one pound right there.
You’re back to forged pistons?
Winkles: The cast pistons weren’t quite robust enough if an owner added a supercharger or a turbo, or if he was pumping nitrous. Those pistons weren’t indestruct*ible. Se we heard the owners’ cries, and we’re back to forged Mahles. Now we can protect the tuners from their own mistakes. We’ve also got a lower-tension ring pack with lower friction.
Ruedisueli: With the new flywheel, the motor spins up faster—it was worth a tenth of a second at the drag strip. And the engine is offset toward the passenger to help weight distribution when only the driver is onboard—like on the track. Overall, it’s 49 percent front, 51 percent rear [with the driver in the car]. The base car should come in at 3320 pounds. We’re looking at an optional track pack that will take out another 40 pounds.
[video=youtube;Nrpie6VUx2E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrpie6VUx2E[/video]
