Pirelli – The Unmuffled Auto News

June 11, 2016 zoomvroom Car Culture, Gifts for the Car Enthusiast, Random, Tech Talk, World News

Vintage Look, Modern Rubber

Chances are, if you own a Porsche, or have owned one, it’s still being enjoyed. Porsche estimates that 70% of all of their cars are still on the road. If you have an earlier-model 911, chances are you’ve gone through more than one set of tires.

Porsche, the ultimate automotive perfectionists, believes that not just any tire will do for your 1974 911S 2.7. Porsche collaborated with Pirelli to create a whole new line of tires inspired by the original original-equipment (OE in car-people speak) offerings, but with modern technology. Porsche/Pirelli went a step further and properly tuned the tires to the specific vehicle generation they’re offered for.

What’s so cool about that? A lot, actually.

The tires are designed to look like the originals in profile design and looks, but meet the requirements for modern tire performance. Porsche and Pirelli have created 32 tires for model years 1959-2005, for models including the 356 (B and C), Boxster (986 generation), and 911 (G model, 964, 993, and 996 generations). The tires will also be available for front-engine models including the 924, 928, 944, and 968.

How did Porsche and Pirelli create the tires? The team used a rubber mixture and additives used in modern tires to offer greater grip and rolling resistance. Classic Porsches are a hoot and a half to drive, and these new tires should only make them two hoots to drive!

Former world rally champion and current Porsche test driver Walter Röhrl helped tune the tires. “The driving properties in the early years were not as full or balanced as they are today. The new generation of tires is more fitting than ever to the driving style of a challenging sports car.”

Every one of the newly developed classic tires will feature the quality seal of Porsche, along with the “N” certification designator that identifies them as special Porsche release tires. It’s a bit of a stringent process to earn that designation: the tires have to go through testing to fulfill 33 very strict criteria before release.

If you would like to purchase these tires, you can buy them from any Porsche Classic Center.

March 15, 2016 zoomvroom Car Culture, Gifts for the Car Enthusiast, New car info, Random, World News

McLaren Introduces Track-Only 570S GT4 and Sprint Models

The McLaren 570S is a wonderful “affordable” supercar. Affordable is in quotation marks, because it’s a relative term. If you want a semi-affordable supercar, get a Nissan GT-R or a Dodge Viper.

McLaren has long been known for race cars that are both beautiful and win all the time. It should come as no surprise that they recently introduced the 570S GT4 and 570S Sprint. Both are, for all essential purposes, track-ready versions of the road-going 570S. The GT4 is the homologated for competition in the British GT Championship, while the Sprint is an unrestricted track-day model.

Who will be racing the GT4 this upcoming season? Good question, and we already have an answer! The Black Bull Ecurie Ecosse customer racing team will be racing the GT4 in the full nine-round British GT Championship season.

The GT4 is based off of the carbon-fiber Monocell chassis that forms the underpinnings for every single McLaren Sport Series car. The GT4 has a wider body, a GT4-spec aero package, Pirelli racing slicks, magnesium alloy wheels, and a massive rear wing providing downforce. What powers the 570S GT4? A twin-turbocharged V8 that’s been adapted for racing use. In the road-going 570S, it makes 562 horsepower and 443 lb-ft of torque, and puts the power down through a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. While McLaren doesn’t list any power output for the 570S GT4, rest assured it will be within GT4 regulations.

Then there’s the 570S Sprint. Details right now are scarce on it, but McLaren has promised that more details will come in the following weeks. They did satiate our curiosity by saying that the 570S Sprint will come with the same upgrades as the 570S GT4. The 570S Sprint is a hardcore track car not built to any one specification.

Yet another announcement from McLaren was that Ansar Ali will be joining the McLaren team as the Motorsports Director. Mike Flewitt, CEO of McLaren Automotive, said in a press release, “I am extremely pleased to welcome Ansar to McLaren Automotive in such a key role. Motorsport is part of the lifeblood of the McLaren brand, and this role will be key to our long-term plans as we continue to expand the product range and customer-appeal around the world.”

Have $225,500 just burning a hole in your pocket? You can buy a McLaren 570S GT4 for the 2017 season, but here’s the hitch: you need to be a customer racing team. Pricing and availability for the 570S Sprint at a later date, but expect it to be more accessible than the GT4.

The McLaren 570S GT4 certainly looks mean, and I can’t wait to see it blasting around a track!

August 22, 2015August 23, 2015 zoomvroom Car Culture, Gifts for the Car Enthusiast, Random, The auto dictionary. Look it up here!, The History of Autos

Some of the Most Amazing American Race Cars

Racing is in America’s blood. We started off racing horses, which is still one of the most profitable forms of betting to this day. We also love boat racing, whether it be sailboats or motor boats. We also love racing planes. It should only seem logical that we decided to race cars when they came out.

Our country has created some of the boldest, most successful and boldest racecars in history. These cars are some of my personal favorites, and they only scratch the surface of America’s storied racing heritage.

Chaparral 2E: Chaparral’s 2D was a very successful racing chassis, the 2J earned immortality thanks to it’s snowmobile-engine-driven suction fans. The 2D was better than both combined. It ushered in the aerodynamics era thanks to it’s driver-adjustable rear wing (which was adjusted via a pedal in the cockpit) and it’s side-pod mounted water cooling system. It was pure Texan ingenuity. Every modern race car owes at least something to the Chaparral 2E.
1967 Gurney Eagle-Weslake Mk. 1: Dan Gurney was a true American racing pioneer. This is what I view to be his masterpiece. He also won a Formula 1 race in this car. That’s about as good as it gets, but I still love this car to pieces. The tiny 11,000 RPM V12 and styling that looks like a shark and torpedo are just icing on the cake.
Lotus 56: It’s not just another turbine-powered IndyCar. It was a car that solidified the basic shape of most high-level race cars from 1967 on out. It sent the cigar shape packing. It also had a one-speed automatic and AWD. While turbines and AWD would be banned from future IndyCar seasons, the shape remained and evolved. Even though it’s got a Lotus name and Peter Chapman modifications, it’s still basically an all-American STP-Paxon car.
2016 Ford GT GTE: There was no doubt in any car or race fan’s mind when this car rained on every other car’s parade at the Detroit Auto Show this year. It’s 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 has been proven in the TUDOR Championship series, Chip Ganassi Racing has had lots of success racing Fords and is ready for a new challenge, and what might be most important to those automotive fans who like to cook (like me) is the fact that the rear diffuser is big enough to chiffonade an acre of potatoes without trying. The fact that it is dressed up in a very patriotic livery makes it just that much more amazing.
Dodge Viper GTS-R Mk. 1: The original Dodge Viper GTS-R immediately proved that a big V10 is an essential asset in endurance racing. On it’s third outing at Le Mans, the SRT Motorsports team took a class win in 1998. Again in 1999 and 2000. You can’t forget the overall wins at the Nurburgring, Daytona, Spa, and the five (yes, five) FIA GT and two ALMS championships. Plus, the fact that it was incredibly intimidating helped.
Corvette Racing’s C5.R, C6.R, and C7.R: For 17 years, The Corvette Racing team has put three generations of increasingly amazing Corvette race cars on the track. All have had an “.R” designation, except the first, which was a “-R.” They have proved themselves multiple times. 1999 marked the first year of the C5-R, which snatched three class wins at Le Mans (among many other wins). The C6.R took seven thundering liters of American muscle around the world, and won many races. The C7.R just grabbed the GTE Pro class win at Le Mans, and that was one of it’s first races!
Panoz LMP-1 and LMP07: Many, many years before Nissan’s GT-R LM caused folks to scratch their heads as to why a front-engine endurance race car is a good idea, Panoz’s LMP-1 Roadster S and it’s less successful sibling LMP07 proved to the world that an endurance racing prototype does not need to carry their engine behind the driver. Neither car was wildly successful, but the LMP-1 certainly got into a few good battles with the BMW V12 LMRs and Ferrari 333 SPs to snag the 1999 ALMS team championship.
Ford 999: Henry Ford should go down in the history books as a stark raving lunatic (for several reasons) because he took the crude, incredibly dangerous 18.9-liter Ford 999 racecar to 92 mph (the equivalent of somebody taking a car to 300 mph today) – a world record – on a frozen lake. The frozen lake was the only place large enough to get the car up to that speed. It made a whopping 80 horsepower, a lot of noise, and had killed a man a year before. It was a brutish, outrageous car that put Ford on the map, even if he became known for utilitarian and economical Model T’s and the now-legendary 1932 Ford.
DeltaWing: No other American creation has so upset the normality of what race cars should look like as the Ben Bowlby-designed, Panoz-managed, Gurney’s All-American Racers-built DeltaWing. The car drastically reduced frontal area to reduce drag and fuel consumption. It worked, and even sparked a copycat (the Nissan ZEOD RC), even though it didn’t achieve any incredible success.
Cadillac ATS-V.R: Cadillac attained massive success for ten years with the CTS-V.R in the Pirelli World Championship Series. Now it’s the turn for the ATS-V.R to take the reins. It’s got some big shoes to fill. It’s got a twin-turbocharged 3.6-liter V6 making somewhere around 600 horsepower that sits somewhere between the massive fender flares and the huge extractor hood. Between this car and the Ford GT GTE, it looks like most, if not all, future American race cars will have forced induction engines.
Swift 007.i: The year 1997 was a lucky year. The team owned by Paul Newman and Carl Haas stopped running a Lola chassis, and switched to a chassis made by the American company Swift. The car had a Ford Cosworth engine, Goodyear tires, and an all-American driver in Michael Andretti. I should probably mention that it won it’s first-ever race outing. Talk about coming in with style. Oh, and I was born that year.
Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe: This is quite possibly one of the most beautiful cars ever made, as well as one of the most successful. Carroll Shelby needed to make the already-successful Cobra 427 faster, but that meant he needed a more aerodynamic body. He brought on legendary designer Peter Brock, who helped design the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. Brock designed a flowing, muscular body that still looks like nothing else on the track. The result was a smashing success. The car won the 24 Hours of Daytona, Le Mans, Spa, and countless other races.
Dodge Daytona/Plymouth Superbird: Mopar’s “Winged Warriors” made aero cars illegal in NASCAR. That should be telling as to how good those cars were. They packed quite the punch with their 426 HEMI engines and special aerodynamics packages. NASCAR outlawed aero cars after 1970. Buddy Baker campaigned a Daytona through 1970, and Richard Petty had one of his most dominant years in 1970 with his Superbird. It’s also one of the most iconic race cars ever.
1966 Chevrolet Corvette: The 1966 Chevrolet Corvette is one of the best race cars Chevrolet ever had. It had a walloping punch with it’s 427 cubic-inch big block V8, with the code-name L-88. This engine made any car it was in a true monster. It’s still fast enough to show a modern NASCAR stock car how it’s done on a road course. It’s like carving a statue with a hydraulic shovel.

August 19, 2014 zoomvroom Car Culture, Car Reviews, Gifts for the Car Enthusiast, Humor, New car info

Bad Boys: Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Vs. Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Chevrolet’s had the 5th-generation Camaro ZL1 out for a couple of model years now, and it’s only real muscle car competition was the now-defunct Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. The GT500 is now out of production, as the 2015 Mustang will go into production soon. Dodge’s heavy Challenger SRT8 is a great car for cruising the boulevards and highways of America, it’s just not a handling muscle car like the ZL1. The ZL1 is meant to be a car that you can take to your local track day without a trailer, win, and drive home. Dodge desperately needed a competitor to the ZL1, so they rolled out the awesome Challenger Hellcat. The Hellcat is the most powerful stock American V8 ever. It makes a thundering, throaty, screaming, 707 horsepower. That’s right. However, a dyno test by Motor Trend showed that the Hellcat actually makes more than that. Back to that later. The Hellcat is meant to be a car that you can drive to your local drag strip, win against other bone-stock cars, and drive home.

The Camaro uses a detuned LS9 6.2-liter supercharged V8 that pumps out 580 horsepower. It puts the power down to the ground through either a six-speed manual or a six-speed automatic transmission. Plus, you can get it as a convertible, which would eliminate most of the visibility issues associated with the 5th-generation Camaro coupe. While the Camaro may make far less horsepower than the Challenger Hellcat, it makes up for it in a trick suspension and 400 fewer pounds than the Challenger Hellcat. Sometimes less is more. Besides, the Camaro beat the 662-horsepower Mustang GT500 in it’s last shootout.

The Challenger uses an all-new 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat V8 that pumps out a claimed 707 horsepower. It puts all of those raging ponies down to the ground through either a six-speed manual or a quick-shifting 8-speed automatic adapted from the ZF 8-speed slushbox found in many cars nowadays. It also comes with a trick suspension adapted from the Viper, and a variety of cool driving modes (like Valet Mode, which lowers the horsepower to 300, limits the revs to 4,000 RPM, and turns all of the nannies on). Plus, it comes with more street appeal than just about any other new car on the market. Well, with the exception of the Pagani Huayra…

If you want to kill them with consistency in the acceleration department, go for the ZL1. It thunders to 60 mph in just 3.9 seconds. It then goes on to slaughter the 1/4 mile in a stonking fast 12.2 seconds at 116.6 mph. Whatever way you look at it, that’s pretty fast. Enter the Hellcat. It makes the Camaro feel slow. That’s not surprising. What makes it’s times even more impressive is the fact that it puts 707+ horsepower down to the ground through relatively skinny 275 millimeter-width tires. Granted, the tires are Pirelli P Zeroes, but that’s a lot of power going to the ground through not very much tire. This, of course, makes the Hellcat a difficult one to launch. Even with launch control enabled, the Hellcat’s best 0-60 run was “just” 3.7 seconds to 60 mph. It’s probably best to launch the Hellcat in 2nd gear, as that much power can get the Hellcat up to speed quickly, plus it eliminates a time-sapping gearshift. It then goes on to absolutely embarrass the ZL1 in the 1/4 mile by doing a crazy-fast 11.7 second at 125.4 mph run. That trap speed won’t only embarrass a Camaro ZL1 owner – it will embarrass a Porsche 911 Turbo S AND a Nissan GT-R Nismo in the 1/4 mile. America for the win.

Then, you go onto a skid pad. This is where the intended functions of these two cars show. The Camaro ZL1 pulled 0.99 G’s on the skidpad. This is probably thanks to the cool Delphi magnetic shocks, and the quick steering in the ZL1. While the ZL1 may behave like a sports car, the Hellcat doesn’t. As Motor Trend‘s Scott Evans put it, “The Challenger handles just like a Challenger. Understeer into the corner, oversteer out.” The Hellcat may handle like a boat, but it sticks. Just ask the 0.94 G’s pulled on the skidpad. The Challenger may not be the best choice for corner carving on a tight, windy race track, but it will put to shame many well-tuned drift cars as it shreds its skinny rear tires.

I literally couldn’t stop laughing when I heard this, but it’s 100% true. Motor Trend‘s Kim Reynolds said that the Camaro felt like something developed by Infiniti’s Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team or McLaren’s Formula 1 team. The Hellcat, on the opposite side of the spectrum, “feels like it was developed by HOT ROD’s Freiburger and Finnegan.”

Should you choose to road-trip either of these two cars, invite me or some friends along! The Camaro has visibility akin to a solitary confinement prison cell at Abu Grahib, but it’s V8 hums along, the cool shocks absorb anything any road can throw at it, and it’s got a great sound system. The Challenger Hellcat is THE ultimate road trip car. I’ve heard that it’s ride is a bit busier, but it keeps you more alert than the quiet, subdued Camaro ZL1. It’s seats are something that you’ll want in your living room. The supercharged Hellcat Hemi has an absolutely demonic supercharger whine when you step on it – batten the hatches when the Hellcat comes to town! The 8-speed automatic transmission is found in almost every new Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep/Ram/SRT product these days, and it is more beefed up in the Challenger Hellcat to handle the crazy power numbers. The Hellcat’s engine note when you step on it sounds like somebody supercharged Roadkill’s Blasphemi 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air gasser. It sounds absolutely spectacular. The best part is, Dodge has released a Hellcat Hemi engine note ringtone.

Inside, the Challenger is definitely the car of choice. Aside from the crazy powerful engine and the sinister sheetmetal that looks straight out of 1970, the Challenger is really quite the ticket to being comfortable. It’s got one of the best interiors in the segment, which it has had since day 1, an intuitive infotainment system, an even better Boston Acoustics sound system, plenty of room for five adults, and a stunningly low entry price of $60,995. Then, the Camaro ZL1 enters the room. Sure, it’s got Alcantara all over the bloody cabin, and snug, comfortable Recaro bucket seats, but you can tell Chevy cared more about what was under the hood. Dodge didn’t have to try very hard to update the cabin in the Challenger. If you can’t swing $60,995, no worries. Chevy has a great Camaro ZL1 with your name on it for just $57,650.

While these two cars have traded blows in straight lines, in the curves, and elsewhere, street appeal is definitely part of what muscle cars are all about. In a nutshell, the Camaro looks like just another Camaro with big black wheels and a vented hood, while the Challenger looks like it just stepped out of the Trans-Am racing series. It just looks like pure evil.

This is America. Just like basketball (and many other ball sports), there are NO ties. There are only winners and losers. In my humble opinion, the Challenger Hellcat will always come out on top. It’s got a focus on power, presence, and straight-line performance define what a muscle car is supposed to be. It shows that the boys over at Dodge know how to make a world-class muscle car after years and years of being pushed around by Ford and Chevy. While I like the ZL1 as a capable and well-balanced sports car, it just doesn’t really seem like as good of a muscle car of the Challenger Hellcat. Like the muscle cars of the 1960’s and 1970’s, the Challenger Hellcat is built to dominate the streets with some serious power under the beautifully sculpted hood. The Hellcat proves to me that the ultimate muscle car wasn’t built in the 1960’s or 1970’s – it is now, and here to stay.

Now for the dyno results. The Challenger Hellcat is rated by the SAE (Society of American Engineers) at 707 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque at the crank. Dodge is lying through their teeth. This engine is almost as powerful as an engine in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series. The Hellcat Challenger puts down 635 horsepower and 591 pound-feet of torque at the wheels. Factor in a 12% driveline loss (automatics are getting more and more efficient every year), and the Challenger Hellcat makes about 722 horsepower and 672 pound-feet of torque at the crank. Both of those are more than advertised. Some other cool things about the Challenger Hellcat: When Motor Trend did their dyno test at K&N Air Filter’s Riverside, CA dyno shop, the Hellcat was the fastest car ever strapped down to the massive rollers there. The speedometer topped out at 202 mph, but the Hellcat accelerated to 225 mph, which is the fastest the dyno can possibly go there. While the Hellcat will never, ever get up to 225 mph stock (a brick goes through the air better), it’s cool to know that the SRT team of engineers didn’t bother fitting a speed limiter to the car. Not only is it the fastest, but it’s also the hottest. The Hellcat took five industrial fans pointed at it to keep it cool for it’s dyno pull. An interesting fact to know about the Hellcat is that it will suck all of the air out of a 10 X 13 foot room in just one minute at full throttle. It will also drain all 19 gallons of it’s fuel tank in a minute at full throttle.

Now on to the Camaro ZL1. The ZL1 makes only 580 horsepower and 556 pound-feet of SAE-rated torque. The car that Motor Trend tested made just 472 horsepower and 482 pound-feet of torque at the wheels. K&N noted that that’s about 20 fewer horsepower than they are used to seeing from a stock Camaro ZL1. Assuming a 10% driveline loss for the Camaro, it’s making a still-impressive 524 horsepower and 536 pound-feet at the crank. That’s almost 60 horsepower than rated.

Why did the Hellcat need five industrial fans pointed at it? Well, the Hellcat needs a LOT of air to operate optimally, and superchargers throw off lots of heat. This 2.9-liter supercharger shoves 11.9 pounds of boost into the engine. This supercharger is common in tuned muscle cars, and it’s not uncommon to see more boost out of it. However, I just think that the Hellcat’s engine can’t easily make more power before it presses the self-destruct button. It’s like the Nissan GT-R, where the engine has been tuned so much that Motor Trend found in a test last year that the engine kept loosing 5 pounds of boost from the two massive turbos. That’s a lot of boost, so you’ve got to wonder if engines this powerful are tuned to within an inch of their life.

What about the ZL1? Was it a dud car, or has GM just been radically overrating their engines? Who knows? Dyno results range anywhere from far more than what the manufacturer says to far below. It depends on the dyno itself, the way the car is strapped down, if it has enough air going into the engine, the temperature of the air, and what gear the car is in. There are literally thousands of different factors in dynoing a car. It probably wasn’t in Motor Trend’s best interest to dyno two powerful cars with heat-making superchargers in the end of a SoCal summer in Riverside. While Dodge does say that the Hellcat will last 20 minutes in 100 degree heat at a track and get consistent results, one has to wonder if the Challenger can really last that long without overheating. Time will tell (pardon the pun) the reliability of this powerful engine.

The engine technology in the Hellcat Hemi goes back to 2002. That’s a really long time for a cylinder head design to be around in one basic form or another. Granted, that design works – really well, but Ford and Chevy have definitely stepped up their engine game. The Mustang GT500 used an aluminum block, which took off 100 pounds off of the front of an already-heavy car, and a bunch of other really cutting-edge engine technology. Chevy’s LS9 and LSA V8’s are really beasts of engines, but obviously not in the ZL1 dynoed by Motor Trend. The Hellcat engine block was originally going to be aluminum, but was vetoed at the 11th hour by a Dodge executive. It’s a shame. The aluminum engine block would have shaved at least 100 pounds off of the front of a nose-heavy car, bringing it’s curb weight down to about 4350 pounds or so, which would be almost 100 pounds heavier than the also-chubby Camaro.

When it comes to transmissions, the ZF 8-speed automatic is the best transmission in a muscle car now. Chevy’s six-speed automatic doesn’t like to downshift, even when told to. Ford didn’t offer an automatic transmission in the GT500, but it used a TREMEC TR6060 six-speed manual. This is a great six-speed manual. It’s used by Ford, Chevy, and Dodge. It’s also common in road-racing cars. It’s beefy, reliable, and has good gearing for almost any engine. The fact is, the Hellcat with the 8-speed ZF transmission is probably the best combination. It’s going to be hard for even an experienced driver of a manual transmission to put 635 horsepower and 591 pound-feet of torque down to the ground. That’s why Dodge offers 3 power settings – 300 horsepower, 500 horsepower, and 700+ horsepower. In daily driving, the most power anybody will ever really need is 150 horsepower and about 200 pound-feet of torque. Plus, the Hellcat with the automatic transmission will get 24 mpg on the highway. The Camaro only gets 21. The Mustang only got 22.

If you get a Hellcat, please, please, pretty please, let me know! I will feature you on my blog, but ONLY if you either take me for a ride, or let me drive it! If you do either of these, I will interview you, take wonderful pictures, and wax poetic about being in a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat for the rest of my life.