Building a C8 Corvette | Not So Easy

[00:00] Welcome to episode two of our C8 build series.

[00:13] Behind me, we have a C8 generation Stingray with a Z51 package is a 1LT car and the point of this video series is to show you what you can do with now a increasingly affordable mid-engine V8 sports car. We bought this thing a year ago, let me be clear, when C8 Performance bought this thing

[00:28] a year ago, the car was under $60,000, the upcoming LS6 or new engine, the 6.7Lator, these things will continue to increase in affordability. I imagine prices of these cars will be in the low 50s, potentially high 40s, the near

[00:42] this in future. So we want to do in this series to show you what you can do with this car and see if we can get to that Z06, Z07 GT3 level of performance for a hell of a lot less money. So what have we done already? Well, in the first episode, we did a spring package from Swift Springs.

[00:58] We did the Apex wheels with RE71 RS tires with 305 rear, 265 fronts. We did some arrow work from Varys, their lower stage arrow package, which adds a little bit of downforce and of course, we did some reliability modifications like grill guards and more importantly,

[01:13] we did the VO9 cooler or basically the additional oil cooler that C8 Performance is building using existing parts that are in Middle East spec or warm client spec C8, which dramatically

[01:25] drops oil temperatures. For this episode, we're going to go the suspension and aerodynamics route with big wings and more impressive, more expensive suspension. And the last thing to talk about is brakes, which we're running the two piece rotors from

[01:39] S6 AP and a Frodo pad, of course, the spingler lines and the high temp brake fluid. But really, the real problem with this video so far is there's not enough Corvette's. When Jack told me we were doing at least 30 more Corvette videos this year, I knew I had gone

[01:54] too far. I had been working on trying to digitally clone them for years. With my Falcon PC, I can now render him locally and for maximum profits. But the side effect was I could no longer control his code.

[02:07] It turned into a virus titled ABM or Aggressive Business Man. His connections at Bowling Green are fully integrated and I believe he has replicated himself physically and is now capable of driving multiple Corvettes at once.

[02:22] I never had a plan to drive my Corvette! For this video, he demanded we get sponsored by Wolfbox so he could have a powerful handheld duster capable of cleaning his circuit boards.

[02:36] He likes cold swapping batteries with military precision. His favorite is playing with different tips, which means optimal air control including three different motor speeds. One of his clones said it needed to generate wind forces of over 200 miles per hour to blow

[02:52] the water out of the toilet. He said with that power, he could easily remove bionetic skin off the piano black and vehicles. Bottom line is the Wolfbox Mega Flow 200 air duster is a product powerful enough for cyborgs

[03:07] and usable enough for normal people who need to clean keyboards, coolers and other finicky items in a touch-free manner. If you want to get blown away, Wolfbox is offering discounts on Prime Day.

[03:37] Now that you know a little too much about me, let's talk about Corvettes once again. What have we done already? Well, our real man, Rick Casey Jr., a IMSA driver who was a TCR champion and a better driver

[03:49] than you and I will ever be, said a lap time in this car when it was stock, a 1L to your base model Z51 Corvette. It ran a 132.3 with potential race tires, the track alignment, some brake fluid and brake

[04:03] pads, a very, very quick lap time. And that potons of race is stickier than the Pilot 4S. I view that as sort of a what you would do with a stock car if you want to attract a often lap time, very, very quick.

[04:15] Then we went to CA Performance or Limit Plus 1's last year at W and we added the Swift Springs on the stock damper. We continued to run the track alignment. We added some Various Aero, of course we did our brake changes and we did the Apex wheel

[04:27] setup with RE71 RS tires, the outgoing track tire with 305 Rears 265 fronts. With that homologation of parts, he ran a 129.6, a very, very quick lap time again for

[04:41] the price of the car that it is. So what did we do now? Well, we went back to CA Performance and we wanted to touch just two parts or two systems of the car, the aerodynamics and of course the suspension. While the spring package is on the affordable side, it is not a perfect solution to this

[04:56] car. Obviously, lowering springs have their pros and their cons, so we went with MCS, their single adjustables, again, to try to keep this car, I'd use the word affordable, but more on the affordable side. And of course, we went to Various for their very not subtle and aggressive Aero package.

[05:11] So that, let's go talk to Eric from Various Engineering. I'm here with Eric, the founder of Various Engineering and aerodynamics company. You may be familiar with it at this point. But before I butcher his introduction any further, please introduce yourself, sir.

[05:24] Eric Hayson, starting way back in high school, I started as an automotive technician. I then went to mechanical engineering and I went through that university. I was an IndyCar safety mechanic or technician and then that graduated into CNR racing where

[05:41] I designed and developed cooling system packages for NASCAR, IndyCar, trophy truck, and various other racing series. That fast forward into this side project which was Various Engineering and that became a full

[05:54] time job and has been my life for the last ten years. Let's just say at this point, you know what you're talking about and you've been doing this for a very, very long time, this stuff works. How do you actually validate it though? So when we talk to a lot of aerodynamics, engineers, some of the various brands we work

[06:09] with, they all tell me the same thing. The reason it works is because we have a wind tunnel, we have a lot of money behind us. As successful as you guys are, you're not an OEM, you know, the billion dollar budget to work on a car. So how are you doing the testing to make sure that the parts you're developing for these

[06:23] cars actually work? Because for a long time, the fasts in the furious days, a lot of aerodynamics was vibes based, it looked cool, but it didn't actually do anything, often made the car worse. So how do you know this works?

[06:36] So since day one, we've been using CFD, which is computational fluid dynamics. Think of that as we build a virtual wind tunnel, it's got a huge box, you shove a car in it, which we have in CAD, and then we run air flow over it.

[06:50] It is a fluid dynamics calculation based. We're able to put component forces into there, and we're able to test a bunch of different situations. We then test the stock car, we throw our parts on it, ensure that the balance is good, and

[07:05] make sure that the components are actually doing what they're supposed to be doing, so they're supposed to be doing. So yeah? The traditional thought process, and this is, in a past life, I worked in a fluids lab and I spent a lot of time with aerodynamics engineers of the various brands, they will tell me the

[07:18] same thing. CFD is not a one-to-one recreation of how the car actually will behave in the real world, say. I know wind tunnel isn't perfect either, but you have done wind tunnel testing. How much of a margin of error is there?

[07:31] So we have done wind tunnels, that's saying we have done comparisons. Compared to CFD actually underestimated our downforce by like 1.9% and drag by 1.7%, it was very minimal, so we were actually really happy with that.

[07:45] Effectively in the real world, it's not a margin of error at that point. So the car, though, already is a vehicle that generates some level of downforce. It's had no lift at least, car in the case of a standard Stingray.

[07:57] Where are you developing downforce, and more importantly, drag, because as you traditionally generate more downforce, the car, while it has more mechanical grip, it does slow down and the straights,

[08:09] it creates all sorts of drag. What have you done, and can you walk me through your various packages, because we've already done a stage one, and now we're in sort of your big wing, no longer subtle phase. Correct. Can you walk me through the changes you've made and how they work?

[08:22] Yep. So we do packages, we call it Ventus1, which is like Latin for airflow. Very clever. Dive planes, diffuser, and some underbody strikes, that adds like a marginal bump in downforce.

[08:37] Not too much drag. It's a nice starter package. Then we get into the Ventus2, Ventus3 packages, which we add a bigger wing, and then the Ventus3, which is what you have, which is the V1X1Nick.

[08:49] Big wing. Big wing. And then we have a front splitter. Those two add a decent amount of downforce, and a decent amount of drag as well. So can you walk me through the adjustability? So as you're going to hear later when we show the driving section of this car, one of the

[09:04] benefits of having an adjustable rear wing is you can add and remove essentially mechanical grip off the rear of the car. How much are you able to pull out or in? It's quite a bit. So you guys have our Ventus3 package, which is our standard front splitter.

[09:19] We now have a higher downforce front splitter. That is not very released. Yes. Slightly bigger, has some diffuser tunnels. It actually produces about like 33% more front downforce than the standard.

[09:32] The V1X rear wing, which is on your car, which is perfect for upgrading later on down the road, has a large range of adjustment, zero to 14 degrees. We took out a ton of rear wing today, and we do that so that people with different varying

[09:48] skill levels are able to drive the car confidently and safely. Walk me through exactly how much arrow downforce we're actually making in the rear to begin with. So abstractly, before we start pulling things out, let's say 120, 130 miles an hour, how much

[10:02] downforce are you making over a stock C51 car? Just the rear or the whole car? Just in the rear. Just the rear, probably. The rear wing probably generates about 500 pounds at 120. Versus like a Z06, Z07, I know we were talking about that number as well.

[10:15] What are you generating versus that car? So compared to a Z06, Z07 package, we're generating 90 to 115% more downforce. Total downforce. Total downforce. But we are also increasing 32 to 37% more drag, but it's a really good trade off.

[10:32] So you're gaining a lot more speed in the corners, and potentially losing some speed on the straights. But that's how a lot of the stuff works. I think your ability to gain speed, though, might be dependent on the track you're on. Is that a first step? 100% fair.

[10:45] So something else? Yes. Something else that, like we've noticed as well, and I believe you've imprinted and mentioned it, the car feels substantially more stable, which does allow people that aren't able to drive at the limit repeatedly, someone that's a professional driver.

[11:01] A lot easier. Having mechanical grip is never a bad thing. Right. According to our analysis, it goes from about total 380 pounds additional at 120 to 750 additional pounds.

[11:13] Ah. Yeah. So we pulled about 400 pounds out of the car. Yes. Oh. That's why it drives differently. Yeah. So look, we're going to work with you more in the future. Obviously, we do a lot of these build series at this point. Is there anything else you want to talk about?

[11:25] No. Yeah. That's on your own.

[11:37] That's a big grip. Oh. That's a good grip. Oh. That's a good grip.

[11:51] Oh. That's a good grip. I know. That's why I'm like, how's it going slower? I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. That's why I'm like, how's it going slower? It's got to be a bit straight.

[12:04] The track. Yeah. It feels really good. Watched out fast I can take this. Fourth gear, third gear just off the break. It's going full power.

[12:18] All right, Brad. We have literally chased the lap time the entire day. Like three or four hours. It is much, much hotter out than when we were here last, much hotter, like 10 degrees.

[12:30] and it's very humid so this is not a fast track and after this entire day we basically ran the same lifetime we did when this car was on the lower arrow package from Barris the Swift Spring and the

[12:44] same size but older design RE71RS versus these RZs so not a great result but I can let's call it blame the weather conditions so I'm gonna walk through some factors so dynamically the very first

[12:58] thing I'm gonna notice is there is a lot more mechanical grip than there used to be how does it feel in the corners though yeah I would say it can do it feels the same amount of effort but it's just

[13:10] doing it better because it just has so much more grip so we're going through this corner what can you do now before what versus what you could do before slow deliberate input with a really early

[13:23] confident throttle input and it's probably five miles an hour faster through the middle and ride quality over the bumps it's still really good and progressive whereas before it was like

[13:38] on and off the bump stop very nervous feeling very and in the left to right transitions especially now with a better race shot so we're air more air on them tires the amount of speed you can carry into

[13:51] going into patience I know it's alarming yeah it feels really good this car it's new seats yes so to answer everybody's question this is faster in every corner you can brake later but place it

[14:07] is slower one of the reasons it's not helping it's lap time it's the straightaways it feels like because this does make a lot of downforce you have a giant parachute behind you it's probably I haven't looked at the data at least a couple miles an hour slower in all the straights which you

[14:23] know not that the C8 isn't a big powerful car but compared to like the ZR1 or Z06 it doesn't feel feels more like a momentum car which is funny to bring up yeah it's good point of anything about

[14:35] that way but I would agree because it's not it's not difficult to drive fast maybe this drive it fast 10 out of 10 but when you're doing it like this it does feel like it is a momentum car just because it responds to entry speed really well and I think that's where most of the speed is with

[14:51] the new setup on this wall it's a really new car you know I have nothing to hold on to at all yeah sorry I'm driving like 9 out of 10 right now but that's a good car yeah you know I feel that

[15:03] from the past it's like hard to fucking overweight Asian rag doll in your passenger seat just don't throw up on me um the balance of the car so in the past we couldn't adjust anything one of

[15:18] the things that we were doing throughout the day is you know when we first set up this car we set the dampers in neutral front and rear and then for one of the reason we decided more downforce in the back was a good thing we basically backed that off the entire day to get this car to feel a little less

[15:35] pushy pushy yeah more to oversteer which is now something you could do I think me versus you you're a better driver than I am the benefit of this car prior versus the the old spring setup is well that old car was very very quick I mean the fact that it ran the same

[15:52] lifetime for a hell of a lot less money probably that car is you have to be a you level driver to get that lifetime out of it yeah the joy of the suspension and the arrow of this is something you you value and again to your point we talk off camera there's a lot of money is that it makes the car more approachable

[16:09] so again it's about value set I will say as we do another one of these episodes in the future I do want to touch power I have noticed this is a hot as hell day and with our oil cooler where we've never got a past C25 oil temple yeah which is again a testament to the the optional oil cooler we

[16:28] threw on this how was it brakes holding up that's something I haven't asked really good I mean we saw we saw brake dust collecting out the wheels pretty aggressively but in terms of paddle travel it's been really similar the whole day it hasn't really faded I've noticed no pedal fade at all I mean

[16:43] the brakes bite really well and then like so total yeah so total breaking for us imagine being on radio like try to tell the team something it's just a lot going on so but the the suspension's good the

[16:57] brakes are good and I think the arrow helps them also like it up and we have these weird issues with the Corvette's right with the brake feel yeah I will say it was a theory committed today on on how

[17:09] the brake pedal would feel with all this added grit with the aerodynamic changes and it's better in terms of brake feel I can comfortably say that and you can come off the pedal obviously with a lot more speed because you got all this air on the car so it's a pretty slick machine yeah it's it's got a

[17:25] little bit of a parachute behind it and I think it's not a one trick pony anymore you can tune the wings and the suspension to do a lot yeah on a big high-speed track too it should be a lot more sketchy monobond is not a high-speed track despite whatever is happening to my body right now is the

[17:41] passenger seat in this car yeah all right me more lateral support in the seat now that's the next stuff created it looks something to hold on to you as a passenger all right so with that let's

[17:53] head into the well let's head into the pile monster we're back at CA performance and we have a lot of things to discuss let's talk about testing conditions as this video is going to be data driven

[18:09] naturally when we last drove this car on the was called the springs and the low arrow and on the RS tire it was 55 degrees out and Britt ran a very very fast lap time a 129.6 similar lap time to a

[18:23] stock 992.1 911 turbo and I've sent that lap to a variety of human beings and they won't tell you the same thing God came down and made Britt drive very quickly because that was the miracle lap

[18:35] between the tires and the springs he shaved off over two seconds versus the car stock on a 200 tread where last sticky but still sticky tire all right when we ran this car at this point yesterday whenever

[18:48] you're watching that video yesterday means something different to you it was in the mid 80s so it was a much much warmer day out the track has much different conditions it's different time of year it's less rubbered in a variety of factors have made it a hard thing to do apples versus apples as a comparison

[19:04] it's different the truth is though he ran slower he is too tense of a second slower than he did in the past now let me qualify that and potentially make some race car driver excuses let's talk about the subjective part the vibes based part of this the car does drive better than it used to at least

[19:22] from Brit's commentary to mine Brit is a much much faster driver than I am I fit your track day broke crit criteria and I am going to be faster in this car than it used to be I like to lose car but it did seem to tighten this thing down it's better in transitions and if you're going to drive this on the street

[19:37] again I know this car looks very extra at this point the MCS is the kit that C8 performs is selling rides well and goes a long way making this car more approachable the arrow the wheels and tires the suspension seem to fix some of the brake vagueness that exists in this vehicle either it's

[19:54] due to the weight transition in the car it just doesn't seem to get an ice mode as often it doesn't freak out the ABS as much as it used to car feels good to drive now when it comes to actual lap time how

[20:06] do I quantify all this well I ran the data I looked at the car in the spring so I looked at the car stock and I looked at the car where it is now based upon at least what how I am reading the data how I've talked other people including Eric from Barris the car seems to be carrying more speed than

[20:21] used to into cars makes sense more mechanical grip stick your tire yada yada yada better suspension which seems to be losing time is in the straits even with us basically flattening out the wing putting in almost a stall state yes is making downforce but less downforce than in the maximum attack

[20:37] doesn't seem to be going any faster than the car used to be going in the straight as a stock vehicle despite having a much higher exit speed than the car used to have as a stock vehicle which means just the wing is generating more more drag than it used to which goes back to a point we've made in

[20:52] other videos cars are a system you touch one thing and affect something else that's what's happening in this car's case I adjusted suspension throughout the day and I adjusted the arrow throughout the day entire pressures first time Brit had driven this car in these conditions on the setup

[21:06] so maybe in the future we'll go faster who knows so with that thanks for watching hope to see you