August 2013
CAR TALK
CORVETTE NEWS:
Well, there’s tons of information flying around now about the 2014 Corvette Stingray. Pick up almost any automotive magazine and you’ll find some kind of article about the new C7. I really enjoyed an article in the September edition of Road and Track which described Tony Stewart’s first opportunity to drive the new car. Of course, Tony Stewart is one of the NASCAR Sprint Cup regulars and is a real racer’s racer. He loves racing and will drive anything. He’s scheduled to drive in 115 different races this year alone, including everything from little midget dirt track cars to the top-of-the-line, 850-hp, NASCAR Sprint Cup “stock cars”. He’s won three Sprint Cup championships, one Indy Car championship and numerous lesser series crowns. So, when he tries out your new car and tells you what he thinks of it, you can pretty well take it to the bank. And he’s well known for not being shy about telling it like it is.
Chevrolet invited Tony to their secret, custom-built road course at the proving ground complex in Milford, Michigan, to get his impressions of a nice, new, Lime Rock Green C7 Stingray. Now, Chevrolet claims that this track is so crazy difficult that only 35 of GM’s 200,000 employees are allowed to drive flat-out on it. These top test drivers, referred to as Level 3 drivers, after weeks of working with the new Corvette, managed to get around the course at a best of time of about one minute and 58 seconds. So now, Tony gets a tour of the car by the designers, telling him what to expect, and then he jumps into it. Remember that when Tony was a young driver he was nicknamed “Smoke” for the way he ruthlessly punished tires. The man knows how to drive fast. He’s never been on this track before and he’s already sliding through corners on his first couple of laps. After about six laps he pulled into the pit lane and asked how his times look. They tell him not to worry about that, that no one’s timing him and they only want to get his opinions about how the car feels. However, someone was timing him and he was already running laps only 2 seconds slower than Chevrolet’s expert test drivers.
So, what was Tony’s reaction? They say he was grinning from ear to ear and said, “I love this thing! I’ve never been able to drive a street car like that. Hey, any time you have somebody call in sick and I’m anywhere in the continental United States, call me. I’ll be right over!”
______
As the various automotive reporters now get a chance to get inside and actually drive the new Corvette, more details about the amazing car are being discovered and reported. Writers for Hot Rod Magazine were fascinated by the array of driving modes that one is able to select to fine tune your driving needs and pleasures. To a large extent, the magnificent performance improvements found in the C7 are achieved through new electronics. If you had a chance to follow the link that Bob sent out and watch the video of a test drive in the new Corvette, then you saw that a knob on the center console is used to select one of five drive modes.
1) Weather: For slippery roads, with max throttle and traction limitations.
2) Eco: The only setting where Active Fuel Management is allowed to reduce the engine to
four cylinders in some conditions to improve fuel economy.
3) Tour: The default setting when the car is started. This differs from Eco only in that the
engine is not into four cylinder mode, and if the optional dual-mode exhaust system is
on the car, Tour allows it to go into a more aggressive-sounding setting.
4) Sport: This mode changes a number of parameters to become more performance-
oriented; such as steering feel, throttle snappiness, auto-trans shift characteristics,
dual-mode exhaust settings and suspension firmness. And within the Sport mode, a
Competition setting is allowed for the Electronic Stability Control (or ESC), which uses
individual-wheel braking intervention, among other things, to control yaw.
5) Track: The most serious performance mode, with further changes to the steering, shifting,
exhaust, Magnetic Ride, traction control and dash display. This mode is truly designed
for road-race action and allows five stages of Performance Traction Management (or
PTM), depending on the skill of the driver. All the PTM settings are designed to allow
the driver to mat the accelerator pedal on corner exit and the computer looks at speed,
steering angle and rate, wheel speed and other parameters to allow maximum acceler-
ation. The Wet setting is best for a new driver because it has the strictest limits on
slip angle and wheelspin. Dry and Sport 1 are the next steps up in allowing the driver
more liberty. Sport 2 starts to get very serious, since the Electronic Stability Control
is abandoned. The Race setting is for professional drivers; watch out if you try this
setting – you’re on your own.
And the car has other new electronic systems to enhance performance. One is called the Tire Temperature System, or TTS. It reads tire tread temperatures, which are then used to control outputs of the ESC, PTM and ABS to make even more precise electronic adjustments to driving performance. All in all, the Hot Rod team says these electronic systems work miracles in helping the Stingray perform better than previous Corvettes in virtually all areas.
______
REGULATORY NEWS:
Have you applied for your new California Legacy license plate? A new law was passed in 2012 (which I think Stan Keith may have mentioned a while back when telling us about his exhausting efforts to get plates for his classic Corvette) to establish the California Legacy License Plate Program. You can choose from one of three classic designs from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. You can select the black lettering on a yellow background, yellow lettering on black background or yellow lettering on blue background.
The plates have been available for per-order at a cost of $50 for personalized or non-personalized plates. However, the law only allows until January 1, 2015, to reach the required minimum of 7,500 pre-orders for any one of the plate styles. Currently, none of the plates have reached the required number of applications. If 7,500 applications are not received by the deadline, the plates will not be produced and any fees paid will be refunded to the applicant. Visit the DMV website or the sema.org website if you would like to fill out an order form.
______
CAR TECH:
Here’s a few words about those super-bright High-Intensity Discharge (HID) headlamps you see on a lot of cars nowadays. HID headlamps have been installed as original equipment on an increasing number of vehicles for at least the last fifteen years. They are no longer new technology. What are some useful things to know about these bright lights?
Well, traditional headlamp bulbs use a glowing filament. HID bulbs use an electric arc, similar to the flame across a sparkplug’s electrodes, to generate light. HID headlamps use less power and emit more light. Brighter and uniquely-colored HID light gives car designers more options for creating headlamps with cool styling and better nighttime performance. HID headlamp bulbs are typically expected to last at least twice as long as conventional halogen bulbs.
On the negative side, HID systems are more complex, heavy and expensive. They use AC (alternating current) which means new parts such as a ballast and ignitor are needed. Replacement HID headlamp bulbs by GE and Wagner start at more than $60, while halogen bulbs for non-HID versions of the same car might cost less than $5. Some early adopters of HID headlamps, such as the Lincoln Mark VIII in the late 90’s, used their own, subsequently obsolete, HID lighting systems that are now nearly impossible to find new bulbs for. Mark VIII owners typically retrofit their cars to use conventional halogen bulbs.
But, what the heck, how many Corvette drivers own Lincoln Mark VIII’s?
______
TRUE STORY OF THE MONTH:
It was a hot summer in 1964 and my friend Bob had just purchased his first car, a 1955 Chevy. To a couple of 18 year olds, this was a really good buy for only $300. He hardly noticed the rust on the rockers and quarter panels or the worn upholstery; our thoughts were of cruising. However, we couldn’t overlook the strong smell of gasoline. After crawling around under the car and seeing the gas dripping down the side of the tank, we brilliantly came to the conclusion that the tank was leaking.
First things first, we decided to drain the tank. Bob had just put $5 in the tank, so we didn’t want to waste it. We found a hose for the siphon and were looking around in the basement for a suitable container. Bob’s mom had just bought a new picnic cooler. We figured we could drain the gas into the cooler, pull the tank and fix it, get it back in and refilled, and then wash out the cooler before Bob’s mom ever noticed what we had done before she got home.
I picked up the cooler by the rope handles – boy, it sure was light – and we put it beside the car and got the siphon going. Then we decided to go into the house for a cold pop while we waited for the tank to empty.
An hour later, Bob’s mother burst into the house, screaming at us to get outside. All we could smell outside was gasoline. The siphon was lying on the driveway with the rope handle on each side and there was a trail of gasoline running down the street to the sewer. The cooler was gone! Who knew that Styrofoam is dissolved by gasoline?!
It took us a long time to save up the $20 for a new cooler and an even longer time for Bob’s mother and her angry neighbors to forgive us. As for the car, Bob drove the thing for two years. He just never put more than $2 worth of gas in the tank.
1