It's called the LS9 and CorvetteConti has VERY good sources. LS7 cylinder walls are too thin for supercharged applications, so a slightly stroked (or bored) LS2 running 10-14lbs of boost ought to get us a nice round 600hp or more.

http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/forums/sho...15&pagenumber=1

 

600 hp at the wheels or at the crank? Because adding 100 hp is only a 20% boost in power (if it's crank hp). That's pretty easy to do with a supercharger. Perhaps they'd keep power down to keep the motor as unstressed as possible (and keep the car manageable).

Crazy, regardless. As if the C6 Z06 wasn't bad enough already.

 

I think you hit it dead on. I dont know if you can add more than 600hp to a ~30xxlb car and put all the power to the wheels.

Keep in mind that the Enzo and Carrera are 3000lbs and 3050lbs, respectively. I would expect this corvette to be slightly lighter than the Z06's 3100lbs.

 

Why lighter? Extra cooling plus a supercharger will add weight. They've already cut weight drastically in most areas.

I'd expect the car to weigh the same as the C6 Z06, possibly a bit more (50 lbs). They'd have to go with carbon fiber seats or seriously light wheels to shave off the extra pounds a supercharger adds.

 

600 HP at the crank would be only about 4 PSI boost. No way. Must be at wheels and I expect 700. Nobody said it'd stick if you stomp the pedal. I am curious how much they can tub and flare the rear end for wider tires?

Aside from the motor, tire size is one of the big things GM engineers always felt they were at a disadvantage to the Viper.

 

Tire width as a major engineering achievement?

It would not be hard at all to compensate for 13" wheels/tires. Sure it's a design decision from day 1 on such a car, but the fact that the Vette is already stupid fast with the rubber it has takes away from this argument. The McLaren F1 "only" had rubber 11.5 inches wide, and it's still just about the fastest street car around.

And the Viper has never been significantly faster (if at all) than the Vette anyways, so 13" of rubber may help, but I doubt it contributes in a major fashion to the Viper's speed.

 

I don't think he meant that tire width was a major engineering achievement but rather that the Viper was allowed/given more rubber in stock form. That's the advantage - more motor and more rubber.

When you look at how small the contact patch is on a tire on the ground, then consider adding 1" or 2" more of width, that's a big jump in grip (10-15%, easily). More grip means more power to the ground is possible.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. If you have lots of power, you need lots of rubber. Given roughly equal power, the one with the least rubber will typically be slower in acceleration (and possibly cornering, though that's a LOT easier to beat through better suspension and chassis design).

 

Well ya it makes sense in general, but there are also a lot of notable exceptions to that rule, is basically what I'm saying.

 

I'm talking about what I've heard from the mouths of engineers who worked on the C5 project (I worked on a sensor used in every C5). They were always unhappy about being slower than the Viper in a straight line.

How do you figure the Viper "has never been significantly faster"? What, most of a second in the 1/4 isn't significantly faster to you? It is to me.

 

IMO those Chevy engineers have nothing to be unhappy about. A regular Vette outdoes the Viper in just about every other measure (daily drivability, track times, reliability, MPG, etc.). The Vette is just more accessible than the Viper, and to me that's one sign of its superiority.

Being a few ticks behind in the 1/4 is chicken scratch for one thing. Who drag races regularly on a completely stock car? The Vette/Viper war is fought on the road course, not a drag strip. And whatever advantage the Viper may have against a Z51 simply isn't so when comparing a Z06 to a Viper. The Viper has more torque and manages to be slower, an homage to its terrible (for a sports car) cD and added weight over a Vette.

The Viper, for me personally, has never been anything to write home about, since it offers nothing inherently original, other than (at one time) the 10-cylinder layout. Big cubes = big speed was a proven formula decades before the Viper came out. The only hardware unique to the Viper are 13" wide rear wheels and the 6-bolt wheel, which has only been mimicked on one other car TMK, the CTS-V. That's not an impressive list of sports car achievements.

Add to that the fact that the C5-R and C6-R are more than competitive on the track and well, Vipers are a waste of $ IMO. Now the argument could be made that the Vette has always followed the big cubes approach too, and that's surely not false. But Chevy didn't resort to 488+ cubes to get the same job done.

There's simply more to marvel at technologically in a Vette than in the Viper. As far as each car's speed credentials go, there's plenty that Vette owners can be confident about when matching up against a Viper.