There’s something to be said about taking a car and modifying it so that it excels in an area where it was never really intended to go. That’s why this video of autocrossing muscle cars is awesome. Autocross and road racing are starting to become pretty popular with the classic muscle car crowd. It could have to do with all of the modern muscle cars that are being released now that handle amazingly. It could also have to do with the fact that aftermarket suspension from folks like Hotchkiss and Art Morrison are better than ever. There’s no doubt that it looks like an absolute blast.
Stacey David did a bit on the Gama Goat as part of his show, Gearz on SPEED. The Gama Goat is a military transport vehicle that was built during the Vietnam war. It answered a demand for a vehicle capable of traversing rough terrain that was hanging up the classic Deuce and a Half 2.5 ton truck. The Gama Goat is a 6×6 with an articulating body, independent suspension and lockers on all three axles. Power is provided by a Detroit Diesel supercharged, 2-stroke, 3 cylinder engine. The body was made from aluminum which allowed the Gama Goat to float. Unfortunately, not too many were made due to high cost and complexity, but they definitely got the job done off-road.
Subaru and Puma just released this video to promote their new rallycross team and driving oriented line of clothing. The drivers do some pretty impressive high speed drifts on track.
Some people say that we are in the second golden age of the muscle car. Each of Detroit’s Big 3 have revived their performance car nameplates and the horsepower wars are on again. Further proof that the muscle car is alive and well is that you can buy factory built drag racing cars again. Ford turned the Mustang into the Super Cobra Jet and Dodge has a MOPAR Drag Package for the Challenger. Now GM has joined the game by reviving the COPO Camaro. COPO stands for Central Office Production Order which was a process used by a dealer in the 60’s to get GM to install a 427 into the Camaro even though that combination was never intended for production. 69 COPO’s were built in the 60’s and now GM will only build 69 of the new COPO’s. The new COPO was developed during the off-hours at the GM Powertrain Plant in Wixom, Michigan by all the hot rodders who worked there. The rear suspension has been converted to a 4-link solid axle and it will be available with three engine options.
The guys from Hot Rod Magazine also got a chance to tour the Wixom Performance Build Center in the other half of the building in Wixom. That’s where they hand build all the LS3’s for the Corvette Grand Sport, LS7’s for the Corvette Z06 and the supercharged LS9’s in the Corvette ZR-1. They also got to play with the Camaro ZL1 on the dragstrip and take a look at the new 1LE handling package.
This article is an extension of our discussion about the complexities of combustion engines. National Geographic is following a story about a new supercomputer that the US is building. It’s called Titan and it will be ready for use later this year. Modeling a new type of combustion for engines was high on the list of things that would require the Titan’s processing power. Researchers are currently studying a new way of harnessing combustion for the use in automobiles. It’s called Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) and it’s similar to diesel engines in that compression is used to ignite the air/fuel mixture instead of an electric spark. The key to HCCI improving efficiency is that it runs at much lower temperatures so that there is a lot less waste heat. However, HCCI is very sensitive to the chemical makeup of the fuel being used. That’s why the folks working on it need access to Titan in order to make a model that will allow them to study make a model of what goes on during HCCI.
HCCI requires complex fluid and chemical dynamics models
