Car and Driver super Tuner Shoot Out

[V10TT]

Guys, although I'm not a magazine racer, I checked them out once in a while just to see what's going on. Today at a friend's house I see the latest issue of Car and Driver.
They had TNT 555 viper, the Hennessey TT, and the apex 750.
The TNT viper traped 124 mph with heads and cam , the TT Viper I think it was like 134 mph, and the Apex 750 124 mph.. all in the 12's..
Ok, i figure these cars got so much power that on street tires is a joke..BUT they also listed the 100 mph to 150 mph times.. at these speeds the cars are already going, and you figure there will be traction..
To my surprise the Apex 750 and the TNT times were in the 10.2's, I think the Hennessey car was in the 8.6.
For comparison the TT C-5 stage 2 LPe vette did 12.3 at 132 mph, and 7.6 or so from 100 to 150 mph...
The 700 TT porsche run 11.8 at 129 mph and i don't remember the 100-150 timesbut think it was in the 8's...

Now this just does not make any sense. The 550 cid Viper should walk all those cars "specially" from 100 to 150 mph.. What gives?

Has anybody seen the mag?

They also tested a stock ACR and got 12's at 117 mph, vs. stock 06 12.8 at 115 mph, BUt in the 100-150 times the viper has the o6 by almost 3 seconds...

Something about the Big Snake doe not make sense.. good group of cars, but the performance does not go with the HP..

Any comments??

 

[Bill/APEX Motorsports]

I've had the numbers from C&D for quite some time. Yes, don't forget that everyone was required to run street tires with a minimum 140 treadwear rating and 5/32" tread depth.
Here are the numbers they provided to the participants:

APEX Lethal 750
Best 0-60 3.62 sec.
Best 0-100 7.34 sec.
Best ET 11.68
Best MPH 130.34
Best 100-150mph 9.96 sec.
Best 150mph-0mph 670.81 ft.

TNT Serpent 555
Best 0-60 4.41 sec.
Best 0-100 8.89 sec.
Best ET 12.54
Best MPH 123.57
Best 100-150mph 9.95
Best 150mph-0mph 766.43

Hennessey Venom 800TT
Best 0-60 3.93 sec.
Best 0-100 7.36 sec.
Best ET 11.82
Best MPH 137.73
Best 100-150mph 7.92
Best 150mph-0mph 725.56 ft.

Lingenfelter Twin Turbo C5 Corvette
Best 0-60 4.53 sec.
Best 0-100 8.15 sec.
Best ET 12.29 sec.
Best MPH 132.25
Best 100-150mph 7.43 sec.
Best 150mph-0mph 673.34 ft.


Since we're on the West Coast and haven't seen the magazine yet, I'm going on these numbers that we received a few months ago as official.
Because of the myriad stereo equipment in our car, it weighed 3,600lb. on the C&D scales. That's a lot of weight to push around the track. I believe our Lethal 750 car was about 200lb. heavier than the HMS car.
We're also running the stock 3.07 gears to try to stave off some of the effects of the minimum 700ft/lb. torque our package makes across the entire rpm range. (Peak torque is ~800ft/lb.--hence why they called our car the "Undisputed King of Throttle Response" on C&D TV that'll air this weekend.) Lower rearend gearing would help the 100-150mph time a lot, but it would totally make the car undriveable at low speeds. It can already easily smoke the tires in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears.
If someone else has the magazine and can report any further, please do so! I'm anxious to see the results!

 

[King GTS]

Bill this is no flame! I heard your car was very good, very impressive. But you only got 5th or 6th place overall?? How did Hennessey place ahead of you & he had no ABS?


Also I thought your best MPH was 124 not 130. Everyone knows that MPH = Horspepower. If your laying down 124 MPH how could you possibly be really puttin down 650 to the ground? Let's say you did trap a best of 130 MPH. Gerald's Venom 650R trapped 128 MPH in the 1/4 with NO NOS & NO stroker motor either and he had no where near 650 the the wheels?? I think he had more like 545 RWHP. The numbers/math aren't seeming to add up. Then again, what do I know, I wasn't there. Are you putting up this same car at VOI to run the 1/4 mile?

 

[LTHL VPR]

We had a blast at the Supercar Challenge!
I'll do a more thorough writeup tomorrow, but, in the meantime, I thought it was important that the facts were straight and no erroneous information was provided. Here we go:

1) The times and speeds Bill posted above are accurate. Final version from Car and Driver. I haven't seen the magazine yet, so I don't know what was in print. Our best 1/4 mile: [email protected]

2) The times were tested at MIS (Mich. Int'l Speedway); 1/4 mile marked with a cone, not a true dragstrip. It would be more useful to compare the times to each other than vs. a trip to the strip.

3) Given the variables, we were happy with the results. If my memory serves me correctly, TNT's car was making around 580rwhp, HMS's was around 800rwhp, and ours was around 650rwhp. If you look at speeds, the increase in mph makes sense (TNT@124, LETHAL 750@130, HMS@137.

4) From what we know of the cars there and their strip performances, strip performances seem to be about 4-7mph higher in comparison to the testing conditions using their data recorder.

5) Since few cars finished last year (most broke down), and this was our first time there, our first goal was to finish. We went with a conservative tune and set the shift light to 5200 rpms (could account for slower 100-150 times; but not an excuse). We were one of the only cars that had a C&D editor drive it for during testing; most everyone else brought professional race drivers.

Overall, we were pleased with the results! Can't wait to see the writeup.
-Wayne Markowitz

 

[King GTS]

Thanks for that clarification buddy. I only wish I would've been fortunate enough to have seen it live. I'm sure ya'll had a blast. Sure ***** getting 2nd & 3rd hand information.

The same cars are going to be at VOI this year. Is Apex going to put up the Lethal 750 at the VOI drags against the other Tuners?

 

[TX WHOS YOUR DADDY]

BILL CONGRATS ON YOUR NUMBERS!PLZ TELL US U WILL BE BRINGING THE "UNDISPUTED KING OF THROTTLE RESPONSE" TO VOI AND RUNNING THE QUARTER MILE.REGARDS! NORM KOERNER

 

[ElDiablo Viper]

Got to ask how much is the 750 package?

 

[THEMASH]

Was it an LPE stage 2 or a 427TT ?
What gears did the TNT car have? the Lethal has 70 rwhp and about 120 rwtq more, but lost "by .01" in the 100-150mph race, how is that?

 

[LTHL VPR]

MASH-
Not exactly sure. There were lots of other variables in this event. For instance, the LPE car was putting down some serious power because I believe it was also using water injection which can increase power considerably; enabling the car to run more boost and still resist detonation while running on 92 pump gas (required by Car and Driver). With boost control and water injection, gobs of power can be added.

In our case, we had one of the editors drive our car. We had the shift light set at 5200rpms. My only guess is that shifting from 4th-5th at 5200rpms could have dramatically increased the time it takes to get to 150mph as the mph would require some time in 5th(5th gear is a dog). We also used stock gears. They may have had 3.54s or something. I would think that if we had diff. rear end gears and raised the shift point, our 100-150 times would have gone down. However, it's all in hindsight now. Obviously the power is there as evidenced in the 1/4 mile mph. Aside: We also had a noise limit for the test of 103dbs. We had to use some hefty cats to go under the limit. I doubt this helped our times either... .
Hope this clears things up.
-Wayne

 

[MiamiJeff]

...but don't forget to read the magazine's companion piece on page 11 about Hennessey's corporate problems, ("The Steering Column", by Csaba Csere, Car & Driver, September 2002)

 

[Snakester]

Bill, Wayne,

Congratulations!

With so many of these tuner tests it is discouraging when half of the cars break down before the day is done. It doesn't bode well for reliability in the real world. But it sounds like this was a good match up and everyone did well.

As much as it hurts the 0-60 and 1/4 mile times to run on street tires, I think that it is more representative of actual comparative street performance.

It would have been great to have some factory supercars in the mix (GT2, Murcielago) for comparisons sake.

I'm looking forward to reading the whole article!

-Dean.

 

[Bill/APEX Motorsports]

Even in the limited time the magazine's been on the newsstands (I haven't even received it yet!), our phone has been going crazy with people wanting information about our Lethal packages.
Soooooo, FYI--
Our Lethal 750 package includes the following items:
Custom aircraft billet steel keyed stroker crankshaft
Billet steel connecting rods
Custom forged pistons
Heavy duty main bearings
ARP hardware
Balance and blueprint complete rotating assembly
APEX custom-grind hydraulic roller camshaft
APEX exclusive high-volume fuel injectors
Extrude Honed intake manifold
APEX headers (new!-coming soon!)
Ultra-high-temp ceramic coating for headers
Header gaskets
Full porting/polishing/milling of cylinder heads
Hardware, assembly, etc.
Spark plugs
Mopar GTS-R spark plug wires with built-in heat shielding
Corsa 3" cat-back system
High-flow 3" catalytic converters, pr.
Exhaust seal, 3", pr.
Precision-balanced harmonic damper (SFI-approved)
T&D 1.7 shaft-mount rocker arms
Manley chromoly pushrods
High-performance lifters
Head gaskets
Intake gaskets
Head bolts
Fluidyne radiator
180 deg. thermostat
Silicone radiator hoses with air bleeders
True roller timing chain
70mm throttle bodies w/ gaskets
APEX carbon fiber air box with 3.5" outlets (new!-coming soon!)
Oversize smooth tubes
Lightweight aluminum flywheel
APEX Dual Kevlar clutch kit
Ripper shifter
Water pump gasket
Crank oil seal
Timing cover gasket
All fluids/filters
Unitrax lightweight halfshafts
Custom computer tuning on our Dynojet
Labor
Before and after dyno sessions with printouts
"Lethal 750" badging


As you can see, the package includes a lot of supporting hardware to deal with the extra power (i.e. Dual Kevlar clutch, halfshafts, etc.). We're proud to say that even with all the extra parts we offer, our installed price is $34,200. (This price is, at this time, estimated, pending final cost of our new headers and carbon fiber airbox, which should be finished within a couple weeks. It should be fairly close, however.)
We used to use the Mopar Street Performance heads, but since they have been recently discontinued, we'll be modifying stock heads instead. Before you "poo-poo" the stock heads, even though the Mopar SP heads have slightly better/more desirable cooling capabilities, our modified stock heads will perform just as well in terms of flow numbers. As an added benefit, this knocks over $3,500 off our previous package price.
Oh, and last but not least, we include the newly-created "APEX Motorsports LETHAL VIPERS" polo shirt!

We also offer and recommend a StopTech brake package to go along with all the new-found power. The 4-wheel kit we used for the Car & Driver event proved to offer utterly incredible stopping power from 150mph, even for our 3,600lb. beast!
And as you'll see from our website (www.apexmotorsports.com), the magazines, and previous posts from CNTW84U and other customers, we install custom Venzano interior pieces (seats, center consoles, etc.). These really make your Lethal Viper stand out from the crowd even more. In terms of customize-ability, the sky's pretty much the limit!
If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask Wayne or me. We're here to help, and we appreciate all the enthusiasm from the VCA members!

Sincerely,

Bill Kaiser
Owner
APEX Motorsports

 

[CNTW84U]

Dog gone it.....I wish I would have stepped up
to the 750 package!! O' well I'm very happy with the
650 LETHAL. Bill~Wayne, times and speed are one thing,
quality and service are another! YOu guys did a great job
on my Viper! Thanks again.
Bob

 

[TOOOFST]

Lost my invite,boo

 

[Gerald]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TOOOFST:
Lost my invite,boo

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Do they only invite n/a cars to a tuner shootout? In fact , I've noticed that... Do they allow turbos or supercharges or Nitrous?

Gerald

 

[Jay Herbert]

One car that was invited, but was not able to make it because of other "non-car" issues was the DV-II.

Ed was pretty excited when his customers car got invited, and equally bummed when it was not able to attend. From my ride in DV I, I can only guess how much more insane the DV II is, the car would have done very well. Maybe next year a DV II, and DLM car will be in on the fun.

 

[THEMASH]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jay Herbert:
From my ride in DV I, I can only guess how much more insane the DV II is, the car would have done very well. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Whats a DV ?

 

[Motor City Mad Man]

I'm showing Saturday August 10th at 9 am Eastern on TNN (Car & Driver Television). (30 minutes). Set your VCR's !!!!

 

[Bill/APEX Motorsports]

Regarding our reported 124mph trap speed (vs. our best 130.32mph of the day), I remembered last night why that was included. The Challenge was about overall time over the whole course, not the best individual times of each measured event. On the run that garnered us 6th place, Larry Webster, the C&D Technical Editor who was driving our car, blew the 3-4 shift in the off-the-line acceleration portion of the test, slowing our mph down tremendously. He did a great job on the rest of the course after that, but we really feel we would've been up to 5th place had he not missed the shift. (The 5th place car, the Mosler MT900S Photon, only beat us by 3/10 sec.) Unfortunate, but that's the way it goes!
Overall, we're extremely pleased with the results, but I have a feeling we'll be explaining the 124mph trap speed quite often!
On another note, the C&D people were all a great group of people. The whole event was run very smoothly and professionally. And the other participants were nothing but courteous to each other, with everyone laughing and joking together the whole time. Definitely an excellent experience, and something we had a tough time keeping under our hats for five months!

 

[Bullet488]

DV = Double Venom = 66' Cobra Kit Car + Viper V10. I'm assuming the DVII has a worked motor that should make for a very impressive power/weight ratio. 600hp + &lt;3000lbs.

No Idea how you get this thing to hook up. V-10 in front and no weight over the tires. Anyway, I'm sure it's a blast.
Regards,
Scott

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