FuelTech C8 Sets Two New World Records

FuelTech C8 Sets Two New World Records

The mid-engine C8 Corvette has been an exciting darling of the media and social circles for several reasons. Of course, it all started years before we even saw the first prototypes with guesses, photo-chops, and various prognosticators reciting from their crystal balls. Things got real when GM announced the initial buy-in for the base model. And now, folks are taking the “unhackable” Corvette far beyond where GM ever intended it to go.

The FuelTech engine management offers sequential fuel injection and ignition, O2 closed-loop operation, data logging, a delay box, boost, and nitrous control, and the ECU box doubles up as a touch-screen LCD display, showing real-time data and allowing the user to make adjustments without a PC connection.

Dyno duels have been going on ever since the first cars reached someone with a video camera. Then, turbo systems, nitrous, and full-on twin-turbos with aftermarket ECUs started filling up our news feed. Just as a quick reminder of how far we’ve come, FuelTech has uploaded a video of their latest attempt to secure a record using their C8 equipped with twin-turbos and utilizing their engine control systems.

This C8 Corvette’s humble beginnings brought it to the limelight when the car first twisted the rollers of FueTech’s dyno with a lowly 750+hp. Of course, the focus at that point was learning HOW to adapt and control all the necessary bits of GM’s newest, most complicated Corvette. To do that, FuelTech added its FT600 auxiliary ECU with a jumper harness to increase fuel flow to preserve that precious Air/Fuel ratio under load.

FuelTech is now using two FT600 systems to control their C8. One operates the port-injection and boost controller systems while the other dictates the dual-clutch transmission's shifting. The FT600 uses a jumper harness to connect in line with the factory wiring.

We all know how addicting horsepower can be, and soon the FuelTech team was looking for ways to take that number into the four-digit zone with their C8 Corvette. Ask someone how you make 1,000 horsepower on a stock-internal LT2 engine, the reply would likely be – ONCE! Boost pressure was going to be much higher than the clutch-limited three-pounds, so non-stock internals was a necessity.

Since the clutch has been a known bottleneck for horsepower, the FuelTech team decided to beef up the engine’s internals for their C8 with new connecting rods and a new set of pistons. The goal was to spin the dyno with 1,000 rear-wheel horsepower. At somewhere just above 21-pounds of boost, the dyno ticked over the century mark with 1,075 horsepower to the C8’s rear wheels.

Anyone familiar with racing can attest to how much more difficult finding tenths of a second can be as your ETs drop. The same goes with horsepower. Early on, a set of plug wires can help performance immensely. Once you get beyond the realm of mere mortals, details such as indexing spark plugs become more important. The gap between milestones becomes much farther apart and the road much less traveled.

The look on his face tells the tale, the dyno chart shows the whole story.

It is very much the same with horsepower. The land of 1,000 RWHP is becoming more populated, but it is still a very exclusive community. The folks at FuelTech thrive in this environment and have spent the last few months tweaking their C8, finding those hidden crannies where horsepower likes to hide. In this latest video, they show their C8 Corvette quickly rolling past their previous dyno record on its way to internet greatness.

One thing to note is how quickly this dyno pass goes from throttle-down to record-setting. When FuelTech owner Anderson Dick opens the throttle blades on the dyno, the front of the C8 lifts faster than the C8 Corvette’s nose-lifting option going headlong toward the world’s largest speed bump. In just a few seconds, the car goes from idle to the horsepower stratosphere and back. Calmly settling into its docile idle speed as the wheel hubs whir on their way back from their inertia-riddled ride.

Likewise, not soon after the dyno had cooled, the folks at FuelTech headed to the dragstrip to see how well all those new-found ponies could run. As is to be expected, each one of them made their presence known and the result is a new fastest C8 record as well. The car made a bonsai run down the dragstrip to the tune of 9.017 at 153 mph. For those Missourians, here’s the video.

The bottom line is the folks at FuelTech found another 300 horsepower, on top of the already 1,000 ponies formerly recorded. That’s like finding the output of a 1990 Corvette in just the tuning and engine controls! Think about that as you reminisce about how far we have come since the early days of EFI!

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About the author

Andy Bolig

Andy has been intrigued by mechanical things all of his life and enjoys tinkering with cars of all makes and ages. Finding value in style points, he can appreciate cars of all power and performance levels. Andy is an avid railfan and gets his “high” by flying radio-controlled model airplanes when time permits. He keeps his feet firmly grounded by working on his two street rods and his supercharged C4 Corvette. Whether planes, trains, motorcycles, or automobiles, Andy has immersed himself in a world driven by internal combustion.
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