The Corvette is the icon of American sports cars. Now there is a new even more powerful and faster 'vette that is called the ZR1. The ZR1 has an all new engine that is called the LS9. The LS9 is GM's most powerful engine ever built. It has 8 cylinders that take up a displacement of 6.2 liters. However, the cherry on top of the ice cream is the supercharger. Similar to a turbocharger a supercharger's job is to boost oxygen into the engine cylinders in order to get more power at the high rpm's. However, what I learned, is that it widens the torque curve and therefore develops nearly 320 lb-ft of torque at only 1,000 rpm. This low end torque means that the Corvette can literally jump off the line and get the car rolling faster. This supercharger really amazed me how so many factors come into play when developing an engines performance. No one wants an engine with all of its power at 6,000 rpm so that if you are in 3-5,000 rpm's you get no power. When you press your foot down you want acceleration not a delay for the engine to rev up to 6,000 rpm then acceleration. The weight of the components of the engine also play a big roll in the rpm red line. I knew that if you get more rpm's the more power you get out of the engine. Thus if you can get a V8 to 9,000 rpm's it will produce a boat load of power. I learned that in order to do that you must make the moving components very light weight. This not only helps the total weight of the car but it makes the effort of spinning the crankshaft less stressful. For example, if you had a string and attached a baseball to the end you can spin it quite quickly, but if you attach a pool ball then there is much more stress on that rope and thus cant rotate as fast. This article I read was very informative but a lot of the language went over my head. Therefore I am excited to research the basics of internal-combustion engines.
http://www.corvettefever.com/techarticles/corp_0712w_gm_ls9_zr1_corvette_small_block_engine/index.html
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Hi Jon,
ReplyDeleteI thought you might be interested in a book we have at the DHS Library. It is called "Fast cars, cool rides : the accelerating world of youth and their cars" by Amy L. Best.
Here is a review from Amazon.com:
"Bass booms from custom speakers, pick-up trucks boast lowered suspensions, chrome rims reflect stoplights, and bare arms dangle from open windows. Welcome to Santa Clara Street in San Jose, California, where every weekend kids come to cruise late at night, riding their cars slow and low. On the surrounding, less-traveled streets you can also find young men racing customized cars to see who has the "go," not just the "show." And, in the daylight hours, in a nearby suburb, you might find a brand new SUV parked in the driveway, a parents' Sweet 16 present.
In Fast Cars, Cool Rides Amy Best provides a fascinating account of kids and car culture. Encompassing everything from learning to drive to getting one's license, from cruising to customizing, from racing to buying one's first car, Best shows that never before have cars played such an important role in the lives of America's youth as they do today. Drawing on interviews with over 100 young men and women, aged 15-24, and five years of research—cruising hot spots, sitting in on auto shop class, attending car shows—Best explores the fast-paced world of kids and their cars. She reveals a world where cars have incredible significance for kids today, as a means of transportation and thereby freedom to come and go, as status symbols and as a means to express their identities. But while having a fast car or a cool ride can carry tremendous importance for these kids, Best shows that the price, especially when it can cost $30,000, can be steep as working-class kids work jobs to make car payments and as college kids forgo moving out of Mom and Dad's house because they can't pay for rent, car payments, and car insurance.
Fast Cars, Cool Rides offers a rare and rich portrait of the complex and surprising roles cars can play in the lives of young Americans. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a cool ride."
I'd love to know if you check it out!
Ms. Fiorito