about 3100. Thats all I can muster taking off on the street tires and trying to avoid glazing it. I actually got it to hook pretty good once from about 3900, but the clutch stayed down on the floor because I obviously slipped it excessively trying not to blow the tires away (this was the 2nd pass ever in the car last october - cooled her down and has been fine ever since). I think the lower rpm launch and very fast clutch release is the only way to go.

However, with my old '02 Z I relished high rpm launches. Of course, the car had an aftermarket clutch and 3.90 gears, and I wouldn't think twice of a 6200 rpm launch. Incredible fun. Best 60ft was 1.51 with about 400rwhp. I do miss not being able to launch like that in the new Z, but it is nice to experience all the back track pull this 427 lays down.

 

OK have some stats from my buddy's new (to him) C6 Z06 as requested. He only has about 10 runs in the car and is coming from years of drag racing an automatic so he's working on his launches and doesn't have it down yet. Times below on drag radials, 4600 launch but he was having traction problems, bog or spin. He's still working on "walking out the clutch" but he was getting better as the day went on. This particular launch was a 1.879, 7.725@90.18 1/8 and 11.894@117.61 (he is still granny shifting and missed 4th).

0-60 HP tuners=3.4 website above 3.4. Looks pretty accurate!

Comparison of Z06 cold air intake to Vararam
Another thing HP tuners shows is IAT. The Z06 cold air induction had IAT at 150 in the staging lanes, and got down to 104 at about 80 mph and stayed there. So it does work.

My Vararam was 93 in the lanes and got down to 84 (ambient) by 100 mph.

So I guess the Vararam drawing cool air from the bumper vs the radiator cavity makes a big difference, particularly for stock cars. Note from my previous post of the table showing the vast amount of timing pulled from the car at 86 degrees IAT. This can of course be tuned out and is the first thing we tuned on my buddy's Z06 and his timing went from 16 degrees to 22 at the top end of his runs.

 

Joe, I want to get clarification. Are you saying your friends Z06 has an aftermarket CAI? Which one?

Second, have you run similar temperature tests on a C6 with the stock intake to see what the temps are at 80-100 mph?

Thanks, great information

 

No, my friend has a Halltech filter, but the factory intake. The little scoop on the front of the Z06's is open to the area on top of the air intake. It gets cool air in there as indicated from the facts I posted above. But, when the car is sitting, it is drawing from the very hot air of the engine compartment.

My vararam is drawing from the cool air in front of the car, in the grille, in front of the radiator by several inches (maybe a foot). So I start out with an advantage of cooler air (close to ambient) and maintain it. The vararam also gets a very slight ram air effect over 100 mph as I watch my fuel trims going leaner at those speeds, my buddy's Z06 does not do that with his factory CAI.

I never tried it with a factory C6 intake but my guess would be that it would start very hot like the Z06, like 150 degrees or so, then get cooler over a much longer period of time, likely MORE than a drag strip run, because there is no open shot to outside air on those. Guessing, I'd say it would maintain around 150 for the 12-13 seconds a drag strip run would take.

That, combined with the very aggressive timing pulled by the factory tune at low 86 degree IAT's, is why I think the Vararam is so effective. It is also why I believe some cars go so fast factory - I bet they are on 50 degree days when the IAT might be below the 86 degree bogey where timing gets pulled. My stock run was on a 90 degree day so I had no way to overcome that and got 12.9 as my absolute best. When I put on the vararam I got 12.5's which is consistent with the best of the best bone stock in cold weather.

 

Oh and one more thing. Yesterday at our private test day my buddy Retrotech here on the board got into 3 guys' cars and bested the owners' personal times in his 2nd run in each car by a mimimum of .2. What is funny about this is each of these drivers had aftermarket short shifters and my buddy struggled with the high effort in each (he and I subscribe to the factory shifter theory - we find the long factory shifter to be wonderful). We wonder about those guys that like those short little shifters

This goes to prove that practice makes perfect and THE DRIVER MOD IS THE CHEAPEST MOD AND THE BEST MOD. He's been doing this a long time and can get into a car he's never been in and beat the best times of the owners.

Here's the stats:
C5, headers/410 gears; Rob=12.02 owner 12.34
C6 Blown H/C; Rob=11.12, owner 12.3 (owner's first time on track so he gets a bye)
LS2 GTO 510rwhp H/C; Rob-12.3 blew 4th, owner 12.6 (neat car but wow the 900 lb weight difference takes a toll).

Sorry for the off topic but wanted to demonstrate how important the driver mod is. Each of these record runs was from shaving tenths off the launch. He set a record launch in each car. I guess I'm not so sure if this is so important for automatics, I've only drag raced manuals for years now, but for manuals it's all at the launch.

 

Ok so we've determined that the website is pretty darn close to the HP Tuners 0-60 method, ( ) but now I'm curious about how HP Tuners accurately tests 0-60, like how/when does the clock start/stop and how exactly does it measure the time versus speed exactly?
I know when HPT is plugged in it should be far more exact than the speedometer/tach are to the naked eye but just not sure how it knows you're moving from 0-60.
Interesting info by the way, thanks for sharing.

 

VERY true, a great driver in a true 12.5 second car will likely beat a bad driver in a true 12.0 (even a high 11) second car every time, at least in the case of both cars being manual trans.

 

HP Tuners scanning feature is awesome. You can scan for thousands of data points your car tracks, but there are a few that are particularly useful. There is way more than I can get into here but to answer your question, look at the graph of my best run below. There is a LOT of data there that we use to tune our cars, the data is all tracked in the car's computer and output to your laptop. Note that the time is displayed at the bottom down to the hundreds of a second. All you do to calculate 0-60 is put the cursor (white vertical line on the graph) at 0 speed, note the time at the bottom, move the cursor to 60 mph, note the time, and subtract to come up with time elasped. When these graphs are live you can move back, forth, play them like a VCR, look at other ways of looking at the info, like histograms, dashboard, etc. ect. It's just crazy the way you can slice and dice the data. It makes tuning the car a real joy. My buddies and I love it. From this run you can see I launched at 4600, I didn't exactly power shift (note the tps% drops each time I shift from full throttle, I can see exactly where I shifted, how much time I am off the throttle during shifts, that I had some wheel spin on each shift, that I had no knock retard (added a degree of spark later) and that I was running a little lean on the top end. You can also see from the blue line at the top that my IAT started at 99 as my run started and got down to 84, ambient, by 100 mph. That is consistent with the Vararam. Note also that my fuel trims (o2b1s1 and o2b2s1 lines) are going slightly leaner as I get over 100 mph - they are running 900-890 in 2nd and 3rd but in 4th at 110+ they are getting in the 860-855 range. That's too lean but it also always happens with the vararam as the air gets some bit of ram air effect. I find that if I tune it for the top end, it's too rich down low and I lose a MPH or 2 in the quarter.

I'm telling you, my buddies and I have got more enjoyment from the drag strip and our cars since we have started tuning than any other mod. You get to see the effect of your work right away and no dirt under the nails or gas spurting on the intake as you change jets!

 

Joe, thanks for the information

 

Joe, great write-up, I could not agree with you more. I've always thought the Vararam does the BEST job of any of the cold air inlets of getting the coldest possible air. The ram effect at 100 mph is worth another 3 hp or so, so that's nice also, but the main effect is guaranteeing cold air.

That being said, I am also afraid of the vararam on a daily driver because if you cover the inlet up with water (I know you would have to be an idiot to drive into that deep of puddle) it could hydrolock on you. That's why I went with the Xcelerator (Honker copy). It also gets cold air and has less chance of hydrolock, but has less ram effect. Overall a good compromise for me. I've keep a spreadsheet of all my 1/4 mile runs and compare corrected speeds. It looks like going from the K&N inlet to the Xcelerator was worth .8 mph or around 8 hp.

Thanks,
Glenn

 

Excellent, thanks.

 

Hey Joe, thanks for the information. Besides the car going lean and the IAT temperature dropping are there any other indications of the ram effect.

I have not been to the track yet with the CAI and at approximately
80 - 90 mph I do not see any material difference between my honker and my sons vararam. (I am used the older version of HP tuners.... waiting for my new laptop should be here in another week)

BTW On a fifty degree day both CAIs dropped the IAT temperature four degrees below the ambient temp just driving around town

 

Glad you guys are liking this, even though I'm a fast typist I've been pretty verbose today!

I daily drive my car too, and I live in S. Fla land of the sudden huge downpours and flooded roads. So I understand your fear. I have turned around and taken a different path before faced with a flooded road. Heavy rain is no problem at all but standing water is a huge problem. In the summer rainy season I have a 4x4 truck to drive if I know it's really rainy because there is a low spot on my daily drive that will flood.

Yesterday I also logged my other buddy's C5 with a Breathless Vortex, similar to your intake. I expected it to start higher than the Vararam but get down to ambient very similarly. But his started at 162 idling a long time in the staging lanes and only got down to 145!

Now I am hesitant to post this because he had just put in a new IAT sensor and I think he must have gotten a bad one. I know that system pulls from the radiator so it will be higher than the vararam but it shouldn't be that much. I'm going to tell him to get another sensor.

 

The car going lean is the main indication. You certainly can't feel that little bit. The car is much faster, I think .3 and 3 mph with the vararam (from memory) from stock but that's due to lower IAT not ram air IMHO. I don't think you'll see much difference between the honker and the vararam. Both have the benefit of dropping IAT dramatically from factory intake as evidenced by my buddy's Z06 in the staging lanes at 150 and me at 93, only 9 above ambient.

 

Try tuning the fans on about 20% when you first start up with the HP Tuner. Before the IAT has a chance to get above ambient. This should keep the IAT close to ambient. I think if the fans are running at all times the warm air should be pulled through the radiator and not radiating to the inlet of the Honker.

You can also run the fans long enough in the staging lanes to help keep the IAT and engine temps down. You can do this with just the ignition on, engine off.

I just installed my Xcelerator today and haven't had a chance to test. Will do so in the next few days.

 

My second time at the track with the VR (slightly worse DA) and my mph was again consistent with 89-90mph while before the VR, it was consistent 87-88. The VR works in the 1/8th as well. Had a Halltech Stinger prior.

 

Dennis, awesome ET buddy! I have not been around for awhile, looks like Iam down to number four on the list. I guess its time to get rid of these 2:73's!

On another note, I was out of town for a couple weeks my wife was driving my Vette because I had her Trailblazer SS for the road trip, a little SLK Mercedes pulled out in front of her and went nose to nose with my Vette. Iam still waiting to hear back from the body shop if the car will total out or not.Should know by the end of this week. I thank God my wife was not hurt. Its tough waiting to see if I can go buy another Vette, or if this one is going to be fixed.
Matt

 

Oh bummer. Yes thankfully your wife wasn't hurt, that is key.
That looks to me like they might choose to fix it as opposed to total, depends on vehicle mileage and underside damage as well.
Just make sure you use a reputable shop and demand OEM/factory parts of course if they don't total it.

 

Yeah I have it at a great shop, the problem is the front drivers frame horn took the hit hard from the other car, the back end is completely out of wack. The rear hatch seems are off, the rear hatch is sticking up on one side where it meets the roof a qtr inch. There is a wrinkle in the trunk floor area that popped up both storage compartments. Its alot worse than it looks in the pic.

 

Ahh, so it is pretty bad. Yeah that changes things.