Watch This! Running a Corvette C8 on the Dyno

MotorTrend

This near-enough the base Corvette. Yet

Transcript

00:00 (car engine revving)

00:03 - I'm Miguel Cortina,

00:08 Managing Editor of Motor Trend en Español.

00:11 - And I'm Kim Reynolds,

00:12 Testing Director of Motor Trend.

00:13 - So today we're gonna talk about the surprising results

00:16 that we got from taking the Corvette to the dyno.

00:18 (upbeat music)

00:21 So we're wrapping up Car of the Year

00:29 and we have the mid-engine Corvette one more day.

00:32 We decided to take it to the real MPG test,

00:34 but turns out that they don't have

00:36 the right equipment for it.

00:37 So our plan B is to go to the dyno.

00:39 (upbeat music)

00:42 - The first question was what gear ratio to use.

00:49 - Yeah, we called Chris Walton.

00:50 Chris's best guess was to do it in fifth gear.

00:52 (upbeat music)

00:59 - We did four runs in fifth gear

01:00 and then runs five and six were done in sixth gear.

01:03 I was there with Angus, Angus McKenzie,

01:05 who's our international bureau chief,

01:07 and we did ridiculous numbers.

01:09 In terms of torque, it went from 515 at the wheels,

01:13 which means it's about 606 pound feet of torque at the crank

01:18 about 558 horsepower,

01:20 which means after drive train losses, it's 650 horsepower.

01:24 So I think the takeaway here is that the Corvette

01:28 is producing about 150 more horsepower

01:31 than what GM is telling us.

01:33 We couldn't just sit on this and scratch our heads

01:36 and say, this is a ringer.

01:38 So we called Chevy engineers to find out what was going on.

01:41 - And they actually found that this engine

01:42 was well within tolerance.

01:44 So there was nothing out of sorts with this thing.

01:46 It wasn't super tuned.

01:47 It was a very ordinary Corvette engine.

01:49 So after the conversation with General Motors,

01:52 what we finally discovered is the difference

01:55 between the SAE certified measurements

01:58 that they're reporting and what we saw is the methodology.

02:03 - The engine was certified

02:05 by the Society of Automotive Engineers, the SAE.

02:09 And so the SAE acts like as a third party

02:12 and follows these super strict rules.

02:15 - A normal dyno pull, as you witnessed,

02:19 you put the car on rollers and you tie it down

02:21 and you run it.

02:23 The SAE certified method, the car doesn't just accelerate

02:26 quickly through its RPM range, but it goes through steps

02:30 where it runs at certain RPM levels

02:32 all the way up to red line.

02:34 So that's much more stressful on the engine.

02:36 It's generating a lot more heat.

02:38 So you're gonna end up with lower numbers.

02:40 - And so these 495 horsepower and 470 pound feet of torque

02:44 are given to Chevy.

02:46 And so Chevy has to stick with those numbers.

02:48 It's not Chevy coming out and saying,

02:50 our car is making this.

02:52 It's actually the Society of Automotive Engineers saying,

02:54 this is how much your engine makes.

02:57 - So which of these numbers is true?

02:59 The 495 that Chevrolet is claiming

03:02 or the 650 that we saw?

03:05 - I'm leaning more towards the 650 that we saw,

03:08 but also to make sure that the car that we got

03:11 wasn't a ringer.

03:12 We're gonna be following up with this story in the future.

03:14 So once Corvette owners get their cars,

03:17 we're gonna ask them to come into the same dyno.

03:19 We'll pay for the dyno runs

03:21 and we'll see if their car is making

03:24 the same amount of horsepower and torque numbers

03:27 that our Corvette was making.

03:29 - Right, so it's 650 with a footnote.

03:31 - Yes, with an asterisk.

03:34 - Right.

03:35 - I mean, regardless if your Corvette

03:37 has 495 horsepower or 650,

03:39 you're still getting a really good car that drives amazing.

03:43 - Yeah, a car that does 2.8 seconds to 60 miles per hour.

03:46 That's the number that really matters.

03:48 (upbeat music)

03:50 (upbeat music)

03:53 (upbeat music)

03:55 (bells chiming)

03:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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