[OpenFlash]

Yesterday night, we drove the single turbo development car 400 miles south to Fontana, CA for Edmund's The Inside Line to have their way with it. The drive was fun. Although the car was a bit cramped for two people, an extra set of rear wheels/tires, a floor jack, some luggage, 15 gallons of race gas, 5 gallons of meth/water mix, laptops, cameras, a few tools and an extra set of spark plugs. Of course, we took some pics of the journey thus far:

Sean@FFTEC traveling in style:


1000 miles of being strapped in this thing?




Pit stop 1


Pit stop 2


Pit stop 3. Sometimes you just have to have a Frosty at midnight:


Pit stop 4. What do you do when you are on the road @ 2AM and you need to download Procede firmware from the internet? You go to a McD's. They keep their wifi running all night! Even when they are closed.



Edmund's Testing: Day 1
Grueling. We weren't allowed to drive the car for insurance reasons so one of their test drivers (Josh Jacquot) was given testing duties. I've known Josh for many years and he's a great guy. He drives the cars HARD but not irresponsibly as many others would if they were put in the seat of a 700hp RWD 6MT car running NLS, 2-step and Hoosier slicks on a completely un-prepped track (no VHT). Like any good driver, he feels for the car just as much as he drives it. Which means things are less likely to break. Which in our case, is very good since coming with a trailer defeats the whole purpose of real world testing.

Between tire pressure tweaks, different launching techniques and eventually trusting the NLS system, he got it sorted out. Pretty impressive given that they have never driven the car before. For what it's worth, the highest trap speed of the day was 133.1mph using their 100hz logging Vbox professional unit (not the simpler 10hz consumer version). 60' times (according to our personal VBOX that we had running in the car as well), due to lack of track prep, was in the 2-2.5s range. So no 10s were run today. But I was told that it did trap higher than both the Maclaren MP4-12C and the Hennessey Twin Turbo Ford GT they tested recently. Pretty cool for a daily driven 3-series. Still, the lack of traction combined with Josh having too much mechanical empathy (a good thing given that our journey across the Southwest US isn't even half done!) meant that the best ET was 11.4x (adjusted for 1' roll out). The actual instantaneous trap speed will be adjusted as well to account for the fact that drag race timing equipment averages speed over the last 60' of the run. So it will probably drop to 131-132mph. But given the reasonably poor conditions, a quick calculation suggests that on a good night at a prepped drag strip, running a perfectly reasonable 1.6s 60' time would result in a mid 10s 1/4 mile pass at over 130mph. That also means we need a cage

Drag strip testing compilation. The car was worked hard today. No issues whatsoever. Strangely enough, this car has been more trouble-free than an other stock or twin turbo'd N54 we've tested under similar conditions. Despite making 200-300HP more!

Not exactly a VHT prepped track. But our car still likes to lay down some lines:


Fontana Raceway is a decommissioned drag strip. So that means they are very strict on testing rules. The rule that was most surprising is that they don't allow burn out. So how were we to warm up our brand new Hoosier drag radials for the first time? Simple... left the track, found an industrial center and did it there:


Here's what catalogs of today's testing looks like (45 minutes worth of logs):



After a long day, it's time to rest:


Testing continues tomorrow. Then we drive out to Vegas where we will be doing some ahem.... desert testing for a few days. Then driving it back to the SF. 1000 miles of driving and a lot of heavy stress testing over the course of 6 days. The idea is that if our development car holds up to this kind of abuse, customers will not need to be concerned about their cars. Nothing beats real world testing. And nothing beats products that have been real world tested.

Oh, and some rather big Procede-related updates to come next week

Cheers,
Shiv

[Mahhvinn]

Great updates, Shiv! I can't wait to see more.

[turbo6shooter]

you gonna be at Fontana tomorrow?

[Kalud]

Poor car haha!

[zerep1]

Damn with this much r/d paying upwards of 12k for a kit doesn't sound like a rip off

[C4sF80M3]

That trunk looks highly flammable.

[Hisam135i]

Originally Posted by M_Truong

Great updates, Shiv! I can't wait to see more.

+1 much respect to team Vishnu for what you guys are doing!!

[pits200]

Originally Posted by zerep1

Damn with this much r/d paying upwards of 12k for a kit doesn't sound like a rip off

Haha, come on man! Even if that is true, you never tell the supplier that the buyer wants something that bad, lol.

I wouldn't pay more than $83 for this kit.

With all those launches, seems the axles held up nicely especially with that wheel hop you were getting.

[farbmw]

Looks like a lot of fun and sweat!

Shiv what is the NLS system? You have so many threads I must have missed this.

[Q4P]

Good stuff... car sounds excellent, very much like a Supra. Unfortunately, I think this thing will need a fully prepped / built suspension to make it usable in any way. I am already thinking HPF M3 here...

[BoostedE90]

I like Sean's choice for a footrest!

[Sniz]

excellent stuff, glad the car is doing well. 133mph traps on an unprepped track is very good. I'm sure there are 135mph traps in this car with the power its making, possibly more.

CES has a gtx35r powered e36 running mid 600whp that went 10.5 recently and has trapped over 135mph. I think this car will get there soon.

[kenneth]

Oh, and some rather big Procede-related updates to come next week

Let the speculations begin!

[hotrod182]

Good stuff and excellent results. This is the kind of great testing I like to see. You can tell it all makes sense. 133mph Vbox traps are exactly where the trap speeds would be when a 335i gets high 6's 60-130 times (on level runs). Thats why 60-130s and trap speeds are such an important indicator to judge how powerful a car accelerates. Qtr miles ETs will come with traction. It also shows what a awesome tool a GPS based Vbox is for testing. This is something other turbo kit manufacturers such as HPF should be doing.

[Slops]

Originally Posted by kenneth

Oh, and some rather big Procede-related updates to come next week

Let the speculations begin!

N55 support !!!!! That's just speculation though

[spool twice]

Car held up well to those launches, great work.

Any idea when the E/T would be when the story is up on Edmunds?

[2Times]

That's a lot of abuse, I'm surprised you guys could stomach that much fast food! lol. Car held up well too

[nafoo]

[RaihaX]

Man the car is definitely getting raped poor car

[BADS335]

Major props for all the testing you guys do! That is huge!

[eric@helix]

How many of the twelver of Stella did the test driver have before the test?

[vladster]

Originally Posted by RaihaX

Man the car is definitely getting raped poor car

But then again, who doesn't want to rape a 700 whp car ????