The SAE chapter of ASU got on a bus and drove out to the GM proving grounds in Mesa 2 days ago on friday.
Highlights: Seeing the ZR1 test mules up close and touching them. Holding the big ass 15.5" composite front rotor. Saw the new 550hp CTS-V test mule blast around their oval track.
Saw a different ZR1 mule on a lift with an engineer under it, so i talked to him. He had just removed the torque tube and transaxle after doing something like 200 full throttle standing start launches on it. It didnt break anything, but they were sending the pieces back to Michigan to be analyzed further.
The clutch is a beefy twin disk, which he says is even easier to drive than the Z06 single plate.
Pics do no justice to the brakes on this car. The calipers are so big its borderline retarded.
umm what else. Oh, the new cts-v looks fucking sick.
They also had a 4 lane highway on the grounds, but every lane was built to simulate a different part of the US. NW, cali, midwest (harshest), etc. Pretty cool i thought.
I am kind of scatter brained right now as im sposed to be studying, but i thought i'd throw that tidbit out. There are lots of details i left out, maybe i'll fill it in later.
Any questions just ask.
edit- also they are moving the entire operation to Yuma next year and constructing a new proving grounds. GM used to have an agreement with the city of Mesa that no houses or companies would be allowed to build within a quarter mile of the grounds fences. Over the 60+ years GM has been there Mesa has kept taking away from their little agreement and now there are certain houses tall enough to see over the fences and see all the shit they dont want getting leaked. So rather than argue with the city further or keep building taller fences every year they decided to sell the operation and move further south to a more desolate area.
Kinda sad because an urban developer bought the land and they are just gonna tear up miles and miles of perfectly good racetrack to slap in a few square miles of houses. So sad
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