News, Videos, Performance Parts, Pictures and More from HPE
Ride along in one of our recently-completed Corvettes — A 650 horsepower supercharged Grand Sport — as John Hennessey takes it for a spin around Lonestar Motorsports Park.
The HPE650 features a TVS2300 E-Force based supercharger system, stainless steel long tube headers with high flow catalytic converters and an upgraded fuel system to churn out 650 horses for ZR1-level acceleration.
The new 2011 Camaro convertibles may only just now be hitting the streets, but we’ve already been hard at work unleashing our first supercharged HPE600 Camaro SS convertible onto the Texas blacktop.
In addition to the supercharged HPE600 upgrade, this first car — a Summit White automatic — also received a KW coilover suspension system, hood stripes in an LS9-esque metallic blue, wider HPE 20″ 3-piece wheels, and our CarbonAero™ carbon fiber front splitter and side sills (all available options for any HPE-upgraded Camaro).
With over 600 horsepower on tap and the ability to drop the top for the full open-air experience, the boosted convertible is the perfect cure spring fever.
“Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous Period. You get your first look at this “six foot turkey” as you enter a clearing. He moves like a bird, lightly, bobbing his head. And you keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like T-Rex – he’ll lose you if you don’t move. But no, not Velociraptor. You stare at him, and he just stares right back. And that’s when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side, from the other two raptors you didn’t even know were there. Because Velociraptor’s a pack hunter, you see, he uses coordinated attack patterns and he is out in force today. And he slashes at you with this – a six-inch retractable claw, like a razor, on the middle toe. He doesn’t bother to bite your jugular like a lion, oh no … he slashes at you here… or here … or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines. The point is … you are alive when they start to eat you. So you know … try to show a little respect.”
– Dr. Alan Grant, Jurassic Park
Drag strip weather is upon us as late September has ushered in cooler mornings and, for now, has pushed out the choking humidity that has lingered over Gulf Coast Texas most of the summer. That means more racing, testing and fresh track times from our cars in the coming months. It also helps to have your very own 1/4 mile strip (Lonestar Motorsports Park) located behind your shop.
The timing has worked out well with the completion of a new 2011 CTS-V Coupe and its V700 upgrade. We slapped on a set of drag radials and set out earlier this week to see what numbers this cooler air would allow and whether or not OnStar would be chiming in this go-around.
Thanks to the immense low-end torque and stickier tires, the V700 pulled a 1.6 second time to the 60 ft mark, pulling over 1.2 G’s off the line according to the data from our Video VBOX logging software.
That’s a harder launch than our previous sedan that triggered an OnStar call on more than one occasion. So the question is… did they call us to check on the coupe?
Well… no, actually. In spite of a more visceral launch than before, the system didn’t detect a “vehicle event” as it did last November. It looks like they may have learned from last time (or perhaps they have black-flagged Lonestar as a sort of Bermuda Triangle of false readings). In any case, we’re happy with the way the automatic coupe took off with a vengeance and skirted close to 10′s on pump gas with very little effort while still remaining very streetable.
Check out the 11.1 second pass below, and stay on the lookout for more video of the V700 coupe, including experiencing the in-car footage of this same pass, coming soon.
Hennessey 2009 – 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Upgrades & Performance Parts
V700 Gallery – Click to Enlarge:
The first spy photos of the supercharged LSA inside a factory Camaro test mule has been revealed, along with the supposed design of the top-level Z28′s new hood.
Images of the Z28 test cars have been leaking out for the past few months, but this is the first time we get to see what we’ve all expected: The 556 hp 6.2L LSA engine sourced from the Cadillac CTS-V powering the new Z. Whether or not it will be rated the same as the Caddy is something we’re going to have to wait and see, but fundamentally, the LSA is going to open the Camaro up to the same general lineup of modifications and upgrades found in our Hennessey CTS-V packages.
Just look at our last post on the V700 CTS-V Coupe and you get the idea what we’re thinking for the Z28′s resurrection.
Head over to Camaro5 and check out more pictures of the Z28, it’s LSA and new hood. (Oh, and apparently a new shade of blue for 2012.)
Source: [Camaro5]
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