(car revving loudly)
- [Rob] Oh no!
- [Anderson] Wiring is over there.
- It ripped the wiring off the transmissions.
- [Anderson] Oh my God.
- The Opel Comet, of course, one of my personal favorite,
the Barracuda, and then a drag car.
These are some pretty wild vehicles
but it's not til you come around this corner
you start really questioning your sanity.
And that's a Ferrari drift car?
That's when you know, you're at FuelTech.
(upbeat music)
Now all those cars are amazing, they're wonderful vehicles,
but it's the vehicle behind me
that really is kind of a starting place for a lot of people.
This C5 Corvette is an iconic car.
It's something that's easy to modify,
it's easily accessible and anybody can work on it.
But that's the history of how modifying cars went,
let's take a look at the future.
That includes this 355 Ferrari.
It was a vehicle that they bought for $30,000,
it was a salvage title and they used it
as a project to modify.
Who doesn't love an exotic?
And of course the turbocharger won at that.
If the C5 Corvette is an example of easy tuning,
and this is more difficult,
let's take a look at utterly insane.
Behind me is the world's fastest C8 Corvette,
this thing is the first Corvette under nine seconds
in the quarter mile and makes more than 1,350 horsepower.
(upbeat music)
You see the rear tires, that's a first indication
that there is something really crazy
on the back side of this car.
And of course, it takes meaty tires
to make a lot of power stick to the ground,
but that's just the beginning.
It's up here where I fall in love with this car.
You know, I love turbochargers, why not have two of them?
One on each side of this engine produces
a lot of the power needed to make all 1,350 horsepower
out of a car that originally made closer to 500, 600.
When you come around this side,
you see that not only are they adding power,
but they're taking away weight,
something like the racing seats
and then going all the way to the front of the car,
you've got a little baby fuel cell, but that's methanol.
It's an insane type of fuel.
But then, of course, everybody's favorite nitrous
right next to it.
So there are a lot of things going on underneath the hood
of what, from a distance, other than the rear tires
looks like a stock Corvette.
With great power comes great responsibility,
and that is where you see what looks like a dash sitting
in the armrest is actually the new computer
controlling all of it.
In the past, you could work with what the car had,
nowadays it's so encrypted, it's so advanced,
there's so many different wires running everywhere,
that it's almost easier just to let that be,
and then build a computer on top of it.
And that's where the FuelTech comes in.
And just like the older Corvette and the Ferrari,
and the other Ferrari,
they all are controlled with the same unit,
that is the new brain of the car
controlling the entire engine,
and of course the transmission as well.
Everything that puts power to the ground
is all controlled from that thing
sitting right at your elbow.
(gentle music)
(race announcer in background)
(car revving loudly)
(driver and crew cheering)
- I certainly might know what these are,
but I know that you're the creator of them,
and I want to learn more about
how you came to inventing this particular box.
- You know I'm from Brazil, right?
And the idea was really make something
in one box that can tune a car, especially in South America,
because really limited availability of products.
- For me, I, I saw it as,
just a drag race tool for drag race cars,
those wild, big, huge tire cars to make power.
Now seeing it on your Corvette and realize
that you're really onto something
with controlling future cars.
- Yeah, because this is really a lot more than a issue,
we even, the right word would be VCU
is Vehicle Control Unit,
because it's really advanced computer
that can do everything.
- Well, you know how much I absolutely love your computer
but let's go make some fun noise with the cars.
- Absolutely.
(upbeat music)
- Where better to test the world's fastest C8 Corvette
than at a drag strip.
We're at Silver Dollar Motorsports Park to do just that.
We're gonna take this car, down that strip,
and see just how fast it actually is.
What does it take to get this car down the strip?
- Basically, what we do here,
it, it does have the pedal shifts and stuff
but what we've done, we wire the FuelTech
to actually activate this signal electronically.
So it is so fast it shifts, the gear ratio of this car,
it shifts first to second in one second,
second to third in 1.8 seconds,
third to fourth in 2.7 seconds,
and fifth gear in about five seconds.
- So you're saying that in, when we launch,
for only a second that we're going,
we're gonna be in first gear.
- Yes.
- And then we're into the next gear already.
- And the next gear.
We accelerate the gear ratio,
which is something we can modify on this car.
- [Rob] You have it where brake in hard,
gas pedal all the way down, and then when you're ready,
let go of the brake.
- Mhm.
- Once you're down full pedal,
and your computer's doing all the rest.
- [Anderson] Yeah.
- [Rob] That is amazing.
(C8 engine revs loudly)
- [Anderson] It entered the leap mode.
- [Rob] Oh.
- [Anderson] That's very normal.
- [Rob] That was a cool start.
- [Anderson] I need that.
That's the challenge of this car.
- [Rob] Yeah.
- [Anderson] So what happens is the, the transmission is,
the clutch is to avoid it getting to leap mode.
And sometimes it's random,
sometimes you need to apply more clutch pressure,
less clutch pressure, probably.
And that's what most, most everyone who is dealing
with the C8 is actually try that.
The difference is we, we already figure some ways
of preventing this to happen.
- [Rob] I see.
Here we go.
(C8 revs loudly and sputters)
- [Anderson] Yeah. Not exactly what I expected it.
It didn't shift at second, you see?
- [Rob] Yeah.
- [Anderson] It stay all the way in first.
Ah.
It ripped the wiring.
Okay.
The wheel cover..
- [Rob] Yeah.
- [Anderson] Cap. Ripped it off.
- [Rob] Oh no.
- [Anderson] And, and the transmission control unit,
the wiring is over there.
- [Rob] Oh no.
- [Anderson] It ripped the wiring from the transmission.
- It ripped the wiring off the transmissions.
- [Anderson] Oh my God.
- [Rob] I'm not gonna say it's my fault.
I did gain a couple pounds over winter, but, it's my luck.
Now, those of you that know me know
that I love breaking my cars,
and you know what you do when you're breaking your cars?
You're pushing the limits.
He was going faster, harder, new things, bigger tires,
and the bigger tire hooked onto the stock bodies fascia
the, the plastic covering, ripped that off and said,
no that's not enough.
It went and ripped wires out of the wheel well,
and so right now, the car's stuck in first gear.
They're gonna try to fix that real quick,
get it off the track.
But, that's the name of the game,
when it comes to modifying modern cars like this.
There's a lot of wires everywhere,
and they're all extremely important.
Unwilling to pack up and go home Anderson and his team
went back to their trailer to completely rewire
the control work for their transmission,
so we could take another run
and I could get a chance to drive the car.
(car revs loudly)
- [Rob] Yes! Yes!
That is amazing.
Oh my God.
That is mean.
- [Anderson] Ready to drive?
- [Rob] With most of the kinks worked out,
it was my turn to drive.
As a tuner, I'm used to driving high horsepower cars,
but they're usually my cars.
This is Anderson's baby
and I really didn't wanna smash his 1300 horsepower
prototype into a wall.
(C8 engine growling)
(Car revs up)
- Oh my God! Oh my God!
That is amazing! That is amazing!
Anderson, you built one hell of a car, that is amazing!
- Never seen my car, with, without me.
- [Rob] Yes. Oh my God.
That is amazing.
That was so solid.
Oh my God.
(laughs)
Yes. Yes.
Oh. That is an amazing car, that was solid.
It was so straightforward.
It's so crazy to think that, okay,
I'm just pressing the brake, holding the gas,
he's got it all tuned so that way I could hear,
I could hear those turbos come online,
and then I just let go of the brake
and the car did the rest of it.
The FuelTech, everything just worked.
I was just along for the ride and what a ride that was.
(gentle music)