On this episode of HOT ROD Unlimited
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00:00 On this episode of Hot Rod Unlimited, Hot Rod Magazine and Lingenfilter Performance are going to be the first to run 200 miles an hour with a ZL1 Camaro.
00:08 At the beginning of April, Chevrolet finally released the Camaro everyone was waiting for, the ZL1.
00:25 And they're blown, they make 580 horsepower from the factory.
00:29 Lingenfilter put together a package of CNC ported cylinder heads, a camshaft, underdrive pulleys for the blower and a cold air kit.
00:37 Plus some support equipment like a booster for the fuel pump and bigger injectors, things like that.
00:42 And it made 720 horsepower to the tires and 650 pound feet of torque.
00:47 Now that ZL1 that they put together became the first to run tens in the quarter mile.
00:52 It went 10.79 at Indiana's Muncie Dragway.
00:56 And there was another bogey to shoot for, because as you know, Ford has been claiming that the new GT500 Mustang that hasn't yet been released is going to run 200 miles an hour.
01:06 So Lingenfilter wanted to say, "Hey, you know what? We can do it with a ZL1."
01:11 And so Hot Rod and Lingenfilter headed to Continental Tires Proving Ground in Uvalde, Texas,
01:17 and put me at the wheel in that car in the same configuration that it had run tens, except for the wheels and tires, to find out if we could go 200.
01:25 The track at the Continental Proving Grounds is an 8.5 mile oval, but it's not a racetrack.
01:30 It's not banked. It's three lanes wide, and honestly, it's kind of like a country road.
01:35 After a couple laps, I knew it was going to be a challenge to run 200 here.
01:39 It was great, though, just whizzing past cows by the fence and things like that.
01:43 My first few passes in the car were basically a get-to-know-you program.
01:47 I rolled around at 100 miles an hour, getting to know kind of the markers on the track, and eventually stepped on it.
01:53 On my first pass, I only ran 182 miles an hour, and honestly, I thought that was terminal velocity for the car.
02:00 It just wasn't pulling. It wasn't getting there further.
02:03 So I pulled into the pits and talked to the guys, and we looked at the data, and they said,
02:07 "We don't know what's wrong with you because the car's making the power. You need to get it on."
02:11 So I got back in the car realizing that this really was going to fall on me,
02:16 and it was a matter of having to get at it harder, faster, and stay on it longer to reach the mile-an-hour number.
02:24 So after a couple passes, I was up into the 190.
02:27 And at that point, we looked at the data and noticed that we were seeing temperatures of like 250 degrees in the intercooler water,
02:34 which turned into 200 degrees in the inlet tract. It was just killing a ton of power.
02:38 And I realized what I was going to have to do is, instead of cruising laps at big speed,
02:44 I was going to have to cruise slow to keep that temperature cool,
02:48 and then stand on it and get up to speed quick to shorten the duration of the pull.
02:53 So we did that a few times, and just tearing my hair out, we ran 199.2 miles an hour, then 199.89, and then 199.9.
03:05 I mean, we're talking ridiculous. A tenth of a mile an hour away from our number, which, I mean, come on.
03:12 You could round it up, but it's just not there unless you can say I ran 200 miles an hour.
03:18 But the problem then is that the wind at Uvalde is brutal.
03:23 I made one pass in this thing at 199 miles an hour in what had to be a 25 mile-an-hour crosswind.
03:31 It probably was gusting faster than that. It was really bad. Kind of scary in the car.
03:36 I was at the point where I would crest some of the rises in the track at 190, and I'd change lanes.
03:42 It was nearing the end of the day. I just wasn't sure that we were going to get this done.
03:46 The guys at Lingenfelter are being really cool about it. They're my friends there.
03:49 Mike Copeland and Jason Haynes and Brent Malone, they were working on the car.
03:54 They were giving me all the support that they could, but it was late enough in the day.
03:57 It was hot enough. It was windy enough. We just weren't sure that we were going to get it done.
04:02 Finally, last thing in the evening, the wind settled just a little bit.
04:07 And I got in the car and strapped in, and I knew this was it. Do or die.
04:13 And die was pretty realistic at this point.
04:16 I kept it slow through the rough parts early in the track, and midway through the first turn stood on it.
04:24 We looked at the data log later and realized I was pulling half a G in these turns at 190 plus miles an hour.
04:32 And I exited the turn and made the stomp through the straightaway.
04:36 Ultimately, I was in it from 190 to 200 plus miles an hour for almost 40 seconds.
04:44 Screaming down that last runway, for the first time ever, I saw the number 201 on the heads-up display.
04:51 And I knew we had finally done it. The Speedo was a little out of whack, so we had to go look at the data.
04:57 But we rolled into the pits, and sure enough, 202.67 miles an hour.
05:03 Now the thing that's going to happen is everyone is going to bench race.
05:06 Is that the top speed of the car? I really don't think it is. It was still pulling when I had to enter that last turn.
05:11 Is it faster than the GT500? Hard to say.
05:15 That's going to take both cars on the same track with the same driver on the same day.
05:20 And if we can make that happen, you'll see it here on Hot Rod Unlimited.
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