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The leader in sports car suspension damping technology right now is the
2003 Corvette with its available, Magnetic Selective Ride Control. Image:
author. |
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I hit the last dip at 100 or so, on the brakes, getting ABS
as the rear suspension kissed the rebound stops, then back-shifted for a right
at the end of the straight.
Suddenly, I thought of Star Wars.
Remember Episode One’s pod race? Anakin Skywalker and some
really ugly aliens are racing across a desert on Tatooine. As Anakin skims
balls-out, just above the ground, other pods crash in flaming wrecks. He hits
turbulence. All kinds of stuff is blowing-up, right, left and underneath. Pod
races are tougher than Winston Cup at Bristol.
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Though the ride is rough, young Skywalker always has his racer under control. No
doubt, his pod has some amazing ride control system which damps the bumps and
dips. |
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Back in the 21st Century, at the "Milford Proving Ground", General
Motors’ enormous test facility 32 miles northwest of Detroit, there is a section
called the "Ride and Handling Loop." It’s a torturous, four-miles of
chatter-bumps, dips, pot holes and rail crossings mixed with sharp turns, esses
and sweepers. To Mike Neal, Corvette’s ride-and-handling engineer; the "R/H
Loop" is, well...a home away from home.
The Loop’s backstretch is half-a-mile of what’s either the worst (if
you’re a highway engineer) or the sweetest (if your testing suspensions) bunch
of dips one can imagine.
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Driving an ’03, 50th Coupe at 100 over this stuff seemed like
racing Ani’s pod. Well ok, no open cockpit and no after-burning turbofans out
front, but it did have a Star Wars ride control system.
I was on the R/H Loop to learn about Corvette’s latest
suspension advancement. Chevy Marketing wizards call it "Magnetic Selective Ride
Control" (MSRC). Engineers at General Motors and the Delphi Corporation who
developed it, call it "MagneRide" or just "MR".
Mike Neal and I were in a "MR car," making one hundred mile
per hour passes across these dips. The car was fully controllable. It wasn’t
getting airborne. We weren’t getting bounced severely in our seats.
The meanest of the R/H Loop’s dips is off by itself on the
front straight. About eight feet long and 10-inches deep, it’s the only one
marked with a sign: "Bad Dip".
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Here we are at the Milford Proving Ground’s infamous "Bad Dip." Mike
Neal was at the wheel of a base car. This flight was the result of a 60 mph
pass.
Image: author. |
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Same dip.
Same speed but, this time, Neal is in a 50th Car with MagneRide. Quite a difference!
Image: author. |
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At 80, Neal and I freaking flew a base C5 over it–"Dukes of
Hazard" stuff, probably 18-inches up, airborne for 25 ft and my fat self flung
up against the seat belt then smashed down in the seat.
In a MR car at the same speed, the difference was
astonishing. We didn’t get air and didn’t bounce around inside the car as much.
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"Hey Mike, what’s the fastest you’ve gone across that
sucker?"
"120, but we uh...weren’t gonna let journalists do that."
"Next time, I’m taking it at 120."
"Ah...ok but stay in the center and hold it straight."
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How often has Neal has seen life flash before him when crazed
magazine guys do this stuff?
I came off the Loop’s west-end sweeper in third, at 100 with
my foot flat on the floor. I tagged the LS1’s limiter, got fourth and held 120
across some smaller dips and rough pavement. In the distance I saw the sign and,
a split second later, the scrape marks in the pavement.
Whump! Ka-Thunk.
No long flight through the air, though the rear wheels did
get off a few inches. We got bounced around, but much less than in the base-car
at 80.
I’ve been writing about Corvette suspensions since the early 1980s and I’ve
gotta tell you: Magnetic Selective Ride Control is some pretty amazing
suspension technology or as Yoda might say, "Very Star Wars, this MR stuff is."
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Meet Mike Neal. Since the mid-’90s, he’s been the "guy" for Corvette
ride-and-handling. Much of how a C5 feels when you go fast through the twisties
comes from this man’s work. Neal seemingly has nerves of steel and lots of life
insurance because, when told by crazed journalists they want to do the Bad Dip
at Milford at 120 mph, he shrugs then suggests they "...keep it straight."
Either that or we writers really don’t go that fast and he’s humoring us.
Image: author. |
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