Having A Starting Point
The old saying is "You can't manage what you can't measure". So with that in mind I decided to put the brand new 2010 V6 Camaro on the dyno to get a good baseline for the car's horsepower and torque so we could measure any improvements that we just might happen to make. So I sent an e-mail off to Lidio at Alternative Auto to see if we could schedule some dyno time for the new car!
Lidio was able to work me in on a Saturday morning. I got there early so the car had some time to cool down before the car went on the dyno. With the car strapped down Lidio made a pull... first pull 241 RWHP... hmmm... a bit lower than i was hoping for. Lidio explained that he has found that GM cars tend to like to warm up a bit... so we let the car idle a bit more... next pull 245 RWHP... numbers are going in the right direction! A few minutes later and we are back to 241 RWHP... Hmmm... At this point Lidio decides to shut the car off an let it set for a few minutes...
We let the car set for about 15 minutes. Lidio fires the car back up and does a final pull... and it's the BEST pull of the day! 248 RWHP / 222 RWTQ. Doing some quick math... 304 HP - 248 HP = 56 HP drive train loss... which works out to just about 18.5% loss. Now there are a wide variety of number that get thrown around for drive train loss... but 18.5% is about right in my book, so to me it looks like the 248 RWHP is right on the money!
Now, just for fun I had Lidio pull up an old dyno sheet showing a 100% stock 2005 V6 Mustang (automatic also) vs my 100% stock 2010 V6 Camaro. Was interesting to see how the Camaro's LLT motor basically pulls all the way to the 6900 RPM red line... and the LLT's torque curve was also incredibly flat!
So now we know exactly what we are starting with!
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 2005 V6 Mustang vs 2010 V6 Camaro Click on sheet for larger view |
