[DeTomaso] Repair Costs - New vs. Old

JDeRyke at aol.com JDeRyke at aol.com
Tue Mar 5 03:17:09 EST 2013


Two Viper techy- things I've come across over the years; when the Viper was 
brand-new, Nor-Cal Panteras invited a Chrysler engineer to our monthly 
meeting. During his talk, someone asked how they got an inherently imbalenced 
V-10 engine to idle smoothly. He said the ECU has a lot of extra capacity, so 
below 1800 rpms the controller randomly kills a cylinder each revolution of 
the crank. This turns it into a V-8, and the dead cylinder drag helps smooth 
things out. Above 1800, that subprogram goes away and underway/under load, 
the shake is much less noticable. Simple.... if you've got an engineering 
department helping.

The other was a race note- Hennessey personally ran one of his high-dollar 
800 bhp Vipers in a Silver State event many years ago, and told a few people 
he wasn't going to pay attention to the 15-mph-over-and-get-disqualified 
rule 'cause he wasn't coming back. He was legging it at 'around 182' when he 
noticed Larry Stock's '73 Pantera (with an iron-head 351-C) 20 ft behind him. 
Larry was in the draft & couldn't pass but the Viper also couldn't pull 
away. They ran like that for a few miles, then Larry dropped back & braked 
hard.... and over the next rise was a SS radar station. Larry was zapped   
'legal' at 165 while Hennessey was radared at 185 and disqualified from the 150 
class. Needless to say, Pantera aerodynamics was quite the subject at the SS 
wrap-up dinner. Cheers- J Deryke


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