Lingenfelter puts a near-stock Corvette ZR1 in the Nines!

Corvette Generations




© 2010 by Hib Halverson
No use without permission, All Rights Reserved

Back on the 7th of December, at Maryland Raceway, a Lingenfelter customer named Scott Weick, was in the nines with an '09 ZR1 fitted with a few Lingenfelter supercharger bolt-ons. At this dragstrip near Budds MD, Weick ran a 9.81-sec quarter mile at 145.74-mph. On the same day at the same track, he backed that up with a 9.86/144.67. The car was said to have run a third 9-sec. pass but no data for that was available when we posted this article.

Interestingly, other than the supercharger system, the engine in this car was stock. It even had a stock exhaust. With just some changes to the blower, the car made an astonishing 740-hp and 720 lbs/ft torque at the rear wheels and that's SAE-corrected. Figuring a 15% correction for parasitic loss, that's 870 SAE at the flywheel.

Here's a list of modifications with which got LPE about a 200-hp increase at the wheels:

  • Lingenfelter cast aluminum supercharger air intake snout - Lingenfelter 8.5"-diameter, 11-rib harmonic balancer
  • Lingenfelter 2.60"-diameter, 11-rib blower drive pulley
  • Lingenfelter S&B air filter - 4-inch diameter air intake tube with mass air sensor - Ported throttle body - Lingenfelter C6 ZR1 Supercharger Cast Aluminum air inlet - Double capacity charge-air heat exchanger - Larger capacity charge-air-cooler reservoir system
  • Lingfenlter ECM calibration - R345/35R18 Mickey Thompson ET Street Radials on the rear - P185/50R18 M&H Racemasters on the front
  • CCW aluminum wheels
  • Mild-to-Wild switch for the dual-mode exhaust
  • 109-octane unleaded racing gasoline

The supercharger boost was said to be "consistent over the rpm range" and was around 17.5-psi.

There is a video of the 9.81 run at www.lingenfelter.com/video. Watch the closely how the Weick launches the car. Interestingly, the car uses a stock clutch and it lifts the front tires off the ground. A near-stock car does a wheelie? Holy crap!!

Here's some chassis dyno data from this car. Image: Lingenfelter Performance Engineering:

Lingenfelter Performance Engineering ZR1 Dyno Chart