Filed under: Motorsports, Coupes, Hybrids/Alternative, Green, Chevrolet, GM
Chevrolet Student Project sets land speed record
A Chevrolet Cobalt SS adorned with General Motors' "Live Green, Go Yellow" E85 campaign slogan set a land speed record for E85/ethanol-fuelled cars Sunday, with a 156.073 mph run. The GM Performance Division Bonneville Student Project Car, developed in part by a team of engineering co-op students, broke a 19-year-old 152.626 mph record in the G Class/Unblown Fuel Competition Coupe category at this year's Bonneville speed trials.
The fuel-injected Cobalt is the first vehicle to set a record running on E85 fuel.
[Source: GM]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
loikll 3:57PM (8/14/2006)
Yeah the reason no one's topped 156 mph is that the car runs out of E85 before you can get that high.
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Bryan William Jones 4:29PM (8/14/2006)
Cool. I was out there yesterday and took about 600 photos including the crew of the E85 project. I'll have them up on my blog in the next couple of days.
Congratulations to the GM E85 team.
Last years photos can be seen here:
http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones/C1516441744/E20050830171054/
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Yada 4:32PM (8/14/2006)
Simply amazing. http://importantblogposts.blogspot.com/
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rwdmtparkingonly 4:47PM (8/14/2006)
E85 is at least 100 octane. Flex fuel vehicles can't take advantage of that with their compression ratios because they still need to be able to run on gas, but this might alow for some pretty crazy levels of turbo boost on cars equiped with advanced fuel sensors.
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Daniel 5:42PM (8/14/2006)
I'm assuming this is with the ecotec engine which is a great accomplishment. The only question is why can't they get it to sound better? NVH engineering is just as important as output/performance.
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Dave 6:48PM (8/14/2006)
Has anyone done research on E85? From what I've read (scientific journals) it's not that great hope everyone thinks it is. Should the US be dependant on foreign oil? Of course not, but did you know the country we import the most from is Canada. Mexico is up there too. In fact there's hardly any Middle East country that provides a bulk of our oil. Unfortunately we do import a considerable amount from Nigeria and Venezuela. Two countries I wouldn't describe as stable.
Back to E85...if grown from corn, it won't be stable. Field have to rotate crops as to not deplete the soil from minerals. Certain plants take different type and quantities of minerals from the soil.
Environment. One reason people have been looking at is fuels to help our environment. Completely agree, we need to protect our environment. E85 is not the answer. Again looking at growing (irrigation, tractors, soil depletion), transportation, and manufacturing...in total sum makes more of a negative impact on the environment than oil. Now I don't work for Exxon or Conoco. I'm just saying I feel more research should be conducted on other alternate fuel sources. Don't think this fuel is the end all, be all.
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rwdmtparkingonly 7:02PM (8/14/2006)
E85 is made of of corn in this country, and as any good moon shiner knows, sugar makes alcohol more efficiently than corn. Brazil has come close to engergy independence with e85, but the invisible hand of the government lobbyist has lead us to make our ethanol out of corn instead, which makes e85 a less viable alternative.
On the other hand, between the cooling effects of alcohol and e85' high flash point/octane rating this is some damn good RACING FUEL, govenrment subsidized nontheless. That is unless you've discovered the constant torque of an electric engine and you're racing a Tesla.
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Mal Fuller 7:14PM (8/14/2006)
"The fuel-injected Cobalt is the first vehicle to set a record running on E85 fuel."
Well, I guess that means that no matter what speed it achieved it would be a record!
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spdracerut 8:22PM (8/14/2006)
I found an article on the car as I was trying to find some technical specifications. I didn't find the motor specs aside from power output, but the rest is quite interesting; basically though, 3 female college engineering student interns developed the car.
http://www.worldcarfans.com/news.cfm/newsID/2060810.005/page/5/lang/eng/country/acf/chevrolet/gm-returns-to-bonnville-to-break-new-ground
I was going to guess the car had about 250hp based on its speed... I spend way too much time with cars!
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Aj 510 8:31AM (8/15/2006)
that's awesome - wish i was a student at that college. Would have jumped at the chance to build a car to break land speed records.
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Corey W. 11:37AM (8/15/2006)
I don't think ANYONE is indicating E85 is the end to all. The hype is behind that fact that there are more alternative fuel options being offered today. Each advancement plays a role in moving us further away from our dependency on oil.
With lower greenhouse gas emissions, a currently still developing refinement process and lowered prices, E85 can hopefully become a competitive alternative. Again, it's not the silver bullet, we are a LONG WAY from that.
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