VIDEO: Cadillac CTS-V Final Testing in Milford Michigan
By Brian Potter
June 18, 2008 12:00 AM
Filed Under: American, Cadillac
In a recent video, Executive of GM Performance Division, John Heinricy, recently provided some insight into the sub 8.0 minute barrier run of the new 2009 CTS-V at the Nürburgring in Germany. And now GM has released some great video footage of the CTS-V doing some hot laps for final testing at GM's proving grounds in Milford, Michigan.
After a few long distance wide shots of the CTS-V flying through the track, the video switches to an in-car view with a turn-by-turn analysis by Heinricy.
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That track looks really fun, the turns are epic how long they carry on for, and they are nicely varied. However tuning on this track/the ring does concern me in one measure. To tune a car to handle corners better many people end up increasing camber to let more even heating of the tire. This tuning setup would be fine and all if these cars were only driven on a track where they find themselves under constant sideways g-forces. But put in the hands of the consumer the car will rarely if not ever push the car to such extremes. This means the tires won't heat evenly given everyday driving procedures. This will eventually do two things. One, the car will never handle nicely on the highway, from stop light to stop light. And two, the camber will cause increased tire wear along the inside of the tires. What I would really like to know is how Cadillac, and for that matter any manufacturer deals with these issues. Do they have huge camber gains while cornering? Or do they have some sort of sports mode which auto adjusts camber, toe, ackerman etc etc.
good point Joe_limon, but usually the tuning for the better handling is done all by the suspension, the car probably has some electronic dampening system that is adjusted by switching it into sport mode, the transmission will learn driving patterns and start figuring out what it needs to do to please the amount of gas pedal travel it has been given by the driver. Thats usually what goes under when the sport mode gets adjusted.
Aside from camber, normally friends of mine just usually get coilover suspension set up, aftermarket thicker sway bars and bigger wheels, that usually gives you a great combination to take to the track.
yes, all of those upgrades can help to give you a good track car, but they detract from the everyday straightline driving that is mixed in with slow corners. Adjusting between sport mode and a more practical mode requires more then just adjusting your damping, all damping helps is to keep your wheels planted, the optimum damping for a car will of course benefit both road a track handling.
This is like the all season tire c-saw, you can't make a tire that is the best in both conditions, it will be mediocre in both conditions. If you want summer performance you get a summer tire, for winter handling you get a winter tire. The same thing applies to building a street car vs. a track car. Compare a 911 to a 911 GT3. I think they should focus on building a great car for the road that can control the power of the engine on regular roads.
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