{"id":17969,"date":"2016-02-03T17:42:49","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T21:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=17969"},"modified":"2016-02-03T17:42:49","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T21:42:49","slug":"consolidating-power-new-gm-race-engine-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2016\/02\/consolidating-power-new-gm-race-engine-facility","title":{"rendered":"Consolidating power: New GM race engine facility"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

Pontiac \u2014\u00a0<\/em>\u201cYou can\u2019t rest a second in this sport,\u201d General Motors Vice President of Motorsports Jim Campbell said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Just two days after Corvette\u2019s dominating 1-2 class finish at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, GM unveiled a state-of-the-art Powertrain Performance and Racing Center that will further turbocharge one of the world\u2019s most formidable race engine development programs.<\/p>\n

The center\u2019s 82 engineers and staff members will move from Wixom into a 111,420-square-foot facility connected to GM\u2019s sprawling Global Powertrain Engineering Center. That will concentrate the company\u2019s engine know-how under one roof. Part of a $200 million investment in the Pontiac campus, the consolidation leverages the resources at the Powertrain Center, enabling faster technology transfer between GM\u2019s racing and production-vehicle powertrains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big statement about our commitment to racing and what we\u2019re doing to do in the future,\u201d said Dan Nicholson, vice president of GM Global Powertrain. \u201cAs storied as our history is in racing, we believe our best days are ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

That commitment was echoed by NASCAR star and Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman, who joined the executives at the opening. In addition to the 500-horsepower V-8s that powered the Corvettes around Daytona\u2019s 180 mph-plus bankings, the Performance and Racing team develops engines for NHRA drag racing, IndyCar, Pirelli World Challenge Cadillacs \u2014 and the NASCAR \u201cR07\u201d mill for Chevy-powered teams like Newman\u2019s Richard Childress Racing.<\/p>\n

Newman, a trained engineer, has spent countless hours at the old Wixom facility developing the 358-cubic-inch V-8 designed and developed for NASCAR.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest things we work on is getting the vibration out, especially at the RPMs we are running,\u201d said Newman. \u201cAt Daytona we\u2019re going from 8,500 rpm in the turns to up to 9,200 in the straightaway. We want to make sure we are optimized in that range. We\u2019re taking technology to the nth degree \u2014 and this facility gives us the opportunities and the people to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new facility incorporates the latest engine-assembly, engine-testing and calibration equipment. Highlights include:<\/p>\n

\u25a0Ten new engine-build bays.<\/p>\n

\u25a0Thirty machining tools, offering complete machining capability for cylinder blocks, cylinder heads, fuel rails and other components.<\/p>\n

\u25a0Four engine dynamometer cells capable of handling 12,000 rpm, 1,000 horsepower and 560 pound-feet of torque.<\/p>\n

When the Powertrain Performance and Racing Center opens in July, those four cells will bring the total number of dynos in the Powertrain Center to 120. It\u2019s part of a decades-long push by GM to concentrate its engine resources as well as attract the industry\u2019s best engineering talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cGM\u2019s technology transfer between racing and production is a two-way street,\u201d says Nicholson. \u201cWe have production lessons learned that we transfer to racing and racing lessons learned that we transfer to production. Having these two teams located in Pontiac will turn this two-way street into a superhighway.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the race development wing, the 645,000-square-foot powertrain plant \u2014 the largest industrial facility in Pontiac \u2014 develops gas engines, fuel cells and hybrid-electrification systems and transmissions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pontiac \u2014\u00a0\u201cYou can\u2019t rest a second in this sport,\u201d General Motors Vice President of Motorsports Jim Campbell said Tuesday. Just two days after Corvette\u2019s dominating 1-2 class finish at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, GM unveiled a state-of-the-art Powertrain Performance and Racing Center that will further turbocharge one of the world\u2019s most formidable race engine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17970,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17969\/revisions\/17970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}