The video is at this link:
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=124174?tid=edmunds.il.home.photopanel..2.*
8)
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=124174?tid=edmunds.il.home.photopanel..2.*
Rhys Millen Takes on the Drifting World With the Red Bull Pontiac Solstice GXP
By John Pearley Huffman
Rhys Millen's Red Bull-sponsored Pontiac Solstice GXP had a big problem going into the 2007 Formula Drift season ? it was new. And in motorsports, new rarely sprays the champagne. After all, even the Porsche 917 didn't win Le Mans until its second try.
Millen's Solstice did well its first year, but not well enough. Millen is used to winning. The big V8-powered GTO he campaigned in 2004, 2005 and 2006 won him two Formula D titles in 2004 and 2005. Given a choice, Millen's GTO would have been back for a fourth year.
But the GM-sponsored Millen wasn't given a choice. With the GTO fading out of production during the 2006 model year, the only rear-drive Pontiac around was the small, turbocharged-four-powered Solstice GXP.
"Our program with Pontiac is driven by marketing," explains the New Zealand-born Millen. "They're not drifting to drift; they're drifting to sell vehicles. So when we looked for a rear-drive performance car, the Solstice GXP was it. It wasn't a choice, it was a decision."
Roush Ready
Unlike most other motorsports where a racecar that kinda/sorta looks like a production machine is OK, in drifting most of the production pieces must remain intact. So much of Millen's Solstice GXP is, in fact, pure Pontiac. While Rhys Millen Racing in Huntington Beach, California, had built its own drifting GTOs, GM had Roush Industries in Michigan handle construction of the Solstice GXP.
Roush completely disassembled a stock Solstice plucked from the assembly line and then built a roll cage atop the car's frame rails. That results in a structure significantly stiffer than stock, and safe enough to withstand the tough hits that are almost inevitable in drifting.
The all-independent suspension is unchanged in type and form from the production Solstice ? there are still long and short A-arms at every corner ? but there are significant differences in detail and tuning. The front suspension A-arms, tie rod ends and toe links are specially fabricated to maximize steering angle. After all, steering angle ? just how far the front wheels can turn with input from the steering wheel ? is to drifting what straight-line traction is to drag racing ? there can never be too much of it. Bolted to all those links are Eibach ERS coil-over springs around Penske dampeners.
All the Round Bits
The wheels are Racing Hart SP-10s at 18-by-8.0 inches in front and 18-by-9.5 inches in back. They're stock Racing Hart pieces except for the bolt pattern that was custom-drilled for the Solstice. Bridgestone supplies the RE-01R tires in the 235/40R18 size for the front and 265/35R18 for the hind end.
In front, huge Rotora discs clamped by six-piston calipers handle the braking. In back is another pair of Rotora discs, with each disc matched to a pair of two-piston calipers. The first set of rear calipers operates as part of the primary braking system controlled by the foot pedal.
That second pair of rear calipers is plumbed into their own master cylinder controlled by a hand-operated "rally brake." Using the rally brake, Millen can induce slides by momentarily locking up the rear wheels while letting the front wheels roll unfettered. And we all know how painful fettering can be.
Runs on E85
Drifting developed as an organized sport in Japan centered around rear-drive cars powered by turbocharged four-cylinder engines. So, in at least one way, the turbocharged four-cylinder engine in Millen's Solstice GXP represents a return to tradition compared to the V8 that powered his GTO.
Based on the Ecotec fours constructed by GM Performance for use in drag racing and land speed record attempts, the Ecotec in the drift Solstice is slightly larger in displacement than the 2.0-liter version used in the stock Solstice GXP thanks to a minor overbore and incrementally larger JE pistons. (It actually displaces 2.05 liters.)
Naturally, the DOHC heads have been extensively ported and polished, and of course the bottom end has been fortified with a Bryant Racing crankshaft. Because the only fuel being burned in Millen's Solstice is high-octane E85 (a blend of 85 percent alcohol and 15 percent gasoline), the engine runs a relatively high 9.72:1 compression ratio. (The gasoline-burning, direct-injection Ecotec turbo in the production Solstice GXP has a 9.2:1 compression ratio.)
Turn Up the Boost
Beyond all that, it's the turbocharger system that knocks output of the Ecotec skyward. The ball-bearing turbo itself is a GT25 from Precision Turbo, while the piping was specially fabricated in-house, and an HKS wastegate and Innovative blow-off valve keep the pressure from crushing everything.
The resulting compressed charge is cooled by an air-to-water intercooler, while a FAST electronic control unit manages and monitors most engine operations. A custom-built GM fuel rail supplies the E85 to 160-pound/hour injectors, while an MSD ignition and NGK spark plugs light the whole thing off.
In all, there's somewhere between 450 and 500 horsepower steaming from the Ecotec ? Millen doesn't really have a reason to be specific. And that power is transmitted through a Tremec T56 six-speed manual transmission (similar to that in a Corvette Z06 or Ford Shelby GT500) out to the limited-slip differential from a Cadillac CTS-V.
All that is more than enough power to saut? the rear Bridgestone RE-01 tires into a soup of gray-blue smoke and shredded rubber bits.
Too Fast
Last April, Millen wedged himself into the Sparco seat, took hold of the Sparco steering wheel, ignited the turbo motor and wheeled the beastly Solstice out onto the street course used for the Long Beach Grand Prix in Southern California. What he found was a 2,700-pound car (about 300 pounds lighter than a stock Solstice GXP) too fast for its own good.
"I was more frustrated with the sport than with the car," Millen recalls. "We built ? by far ? the fastest car. But we didn't have the big tire smoke and steering angle we needed. We had to change the characteristics of the car to meet the other cars. What we had was a car that wanted to slide fast. What we needed was a 'tandem car' ? a car that can slide fast and can slide slow. When you have a car with the Solstice's nearly square dimensions, it doesn't want to slide slow at high slip angles. We changed springs rates, bar rates and dozens of other things to make a good tandem car."
At Long Beach, the Red Bull Solstice finished 6th; not a terrible start for the year, and frankly not unexpected considering the car's newness. And it was encouraging with six more rounds left in the championship.
But after a 4th at Road Atlanta, Millen's season peaked with a 3rd-place finish in the fourth event of the season at Summit Point Raceway. "A lot of your testing comes in a year of competition," summarized Millen. "By running with this guy and that guy." He finished the year 4th in the championship.
Tanner Foust, driving for the AEM/Memphis Car Audio Drift Team, took the championship in a Nissan 350Z. Not really a surprise since, by 2007, the 350Z was a well-proven combination in drifting ? after several years of development.
Next
For a new car, 4th place has to count as a major achievement for Rhys Millen Racing, for the Solstice GXP, for Pontiac and for Red Bull. It's about as well as any new car has ever done in the Formula D championship, and significantly better than how well Samuel Hubinette did in his big Dodge Charger, the year's other high-profile equipment debut.
In fact, Millen has been so encouraged that he's planning to expand his team to a second car next year. (It could be a Solstice, but not necessarily). That not only effectively doubles the team's chances to win, but doubles the rate at which they can develop the Solstice as a drifting machine. And one of the first developments is likely to be the adoption of an HKS sequential six-speed racing transmission ? with more closely spaced gears and much quicker shifts.
But as this is written, those plans have become at least slightly clouded. In late December, during practice for a New Year's Eve Red Bull promotion, Millen was injured when the off-road race truck he was driving crashed while attempting to perform a backflip. He broke three vertebrae in his neck and broke and compressed two more in his back. He's home recovering and the prognosis is good, but that recovery must take precedence before he can charge forward with plans for 2008.
At this point, there's nothing anyone knows Millen would rather see during 2008 than himself back in the driver seat, wrestling his Solstice into the winner's circle.
8)
