World’s Quickest C8 Corvette Wheelies Off The Line Thanks to 1,500 HP
Sticky drag slicks and twin turbos are key to getting the C8 Corvette into the 8-second range.
There's a new record for the quickest Corvette C8 in the quarter-mile, and it's held by a car built by Late Model Racecraft (LMR). The tuning shop has shared video of its record-setting runs on YouTube.
The record was claimed on Saturday at Houston Raceway Park, during the Texas Speed Syndicate's Quick 30 drag event. LMR owner Steven Fereday was at the wheel, and managed to set a 8.957 second pass in the quarter mile at 159.80 mph.
That alone was enough to wrest the title from previous holders FuelTech, which had previously recorded a 8.973 at 160.92 mph. However, the LMR build went one better again, running a blazing 8.835 second pass at 160.19 mph in the early hours of Sunday morning.
As you might expect, the Corvette that achieved this feat is no showroom model. It's a test mule for LMR's tuning package, which boosts the car's output to 1,500 horsepower. The engine has been fully built to deal with the boost from twin turbos, and the fuel system has been upgraded to deliver enough juice to make those big numbers.
The car wears sticky drag slicks on 15" beadlock wheels that still just barely fit under the C8's arches, and the car has a rough, brutalist exhaust note befitting an 8-second car. 38 revisions were made to the clutch design to enable the car's dual-clutch transmission to handle the immense torque delivered by the turbos. The engine bay was also treated to plenty of heat shielding to protect vital components.
Despite its high state of tune, though, Fereday reportedly uses it as a daily driver. LMR intends to sell the same mods as its top tuning package for the C8, as part of a range of offerings at power levels from 700 to 1,500 horsepower.
We haven't seen huge numbers of hyper-tuned C8 Corvettes just yet. A lot of that comes down to the pandemic and the multiple production stoppages early in the model's life. That left demand high, meaning there was likely too much money to be had reselling C8s to consider tuning them.
However, as more cars flood into the market, and tuners get familiar with the new mid-engined platform, we should expect to see more wild C8s tackling the drag strip and beyond. We're perhaps most looking forward to crazy time attack builds, but a jacked-up safari model wouldn't go astray, either. Sound off with your best ideas in the comments.
Got a tip? Let the author know: lewin@thedrive.com
