When this story was first put forward, one thing was readily apparent: car people are mechanical people. If you're into tinkering with cars, then the odds are high that there's a plane, train, helicopter or motorcycle out there that piques your interest as well. And why shouldn't it?
The thrill of speed is attainable in any manner of machine. And a bolt is a bolt, no matter what it goes into. You might drive a car to work, but the low-cost thrill of a motorcycle might turn you on just as much as the punishing 5g nature of a jet airplane. But just how fast is fast?
After hearing debate after endless debate about the relative speed of different machines, we collected three of the fastest machines for three different surfaces: dirt, asphalt and thin air. By collaborating with energy drink manufacturer Red Bull's motorsport side, we gathered together Rhys Millen's Formula Drift Pontiac Solstice, Travis Pastrana's Rally America Subaru Impreza WRX STI and Bill Reesman's decommissioned air-show MiG-15.
We were determined to see the difference in speed, feel and cost when running these three distinctly different machines. Can two fully built turbo monsters out-accelerate a jet fighter? How does surface grip affect performance? And, most importantly, can any of us actually hope to afford to run any of them? These were just a few things we were interested in finding out.
As our testing HQ and home base, we would be using the runway at Camarillo Airport, California, while our dirt testing would be taking place at the private ranch of Joe Friedrich, a local motorsport enthusiast. We would each be going for a different ride-along and be given complete access to the drivers and crew for a full technical breakdown to nit-pick each set-up. And then Millen, who is vastly experienced in both rally and drifting, would get a ride in the MiG-15 as it pushed extra hard for performance numbers. Here's what we found out.
Pontiac Solstice - Rhys Millen (Asphalt)
In the world of competitive motorsport, drifting seems to get the least amount of respect. To most racers, drifting is a skill best saved for victory laps. The thought of sacrificing performance by setting up a car to drift is absurd.
At first glance, Millen's Pontiac Solstice GXP is impressive. Front and center sits an aluminum four-cylinder motorsport Ecotec engine. It's been bored and stroked from 2.0 to 2.4 liters, then reinforced withthick-wall iron cylinder liners to withstand the pressure from the HKS turbo components. According to Millen, this package initially laid down over 800 wheel-hp, but has since been detuned to a more useable 505wheel-hp. Interestingly, the HKS F-Con V Pro computer is programmed to run on E85 ethanol. This helps keep the engine running cooler than if it were running on traditional petrol, a big plus for a car with limited frontal airflow due to its sideways nature.
A nicely fabricated roll cage has been welded in. Refreshingly, it looks to be designed more for driver protection than chassis stiffening. For the most part, the Solstice seems to rely on its massive factory frame rails for rigidity. The only obvious reinforcement to the chassis is at its appendages. The suspension pick-up points have been modified and beefed up thoroughly. No doubt this is to alter geometry and protect the frame from the abuse the suspension experiences in a rough-and-tumble drifting environment. Along the same line of thought, the corners of the rear bumper have hefty nerf bars installed. Rear impacts are pretty common in this sport and, with those puppies, the bumper is ready to slide along cement walls all day long.
The rear bumper supports are just one of the many things I would not have thought of installing when building a drift car. But I was starting to get a hang of things. As the crew activates the air jacks and only the rear wheels come off the ground, I manage to keep from saying anything stupid. "Yes, of course you would only need to change the rear tires, duh." But when it comes to alignment settings, I manage to get on Millen's nerves.
Things just look wrong. First, there's the rear toe. Most racecars run zero to maybe 1/16-inch of toe-in. Much more than that and the rear will get too much bite, inducing massive understeer. To the opposite effect, toe-out will free up the rear. For example, when engineering editor Chen sent me out to test Project MR-S with 1/8-inch toe-out in the rear (SCC, May 2007), the ass was all over the place in that terrifying mechanism of death. The visible 1/4 to 1/2-inch of toe-in on the Solstice goes against everything I know about car set-up.
The front end has me just as confused. Traditionally, large front anti-roll bars unload weight from the inside front wheel and promote understeer. The Solstice has a full-on speedway bar bolted to the front suspension. It's the largest front anti-roll bar I have ever seen on anything that's not a tow vehicle.
Then there's the front caster. In the chaos of trying to coordinate testing between MiGs and extreme sports personalities, we were unable to get exact specs. But there's visibly some serious positive caster. This is pretty much always good for front traction, as it leans the tires into the turn. However, it can increase resistance with inputs to the steering wheel. On a drift car, with a steering rack modified to increase the steering angle radically while only going two turns lock-to-lock, massive positive caster could be questionable.