Sneak Peek: Home-Built Pikes Peak Racer

This is about as free-flowing of an exhaust as you can get. The wastegate flow is kept separate for maximum power of course. The car was tuned by another Faraday Future co-worker who happens to be one of the best tuners in the Los Angeles area. Quite a few Formula Drift cars use his services along with Rhys Millen’s Pikes Peak record setting Hyundais. The car was tuned on the dyno at World Motorsports where we like to dyno our modern project cars since its facilities are the best for consistent results. The GB08’s new turbo set-up put down 480-490whp, which is about the same as our Project GT3RS on VP 100 race fuel.

There’s a lot more power available at sea level as there’s about another 30k rpm of turbo speed available, but that extra turbo speed is what you’d call elevation reserve. With the thinner air at the top of Pikes Peak, the turbo will have to spin faster to create more boost pressure to match the mass flow of air going into the engine at sea level. At sea level, there’s probably another 70whp or so in the turbo. At the elevation of Pikes Peak, the car should make this ~490whp at the start. Robin calculated the car should only lose about 25hp from the start of the run to the end due to the extra turbo speed available. The speed sensor in the Garrett G25-660 comes in real handy in these motorsports situations for precise boost control.