Supercars gets head start on AVL engine testing
AVL tests taking place after Sydney SuperNight
Fine tuning on engine parts took place on Wednesday
Historic wind tunnel test conducted pre-season
Supercars is using a test day to get a head start ahead of best-practice engine testing in the United States.
Supercars recently announced it will conduct independent engine testing at the AVL facility in Michigan following the Panasonic Air Conditioning Sydney SuperNight.
The state-of-the-art AVL facilities will help Supercars gain unprecedented insights into engine performance.
The AVL initiative follows the successful pre-season wind tunnel testing of vehicle aerodynamics at the Windshear facility in North Carolina.
In a bid to hit the ground running, Anton De Pasquale's Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang was fitted with parts relevant to the upcoming AVL testing.
De Pasquale was on hand at the test day, at Ipswich’s Queensland Raceway, to help fine tune the parts before Ford and General Motors engines are shipped from Australia to the US. Wednesday also featured a new tyre test, with the sister DJR car running the new compound.
“We want the teams and the engine manufacturers both to be as best prepared as they can for AVL,” Supercars General Manager of Motorsport Tim Edwards told Supercars.com.
“There’s no point wasting time in the AVL where there's things that we could learn here and now, so we’re using today to work through a program and prepare.
"We can either put things to bed here today or decide if there are things that we can explore further on the dyno.”
The two-phase transient dyno testing program will commence with unofficial tests to deepen the understanding of each engine, before an official test.
The official test, Phase 2, will involve representatives from Supercars, manufacturer representatives from both Ford and GM, and the two Homologation Teams, DJR and Triple Eight Race Engineering.
The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship will resume at the NTI Townsville 500 on July 5-7.
