The first 90% seems to fly by while the last 10% takes the longest. This is true in our case as well. We ran the test box all summer at ridiculous power levels, without breaking a gear. We swapped engines after checking off that box, and swapped to a stock LS3 with a single Garrett Turbo. We tuned it on flex fuel, where it made 640whp on 91 and 715whp on E55 or higher. We turned Michele Abbate loose at Spring mountain for some sustained cooling testing, and, well it was a GREAT test! We finally had something "happen" inside the gearbox after beating on the car for several 45minute sessions...

The drop gear shaft nut worked loose. We had this happen two years ago, and changed the torque sequence as well as Loctite formula, and it's held since. Extended heat from track use knocked it loose anyway(good!!). Nothing "broke", we just noticed some excess bearing noise and suspected this was the culprit. So, we developed a lock collar to secure this nut against the drop gear, and have been running the car hard on the street since; so far so good.

The next thing we are testing is a changeup of the 1st gear engagement teeth. The current design is similar to a "synchro" style, which is a bunch of small teeth engaging with the dog collar. I'm not happy with long term wear, so we switched to simple dog teeth. It can be a little "engaging" when starting from Neutral with the dog teeth, but to be blunt, any customer who wants this box will appreciate this anyway.

So, when the new batch of 1st gears land sometime in late October, we will head back to the track and send Michele out for more abuse...

Until then, hang in there, while we sort the last 10%...almost there!

We rebuilt the trusty 7L and slapped a Garrett G57-2425 Turbocharger onto it...here is the dyno...and some shenanigans.

Guess what? Still haven't broken the gearbox!!!

What does that mean?

We move to production.

Email cody@supercarsystem.com to get on the preorder list!

To date we have two track days, and countless launches with actual slicks. The car hasn't really made less than 800HP, and has averaged 1100HP over the last couple of months. Here's an excerpt from the latest track day, at around 900HP.

We are just over 1000miles since this box has been in the car. We want to see 10,000 miles before we do a final inspection. Word on the street is that the street is just around the corner to fill the other 9000 test miles...

To date, we have almost 1ooo miles on the gearbox. Since the car isn't street legal(yet), the miles that are on the box are in anger. We haven't had to touch this box; but we did pull the fluid for inspection. All good. Mind you, we have over 100 hard launches, at no less than 800HP(up to 1500HP!). We also ran a track day, which accumulated over 220miles of hard track abuse. The car drove back onto the tow rig without issue after the track day and promptly returned to abuse around the shop.

What's next? 10,000 miles. Thats the number we need, and then we teardown the box. If all is well, we open pre orders for the gearbox.

Keen eyes will notice some carbon fiber littered all over the car. I decided to train the guys in all things carbon, so that when we finalize a body shape, we can quickly produce this in-house for immediate fitment and testing.

Finally, we have some exciting engineering going on behind the scenes that we will unveil in due time.

I'll be posting weekly(or more!) as progress unfolds with the offerings at Supercar System. But first, lets recap the last year!

I was hired on to not only develop the Supercar System B2 Spirits, but also see the Hyperdrive Gearbox through Alpha and Beta testing, right up into developing a production schedule.

But first, Pikes Peak was committed to which took the entire first half of 2022, and we saw this through, despite the horrendous weather. Highlights of race week included 7th overall fastest qualifying at LOW BOOST(700hp) on just 3psi of manifold pressure. Race trim was set to run over 15psi, and we legitimately had an overall contender, against Robin Shutes Wolf, had we had visibility. Paul Gerrard did the best he could manage with 30Feet of visibility, but risk to reward just was not worth it, so he coasted to the summit, completing the race just north of 12minutes. Given the unknown nature of weather on race day, the Pikes Peak program was terminated henceforth. Some day, if the race moves to a later date in the year with better seasonal weather averages, and/or offers a backup race date, we may consider another program. Until then, quantifiable results are on the docket.

Moving on, we pulled the Stage 4 427LSX from the Enviate, and installed into the B2 Spirit #001 to begin testing. The car fired up in July, for first dyno pulls and running through the gears, getting the paddle shift system functioning properly. We ran the first gearbox for several days on the dyno and performed a scheduled teardown. Lets just say this was the right call. While we digested the findings, we prepped and installed another gearbox to continue testing. This box performed well. We made some suspension changes on the B2, and were able to test the car in Mid October for the first time. It went well; for a few seconds. Before I get into the next part of the story, I'll reveal some background; Paolo and Kyle designed this gearbox in 2016, 2017. Prototypes were made and bench tested in 2018. Well, thats about when Boxabl began to go stratospheric, and Supercar System was more or less sidelined due to the time restraints of Kyle and Paolo. Notes were lost, progress stalled. 2021, I was hired to kickstart Supercar System again.

So, after the dyno testing which went nearly perfectly(to 1300WHP), parking lot laps were in order. This isn't some cute little back lot mind you; are able to run full mile laps around the facility reaching triple digit speeds. The first full throttle shift I made, I broke an output shaft. We swapped shafts, and more or less immediately broke another shaft. Come to find out, this was an OLD design. The new designs were made, failure tested, and that was that. No new shafts were made to replaced the "failed" units(which showed basically a 100% increase in strength). The third set of shafts were installed, and we pulled back the power and GO-Pedal to simply put some laps on the brand new B2 Spirit chassis. We were able to test for around 5 hours with the chassis, including virgin laps by Paolo and Kyle.

Driving impressions!

The B2 Spirit is LIGHT, nimble, and quite easy to control. Initial reports are slight understeer unless prodded otherwise which is nearly perfection to the seasoned driver. Some light trail braking and/or simple weight transfer gets the car to rotate, where throttle inputs easily and predictably control the corner throughout. I can't wait to get the car on track to really feal it out!

Otherwise, its fast. Brutally fast. The car will easily run in the single digits in the quarter mile once we dial in a proper launch; on pump E85. 1/4 mile testing will also happen once we get the new input shafts installed, and some decent drag tires. Lets just say I've been instructed to build some wheelie bars and to install a parachute...its just a brutal thing to tap into in a straight line.

Thats where we currently sit; waiting on the updated output shaft design, so we can continue real world testing...