Take a look inside at what makes the all-new 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.
TranscriptJAMES RISWICK: I'm here with Steve Padilla. He is the Lead Vehicle Dynamics Engineer for the C8 Corvette, and he's just going to give an overview of what we're looking at because there's this awesome cutaway here, and what are we looking at, Steve?
STEVE PADILLA: Right. Well, you're looking at the absence of an engine in the front of the car. That's the most obvious thing. So engine, center of gravity, and everything is all combined with the transmission at the back of the car, which frees up a lot of open area here for a very spacious frunk.
What you see here, a lot of people ask about what this. This is actually the lift pump that powers the front-hydraulics lift system. So that's what gives you clearance on E60 equipped Stringrays.
Provisions in the structure for right-hand drive. So you flip the steering gear over and reposition the interior components so they end up with a right-hand-drive version of it.
JAMES RISWICK: And this is electric power steering, of course.
STEVE PADILLA: Electric power steering, yep.
So here's the motor. It's actually called an APA or a parallel axis electric power steering.
The eBoost boost module is present in this whole entire configuration.
JAMES RISWICK: What is the eBoost
STEVE PADILLA: EBoost boost is the brake system that's equipped on this car. So it's first time for a Corvette. It's where the hydraulic circuit is actually driven by the ABS-- by a brake pump. You're now no longer relying on a vacuum system to power the boost.
OK, so the front suspension and rear suspension are fairly traditional in terms of the suspension. Let's call this short long arm or some people call it a double wishbone. So we have an ARM upper with an L-type arm lower. So you concentrate a lot of the handling into the bushing that's more in line with the ball joint. Ride is mostly handled by motion of the control arm with fore, aft, and vertical motion.
You've got to stabilize the bar that connects to the lower control arm via link.
JAMES RISWICK: Does this-- does this-- what suspension are we-- [INAUDIBLE]
STEVE PADILLA: Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's one of the big changes from C7 to the mid-engine configuration is we ended up going away from the transverse leaf springs to the coil over.
JAMES RISWICK: So it's a coil-over spring instead of the transverse--
STEVE PADILLA: Yep.
JAMES RISWICK: --leafs.
STEVE PADILLA: That's exactly right.
JAMES RISWICK: Does this have mag on it, or is this--
STEVE PADILLA: This one is actually a passive damper.
JAMES RISWICK: OK.
STEVE PADILLA: But the MR damper, you're going to-- you'll see a wire come out of there that powers the magnetic coil and magneto rheological-- fluid.
JAMES RISWICK: OK.
STEVE PADILLA: So with reconfiguring it too, if you kind of take a look at where the passenger is, traditionally in a front-engine car the passenger is going to be rearward, more closer to the rear wheels, and the center of gravity is going to be forward. So when you move the center of gravity back, it ends up being right about here and about-- I forget how many mills above ground, probably 470 or something like that at curb.
We paid a lot of attention to increasing the amount of the available track room to get some more leg room in the evolution of the platform. So the track is I forget how many mills longer, but it's on the order of 25, something like that.
And we move to the back of the car. So you see the structure here for the rear suspension, again coil over. But you got to make room for the drive axles going through the-- the lower parts of the damper is actually hooked under-- on top of the knuckle.
So the transmission is housed here. Made it to the engine. So couple of the considerations when you go to a mid-engine configuration like this is the engine moves. You have to reposition the exhaust. Doesn't go down now. It ends up coming up so you can put the engine down as low as you can to lower the CG.
JAMES RISWICK: That's why some mid-engine cars have the exhaust going up.
STEVE PADILLA: Yep.
JAMES RISWICK: Interesting.
STEVE PADILLA: Yep.
JAMES RISWICK: Cool.
STEVE PADILLA: And then you end up with an accessory belt that's right behind your ear. So you have to pay special attention to the noise transmission through there. That's where we ended up with the thickness glass we have and sound abatement for that.
JAMES RISWICK: Let's talk about the transmission itself because this is different than what was in the Corvette before.
STEVE PADILLA: Yeah. It's a dual-clutch transmission. So it's kind of an explanation of that at the beginning, but there's two shafts that are controlled by dual clutches. The odd gear is on one shaft and even gear is on the other. So you're able to almost seamlessly transfer torque from one gear to the next without losing any torque during that. And you can do it quicker than anybody could switch a manual transmission.
And then the rear suspension, again, double wishbone. You can see that the stabilizer bar is efficiently attached directly to the knuckle. So that allows you to downsize the stabilizer bar but still get a lot of efficiency out of it.
Spring rates are higher than you would traditionally seen in Corvettes of the past, and we think a lot of that is because we've been able to take advantage of some of the improvement in structure. So it allows us to still get good ride character out of the car-- excellent ride character out of the car, actually, and then still have springs to support handling and dynamic demands.
And then another big feature that not all mid-engine cars have is a decent-sized trunk. So trying to package for and making sure that there's enough available for fitting two sets of golf clubs or anything, yeah. That was one of the challenges I think during the development of the vehicle. I wasn't directly involved in that part of it, but there was a lot of meetings were dedicated on how to make sure and preserve that packaging area.
JAMES RISWICK: Well, and also make sure everything you put in there doesn't roast.
STEVE PADILLA: Right. Yep.
The sources of thermal energy now have kind of concentrated to one spot, so you've got to make sure that you can get the airflow from the sides and the bottom and the back of the car and the top of the car into the engine bay properly.
JAMES RISWICK: Sure. Well, because I guess there's a trunk in the way. A lot of mid-engine cars have all these vents and stuff in the back, but--
STEVE PADILLA: Right.
JAMES RISWICK: --there's a big trunk in the way. So you have to vent it somewhere.
STEVE PADILLA: Yep. And those are things, again, that you learn again with the progression of the development vehicles as we see here.
JAMES RISWICK: All right, well, thanks Steve.
STEVE PADILLA: Yep. Thank you.
JAMES RISWICK: C8 Corvette under the skin.
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