Basking in the warm glow of its remarkable success at the recent Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona endurance race (see the bottom of this post), General Motors flung open the doors of its new Performance Racing Center in Pontiac, Michigan, to provide a look at how the pros prepare for road-, drag-, oval-, and Indy-car racing. While this $200-million enterprise is still a work in progress, with the completion of construction still half a year off, 82 engineers and technicians are already building, developing, and tuning engines for upcoming races.
In essence, GM is consolidating its core engine expertise by relocating, expanding, and updating previous Wixom, Michigan, facilities to be an attached part of the global Powertrain engineering mother ship located 20 miles to the east in Pontiac.
The new digs have 50,000 square feet of performance and development labs and an additional 60,000 square feet of test and support space. The machine shop boasts nine new CNC centers and 21 additional tools to cut metal with utmost precision. Experts craft cylinder heads, test airflow, clean parts beyond medical standards, assemble engines, and prep them for testing on four dynamometers, some with 1000-horsepower, 12,000-rpm capacities. Other shops develop instruments and software for race-engine electronic controls and telematics.
Some peripheral work?electric motor design and development and gear machining studies?has also moved from Wixom to the Pontiac race center complex. That said, the re...