The Story of SVS TTX a e85 Viper

  • The E85 Viper project sets out to prove that we don't have to give up high performance cars in order to save the environment. In fact, we discovered during this project renewable fuel performs much better than today's gasoline. My name is Karl Jacob and I knew I loved cars at the tender age of 5. My early memories of my father were watching him crammed underneath one of his cars and asking me for a half inch wrench. My first car was a 69 Mustang we bought for $750 and turned into a race car. This is the story of what happens when a kid who loves cars and the environment, grows up then builds an e85 powered Viper.
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World Record on E85 189MPH

The big day is finally here.  I was awakened by the rumbling of 1100HP reverberating off the walls at the Best Western in Mojave.  We packed everything up and headed over to Mojave with the crew and members of the press.

First up was a little briefing we did to talk about the car and our goal of going fast and being environmentally concious.  I was pretty amazed when I walked in the door and realized this is the same briefing room where so many people have debriefed about SpaceShip One, Boeing X-37 and countless others

Next up the journalists wanted to take some pictures and video which I will link to from here, but we also had a fantastic crew of our own, Jason Elias and Jake Zortman.

First off, some photos before the test in one of Mojave's hangars.  Thanks to the Mercy Air Rescue team for letting us use their hangar!

Now out to the runway.  We ran on the main runway which is almost 2 miles long and about 200ft wide.

Here are the pictures of the run itself.  You can see a huge plume of dust emanating from the back of the car

The car going about 170MPH...  It doesn't look like it though until you look closely at the back of the car and see the intense air distortion

There you have it.  We set the record for street car running E85 in the standing mile at 189MPH

Unfortunately we also had a intercooler problem.  The intercoolers decrease the temperature of the air before it enters the engine.  The air entering the engine wasn't cool enough and the temperature got too high.  This caused the engine management system to start shutting down power to the engine about 4th gear.

Because of this we couldn't do another run, but it does mean the car has quite a bit more left.  If the car can do 189MPH without full power one can only imagine what the car will do at full power.  As you can imagine we intend to find out and are going back in about a week to beat our own record and go after the gasoline records.

I would like to extend a special thanks to Ron Misjak Jr, Ron Misjak Sr., Drake and John.  Their tireless work in prepping and running the car is much appreciated.  Finally to Ron Misjak Jr. led this project and drove the car thank you!

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