GRAND AM DP THE GENERIC RILEY BODY T
he Corvette will not be the only third generation
Daytona Prototype taking part in this year’s Rolex 24. For those who want to utilise the new look cars but do not want to run with a GM powertrain, there is a generic body shape that has been developed by Riley Technologies but can
be fitted to either the Coyote or Dallara chassis. Unlike the Corvette, the new body is not styled for any particular manufacturer, but negotiations were in place with OEMS to develop a third DPG3 aero kit. The first generic-bodied Riley is currently under construction at the firm’s HQ in Mooresville, NC.
overall body surface and detail items like cooling ducts, brake ducts, radiator through flow, engine air intake, the front under wing, the rear wing and engine bay airflow. ‘The work horse is the
The generic Riley bodywork is designed to fit all third generation DP chassis, for teams who do not want to run Corvettes
in-house computational server at our corporate group in North Carolina, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pratt & Miller. It is basically a privatised and further developed [Department of Defense] code, a Navy code,’ explained Louth, ‘that has been developed and optimised specifically for the types of problems we face in motorsports and OEM vehicles, and we use well beyond that. There’s I think 3500 or 4500 processors in the supercomputer and that grows every few weeks. It seems like there’s 500 more nodes, or something like that, every time I look… Beyond that, there’s gridding software and surfacing software, and then post- processing. We use Field View for visualisation and interrogating
work on the side-on portions of the car. So it was quite an effort. But in the end, compared to what you would normally do under a normal timeline on a new car like this, we really did a fraction of the work.’ Keeping GM, the series and
the two other DP manufacturers engaged in the process, all while edging closer to a finished product was an important element for Pratt & Miller. ‘It was a massive, coordinated undertaking. There was work going on simultaneously with CFD, aerodynamics development and with all of the wetted services. And at the same time we were meeting with, doing reviews and getting feedback from the production Corvette designer. It was a collaborative and productive relationship with the production side of the Corvette team. Those guys are invaluable and a lot of the things that are on the cars you see today are probably their ideas.’ Certainly, delivering a uniform
“a collaborative and productive relationship with the production side of the Corvette team”
the results and providing analysis. But then we also have a lot of our own analysis tools and custom codes for processing the data for different purposes.’ By relying heavily on these
The DPG3 chassis under construction at Riley Technologies. The lower section is the same as the DPG2, but the upper section is all new
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www.racecar-engineering.com • February 2012
virtual tools, and their experience in using them, Pratt & Miller was able to handle the heavily compressed delivery schedule. ‘It was a huge effort,’ Louth confirmed. ‘Everything. All the phases were overlapped, with concurrent engineering. Where we were still doing aero development, we started with the overall aero package – basic function – and then quickly moved to the cooling and braking function down front. The greenhouse was the first big area though, then we nailed down the front under wing and, as the interaction allowed, we were freezing portions of the car for detailed design and tooling design and manufacturing while we were still doing conceptual
product is something that made Louth and all involved with the Corvette DP concept quite proud. ‘All the Corvette bodies, regardless of what chassis they’re on, are identical. All the wetted surfaces, all the important bits: ducts; front under wing; sidepods; rear deck; rear wing mounts are all identical. That is one of the objectives Grand-Am set. They wanted to balance a Corvette with a generic Riley Gen 3 body with a Gen 2 Dallara body, or whatever else. They want all the Corvettes to be the same. So when they were looking at adjustments for tuning devices or balance performance mechanisms, they can be applied across the board to all the Corvettes. That’s an important part of this.’
Mechanically, the GM Racing team needed the three DP marques to make changes of varying difficulty to common areas. With the Coyote and Riley
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