The Chevrolet Corvette C8 debuted for the 2020 model year with a new platform, new technologies, and a new mid-engine layout for the fabled moniker. Having the very best of the European sports cars and supercars in its sight, the new ‘Vette brought new customers to the brand that would probably have never even considered buying a Chevrolet before. The automaker probably wanted to keep the Corvette C8 stock for everyone but a tuning firm finally managed to crack the car’s engine control unit.
Trifecta Performance, a Washington-based Chevy tuner, announced on its official website it has made huge progress in tuning the C8’s V8 engine. The firm respectfully agrees that GM has made an amazing car and the only thing it deserves is “nothing less than the humblest approach.” The C8 is pretty good in stock form and there’s very little to be desired from its performance, Trifecta Performance admits.
With a very precise engine calibration from the factory, the V8 of the Corvette C8 is very capable with very little to no power left on the table. The tuning company adjusted the air to fuel ratio, ignition timing advance, variable cam phasing angles, and other parameters, but achieved only minimal power gains. The focus of the tuning program for the vehicle, however, will be on the transmission as the team sees potential in achieving faster gear changes.
“Now that we’ve examined the performance side of the C8 calibration, we’re going to turn our efforts towards drivability character traits. The C8’s driving manners are very, very good out of the box. Virtually every issue we had about the way the C7 drove has been fixed with the C8. But there are a few places where we can make good into great,” Trifecta Performance promises.
Also, in addition to the gearbox’s behavior, the tuning company wants to tweak the acceleration pedal’s response to become more liner. More precisely, the specialists feel there’s still “a bit of compression in the pedal in the 65 - 100 percent range that can be smoothed out.”
