The Performance Racing Industry show is an annual trade show in December at the Indy Convention Center, and it is for Motorsport professionals only – but Vorshlag is giving you the back stage pass with 300 pictures and videos in our PRI 2017 gallery! This was our tenth time to attend PRI and we saw plenty of cool new tech coming out in 2018!
We posted pictures and videos to Facebook during the show from various booths, but have even more content that we are sharing now. The focus for our coverage was new technology and products relevant to our customers – road course and autocross racers. We will cover a few highlights here.
We stopped in at the MCS booth multiple times – bidding Lex Carson farewell in his retirement – and also talked to the folks at Bilstein, Ohlins, and AST. Long story short – there are more performance monotube shock offerings coming in 2018 than we have ever seen before.
Powerbrake had a lot of new car fitments and new rotor and caliper sizes for 2018, plus a few surprises that we are working with them on that will be announced in the Spring. Check out this video showing some of the technology in their Motorsport 6 piston X6EL caliper.
2018 is the year that sequential transmission/transaxle options seem to be at an all time high. We took pictures of lots of options from PPG, Weddle, Mendeola, Albins, EMCO, Sedev, and more. Two Vorshlag builds in 2018 will be built with sequentials – stay tuned to our infamous “forum build threads” to see which ones!
Carbon fiber is not something we make at Vorshlag, but it is something we use on a lot of builds and for wings. We had great discussions with both AJ Hartman and the folks from Anderson Composites. We have many projects that will use dry carbon parts from both of these companies in 2018.
James Clay of Lifeline safety equipment taught us about their new “Novec” fire suppression systems that do not harm electronics. Check out the video we shot in their booth using a functional iPad dunked in Novec fluid here. We use Lifeline fire suppression systems exclusively at Vorshlag – and their steering wheel quick connects as well.
The AiM booth had many new digital displays (MXG units are going into several Vorshlag builds for 2018) and lap timers on display. We love the AiM SOLO predictive lap timer, and the brand new SOLO2 units add an RPM signal input, color back lighting, vastly more memory, and twin lines of programmable color LEDs for shift lights or alarms. We show the new SOLO2’s features in this video.
We took pictures of dozens of remarkable cars at the PRI show, but one of the most thrilling to watch on track is the Paul’s Automotive turbocharged V8 S550 Mustang. This car has a Quaife sequential, big tires, lots of power (tunable to 650-900 hp), and major downforce. Jason and Terry of Vorshlag point out some of their aero tricks in this video walk around.
2017 saw a lot of wheel company mergers and acquisitions – with Weld buying Forgestar, then Momo buying Weld and its subsidiaries (plus several others), there was a new mega-sized wheel company that emerged. We’ve worked with Forgestar for over six years and have already started to work with Weld and CCW. We had a rep explain some of the features of this fully CNC machined, forged monoblock CCW TS12 wheel in this video – which you will see on a Vorshlag shop car in 2018!
Its no secret – Vorshlag loves to put big V8 engines into darn near everything. So we pay attention to new developments for various V8 engines – like this Holley Hi-Ram intake for the Ford 351 Windsor (which is going on a Vorshlag employee’s car in 2018). There was also a FAST tunable Tunnel Ram, new runner lengths for the LS7 FAST LSXR, and many more – check our 2017 PRI gallery to see some of the crazy intake options added for 2018.
There were some booths we stopped at just to see the cars on display – like this 1969 Camaro above, the original Big Red Camaro! It was fun talking with the crew chief about their race at Pikes Peak in 2017. We also saw one of Mark Donohue’s V8 LOLAs, a Gulf livery Porsche 917, the Callaway Corvette C7 GT3 race car, and many many more – see them in the gallery.
Australian engine management company EMtron has a line of ECUs with full Motorsport feature sets, all major capabilities enabled without pricey “unlocks”. Now they have a US based employee for tech support, who we have known and trusted for years. Look for one of these EMtron systems on a Vorshlag race car build in 2018 – controlling different power levels per gear, traction control, active aero, and more.
Don’t forget – you can see our entire PRI 2017 gallery here, and most pictures have captions to explain what you are looking at. Thanks for reading!