World’s Fastest C8 Corvette Meets Its Match and Its Name is Banshee

Building a twin-turbo C8 Corvette is hard. As Emelia Hartford finds out, though, keeping such a build happy in competition is harder.

For as long as there’s been a Corvette, it’s been pretty easy to add a turbo onto it. However, the C8 Corvette currently doesn’t play well with hair dryers. The culprit, of course, is the ECU. A properly tuned module can make all the difference in managing the power. Yet, GM locked-down the new ‘Vette’s ECU tighter than Area 51, forcing builders to brute-force their way into turbocharger heaven.

One such builder is Emelia Hartford. Her C8 Corvette packs not one but a pair of turbos, resulting in a build with over 1,000 horsepower to the rear. On this day with Hoonigan, though, it’s down to 700 ponies due to shifting issues at 1,000 of them. Alas, while building a turbo C8 is hard already, keeping such a build happy is truly a challenge. And that’s before throwing down against a lightweight, high-powered. Yamaha Banshee ATV.

“It’s a Texas Speed-built LT2,” said Hartford. “Did everything except the crank and the cam. Forgeline beadlock wheels, Mickey Thompson tires […] On the dyno, we put down 1,022 […] Right now, I’m on a 700-horsepower tune because you can’t shift on 1,000 horsepower. Yet.”

Meanwhile, her competitor, Johnathan of J-Built Industries, brought a bigger gun to the fight, in the form of a 95-horsepower Banshee. With him on the ATV, there’s only 600 pounds for those horses to move him off the line. Even Hartford believes this combo might take her turbo C8 Corvette. If no accidents happen, of course.

“Right now, there’s a half-second delay in shifting for second gear,” said Hartford. “I let the producers decide if they want me to run it or take 15 minutes to pull the degree of timing out of it. They said, ‘Just run it.’ Let’s see what happens, because if I gap him anyways, I don’t even need to be worried about that.”

On the first run, the Banshee leaves Hartford and her turbo C8 Corvette in the dust, bouncing up and down all the way. The first attempt at the second run, meanwhile, sees the ‘Vette shut itself down due to the aforementioned shifting issues. The second attempt goes better, with her passing the mad ATV for the win.

“The original plan was not for me to stay for another race,” said Hartford. “I stayed because we got the tune right. I think we broke the flywheel again. It’s a stock flywheel. I’m hearing chattering. And the one-two shift, more and more, each time I shift, the car’s not really doing it. We might need to figure out a solution for an aftermarket flywheel. If not, we’re just gonna keep having to drop the engine and transfer a stock one.”

That said, Hartford managed to also get a couple of wins off a Porsche Taycan later in the day. The day someone breaks the ECU, though, is the day her turbo C8 Corvette becomes a happy camper.

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