Current Saleen S7-R status

[sebring1971]

I was wondering how many Saleens have been actually built. And how has been their technical development in these years? Also, what do you think is S7-R's strongest point? And the weakest one? So, what I meant is to try to trace Saleen's state of the art.

[FIRE]

The car is fast, but reliabilty is less good.

[19dodge]

i believe that there is over 30 road cars produced. there is also over 12 S7Rs in existance (5 from Nash/Newton(rml), 3 from Konrad, 1 from DDO, 2 from Acemco, and chassis 03R which does not race anymore- if i remember correctly)

[Mopar]

its a bit dissapointing really that the car is not more competitive considering it performance in its debut year. Surely saleen have produced enough cars now to have its restrictions raised. I cant wait to see a straight fight between the 550, 575, saleen, listers etc (oh yes just remembered i will on sunday

Something else: why did the konrad saleen (fia gts) have so many gearbox issues last season when ALMS cars didnt? couldnt they simply bolt in an ACO spec gearbox in? didnt realise gearboxes were a contentous issue between the FIA and ACO

[Gunman]

The paper trail for 25 cars exists...as for the actual cars? I'm still hearing rumors that they physically don't, that road cars have been repainted, and re-vin'd, and that they still don't meet US DoT specs. Could just be nasty rumors though.

Unfortunatly my inside connections got laidoff a couple years ago, so I can't get the real scoop.

[19dodge]

no, no.. there are over 30 saleens built, im sure.

the saleens never had any restrictions in FIA GT. the restrictions were only in ACO races (now they have them off) the gearbox problems that konrad was having was something strange. they were using a diffrent gearbox from the ACO spec (FIA must have sequential) the cause of the gearbox problems was A. Jean-Marc Gounon being too tough on the car(my specualtion, but i think it had some role) and B. not having enough development put into the boxes.

[gi_gav]

Am i wrong in thinking that having a sequential 'box would have made the driver's mechanical sympathy less of an issue? ie. not the fault of Gounon

[19dodge]

gounon pushes the car to the limit. doesnt matter what car it is. remember when he was driving the courage at LM? if he pushed any harder, the car would have fallen apart! lol

[jim69]

From what i remember at the start of last year the gearboxes for the FIA were late arriving, and had not had much testing. Saleens 7 and 8 did not have many gearbox problems. Make of that what you like.

[jim69]

Good luck to Mike and Tommy in the no 7 car tommorow.

[tblincoe]

i definitely agree that the saleen's lack of race wins in fiagt is not due to it's pace but caused by it's lack of reliability. the car routinely qualifies higher or on par with the prodrive 550s, esp. on non-power dependent tracks as the prodrive cars seem to have the best engine we've seen in gts for some years

[19dodge]

thats it. The saleens are cursed or something. Today was horriable. driveshaft failure, clutch failure, (what happened to Nash?, they didnt take the start, but joined in at lap 18) - the 8 car also had problems- what was it?

i dont understand. here you have 2 very competitive teams (RML , Konrad) who should be finishing each race in the top 6- (Alzen's car should be in top 3- Lechner's car should be top 5, RML top 6) and none of them make it? ok sure, Tommy Erdos finished 6th today, but they made one extra stop. if they didnt make that extra stop, they would have finished 4th or 5th!

just very upsetting. Hope they will at least finish in 2 weeks (and if they do finish, im sure it will be a top 5 for both konrad entries)

[tblincoe]

this is getting rediculous, the saleens seem to never have a problem during the weekend until the race... and we're not talking late in the race, i mean in the first 12 laps. i dont understand what's going on

[19dodge]

yeah. im starting to think that some of the drivers are pushing the car too much (over the limit)

- however got clarification that the Alzen Konrad Saleen had an engine expire, not clutch. Perhaps they knew of an engine problem before the start of the race, and didnt change it because of the new rule(1 engine per weekend)? maybe they were hoping it would last?

[The Badger]

I did notice that both Konrad Saleen's were well over the kerbs , the chaseing 550's wern't !!! It seems that to get the speed outta the car you really have to work at it though . Two best looking color scheme's Ive ever seen on a Saleen .