JF-10 detonation-driven high-enthalpy shock tunnel was re-built with a forward detonation cavity (FDC) driver and the experimental data from its performance tests are summarized and reported in this paper. Test-duration of high-enthalpy flows produced with the improved JF10 is found to be extended by two times under the condition that the FDC driver is about 40% shorter than the original one. The uniform pressure area of the thus-obtained hypersonic flows in a 500 mm diameter conical nozzle is about 700 mm in length and 400 mm in diameter. Incident shock wave decay in the driven section appears to be much less by comparing with the original JF-10 shock tunnel. The performance improvement of JF-10 high-enthalpy shock tunnel was demonstrated to be very successful and high quality hypervelocity flows can be generated for aero-thermochemistry experiments.