T or F: The Viper out-handles Just About Every High Line Sports Car

Very little to do with production Vipers, absolutely. But one thing interesting to note is that the engines in the Oreca (Le Mans) Vipers were modified factory engines with the mods done by Caldwell Racing in Cali. Interesting only because the engine was a modified production engine whereas many (most?) other cars used non production engines, notably the C5-R which was granted an exception to use the 427 engine because "it was sold as a crate engine" even though it was never offered as a factory engine in anything, least of all the Corvette (at least, not back then).

 

R&T was the one I was just going to point out to Ispeed until I saw your post. They also hypothesized the Z06 & ZR1 as well as the F430 & 430 Scuderia at the end.

 

When did you call me out before?

I'm sorry though; I was mistaken. Those Vipers have the same front calipers as the 1986 944 turbo (check the part numbers). But the rotors are the same size as the 1989 944 turbo. (or a 1988 with the Mo30 package IIRC). The Porsche weighs about 500lbs less and has 247hp.

Regardless, are you suggesting that it would be safe for somebody to track a Viper with stock brakes?

You're going to get somebody killed.

Yea, they should be okay for that first lap or two.

You're the only person in this thread that has said 'poor suspension design' or 'no handling at all'.

IMHO, the Viper has pretty decent geometry. I would say it's much more track appropriate than say an mk1-mk3 VW gti (which people praise for handling).

 

I have to chime in here, and say I agree. Most of the publications (when the Viper is being put against the Z06) love to praise the Viper's track performance, calling it, a very driver oriented car or better suited for track driving than the Z06. The Viper might be "big and clunky" but they've come a long way, and are extremely popular among the track folks. I believe we had 6 or 7 of them at the Concorso this year.

 

I called you out previously in another Viper thread where you said it uses the same stock brakes as a 944 turbo, but it sounds like you didn't read it, no matter.

As for the calipers, all I can tell you is that the Viper uses 38mm/42mm 4-piston front calipers, and the 944 turbo uses 36mm/40mm front calipers. If the Brembo part number for the caliper is the same or similar, then perhaps Brembo reused a part number for the Viper calipers by mistake, but I know the Viper has a different piston diameter than the 944 turbo. The "S4" brakes are 36mm/44mm pistons, byt again not the same as the Viper.

As for the rotors, again you are mistaken. The 1989 944 Turbo (including S2 and M030 package) uses 304mm rotors, the Viper uses 335mm rotors, so again, no, they are not the same brakes as a 944, be it an 86 or an 89, they are simply different brakes... the Vipers rotors are over 20% larger. Go look it up, it's true. As for the curb weight, a Viper in no ways 500lb more. The Viper is 3400lbs, the 944's were lighter in earlier years but around 3050 for the 86 and more later. There is a thread over on 6-speed about this exact issue and it's a known thing that the weight they say in the manual is pie in the sky because it's no-options and dry weight. On that thread you have guys who actually weighed their cars with the 86's being 3100lbs (give or take) and the 89's being 3200lbs... so you're 200-300lb difference.

So rather than the posted "same brakes as a 1986 944 turbo in a much heavier car" the truth is more like... NOT the same brakes (20% bigger brakes than the 89 turbo, S2, S4 and M030" and a weight difference of around 200-300lbs.

As for tracking a Viper with stock brakes, I tracked mine MANY times. It was well known that if you are doing serious tracking, you change out the brakes. That's pretty common on LOTS of cars. The track days I've done I ran the stock setup with no problems, although it was "high performance driving days". I eventually chanegd out the pads for EBC which helped a ton and many guys run track days on stock brakes, except EBC pads. Another thing is to bore the rear single piston calipers from 36mm to 40mm which gives much more balance to the brakes (or people change out the proportioning valve). This lets the rears do some work and seriously reduces the load on the fronts. And as with many cars, the guys who compete pretty much at any level go with big brake kits.

Funny, I did the Viper invitational and there were something like 500 Vipers running a skip barber school at LVMS in groups of about 5-10 laps, nobody died. And Dodge brought a few Viper GTS's to various other events including road course days and those cars were run *constantly* on the track with no problems and nobody died. So either Viper guys are all superhuman and avoided disaster though sheer skill, or the notion that Viper brakes will fail after 1-2 laps is about as true as Vipers having the same brakes as 1986 944 turbos.

I'm not trying to overanalyze the point.... for any real tracking, the brakes are absolutely the weak point - I said that in my first post. But they are not some kind of liability, they are not close to as bad as you are making out, and they sure are different than what's on a 1986 944 turbo, a 1989 944 turbo, a S2, S4, M030 and whatever other 944 you want to say they are the same as - they ain't! They ain't great, but they aren't *that* bad and really only pale in comparison to supercars and other high-end cars with excellent brakes. In 03, Dodge fixed this with the SRT which laid the wood (in terms of braking) to pretty much everything else, including 911's, GT2/GT3, Boxsters, 360s, 430's, Z06 and so on. Dodge recognized the problem and fixed it, and then some (thankfully).

This thread was started based on the other thread where the OP of this thread said (in the other thread) that the Viper had a poor chassis design and had been flamed for it's ill handling in every article he has ever read in the past 10 years. That's the statement I took issue with, because like the idea that M030 brakes are the same as Viper GTS brakes, it's simply not true.

I agree with you. In terms of handling, the Viper is amazingly good. The problem is a stiff chassis, 13" wide rear wheels and stiff suspension means it tracks every groove in the road and it *feels* like a handful of a car to drive. It has high handling limits, but it sure doesn't inspire confidence like an M3 (or a Porsche) does, and as any kind of serious track car, the brakes need to be changed out.

 

They are the only fault I can find in the car. I've always loved the Viper.


You know quite a bit about the 944 turbo brakes!

 

^ need a brake ?

grab a snickers ( you guys need to cool it )

 

Look no further than one lap of america to see what a viper in the right hands can do. If you look at the raw track times it is wooping on all the cars in the line up and often by huge (I mean massive like 10 seconds on a 2 minute track) margins compared to second place. Not sure what the Hennesey viper had in 2008 but in 2007 it was basically just a wheel/tires and a shock upgrade otherwise stock suspension and some naturally aspirated engine mods and upgraded brakes.

 

You're kind of trolling now...

 

http://www.onelapofamerica.com/history/2008/results/showResults.shtml?y=2008&res=EV05

Yeah your right putting nearly 17 seconds on a race car and 22 seconds on a built road race TT porsche obviously means the chasis is antiquated and the car can't handle.

 

To be fair:

"Hennessey Viper" does make it sound like some prep went into this car as well.

 

Theres no need for a 'defense'.

SRT Mike has pretty much laid it out with the help of many many road test examples.

You just keep throwing out very thin 'fact's to try and support something you WANT to believe. Thats fine...no skin off my arse.

 

Personally I don't care what the magazine say about the cars because its my personal taste and not what the reader likes after all everybody is diffrent.

Exactly!.

Performance is great but looks is a whole other ball game.

 

I didn't think you were going to show your face in this thread again. I called out your BS in the other thread, and you went so far as to start this one to get support for your argument.... except you didn't get support, you got a bunch of guys who know what they are talking about confirming that what I said is true, and what you said is wrong.

As for the thread you mentioned, I went and found it

http://forums.viperclub.org/srt10-srt10-coupe-discussions/614824-motor-trend-mt-confidential-4.html

Herb Helbig (who is no longer with the Viper program and hasn't been for some time) said that he would have liked to have gone with an aluminum chassis for lower weight, better fuel economy, and improved performance. If you then go and read the thread, there really isn't anyone who is really in favor of it. Most folks are concerned about the rigidity and repairability of an AL chassis. Which pretty much exposes your comment above as an outright fabrication.

As for the quality of the chassis, the proof is in the pudding. You said that every article you had read complained about the horrible chassis. I called you out and countered with facts - glowing reviews of the chassis and handling from the same magazines you told us said the opposite.

Then you started a thread looking for support saying the chassis was crap and how you did not think the Viper was faster around a track than cars like the Cayman, 360, 911, R8, etc. Then pretty much everyone replied and told you that you were wrong.

Now you say "well the Viper guys were all excited about an AL chassis which proves it was crap". But the problem with that is the Viper guys didn't say that at all. I linked to the thread and I invite anyone who is unsure to go read it and see what the reaction was. So your re-engineered 3rd argument of "no, I *AM* right because even the Viper guys want an aluminum chassis which proves the steel one it has is crap" has now been debunked.

I have serious doubts about the motives of anyone who makes such an effort to get people (and himself?) to believe the Viper has a crap chassis. Again, the proof is in the pudding. On the one hand we have the comments of owners, of people who've faced Vipers on track, of paid experts who all like the chassis and handling. On the other hand we have you switching up your argument each time the last argument used gets debunked.

As for the car tracking the road - again shows a complete failure to understand the problem and why it occurs. It's a problem related to fat tires and the alignment on the car. Adding toe-in cures it, but wears tires faster. Going with skinnier tires would help too, but who wants that? And ironically, it's a problem that is not limited to the Viper... another car that is famous for tracking the road is the Corvette. I've had multiple Vipers and Vettes and it's just the nature of the beast, and it happens on other cars too that aren't Vipers or Corvettes

I'll wait with baited breath for the next installment of "as the argument changes...."

 

You flatter me... I don't know all that much about 'em but I did have the pleasure of having a 944 and a 968 in the past, and I am sure you would agree with me that the 944 turbo had pretty good brakes for it's year and the Vipers are pretty bad for it's year and level of car, so my reply isn't meant to say the Vipers brakes are great, cause they aren't, they just do OK

The thing is that the Viper always had longer stopping distances than other cars and lots of guys go about changing out to huge rotors and calipers to fix it. That's great, but a stock Viper will easily lock the brakes on the highway at 80mph, so it's not a problem of getting bite.. it's just that the car doesn't "dive" much. The motor is actually pretty far back and the weight distribution is good. The car is low so it tends to push the front wheels forward rather than rotating forward to put weight down on the wheels. Also, the rears are just wrong for the car. 36mm pistons and the brake proportioning valve is just set wrong. A lot of guys modify the valve or swap it out, but the hot tip on non-ABS cars was to machine the rear caliper to accept a 40mm piston. That most definitely evens up the front and rear brake workload and helps keep the fronts from overheating on the track, and shortens stopping distances.

Thing about the Viper is that it very much is a "parts bin car". It uses the same wheel hubs as a Dodge pickup with 6-bolts (PITA to find wheels/rotors to work). But when the engineers were choosing the parts to use, they made pretty good choices. They put a huge clutch in it, a very beefy rear diff, forged everything in the motor and the driveline is just bulletproof. The one area they screwed the pooch was the brakes, but IMO they get a much worse rep than they deserve. They sort of piggybacked ABS on in 2001, but it was basically the same brake setup and the same chassis dynamics. They went back to the drawing board in 03 with the SRT and that was the car that outhandled just about everything as the original GTS did, but it also outbraked almost everything.

But the legacy of the brakes lived on. You can see it in this Shark guys posts saying the 03 Viper would be a good straight line car. LOL! The 03's were the SRT's first year and that's a car that will outbrake a 911 turbo or a cayman or Boxster S which is no small feat. Yet the car still gets called a straight line car and one-trick pony by the ignorant (I don't mean you - just people in general). The other things you always hear that you know were opinions people read in a mag and took as their own is the seat position, pedal closeness, seatbelts and hot sidepipes. Whenever you read those you know most of the time it's someone who'se parroting what they read in the rags 10 years ago.... I love the Viper like you do, so I always try to stick up for it, or at least tell the truth about 'em when they are being flayed for no good reason

Still really miss that midnight blue 968 though. I wish I'd have kept it. That was an awesome car.

 

Is that a joke?!? Sorry, I love the Viper but no.

 

Did you just read this thread or are you trying to start ****?

 

Just out of curiosity Mike (or anyone else), what does a pre-01 Viper brake upgrade cost? What kind of brakes are we talking about? Can they be upgraded to ABS? Newb question, I know. What exactly does the brake upgrade accomplish? Less chance of the fronts locking and better balance? Thanks.

RMX

 

Someone needs to turn the lights on in their stadium.

This thread isn't about a fashion show, it's about p.e.r.f.o.r.m.a.n.c.e.

 

Lack of ABS wasn't/isn't so much the problem. Good fluid (Castrol SRF, as an example) and proper proportioning should get it done for most. Would suggest these guys otherwise ... http://www.stoptech.com/

 

No, not trying to start anything. I just gave an answer to the original question.

 

What he said!

I'd add that fluid/proportioning you're looking at maybe a few hundred bucks, less if you do it yourself.

Big brake kit... hmm... anywhere from a couple grand to 5k+ if you go top of the line.

 

Is that an installed price for the brakes?

RMX