Will the C8 be able to do this....

Starting new thread because I did not want to pollute the other one going. Basically, the C7 never had much Ring time success. Now we know why in this really good article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/enthusiasts/why-chevrolet-never-released-a-c7-corvette-nürburgring-lap-time/ar-AADvPoH

Which has me thinking, if the C7 GS did almost C6 ZO6 time, the C7 Z06 did a 7:10 time but with 100oct fuel mapping program and the C7 ZR1 did a 7:04 on cold tires where will the C8 come in at? Will it be a disaster if the base car is not ahead of the C6ZR1 time of 7:19? What if its close to the C7GS instead? There goes the whole reason for changing to ME. Everyone says that the FE car has hit its limits but yet the here the C7 is performing on par with most of the higher end cars. So if ME is so great why aren't higher end ME's just crushing the C7 and not by a couple of seconds either. I am talking 10-15 sec differences. Could it be that ME's are at a limit too?

 

I race a C5Z06. All I'm interested in is racing vettes not driving them. IMO the real limit of the C7 is the lack of a good auto gearbox. It is 2019 and all real racecars are on sequential boxes. It is a real pain to heel toe downshift blip throttle and transition to left foot brake, trail braking corner entry. The auto box makes that a breeze and lowers laptime. The GM A6 was a POS. The GM A8 is an even bigger POS. The GM/Ford 10speed shifts at prosche PDK speeds and acts like a manual when you want but does not fit in the Vette! But they did fit it in the 'maro ZL1 1LE , or whatever that pig is, to great success. I have not bought a C7 to race because of this reason. I like front engine because when you have track failures you have a better chance of accessing them. With ME you always seem to need to get underneath and that is just impossible without a lift sometimes. I'm too old to work under jackstands with exhaust pipe 2" off my nose. I really don't like mustangs but the 10speed is there and so far people seem to track them without issue but I don't know anyone racing them the way we do. I'm not a fan of Ferrari DCT it can't take the abuse. Even the porsche PDK and the BMW DCT will leave you stranded sometimes then your race weekend is done because you need a computer to fix it. Slushbox automatic technology is bullet-proof proven in the millions of miles on them.

 

It's all marketing, nothing more.

Does all of the new technology ... including mid-engine placement for exact weight distribution, 27 forward gears, triple-clutch transmissions that shift in 0.4 milliseconds, etc etc ... provide leaps and bounds of performance enhancement?

Please remind me ... what was the ring time of the most recent Viper ACR, with that cumbersome "ancient" technology (front engine, rear-drive, manual gearbox)?

 

yes! All that stuff adds up. 0.1 seconds on 10 corners of a typical track is 1 sec. 1 sec/lap difference is how cars are lapped during a race distance. On the streets is makes zero difference. We could all be driving golf karts especially at freeway speeds in Los Angeles.

 

YES! Seven minutes (plus one second) at the 'ring

Not bad for that tired, old american muscle recipe ... front-engine, rear-drive, manual gear box

 

I get the racing side of things and the auto vs manual debate. No doubt a DCT can deliver better times but its not significantly so. Otherwise the Viper ACR mentioned and the ZR1 would not be outgunning a lot of the exotics as it is. I think this whole FE has reached its pinnacle is BS because I do not see ME's that are beating the FE as it is. So back to my original question. IF the C8 is not as fast as the current Z06 or worse the GS hangs with it in base form, will the C8 be a bust? Of course there is going to be performance versions but if the C8 Z06 is only matching the C7 ZR1 I think it will be a travesty. The C8 ME was to be a leap forward in performance because GM couldn't do anything else with the FE. I find that hard to believe when tuners can take them and go to extreme levels reliably. Thoughts?

 

Not at all! It will be a bust if they can't deliver, for example, if the C8 DCT breaks. Vette owners want speed, power ,cup holders and artic A/C. History is the C6 base was = to the C5Z06. The C6GS is about where the C7Z51 is today right down to the drysump. The C6ZR1 is about a C7Z06. Numbers lie too if you are looking at HP/torque and 1/4mile times! There is more to a sportscar than that, packaging, weight, brakes, CG etc. GM has a huge advantage to build a $60k supercar. We will see if the bean counters destroy it.

 

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The C8 is going to be a Hoot... C

 

Yeah right 2worlds. I have owned 6 Corvettes since the C4 and am as big of a fan as anyone here or elsewhere. I happen to think that the vette forum will lose its mind if the C8 is not out of the box up there with the C7Z06 or damn close. Cause that means for them to have a real slayer in the performance models then it is going to be well north of C7ZR1 money. That is a bust to me.

 

a real slayer? More likely the 4 o'clock fish special and a parking spot where they can SEE their new Corvette. As someone else noted speed costs money; how fast do you want to go?

 

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a27116013/chevrolet-corvette-c8-mid-engine-confirmed-2020/

The C8 is expected to start at $60K . Some say for the psych benefit the msrp will be $58K but you can't buy it that way. Vette owners are very price sensitive. They will forgive some absolute performance for price. But "out of the box up there" means different things to different people. There will always be a "give and take" in regards to performance. The DCT will shift super fast and allow easy left foot braking. That alone exceeds anything vette has ever done before. Is that enough for you? Maybe. The ME chassis will be more responsive than FE but will that make it only feel faster or actually slow laptimes because drivers are not up to the ME dynamics. Vette always pushes the HP higher and the C8 base proposed 500hp is no different as each base since the C4 has been given progressively more power. Flat plane crank is also going to make cool noises like no other previous vette but then NVH goes up someone is going to hate that.

 

Okay maybe I am only capable of seeing cars from my singular purpose for them (which is not driving them on a track since I cannot wear a helmet anymore), but I was under the impression that the ME was suppose to take the car to new levels of handling and steering feel. I have never cared about lap times or specs someone gets on paper. some people like graphs and charts, I like what I can see with my own eyes in real world situations. I am not without skills (even at my old age, and being almost dear, eyes are shot, and arthritis taking most of the strength in my hands), behind the wheel, but I am not going to be able to ever duplicate the so called specs on paper, so I could car less what they are. Since I look at all cars as adult tinker toys, I am going to take it apart anyway. I am anxious to see the car, and I will buy one but only if I can get a manual transmission. I have no interest in the car otherwise since I have enough DCT type cars. I suppose if I were a normal person I would see all the things like the rest of you do, but being what I am, I can only see any car for the one purpose I want it to have.

 

I only want a sports car for the intangibles: how it looks, how it sounds, how it feels dynamically at a range of moderate to quick speeds, and how it makes me feel with pride of ownership.
I don’t care one bit about numbers, unless they are shockingly bad.
I don’t care about cars as status.
I want a car to be a “car,” that means I want to drive it, a lot: to the supermarket, to dinner, to the gym, to the gun range, to friends’ houses, and very importantly on long road trips (it needs to be able to sit overnight in parking lots).

I am very confident the C8 Grand Sport will tick all those boxes for me.
I am more interested in this car than any pending Ferrari.

 

I guess I have failed to articulate my question correctly. Carnut kinda hit on it a little when he said the ME is suppose to take it to the next level. Which was my point and numbers DO matter. If the Corvette already has over 1g handling numbers how is the ME going to improve upon that? Those that say this car has their interest more than any other pending brand are only saying so because of price points. Any new pending Ferrari that is ME will be a $300k car compared to this. So not apples to apples. I stand behind my statement that if the new C8 is stuck somewhere around the C6Z06 (yes C6 because its between the C7GS and C7Z06) in performance then it will be a bust. I don't see the masses of C7Z06 owners jumping ship for a slower car. Yes numbers matter whether they do to anyone here or not. Otherwise they would never be published or tested.

 

My two cents? From the leaked pictures, the car is going to be ugly. I don't do ugly.

 

Here's the issue, as i see it ... let's say the front-engine, rear-drive, manual gear box car has 40 ft-lbs more torque than that exotic, mid-engine, 19-forward gears with 0.32 msec shift times. The higher-torque car claws-back the 0.1sec on each straight, that it lost in those corners.

So all of that fancy new tech is nullified, on the track and on the street, by 40 ft-lbs of extra torque from the "old" recipe :yawn:

Know what i mean? And the "old" recipe is cheaper, and arguable lots more fun on the street!

 

There is doing 1g and then there is the feeling. you get from behind the wheel when you are doing it. One of the advantages of owning so many cars (and owning so many at once) is that you can drive them back to on a given day. I have owned C5's C6's and C7's, and while they might have the numbers on paper they were never confidence inspiring cars, the steering was always a bit vague to me and the car always felt bigger than it was (not what you want in a sports car), because of that. This is what I mean when I say numbers do mean a thing, real world experiences (my own) are the only things that matter to me when it comes to judging a car. You see when a car inspires confidence you drive better, faster (like the six million dollar man) and that in the real world is a better car, specs are for those who would rather read than experience. Texas, and Italiafan are probably both right it will I think it will be a great car, but to keep the Corvette faithful happy I think they might not go to far ahead in the looks department, and while the C7 was a step up in the interior, I think they still have a ways to go, they need to not make it a nicer Camaro, it needs its own special interior.

 

I fully understand what your saying. I will agree that the vette is a car in its current form that you have to get use to it over time to get the most out of it. The rear always feels likes its going to let loose. So if they fix that it will be a step forward. But still, if its a mid 11sec 12xmph car the faithful are not going to be happy. More vette owners go to the drag strip than go to the track. C6Z06 numbers will not get it done. That like the next GT3 having performance numbers on par with the 2008 GT3. Porsche fans would lose their minds.

 

Eric, I do not doubt what you are saying, and I am a member of the corvette forum as well (each forum has its on unique group of members), and I am sure like the other cars the tuners will be active trying to get even better results on paper from the car. That is the point I am trying to make, specs, charts, graphs, those things are great (and there are those who live by that stuff), but they really do are not the whole story, at least not in everyday driving.

 

The most track time to date. I know they are not pushing it but I am not feeling that its going to be great in base form.

 

That's what many just fail to understand. It is not about getting better numbers. It is about tuning out or tuning in specific compromises of the owners. GM has to guess the compromises to satisfy 350mil Americans. Katech and LG motorsports, aftermarket vette race guys, only has to satisfy guys who track corvettes. That is a much lower bar than trying to guess what is a unique interior that passes Carnut's standards.

 

Nothing ever meets my standards if it did I'd probably stop buying cars. I would not have a reason to take them apart is they were all perfect, then I'd be bored, and they would serve no purpose. In my autistic brain cars are just like adult tinker toys, and I had no toys as a child, so now I have lots of them.

 

IMO, the target for the BASE C8 is the C7 GS. The C6 Z06 (and C6 ZR1) were left behind by the C7 GS.

 

That's what I was looking for but I disagree with the last part. So if the C8 is shooting for GS performance I think it will be a big let down with the faithful. That means the hotter versions will have a higher hill to climb to get past the current ones. Not saying it won't be done, it will be at what costs? I foresee a C8Z06 at $100k for base level and the ZR1 cruising in at $140k for base level. Both rising big time from there. Will that be sustainable for Corvette is the question?