1 lap developed consequence

Heres what happens when GM cuts costs and gets lazy. No need to develop a proper z06(ls7) engine, just slap an evolved zr1 mtor in it. Who cares what it weights, or whether it will last, all it needs is one fast lap in some magazine test to make the numbers, you know 99% of customers are idiots and will buy paper specs. And thats how you flush a hard won reputation for performance excellence down the drain. Meanwhile posting heat soak a month ago got you accused of being anti patriotic. I think its patriotic to call out USA manufactuers when the play customers for suckers.,



deadspin-quote-carrot-aligned-w-bgr-2

 

In all fairness to Gm, Its hard to expect any heavily tracked car to go 50k miles.
So what they have said is you can either have the safety limp mode feautures or aftermarket tune for sustained power, but void warranty. Sounds reasonable to me.
Perhaps the rule for cars tracked should be not voided warranty by say 7.5 k miles.

The bigger issue regardless of warrantly, and a sign of malaise, is why they thought a heavy supercharged motor was a good idea for a "track" capable car in the first place. Last time around they had th NA ls7 for track use and the Zr1 for people who had to have the "fastest" street car.

The track Vette to have currently is the grand sport, you get the z06 suspension and aero with a reliable Na motor.

Whats missing here is a real z06 and a real Z28 motor. Gm sems to have concluded that they can add a heavy supercharged motor to their "track" cars and the rubes are too dumb to notice the weight and power dialback becasue the one lap paper numbers look so good. This is aided and abetted by auto mag tests that are functionaly irrelevant for anyone who goes to the track.. Makes sense as 90% will never go near a track. But then dont call it the track capable car.

Ford with the Gt350 didnt put coolers on the "regular" ones and had failures and fires, so they saved $100 per car.

What Gm needs to do is go back to building limited and durable track capable cars, and "faster" boosted cars for the rubes. You know how porche builds a slower Gt3 for those who care and a turbo for those who want the "fastest" one.

My bet is some bean counter at Gm said why are we developing this limited demand NA motor for a limited market and scrapped it. Well the answer is because corvette partialy sells on performance and the performance cred of the few thousand that go to the track.

Things are coming full circle. In the old days of gentlemen racers, street based special cars were raced 250swb porches etc. Then the bloodlines diverged and race cars became silouhetes of street cars. Today the De special car is the gentlemens racer car. All the alms racing corvettes may mean something to anorak fans of racing but are too removed to be functionaly relevant to anyone who buys a vette for some tracking. Well the functional relevance is that the team who designed your vette knows what works and what does not on track. But it does not help if they are not allowed to build it.

 

I know, now to cut costs and appease bean counters they are missing a z06 and z28 engine.

Still there are substantibe rumours that a quad cam 6.2 v8 is on the way, so maybe thats the motor we are all waiting for.