What track were you at?
Well seems like Gm was right, the new z06 will 'suit the uses of most buyers', just not the small percentage who go to the track. Dissapointing
I think that you just said it. They built a car that suits most people. GM is charged with turning a profit. Not making a car that suits a decided minority. I'm not wanting to be argumentative. But having every car be the best under every circumstance seems to be an unfortunate desire of some. These cars are fantastic today. And only when coming in second are they in any way failing to provide some with what they want. Flame suit on.
If you sell a car as your track capable car, it should be track capable. Considder that 85% of Z06 andf Gt3 buyers will never go near a track, why do they buy these cars. They buy them because they believe they are track capable, it adds the the cachet, its part of the reason they are bought. The z06 did not become a thing two geenrations ago because it was a faster vette, it became a thing because it could go tot he track, it wa this capoabulity that allowed GM to sell a vette for 2x the price. Peiople buy ferraris ebcause thye win at F1, are fast cars, look great anbd are status symbols. Very few ferrari drivers use the performance, but they believe its there, part of the equation. If the z06 cant track, yeah its faster tyhan 95% of owners will ever use, but the king has no cloths, and that eventualy leads to collapse of brand perception/sales. I have no problem with vettes not being able to track, hell 70% are auto box, just if you sell a version of your car as being the track capable one, then it should be track capable. lest nto forget that the adevrtising for a vette at 2x the price is its track capable. BTW at track events I go to, you see lots of vettes and Loti, a fair number of older BMWs some porche and then single units of others. The zO6 vettes cred stands on what the minority do with it, thats why significant numbers of the majority buy them. In any event I didnt claim the zo6 was the best thing since sliced bread, Gm does, and touts it as the track ready car, its clearly not. The laptimes are a lie also, becasue its only doable for one lap.
Something must have changed then: I've been to Spring Mountain twice in July. First was to drive a ZR1 for 5 days, second was to drive stingrays and Cadillacs for a week. Rarely did the cars require I do anything to address the heat. It is standard practice there to run the air conditioner to allow drivers to hear the two way radio. Wasn't soft peddling any of those cars.
I am guessing thoise were C6 vettes. The C7 Z06 is a different animal, BTW it will track, or run hard on the highways, its just that after 1 hard lap the computer dials back the power, probably still faster than a lot of cars, just not as fast as presented and def not 650 hp. Pretty much every magazine has experienced this on track tests. At first Gm said it was break in oil, then they said the computer codes for the first 500 miles were different. Now it seems they admit that the computer dials back the power and richens the mixture to save long term reliability. GM suggests that aftermarket tuning will allow for full power at all times, but void the warranty. Since I dotn expect any manufatuerer to really warrant a car for 50k track miles that is understandable. But if I chip a new z06 vette is it likely to blow int he first 10k miles, or is it just unlikely to make 50k on track. Hard to know. One thing we know many suopercharged motors(but not all) suffer heat soak and reduced power when being used hard, including the Zr1. Thats fine for the ocacsional street blast but inadequate on track where mutiple laps are run over mutiple days. Seems like Gm took the c7 z06 chassis and ran out of funds so dumped a sort of zr1 mtor in it, drivign up weight, adding hp, but loosing real or relevant track performance.
The GT3 and latterly Gt4 which are the porche street/track cars are still NA. If you are adding boost to get more power then turbos are in general better than superchargers in terms of fuel economy and weight, but suffer from lag where superchargers do not, lag is not great on track. Both can suffer from heat soak so a good setup runs intercoolers as does the vette and porche turbo. My sense is heat soak affects superchargers more than turbos. Figure also that the motor has to physicaly drive a supercharger, I think in the ZR1 it was somethign like 120Hp absorbed by the supercharger, so the 650 hp Zr1 needed to produce 770Hp to get 650 at the crank the other 120 was absorbed by driving the supercharger. Superchargers work, they dont suffer lag, the motor internals need to be really strong but for all the other reasons of weight fuel economy and heat they are an "inelegant" solution. Turbos have lag, but they are light and use spent exhaust gasses to drive them, they are an elegant efficient solution, so probably apealed to the germans, who undoubtably wanted as little extra weight the rear of their car. The first turboed 911 was allegedly built in South Africa in the late 60s by a man who was trying to restore power lost at high altitude and used a tractor turbo on his porche, this was subesequently analyzed by engineers flown out from stuttgart. At least that is the legend. In any event Dodge says the hellcat is warranted not to suffer heat soak for something like 20 mins all out on a hot day. Assuming that is true, a high hp supercharged pushrod V8 can be built by an oem and not suffer heat soak, but apparently Gm for whatever reason did not do it. it will be inetresting to see what the aftermarket chippers manage to do with the z06 in terms of hp, durability and susatained power. Maybe Gm will see fit sometime int he futire to offer a lower Hp but NA motor in a lighter vette. Look at ford they are doing a flat plane crank na V8. Over at Vw there are some small 1 litre motors built with superchargers and turbos for the polo. The motor uses a clutch driven supercharger for low rev respose and Tq, switching to turbo up the rev scale, highly complex, i think volvo has an experiemental motor that does the same. In theroy you get a small relatively light fuel efficeint motor with the no lag response and power of a much larger engine. In the c7 z06 instead of having big bores titaniium conrods special valves and all types of exotic materials hand built to high tolerances as in the last z06, you just put a supercharger on a closer to stock motor with strong crank, much cheaper, more power, but more weight an in the wrong place, and heat soak apaprently.
As demonstrated by Randy Pobst in the latest issue of Motor Trend, the Z06 is definitely NOT a track car as it overheated and went into limp mode after few laps. A Porsche GT3 could do this all day
How to exorcise the ghosts of old GM. For all the brilliance we see in the newer products, these things still creep though.
I think everyone needs to give the MT with Randy a rest. You all think he got in the car first ran four laps and it overheated. This was a BIG press release day and had many cars being driven on track by many people. Yes, Randy had an issue however no one else did including Tommy Milner who drives for the Corvette Race Team and BEAT Randy's time. Now is it a 100% track car? No production car really is because of federal laws that have to be met in order to sell and use on public streets. Are some better than others? Without a doubt. Have people had problems with "more focused" track cars? Yes. I for one do HPDE events with my C5Z because if I ever get into trouble I will not be out of a ton of cash. I am considering the new C7Z in convertible format vs my first Ferrari which would be a Cali. All things considered while I love what the Cali is just don't know if I can pass on the C7Z.
I am unclear whether Milner did 4 consecutive laps, and I am pretty sure he was driving a manual transmission car, whereas Randy was driving the automatic. And GM's engineer, Tadge Jeuchter, has expressly stated that, for whatever reason, the car was designed to run up to about 86°F ambient temperature without overheating, and only the manual transmission at that temperature. He pretty much admitted that the automatic is not suitable for track work at elevated temperatures. Refreshing honesty, but all of this business with the new Z06, beginning with it's excessive weight, prompted me to order a GT3, and I am a diehard Corvette and Viper fanatic. If I knew I would never take it on track, I think the new C7Z06 is fabulous.
The latest test with Probst was a Manuel car. The power dialed back after 1 lap according to MT, due to heat. Long story short even with stopping to cool down the vette between laps the GTR smoked it on track. This was partly attributed to the MT, but more so to the way the GTR could put power down early and hard coming out of a bend. Also note that the vette is lighter and has a lot more power. MT also said that the vettes fastest lap was barely faster than a GT3 and that the GT3 could run those fast laps all day, whereas the vette is a one lap wonder. If you reference some inetrviews with Jeuchter he says the main reason for going to a future ME vette is that in the front engined format at this point adding more power does nothing because it cant put the power down out of bends. Lengthening the wheelbase ameliorated this issue slightly over the C6. In any event, the heat/power dial back issue is seprate to the AT gettig hot. GM intialy said this was a break in issue related to oil or programmign for the first 500 miles. Mare latterly GM admits that power dials way back once certain temps hit, dyno tests show this as well. Whether its to protect the motor or emissions is anybodies guess. Gm says the car will suit most users. So I guess if you dont plan on going to the track or doing more than one high speed blast, then yes it suits you, and that is most users. I was under some type of mistaken impression that the z07 was THE track car from GM. Can it be cured with a chip, yes according to Gm but it voids the warranty, so lets assume its a durability issue. Basicaly GM did not have the funds to develop the right motor for the z06/7. Initial reports were that it was going to be anotehr NA mtor, but that cylinder deactivaton would not work with the revs they needed. GM took the less expensive and expedient option, weight went up significantly as did power. The power is temporary for one lap and the weight does the car no favors. Z07 Chassis ZR1 motor, voila. Interesting tidbit caddy is developing a twin turbo V8, maybe that goes in some future vette too.
According to Tadge, the ECM will pull power at very conservative thresholds because they come with a 5yr/100,000mi power train warranty. So lets be real here, unless you are a professional driver in a money paying event having to back off a little for a lap or two before going at it again is not that big of a game changer. Guys that want to flog it for laps on end already have modded whatever car it is to enable them to do so. Therefore, it has been proven that recalibrating the ECM (not with a chip) will help but will void the warranty as most mods will. The choice is up to you. But saying the car is worthless, no good, flawed, etc is untrue. Yes, GM admits that they used a blower because the LS7 would not hit emissions/performance targets without substantial investment. Kind of like the Cali getting twin turbos for 2015. GM picked this route I suspect because of the knowledge they have carried over from the ZR1.
Or we could say GM and the vette were getting some serious cred, and now people are moving on to porche, whose cars dont need warranty voiding recalibration to run as presented. Dont remember this happenign witht he C6 or even the current z28. Maybe GM juts picked the cheaper engine option, you know the one in the CTS and the ZL1, because hey 95% of customers wont know or care and why spend the extra $$ to make atrack capable mtor when 95% of buers wont go there. BTW the hellcat is a supercharged pushrod V8 with even more power, it does not dial back power. I could look past the need to recalibrate as you put it,(and void the warranty) because a seriously tracked car wont go 25k miles let alone 50, and I dont hink any manufactuerer seriously should warrant 50K of track use. Although I know of one 911 with well over 100K miles tracked with inpunity... But if you recalibrate a z07 how durable is it in reality, would it last 10k miles? Maybe Gm shoudl say if you track the car its warranted for only 10k miles and not have "conservative " calibration.? Or maybe a supercharged engine is inapropriate for a car touted as track capable. Also real hard to overlook the extra 400lbs of lard. Looks to me like Gm created cred with the c6 z06(its was lighter than regular C6 and had an exotic mtor performed great and cosistently on track) and is milking it now with car that cant really perform unless you recalibrate it with consequnces unknown, a car significantly heavier than the one it replaces. A dog that dont hunt. Is a C7 Z06 really faster than a C6, lets say 20 mins in? Either a car is developed to run on track or its not. Either a car has certain motor performance, and its consistently available or it does not really have that performance, except for brief stunt. How come a hellcat is warranted not to loose power for 20 mins due to heat soak. Now a cali is not touted as a track capble car, the z07 is. BTW I cant think of any modern ferrari that will wilt on track. I will bet you the new 488 wont wilt on track, nor will the new ford gt, two turboed cars. In any event if a magazine is going to track test, all this points to the necessity of having a 10 or 15 lap test. A single lap is irrelevant to pretty much anything other than paper bragging rights, which is I guess where the current story begins and ends. The z06 is an awesome street car, with great paper stats, on track its numbers are pretend.
I think you are missing the 5yr/100,000mi warranty part. That was the reason for the calibration it came with. The Hellcat does not have that kind of warranty because it is not meant for a road course. Again they C6Z and C6ZR1 came in only one configuration, no removable top and a manual. People complained so this was the response to those complaints. It is a car to "try" to appease the masses. Will a Turbo S guy really be after a GT3 or vice versa? 99% not. Well both are extremely capable but fit two different niches. Corvette had attempted to do so with just the Z06 model this go around. They are talking about yet a higher performing model which would not have been possible financially if all of your concerns were addressed in this one model. Will we are talking lap times why not just put them on the track at the same time and have a race? What does it really matter in the end anyway? You like Porsche, I do not. I like Corvettes and you not so much. At least the C7Z did not have to go through engine replacement like the GT3. But so what, the GT3 is still awesome.
Oh, to clarify I am looking at both the Cali (because I want a Ferrari I can take on trips with my wife) and the C7Z convertible for the same. Neither will ever be on the track although I know it would be tempting.
Never had a porche. Did really like the 997GT3 I drove, in fact loved it over the 458 and mp12 as a drive. Cant say I love any of the 991 series. Reagular new porches are boring with a capital B to drive, in that sense I think the new vette is far more entertaining. The masses did not complain about the z06, chevy just decided to expand the bandwidth much as porche has done with the Gt3, and/or chevy did not have az06 motor so made a sort of z06 zr1 hybrid. They could have just called it azr1 and come up with a proper z06 later, or given this hybrid a new moniker entirely. In any event great car though it is, its not really meant for the track so why call it a z06 unless you were trying to wprk off the halo of the c6 z06. I guess they were playing really with a zr1 in a newer lower price segment so called it a z06, in that sense its one hell of abragin for a c7zr1. No you dont have to race a z06 against a GTr, fast laps proves the potetial without variables of drivers and cars in the way. But one fast lap proves nothing other than for 2 mins it can go fast. Those of us who track regularily do so because we want to exploit and enjoy our cars potential, thats the fun and entertainment. We do so in a sane enviroment, ie the track, its not racing although laptimes can be fatser than race laptimes. Its a great hobby sports and sake for civillians, how many more youtube videos do we need of people being idiots on the road with other cars about showing off in vettes ferraris etc. So for relevance to many who buy "track inspired/ready" street cars, its about laptimes but sustinable laptimes. Plus the title of this thread is "ridiculously quick vir laptime", in truth for the z06 not its not unless your only spec is one lap. Hellcats are too big and heavy to be really good handlers or great on track. Yet FCA saw fit to present hellcats for testing on track and at the drag strip, the cars didnt dial back power. In any event I have no issue with voiding a 50k mile warranty if you track/calibrate and run on track, but I do want to know what is its real durability in such a case, cause Gm clearly does not think it would go the distance at advertised power.. The broken GT3 motors, that was a part not up to spec not a design spec issue, should never have happened but did. In any event porche replaced those and the newer ones dont have the issue. I guess porche could have just calibrated for less performance instead. See the difference. Porche has had its mtor problems in the past, but thye still turn out new cars that when driven hard produce the same power on lap 1-30. Your reasons for buying a Z06 are very different to mine. I couldnt imagine my wife on what I considder a rapid drive, she would freak out, and for cruising we use a different car entirely.. Maybe one car cant fill both shoes although GM sort of claims it can. The z06 was the track car, now its not, should have called it something else and not tried to hang its hat ont he halo from the c6 z06.
Good points. But lets look at things this way in reference to your multi lap comparison. In drag racing its all about that one run that nets that big number and time. Same can be said for road course laps. Excuses follow and everyone wants multiple attempts to do better. That is to be expected. Same as you see with roll on races. I respect GM for making the decision to calibrate the car to guarantee reduced warranty claims. That is what all companies do. Keep in mind it is a 100k mile not 50k mile warranty or five years. I know of NO other performance car (Porsche, Viper, Ferrari, Lambo, AMG, etc) that offer that. If they do then my apologies because I have not shopped them. I truly this aspect and reasoning is lost on the majority when it only makes sense for the bottom line. Now if you do not care about warranty then you can get a tune and intake and have over 700rwhp with no computer reductions and smoke damn near anything. But no warranty. Take you pick. My wife and I have done track days and back country roads in my C5Z and know she would be just fine in a C7Z. But I think I want a convertible and both the Cali and C7Z offer that. Plus both would be awesome GT's. The C7Z would just crush it from a performance standpoint and do so at a lower cost over all. If only everyone could have these problems....
I agree, and I dont mind "recalibrating" if it leads to equivalent durability with others, but I suspect it does not. Anyway nice choices you have, dont know how I would choose for the street, probbaly the vette. To me ferraris have a lot of negative stigma. Somehting egalatraian about being in a vette esp when you get stopped, plus they look great and go extremly well. Still if you never had a ferrari, well eveybody shoudl try one somewhere if they can. Hard choice to make, they are both good. For the same money I would get the z06 and a TR, that way you have the really fast capable modern(vette) and the classic ferrari experience, prbably comes to less $$$ than a single Cali and 2x the fun..
