Now in a Stingray, Z end of an Era

UNKNOWN_370

People just won't understand the LT1 till they feel it. It's like nothing out there in the price range. Congratulations!!!

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Favorite Quote.
"I'm not gonna kill you... I'm just gonna Bash Your Face In" Jack Nicholson-"The Shining". 1980

ImportConvert

If I lived where I could own a sports car and wanted one, the c7 would be very hard to pass up.

Spooler

If could have got an allocation for a ZR1 that is what I would be in today instead of dumping what I did in my Z. Old farts and douche bags got them. LOL
The C7 drives like a Z. That is why I like it. The older Corvettes drove like crap. Not impressed at all.

ImportConvert

Say what? My Z drove like an oversprung Altima. My C6 Z06 drove like a sports car.

Spooler

Everybody's tastes are different. Corvette's prior to the C7 sucked.

ImportConvert

I get that taste varies, but when the car just can't stay planted because it lacks any semblance of rebound control, it's more objective than subjective.

Spooler

What did you have? The Covered Wagon 370z. LOL

ImportConvert

2012 Touring with Sport package. Every time you hit an expansion joint or anything in a corner (such as on a bridge), the back end would dance around, scoot sideways a few inches. My Dad hated riding with me, and I found it rather odd, as none of my other cars from my 1988 GT to my 2011 Z06 did it, and my Jeep and CX5 (both of them) afterward didn't do it. For 2013 they supposedly fixed the Z's suspension with better shocks/struts though, so I dunno if later years had this under-damping issue. All I know is that it was the worst "behaved" car I've owned since my 1988 GT (which had some nasty habits with a huge cam, max power at 6K+, and 4.10's out back with a 3.27 first and factory width rims, lol!)

Anyway, I remember the steering input on my 370Z being similar to the CX5 I have now. Sharp, but not "razor". My Z06 was razor. You ask it to do something, it did it THEN! Not when the body stopped the tiny bit of roll induced by the quick turn. THEN. No waiting. As firm as the Z06 was though, it handled bumps way better than the 370Z. I lived in Shreveport, LA at the time, and the roads were terrible. The Z06, I could hit a bump on the highway and it would just soak it up. The 370Z, if I hit the same bump (before you ask, go to that shithole and drive around. The roads are concrete and done in "sections" to account for expansion...well it didn't. So they ground them down, and the result is a very "wavy" highway with some serious "rolls" in it) at the same or even lower speeds, I would lose traction and get a TSC light flicker out of it. This also translated t o bumps mid-corner, like expansion joints, etc. They upset t he 370 greatly. The Z06, you knew they were there, but it didn't lift the tires and skip. In short, the 370Z seemed like how a child thought a suspension should be "Make it stiff! Springs springs springs!!!" The Z06 and almost every other performance vehicle and even my CX5s have been much more mature, in the sense that if they were sprung forcefully, they were also VERY well damped. You didn't have a "jittery" suspension that had what felt like a very small range of motion. You had a very taut suspension that felt like it articulated a lot, and shocks and struts that damped that motion so as to prevent the car from "bouncing all over". On a perfect surface like a skidpad or a test track or auto X, the issues don't show up. Daily driving, they were and are very apparent. It was also readily apparent cresting hills at high speeds or dips. The 370Z gets really light on its feet after the suspension compression if you don't properly brake to damp it. Other vehicles, much less so.