Originally Posted by Ransom 1

I cannot say that I feel a geat difference in stopping power between 04 and 06. Maybe there will be less fade at the track with the 06, but my 04 performs brilliantly at shedding speed at the last braking marker (or beyond) on Gingermans back straight at 100plus mph. Granted, I added Doug Rippie ducts for enhanced cooling but the biggest problem for me was boiling the DOT3 stock brake fluid, which I think will be a problem on the new Z as well. After adding ATE Superblue and the ducts, fade is not a problem for me, even with stock pads. And believe me when your heading toward a right angle turn and a guardrail at 103mph you want your brakes to work and work DAMN WELL! To me the power of the 04Z's stock brakes are breathtaking---literally. I have panic stopped numerous times with them and the G force is significant. The first time this happened I was traveling with my wife at about 65mph and a squirrel ran out in front of us, I jammed on the brakes and the next thing I know we were at a dead stop with room left over(for the squirrel) and I look at my wife and she's moaning "My God! I almost passed out." And how does her loving husband respond? Does he say, "Are you OK?" No. His enthusiam over his new Z overflows into:"Holy Crap! Isn't this thing incredible?!" :eek: :nono: :o :lol:

Anyhow, I love both Z's. And of course my wife. :D

---Damian

Originally Posted by Ransom 1

I cannot say that I feel a geat difference in stopping power between 04 and 06. Maybe there will be less fade at the track with the 06, but my 04 performs brilliantly at shedding speed at the last braking marker (or beyond) on Gingermans back straight at 100plus mph. Granted, I added Doug Rippie ducts for enhanced cooling but the biggest problem for me was boiling the DOT3 stock brake fluid, which I think will be a problem on the new Z as well. After adding ATE Superblue and the ducts, fade is not a problem for me, even with stock pads. And believe me when your heading toward a right angle turn and a guardrail at 103mph you want your brakes to work and work DAMN WELL! To me the power of the 04Z's stock brakes are breathtaking---literally. I have panic stopped numerous times with them and the G force is significant. The first time this happened I was traveling with my wife at about 65mph and a squirrel ran out in front of us, I jammed on the brakes and the next thing I know we were at a dead stop with room left over(for the squirrel) and I look at my wife and she's moaning "My God! I almost passed out." And how does her loving husband respond? Does he say, "Are you OK?" No. His enthusiam over his new Z overflows into:"Holy Crap! Isn't this thing incredible?!" :eek: :nono: :o :lol:

Anyhow, I love both Z's. And of course my wife. :D

---Damian

Originally Posted by Mako7

Disagree 100% with you on the C5Z's stock brakes. They were uequivocally NOT up to HPDE roadcourse work. I tried everthing many times (pads, rotors, lines, fluid, etc.) and nothing worked. Went with $8k Brembos on my C5R Block 427 C5Z. Night and day difference. I hope the C6Z brakes are like the Brembos.

Originally Posted by Tom Steele

You sure there wasn't something wrong with your C5 Z06? ;)



That bothers me. Clutch was my #1 complaint about my C6 Z51. It was like they took ALL THE FEEL out of it so that the cruisers could enjoy the ease of the pedal at the expense of those who knew how to feel a clutch engaging. I never got used to the clutch feel while I owned my C6 and truly thought/hoped there might be something wrong with that particular car. If the C6 Z06 has the same clutch feel as my C6 Z51 had, it is a giant leap backwards.

I would describe it as NOTHING LIKE a race clutch and EVERYTHING LIKE a clutch in which the feel was taken out of the system. It isn't about clamping either, you can increase clamping pressure and still have an easy clutch pedal, but you lose feel by over leveraging the pedal.

Originally Posted by Mako7

We seem to be getting waaay too many defensive C5Z posts!

Originally Posted by E55er

sounds like someone needs to rig a switch to that "spare" fuse so it can be opened and closed at the push of a button.

Originally Posted by rbartick

While I can believe that the C6 handles better than the C5, the way better and leaps and bounds comments are a bit hard to believe especially after only owning the car for 20 hours. I guess I will have to drive one and see for myself.

In any event, your car is awesome. Enjoy, I am jealous.

Originally Posted by Andi

So, now that I've had my new Z06 for ~20 hours I figured I'd post some driving impressions of the car.

First, the interior. The seats are first class IMHO. FINALLY a vette with seats that are up to par. The leather feels nice, the bolsters on the sides actually hold you, and they seats are damn comfortable. Now, the rest of the interior is okay, a lot better than the C5 in some ways and a bit worse in others. What's better? Well the materials, like for example the top of the dash, is actually a nice soft-touch grainy vinyl, a nice upgrade over the C5's hard touch vinyl/plastic whatever it was. I hate the silver painted wannabe-metal plastic on the center console. But I guess I'll live with it. I also hate how my passengers can never get out of the car when I want to drop them off, because the doors auto lock at X mph and don't auto unlock when you pull the handbrake. Maybe there's a window valet for the C6 to fix that like there was for the C5; hopefully. Or maybe they should just make the car listen to the damn electronic door handles on the inside and assume if you're trying to get out maybe you actually WANT to get out?! Sorry for ranting. Other ****les: the climate control on bi-level directs too much air to the feet and too little to the face, so even though I loved bi-level on the C5 I find myself using just the face vents on the C6.. and I also hate the way the radio makes you have individual bass/treble presets for each source/preset. That's gonna take me half an hour to program. Nice. I also really miss the partition I had in my C5 Z06, so I could throw my digital camera and CD's behind me and they didn't fly all the way to the back every time I accelerated.

OK, now that the interior's out of the way, let's get to the good stuff. (1) Brakes.. Since I only have 85 miles on the car, I didn't want to push the non-bedded-in brake pads too hard and test the ABS calibration / etc yet... but I can tell you, the one or two times I did hit the brakes rather hard, the cars stopped damn well. That having been said, the brakes are NOT grabby. At first I was disappointed and thought the brakes felt like they needed too much effort.. that's improved a bit sine the first drive, and I also realized it's a good thing they aren't so overboosted as on most cars so you can modulate better.

Handling? It's incredible. Way better than my C5 Z06, even with the 2004 Z06 "Nurburbring" shocks. The ride is a bit stiffer than my old car, but the handling is leaps and bounds better. High speed bumps that would send my C5 Z06 yawing/bumpsteering, or maybe catching air and bouncing.... this car takes in stride without even getting its line upset. It actually soaks up bumps rather than launching off of them -- the shock valving on this car is incredible. The only other car I've ever driven that felt this good was the E39 ///M5.

Now for the best part...... that beautiful engine. There are not enough words to describe this masterpiece of a small block. When the car starts, it fires up with a mean, loud bark from the mufflers before the muffler valves have a chance to close (more on this later). Then it gets quiet. REAL quiet. This is another way the car reminds me of the E39 ///M5 -- it sounds just like one inside the car when tooling around at low revs / low throttle openings. But, get on the throttle a little bit, and it's clear this is no M5 or base C6. It takes a bit to get used to the quirky electronic throttle (it's not as smooth or direct as the C5's was, but it's still pretty good).. The power is incredible. GM increased the torque of the engine and the gearing by about the same amount, so each gear *feels* about the same as it did in the old car.. (except for 3rd, for some reason 3rd in this car feels incredible and pulls way harder than it should considering it goes to 125MPH). The difference is, although 2nd in the new Z pulls about the same as 2nd in the old Z... 2nd now is your 60-95mph racing gear, whereas on the old Z 2nd ended at 70 and the old car was in 3rd at that point. This car rockets from 60 to 95 in 2nd like nothing I've experienced.. today on the freeway I downshifted to 2nd at 65 and floored it from a roll and it actually barked the tires for a quick moment before approaching redline (95mph) within a couple seconds.. This is WITHOUT any clutch action. GM was very smart to put such tall gearing on the car -- it allows the engine's massive power and torque to be useable, rather than just leaving you sitting there spinning the tires.

One thing that just cracks me up about this car is how easy it is to make it loud, if you want. There's a fuse under the passenger side footwell labeled as a "spare" fuse, both in the owner's manual and in the fuse cover. Remove it and the exhaust flaps stay open, with no engine codes or anything. Under that mode, it is loud as hell and damn raw at low revs, and especially at 600RPM idle the entire cabin resonates. I ran like that for a few hours and switched it back.

All in all, this is the best car I've ever driven. They took the C5 Z06, fixed the bad quirks (****ty brakes including oversensitive ABS and sliding calipres, horrible bump steer suspension geometry, and questionable suspension stability and damping), added a bunch of power, let it weigh the exact same, and only screwed up a couple small things here and there, and for the price and the performance, those things REALLY don't matter.

Gotta go for a drive...

Andi

Originally Posted by DDSLT5

Exactly - the C5 Z06 handles incredibly well - so good that VERY few people could ever find the limit. I doubt you could ascertain the miniscule difference between the two without actually driving both back to back on a track. Either way, the car is a beast! Congrats.

Originally Posted by Andi

So, now that I've had my new Z06 for ~20 hours I figured I'd post some driving impressions of the car.

I also hate how my passengers can never get out of the car when I want to drop them off, because the doors auto lock at X mph and don't auto unlock when you pull the handbrake. Maybe there's a window valet for the C6 to fix that like there was for the C5; hopefully. Or maybe they should just make the car listen to the damn electronic door handles on the inside and assume if you're trying to get out maybe you actually WANT to get out?! Andi