Nothing OEM, but Hoosier R6s can. Trofeo is an extreme tyre forced by MPSC2.
Bucketslash11
Das Beste Enthusiast
i do think the dunlop sportmaxx are as sticky as the trofeos since they are options compared to MPSC2 on porsche models
however the trofeo Rs are one step above the MPSC2 as chris harris proved and i suspect that the sportmaxx to be one step above as well (but lacks documentation from comparisons to prove it as of now)
Bwright asked:
You mentioned in this week's answer to the Ask Tadge question on overheating that there are, "Lots of interesting back stories behind recent media tests." In light of that, what are your thoughts on the recent Motor Trend test of the new Z06 vs. the GT-R Nismo at Willow Springs? Any interesting back stories on that or any other recent media tests?
Quote:
Tadge answered:
To be perfectly honest, both Chevrolet and Motor Trend were surprised by the test results - both the lap times achieved and the subjective comments on handling which did not match their impressions from the first drive story at Road Atlanta. Obviously the GT-R Nismo is s supremely capable machine engineered for precisely this kind of track work, so nothing against them, but we thought we would do better. After the story was published, we decided to examine that car closely and do a follow up test at Willow Springs.
We first discovered an alignment setting error in the rear. We knew something was wrong with their test car because of Randy's oversteer comments. In the words of our development engineer, Jim Mero, "The car is tuned for a small amount of understeer, but we found out the rear caster was inadvertently set to 2 degrees instead of 0 degrees. This causes ride and roll oversteer". We try to keep the Corvettes used for media tests in perfect condition, but didn't this time, and the alignment clearly had an effect on handling and driver confidence.
Although we do track testing at quite a number of tracks around the country, we never tested at Willow Springs, so we decided to rent the track and check the performance of the Z06 ourselves. We looked at it as an opportunity to learn something. What Randy told us and we confirmed is that the track has an unusual combination of speed and roughness.
We used exactly the same car Motor Trend tested, as well as a second car, an 8 speed automatic. With proper suspension alignment, we saw a marked improvement in handling.
We also used the opportunity to tweak the calibration of the magnetic ride dampers in Track mode (Tour and Sport modes unchanged), and were able to improve the vehicle’s dynamic behavior. Since we think that calibration is uniquely suited to very rough tracks, our plan is to offer it through our Performance Parts department for customers who frequent those types of venues. So it was a good exercise for us.
We invited Motor Trend to test the car again with suspension alignments corrected and give us feedback on the new calibration. They are planning a follow up article based on Randy's experience, and since we don't want to "scoop" their story I won’t say specifically what the results were. However, I can say we were very satisfied. Look for it soon!
You mentioned in this week's answer to the Ask Tadge question on overheating that there are, "Lots of interesting back stories behind recent media tests." In light of that, what are your thoughts on the recent Motor Trend test of the new Z06 vs. the GT-R Nismo at Willow Springs? Any interesting back stories on that or any other recent media tests?
Quote:
Tadge answered:
To be perfectly honest, both Chevrolet and Motor Trend were surprised by the test results - both the lap times achieved and the subjective comments on handling which did not match their impressions from the first drive story at Road Atlanta. Obviously the GT-R Nismo is s supremely capable machine engineered for precisely this kind of track work, so nothing against them, but we thought we would do better. After the story was published, we decided to examine that car closely and do a follow up test at Willow Springs.
We first discovered an alignment setting error in the rear. We knew something was wrong with their test car because of Randy's oversteer comments. In the words of our development engineer, Jim Mero, "The car is tuned for a small amount of understeer, but we found out the rear caster was inadvertently set to 2 degrees instead of 0 degrees. This causes ride and roll oversteer". We try to keep the Corvettes used for media tests in perfect condition, but didn't this time, and the alignment clearly had an effect on handling and driver confidence.
Although we do track testing at quite a number of tracks around the country, we never tested at Willow Springs, so we decided to rent the track and check the performance of the Z06 ourselves. We looked at it as an opportunity to learn something. What Randy told us and we confirmed is that the track has an unusual combination of speed and roughness.
We used exactly the same car Motor Trend tested, as well as a second car, an 8 speed automatic. With proper suspension alignment, we saw a marked improvement in handling.
We also used the opportunity to tweak the calibration of the magnetic ride dampers in Track mode (Tour and Sport modes unchanged), and were able to improve the vehicle’s dynamic behavior. Since we think that calibration is uniquely suited to very rough tracks, our plan is to offer it through our Performance Parts department for customers who frequent those types of venues. So it was a good exercise for us.
We invited Motor Trend to test the car again with suspension alignments corrected and give us feedback on the new calibration. They are planning a follow up article based on Randy's experience, and since we don't want to "scoop" their story I won’t say specifically what the results were. However, I can say we were very satisfied. Look for it soon!
jvp asked:
There’s a lot of curiosity here and elsewhere as to what exactly happened with the yellow C7 Z06 at the N’Ring during your autumn visit. Do you have the data to know for sure, and can you share the details with us? I assume Mero's OK?
Tadge answered:
Since I wasn’t there and Jim was, I asked him to answer this week’s question. He goes beyond a narrow answer to the question, but some readers will be interested in more detail of what we do when we go to the Ring. Although fast laps get the headlines, the vast majority of our work there is related to tuning, testing and validation:
Jim Mero adds:
Although the day we hit the guard rail was almost 7 months ago it seems like it was yesterday.
As much as I’d like to have a super-cool story such as: the picture shown online was taken after we were airborne at 160 mph flipped 3 times and hit the Armco with a decel rate of 80g’s, when I started bleeding internally causing me to look much heavier than I actually am, unfortunately the actual story is quite simple and somewhat boring.
The incident happened on Monday September 29th which was the first day of Industrypool for the 2 week September session. It was also our first day on the track since September 2013. The track was open from 1 to 5pm conditions were dry (although it started raining shortly after the accident).
We were on the 5th and final session of the day tuning the dampers (our 10th lap). About 23 seconds into the lap, we entered the turn Hatzenbach exactly the same as we had during the previous 9 times. The car unexpectedly developed a vast amount of yaw acceleration rear to the left, I counter steered to the left, the rear of the car snapped back to the right and regained grip, immediately turning the car left head on into the Armco.
I wasn’t injured and we were recording data, and I thank god every day we were because immediately after the accident the only thing that perplexed me is “what happened”?
Upon examination of the data comparing the lap in question to the previous lap, up until the point the car lost grip, the speed, throttle, steering wheel angle, lateral acceleration etc., were pretty much identical.
I’ve put together a plot of Vehicle Speed, Throttle Position, Rear Wheel Speed, Steering Wheel Angle, Yaw Rate, and Yaw Rate Oversteer at the time of the incident. The Green Line is the previous lap, the Blue is the lap where the incident took place. As I stated, everything was line on line, then you can see a huge increase in yaw rate and yaw rate oversteer as well as the rear wheel speed at pretty much the same throttle position.
We sent the data files to Alex MacDonald our vehicle controls engineer and he stated that that only time he saw abrupt deviations in yaw rate in the oversteer coupled with a large decrease in lateral acceleration was when the car went from high coefficient of friction surfaces to very low coefficient friction surfaces. Not a dry surface to a wet surface, but a dry surface to ice or oil. So our theory is that another vehicle dropped a something slippery on the track and we hit it. Or, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Some may also be wondering about data and video from out PDR system. The only thing I can say is the Nurburgring does not allow video recording during Industrypool time.
Being down 1 car was a major impediment to our goals for the remainder of the trip. We quickly moved to the blue automatic Z06, completing the Stage 1 and 2 aero package chassis tuning by the end of that week. One note is with the exception of heavy fog until about 10am, the weather the week of September 29th was outstanding.
Over the weekend of October 4th, 2014 our technicians converted the Blue automatic Z06 into a Z07. The changes included dampers, springs, complete brake assemblies, and an alignment including ride heights and cross weights and of course the correct rear caster.
Beginning October 6th, 2014, we completed a few days of tuning with the Z07. However, from sometime in the middle of the week of October 8th through November 15th the weather did a complete 180. During this time we never got an opportunity to run on a complete dry track. Between rain and fog, there were always sizeable wet sections prohibiting us from putting complete laps together. Also, in the 5 weeks between October 13th and November 15th, the track was open a total of 9 days, 4 of those were complete rain outs, the rest of them were with the track minimum ½ wet. We cherry picked our opportunities on a partially dry track to complete the tuning on the Z07 chassis package.
Friends and collogues always forward me forum inquiries about a fast laps. As we have always said, the fast lap is a secondary priority. The mission primary objective is to complete the tuning of the car for European roads and European driving habits. Having said that, I live for a fast lap opportunity.
Please note, when tuning the car we run at about 95%. The reason for this is twofold, first is consistency, you must be consistent to properly tune the car. The second is because when tuning the dampers or steering I always have a passenger monitoring and recording data for the shocks or steering algorithms and making the desired changes. I refuse to begin my quest to 100% with a passenger. When tuning is complete I will then drive alone exploring the limits of the car. Sometimes we don’t get these opportunities and just go for it after a day of tuning. This was the case in 2011 with the ZR1.
Also, the opportunities for exclusive track time have been diminishing over the past few years.
In 2008 we were able to rent the track for 50 minutes 2 times. Both times we were able to obtain a 7:26, both times on the second lap.
In 2011, we were given 3 “last lap of the day” opportunities. The first lap in the ZR1 was just over 7:20 which was not bad as I had to keep in mind that there was still work left to do the next day. We then completed our tuning right before the second attempt and I was able “go for it”. The second attempt produced the 7:19. After the second lap, Jeff Mosher and I looked at the data from the 2 laps. We could see improvements in the 7:19 lap and agreed a 7:17 was completely doable but we had only one attempt left. We chose to run the Z06 with the Z07 cup package as this car was magnificent to drive on the Nurburgring and the fast lap time for the Z06 was officially still at 7:43 without cup tires and from a standing start. Please note: Our data shows the standing start increases the lap time by about 1.5 second. This is because the start line is well inside the brake point (when making a flying start) and very close to first turn. With a single attempt we recorded a 7:22 second lap.
In 2013 with the C7 Z51, we had several last lap of the day opportunities. Rain prohibited every one of those attempts. One of these laps, I started about 3 to 4 minutes behind the Z28. This was the lap the Z28 recorded the 7:37 finishing in the rain. When I encountered the rain the track was more saturated than what Adam Dean (the Camaro driver) had encountered. I aborted the attempt after an 80 MPH drift as the track transitioned from dry to wet. Also, our objective for the Z51 was to obtain a lower time than the 7:37.9 of the Carrera S, and I knew completing the lap for a time in the wet would put the car at risk as we still had work left to do.
Now for the C7 Z06. As indicated above, after the about middle of the week October 6th, we never got a complete dry track. Also our tuning objectives had not been complete. I did had a few opportunities on the very last ½ day the Nurburgring was open for 2014 to run alone (in the car) on few the dry sections of the track for speed. We have data, we have segments, we have an idea what the car should be capable of. But we don’t post any time unless they are complete laps supported by video, so I have to just leave it at that. Sorry folks…
There’s a lot of curiosity here and elsewhere as to what exactly happened with the yellow C7 Z06 at the N’Ring during your autumn visit. Do you have the data to know for sure, and can you share the details with us? I assume Mero's OK?
Tadge answered:
Since I wasn’t there and Jim was, I asked him to answer this week’s question. He goes beyond a narrow answer to the question, but some readers will be interested in more detail of what we do when we go to the Ring. Although fast laps get the headlines, the vast majority of our work there is related to tuning, testing and validation:
Jim Mero adds:
Although the day we hit the guard rail was almost 7 months ago it seems like it was yesterday.
As much as I’d like to have a super-cool story such as: the picture shown online was taken after we were airborne at 160 mph flipped 3 times and hit the Armco with a decel rate of 80g’s, when I started bleeding internally causing me to look much heavier than I actually am, unfortunately the actual story is quite simple and somewhat boring.
The incident happened on Monday September 29th which was the first day of Industrypool for the 2 week September session. It was also our first day on the track since September 2013. The track was open from 1 to 5pm conditions were dry (although it started raining shortly after the accident).
We were on the 5th and final session of the day tuning the dampers (our 10th lap). About 23 seconds into the lap, we entered the turn Hatzenbach exactly the same as we had during the previous 9 times. The car unexpectedly developed a vast amount of yaw acceleration rear to the left, I counter steered to the left, the rear of the car snapped back to the right and regained grip, immediately turning the car left head on into the Armco.
I wasn’t injured and we were recording data, and I thank god every day we were because immediately after the accident the only thing that perplexed me is “what happened”?
Upon examination of the data comparing the lap in question to the previous lap, up until the point the car lost grip, the speed, throttle, steering wheel angle, lateral acceleration etc., were pretty much identical.
I’ve put together a plot of Vehicle Speed, Throttle Position, Rear Wheel Speed, Steering Wheel Angle, Yaw Rate, and Yaw Rate Oversteer at the time of the incident. The Green Line is the previous lap, the Blue is the lap where the incident took place. As I stated, everything was line on line, then you can see a huge increase in yaw rate and yaw rate oversteer as well as the rear wheel speed at pretty much the same throttle position.
We sent the data files to Alex MacDonald our vehicle controls engineer and he stated that that only time he saw abrupt deviations in yaw rate in the oversteer coupled with a large decrease in lateral acceleration was when the car went from high coefficient of friction surfaces to very low coefficient friction surfaces. Not a dry surface to a wet surface, but a dry surface to ice or oil. So our theory is that another vehicle dropped a something slippery on the track and we hit it. Or, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Some may also be wondering about data and video from out PDR system. The only thing I can say is the Nurburgring does not allow video recording during Industrypool time.
Being down 1 car was a major impediment to our goals for the remainder of the trip. We quickly moved to the blue automatic Z06, completing the Stage 1 and 2 aero package chassis tuning by the end of that week. One note is with the exception of heavy fog until about 10am, the weather the week of September 29th was outstanding.
Over the weekend of October 4th, 2014 our technicians converted the Blue automatic Z06 into a Z07. The changes included dampers, springs, complete brake assemblies, and an alignment including ride heights and cross weights and of course the correct rear caster.
Beginning October 6th, 2014, we completed a few days of tuning with the Z07. However, from sometime in the middle of the week of October 8th through November 15th the weather did a complete 180. During this time we never got an opportunity to run on a complete dry track. Between rain and fog, there were always sizeable wet sections prohibiting us from putting complete laps together. Also, in the 5 weeks between October 13th and November 15th, the track was open a total of 9 days, 4 of those were complete rain outs, the rest of them were with the track minimum ½ wet. We cherry picked our opportunities on a partially dry track to complete the tuning on the Z07 chassis package.
Friends and collogues always forward me forum inquiries about a fast laps. As we have always said, the fast lap is a secondary priority. The mission primary objective is to complete the tuning of the car for European roads and European driving habits. Having said that, I live for a fast lap opportunity.
Please note, when tuning the car we run at about 95%. The reason for this is twofold, first is consistency, you must be consistent to properly tune the car. The second is because when tuning the dampers or steering I always have a passenger monitoring and recording data for the shocks or steering algorithms and making the desired changes. I refuse to begin my quest to 100% with a passenger. When tuning is complete I will then drive alone exploring the limits of the car. Sometimes we don’t get these opportunities and just go for it after a day of tuning. This was the case in 2011 with the ZR1.
Also, the opportunities for exclusive track time have been diminishing over the past few years.
In 2008 we were able to rent the track for 50 minutes 2 times. Both times we were able to obtain a 7:26, both times on the second lap.
In 2011, we were given 3 “last lap of the day” opportunities. The first lap in the ZR1 was just over 7:20 which was not bad as I had to keep in mind that there was still work left to do the next day. We then completed our tuning right before the second attempt and I was able “go for it”. The second attempt produced the 7:19. After the second lap, Jeff Mosher and I looked at the data from the 2 laps. We could see improvements in the 7:19 lap and agreed a 7:17 was completely doable but we had only one attempt left. We chose to run the Z06 with the Z07 cup package as this car was magnificent to drive on the Nurburgring and the fast lap time for the Z06 was officially still at 7:43 without cup tires and from a standing start. Please note: Our data shows the standing start increases the lap time by about 1.5 second. This is because the start line is well inside the brake point (when making a flying start) and very close to first turn. With a single attempt we recorded a 7:22 second lap.
In 2013 with the C7 Z51, we had several last lap of the day opportunities. Rain prohibited every one of those attempts. One of these laps, I started about 3 to 4 minutes behind the Z28. This was the lap the Z28 recorded the 7:37 finishing in the rain. When I encountered the rain the track was more saturated than what Adam Dean (the Camaro driver) had encountered. I aborted the attempt after an 80 MPH drift as the track transitioned from dry to wet. Also, our objective for the Z51 was to obtain a lower time than the 7:37.9 of the Carrera S, and I knew completing the lap for a time in the wet would put the car at risk as we still had work left to do.
Now for the C7 Z06. As indicated above, after the about middle of the week October 6th, we never got a complete dry track. Also our tuning objectives had not been complete. I did had a few opportunities on the very last ½ day the Nurburgring was open for 2014 to run alone (in the car) on few the dry sections of the track for speed. We have data, we have segments, we have an idea what the car should be capable of. But we don’t post any time unless they are complete laps supported by video, so I have to just leave it at that. Sorry folks…
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupes/1503_2015_chevrolet_corvette_z06_track_retest/
As a result of this new testing at Spring Mountain and additional testing at Willow Springs, Chevrolet developed a new Rough Track mode for the Z06 that softens the dampers in Track mode. Chevrolet plans to make this software update to the Z06 available soon through the GM Performance Parts catalog, and our test cars at this retest were both fitted with the new software. We cannot say, then, that the improvement in lap time was due solely to the corrected rear alignment, as it's possible the new damper programming also aided the Z06's performance.
.
.
.
.
Regardless, the results are clear. When properly aligned and using a softer damper calibration, the Corvette Z06 is as fast as or faster than the GT-R NISMO at Willow Springs. All said and done, the manual Z06 ran a 1:25.00 and the automatic a 1:25.76 to the NISMO's 1:25.70.
As a result of this new testing at Spring Mountain and additional testing at Willow Springs, Chevrolet developed a new Rough Track mode for the Z06 that softens the dampers in Track mode. Chevrolet plans to make this software update to the Z06 available soon through the GM Performance Parts catalog, and our test cars at this retest were both fitted with the new software. We cannot say, then, that the improvement in lap time was due solely to the corrected rear alignment, as it's possible the new damper programming also aided the Z06's performance.
.
.
.
.
Regardless, the results are clear. When properly aligned and using a softer damper calibration, the Corvette Z06 is as fast as or faster than the GT-R NISMO at Willow Springs. All said and done, the manual Z06 ran a 1:25.00 and the automatic a 1:25.76 to the NISMO's 1:25.70.
