JHF
Driving Dynamics Pro
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This is the latest barbaric and bloody battle in a merciless, ongoing 22-year war. This time it's fought on the street and the racetrack with broadswords — that's 13 gears, 18 cylinders, 888 cubic inches and 1,100 horses. It's Corvette vs. Viper. Again.
Best. War. Ever.
After a three-year lapse, the SRT Viper was recently revived and so new that it wasn't even a Dodge any more. Then there's the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray: the C7 that represents the most radical advance in the car's 61 years. It's an even greater leap forward than the '63 "C2" Stingray. On sheer ability these are two of the most capable sports cars ever built anywhere at any time.
But this isn't a completely fair fight. The Viper's 8.4-liter V10 makes 640 horsepower, while the Corvette's new LT1 6.2-liter V8 is rated at "only" 460 horses. It's at a major torque deficit, too, with a mere 465 pound-feet to the Viper's 600. Beyond that, the Viper's monstrous 295/30ZR18 front and vast 355/30ZR19 rear Pirelli P Zero tires make the Corvette's 245/35ZR19 front and 285/30ZR20 rear run-flat Michelin Pilot Super Sports seem puny. Physics and simple logic says the car with more power and a lot more tire should perform much better.
Then there's the bottom line. Our well-optioned Corvette coupe with the Z51 package is considerably less expensive at $69,675 than this base model, no-options $101,990 Viper. And price always matters.
Ultimately the Viper will be more directly comparable to the "big-tire" Corvettes that are surely coming: the imminent C7-based successors to the track-oriented Z06 and overwhelming, supercharged ZR1. Of course, then there's always the top-of-the-line Viper GTS like the one we tested late last year.
OK, but so what? That's then and this is right now. And right now, we've got a binary choice: either this Corvette or this Viper.
Character Counts
The Viper's doors are small, the seats narrow, and to get in you have to vault over the side exhaust. Once inside, you must stretch back out to reach the door and haul it closed. Adjust the seat, mirrors, pedals and steering wheel. All you see in front of you are thick, sensuous front fenders rising from the clamshell hood and a slice of horizon. You see less out the back. Ergonomically, the Viper makes you earn it. But it doesn't matter.
Press the start button in the Viper and the engine throbs into its odd, pulsing and rocking V10 idle. The whole car seems to squeeze down and start trying to push the blood in your body out through your ears and eyes. This isn't merely a car, it's a life-altering event. It's riveting and there is nothing else like it in the automotive universe.
It's a different story with the C7. It's easy to get into the new Corvette and the door closes with a solid thump. That alone is enough evidence to convince anyone that this is the most robust Corvette ever built. In fact, it's so structurally stiff that it could match a Porsche 911 atom for atom. The dashboard makes sense and the visibility out across the carbon-fiber hood is good, with the razor-flared fender tops adding a dose of drama and Stingray heritage. The rearward view is cramped and the cockpit is narrow, but this is a real car. Go to Target and there's room in back to carry stuff home.
The C7's start button is a weird parallelogram that looks like a smoothed-down Lego piece. Your finger can hardly feel that button as it's pressing it, but the LT1 whirrs to life and settles into a muffled, reassuring and very mellow idle while the dash ignites and the tach needle bounces to life. This isn't high drama; it's Tom Brady-style confidence rendered in aluminum, carbon fiber, plastic and LED displays.
During development the Chrysler and GM engineers were aiming at very different, very specific things with these cars. And all that is apparent even before anyone puts them into gear.
Rocket Science
Back in the '60s it took skilled operators like "Dyno" Don Nicholson or Ronnie "Mr. Four-Speed" Sox to get a manual-transmission car down a quarter-mile strip efficiently. In the new Corvette and Viper there are computers to do the job. But those logic circuits don't necessarily do the best job.
"Launch control did a good job of regulating wheel spin," reported Edmunds.com's test-driver about the seven-speed manual-equipped Corvette's acceleration. "Yet it hardly made a difference from a data perspective. It made for a near-bog, no-wheelspin run and I still beat it by a couple tenths with the traction control turned off." So when doing it ourselves, and despite short gearing that forces a 1-2 shift before 60 mph, the C7 blitzed to 60 mph in only 4.3 seconds (4.1 seconds with 1 foot of rollout). By historic standards, that's super quick. And previous tests of pre-production C7s have had that down as low as 3.8 seconds. The quarter-mile was fully consumed in 12.4 seconds at 113.7 mph.
Launch control is also part of the Viper's feature set, but its effectiveness was also conditional. "The Viper's launch control is just a rolling burnout button," noted our test-driver. "The car was quicker to 60 with the traction control on because it could reach that speed in1st gear. With the traction control off, I was surprised at the revs needed to overcome the grip of the rear tires and finally found 4,300 rpm to be about right for a smooth launch."
The new Viper's shifter has shorter throws than previous editions, but the Tremec six-speed it tops still needs a firm hand to get the most from it. The Corvette's seven-speed is slick and instinctive, while the Viper's six-cog box demands muscle and concentration. The 'Vette is easier, but the Viper is more effective under an expert's spur.
All that in mind, the Viper is starship fast. The 0-60 clocks in at 3.7 seconds (3.5 with rollout) and the quarter-mile screams by in only 11.7 seconds at a mind-blowing 124.1 mph.
Brute Electronic Persuasion
The high-compression (11.5:1) LT1 V8 in the Corvette is exceptionally flexible; it revs more quickly and easily than any previous Corvette engine. There's a certain puppy dog eagerness to the LT1 that's ingratiating, as if all that matters to it is that it's making you happy. But it's the super trick electronic limited-slip differential that comes as part of the Z51 package that enables all that flexibility to work so effectively.
With the "Magnetic Selective Ride Control" set to "Track, Sport 2" the Stingray was utterly devastating in the slalom. The steering isn't just precise, it's crystalline in its reportage. For a car on modest run-flat tires the 73.5-mph slalom speed is astonishing. In fact, it was fully 1.5 mph faster than the Viper. This is technology making a car's handling much, much better. Contemplating this Corvette's slalom performance on stickier, larger rubber is mind-boggling.
That same technological edge shows up on the skid pad, where the Stingray orbited at a nonchalant 1.05g compared to the Viper's big-drama 1.01g. Throw in brakes that haul the 'Vette down from 60 mph in only 99 feet compared to the Viper's 110 feet and heading on to the road course at Willow Springs, it wasn't clear which car would be the most effective on the track at all.
The Viper was going to have to work to beat the 'Vette on the road course.
Work That Pays
Few things are more rewarding than hustling a Viper around a track quickly. It's a full-immersion experience: a task that demands every iota of a driver's attention. Let your attention wander and the car will break traction and start heading into the wilderness.
"The massive speed means braking in places where I wouldn't in other cars," relayed Senior Editor Josh Jacquot about the Viper's laps at Willow Springs. "It requires many laps to come to terms with its communication, expectations and absolute limits. In the end, feeling completely comfortable comes down to complete trust. And I don't completely trust the Viper the way I do the 'Vette."
It's the vice-free nature of the Stingray's handling that is such a revelation. "It's fast, it makes the right sounds and it turns, stops and goes like crazy," said Jacquot as he stepped from the 'Vette. "It's predictable, reliable and world-class in every way."
The best laps in the Corvette were achieved with the Performance Traction Management (PTM) system in "Race" mode. This maximizes the delivery of torque to the pavement and extracts yaw control. The car feels as if it's nailing itself to the track; you don't feel the car oversteer or understeer as much as you feel the car fighting against them. "PTM is the best thing about this car," Jacquot enthused. "Though it will make you lazy as a driver, it hardly diminishes the reward of driving hard. It's extremely easy to sense the limits and drive right to them."
Keeping in mind that the Corvette gives up 180 hp to the Viper and runs tires that are 50-mm narrower in front and 70-mm narrower in the rear, it's no surprise that the Chevy's lap times were behind that of the Viper. And the Viper was scandalously quick, making it around the 1.6-mile Streets of Willow course in a stunning 1 minute, 23.9 seconds. It's a ripper.
What is staggering is that despite its physical deficiencies, the Corvette hustled around with a best lap time of 1 minute, 24.6 seconds. That's only 0.7 second slower per lap. It may not be a victory for the Corvette, but it's a stunning performance.
Street Thug vs. Boy Scout
There are thousands of engineers around the world working diligently to ensure that their cars don't feel like a Viper. On the street, the Viper throbs and rocks noticeably at every stop light. Its ride is stiff and transmits every pebble on the road straight to your coccyx; the steering is heavy and the pedals take a firm push to operate. Throw in the ergonomic challenges of ingress/egress, the scant outward visibility, the sheer noise from the massive explosions occurring in the engine bay and the almost nonexistent cargo space and the result sounds like misery.
But the Viper is actually oddly wonderful on the street. This isn't the sort of car you take through the drive-through or to Home Depot to pick up bathroom fixtures. Sure, you can drive it every day if you really want to, but this is a special event car; every time it's on the road it's a one-car parade. It's a car that feels alive from the heft of the shifter to the heat from its side exhaust. This car doesn't take you for a ride, it demands you pay attention and get involved in the driving experience. You want cushy comfort, buy a Charger. It's right next to the Viper on the showroom floor.
Then there's the new Corvette Stingray, a two-seater that doesn't scrimp on comfort. It's quiet but makes a great sound when the engine is working. Pick the right suspension setting and it rides over freeways better than some Cadillacs, and what is ferociously precise steering on track mellows into easygoing operation during commutes. In some significant ways (suspension compliance and steering feel in particular) the Corvette is easier to live with than a Malibu. It's that easy and that good.
Living With Reality
Because of its much lower price, manners that are easy to live with in daily use and still astonishing performance, the Corvette takes a narrow win here. It is the one car you can drive comfortably every day and still use to dominate a track day. Built around an impregnable structure, overstuffed with technology that actually improves the driving experience, and so easygoing you can commute in it with one finger on the wheel, it's this year's great leap forward for the entire breed of sports cars.
That, however, shouldn't tarnish the glory the SRT Viper deserves. Every moment in this car is special; it always makes a dramatic entrance and attracts crowds as if it had just arrived from Titan. As we drove this white Viper out of a hotel parking lot, an attendant said, "Man, that thing is like a white Batmobile." Stuff like that doesn't happen in a Corvette.
http://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/corvette-stingray/2014/comparison-test.html
