[mggeyer]

Having raced a corvette in SCCA . NASA and COMSCC and instructed for approx ten years , I have had the opportunity to ride and drive in just about every high performance car as well as serious prepared race cars for many years. In my humble opinion , after purchasing my SS 1LE camaro I am blown away at just how good this car is. It has to be one of the most confidence inspiring cars I have ever driven. As a street car it is sensational in my opinion and the fact that I still only have 500 miles , I have not had the opportunity to track it yet. Based on my street driving only, I think this car is going to be nothing less than fantastic. Randy Pobst seems to think so. How many out there can truly drive this car to 10/10nths. I would say none. The engineering team at Chevrolet has really done their homework. Those who are considering changes would be well advised to drive the car for awhile , record some lap times before altering a car that was engineered by experts. Having spent large sums of money and time building my race car I am really impressed as to what the engineering team for this camaro has accomplished. Learning to improve your personal driving skills rather than modding the car might be the best way to lower lap times than throwing parts at a car that has been this well engineered. I am so impressed with this magnetic ride that I know I would not change a thing.

[Tomiboy]

Originally Posted by mggeyer

Having raced a corvette in SCCA . NASA and COMSCC and instructed for approx ten years , I have had the opportunity to ride and drive in just about every high performance car as well as serious prepared race cars for many years. In my humble opinion , after purchasing my SS 1LE camaro I am blown away at just how good this car is. It has to be one of the most confidence inspiring cars I have ever driven. As a street car it is sensational in my opinion and the fact that I still only have 500 miles , I have not had the opportunity to track it yet. Based on my street driving only, I think this car is going to be nothing less than fantastic. Randy Pobst seems to think so. How many out there can truly drive this car to 10/10nths. I would say none. The engineering team at Chevrolet has really done their homework. Those who are considering changes would be well advised to drive the car for awhile , record some lap times before altering a car that was engineered by experts. Having spent large sums of money and time building my race car I am really impressed as to what the engineering team for this camaro has accomplished. Learning to improve your personal driving skills rather than modding the car might be the best way to lower lap times than throwing parts at a car that has been this well engineered. I am so impressed with this magnetic ride that I know I would not change a thing.

Well said!

[TrackClub]

+1! Words of wisdom!
Also, Multimatic suspension will likely be very harsh for anything but track duty on the ZL1 1LE.
And if you start adjusting shocks: better know fully what exactly you're trying to "improve" before even touching them just IMHO. As one very experienced race driver once said: if you can adjust shocks 7 ways, you have that many ways to get it all wrong (or something like that anyway).

[HalfMoon]

So far, I am very happy with the way Chevy setup the 1LE.

It can be quite tame in tour mode to pretty firm in sport and track mode, but nothing jarring. They really got this car sorted out to handle extremely well for the size and weight and this is very impressive.

My Z06/Z07 is much less forgiving, but I knew that going into the car.

[mjk3888]

Originally Posted by mggeyer

Having raced a corvette in SCCA . NASA and COMSCC and instructed for approx ten years , I have had the opportunity to ride and drive in just about every high performance car as well as serious prepared race cars for many years. In my humble opinion , after purchasing my SS 1LE camaro I am blown away at just how good this car is. It has to be one of the most confidence inspiring cars I have ever driven. As a street car it is sensational in my opinion and the fact that I still only have 500 miles , I have not had the opportunity to track it yet. Based on my street driving only, I think this car is going to be nothing less than fantastic. Randy Pobst seems to think so. How many out there can truly drive this car to 10/10nths. I would say none. The engineering team at Chevrolet has really done their homework. Those who are considering changes would be well advised to drive the car for awhile , record some lap times before altering a car that was engineered by experts. Having spent large sums of money and time building my race car I am really impressed as to what the engineering team for this camaro has accomplished. Learning to improve your personal driving skills rather than modding the car might be the best way to lower lap times than throwing parts at a car that has been this well engineered. I am so impressed with this magnetic ride that I know I would not change a thing.

Originally Posted by Tomiboy

Well said!

AGREED!!! As an Engineer I will not be changing a thing aside from fluids when needed. I have even axed my idea of originally replacing the Goodyear's with Sport Cup 2's. Believe me that's huge considering half of my work projects are for Michelin North America! To this point I've only done cosmetic work. I'm not even going to run non OEM brake pads. The only thing I'll likely change is the brake fluid to SRF. That being said I ran 8 Auto X hot laps with less than 1 minute breaks in between and I had the only car that didn't overheat tires, brakes, or engine. Even so I had the fastest lap of the day on my final lap!

I have 6,000 miles on my car and daily drive it with no complaints so far. The only quirks it had have been fixed with TSB's. It also performed flawlessly as a GT car on my 1,000 mile round trip to the Rolex 24 and back!

This car is the performance bargain of the century!

[glamcem]

I respect everyone's opinion and agree with "mggeyer" for the most part. When it comes to R&D no aftermarket options come close to the OEM offerings IMO. I also don't feel like that I can ever reach the true potential of this car at least any time soon.

All that said, in my experience (each has different opinions and expectations especially because of the setup and goals in mind, it seems like I can benefit more from going with the upcoming Multimatic DSSV suspension for the 18' Z28 1LE for the reasons below:
- current suspension tune is designed perfectly for the current setup but once you start changing things like tire compound/softness and/or wheel width. My reason for changing those is not necessarily because they're not "enough" but because the keep the consumables low as once you start overheating tires they get destroyed pretty quickly and the tires are expensive on OEM sizes
-Lighter wheels/tire combo (9lbs per corner!!) will also better on consumables
-DSSV has probably higher spring rates which might be a good way to eliminate body roll when/if you ever go with real R comps (another option is the "DSC " controller which I recently learned about)
-DSSV is also designed for ZL1 1LE which weighs about the same with the 1LE (only 30 lbs heavier) and more importantly the upcoming F1 Supercar 3R tires.
-I have been in 1LE with DSSV multimatic (previous gen 1LE) and the ride was quite good. MRC will probably be better for street but because of that it has to use softer springs and adjust compromise and use softer springs and make up for the difference in damper tuning. Ideally it would be something like C7 Z06 Z07 package that has very firm springs and MRC tune based on that.

[glamcem]

sorry double post

[TrackClub]

Good debate. All I can say is that stiffer is not always better, or faster, or gentler on tire wear and can be quite to the contrary. But it all "depends"

[glamcem]

Originally Posted by TrackClub

Good debate. All I can say is that stiffer is not always better, or faster, or gentler on tire wear and can be quite to the contrary. But it all "depends"

true. I cannot wait to hear more about the new multimatics though, I am pretty sure Camaro team spent some good amount of time on that suspension as they did with the previous gen Z28 though

The new ZL1 1LE supposedly shaved 3 seconds of the current ZL1 at Milford track which makes me wonder. I bet they're also optimized for those sticky 3R tires

[TrackClub]

Multimatic shop knows suspensions and those guys know a thing or two about racing that's for sure, not to mention building the Ford GT (for Ford). so I am sure it will be a trick suspension.
But frankly given the almost equal weight between the last gen Z/28 and the new ZL1 1LE, yet the latter's huge power advantage, I'd attribute the 3 seconds at Milford mainly to the latter. I'd also like to hear what a std ZL1 would do there with ZL1 1LE rubber. Something tells me the delta might not be that big

[glamcem]

Originally Posted by TrackClub

Multimatic shop knows suspensions and those guys know a thing or two about racing that's for sure, not to mention building the Ford GT (for Ford). so I am sure it will be a trick suspension.
But frankly given the almost equal weight between the last gen Z/28 and the new ZL1 1LE, yet the latter's huge power advantage, I'd attribute the 3 seconds at Milford mainly to the latter. I'd also like to hear what a std ZL1 would do there with ZL1 1LE rubber. Something tells me the delta might not be that big

ughh, I brain farted there for a second and accidentally wrote Z28 instead of ZL1 (fixed my above post).

So the new ZL1 1LE is 3 seconds faster than the new ZL1 . So the 3 seconds delta between the same trim with aero, tires and suspension basically. That's a lot for sure. Delta between the new ZL1 1LE and the previous Gen Z28 should be at least 4 seconds based on the math/guesstimate at Big Willow

[TrackClub]

Oh OK
Well, I would still love to know the delta between the ZL1 and ZL1 1LE on the same tires.
No doubt the delta will still be there, but it could shrink quite a bit. Possibly to a second? Who knows? But I am stepping on a VERY slippery slope of arm chair "expert opinions" here - something I don't want to pursue any further, as I still recall where it led when I suggested that the last gen Z/28 was not worth 50% price premium over the last gen ZL1 as IMO its pace was largely (but not totally) due to near slick Trofeos vs Good Years. I've already said too much so I am going to hide under the table now
However, money and value considerations aside, I'd love to have a ZL1 1LE for a track, ZL1 for the street and a 1LE just because it is so special. Cheers!

[glamcem]

Originally Posted by TrackClub

Oh OK
Well, I would still love to know the delta between the ZL1 and ZL1 1LE on the same tires.
No doubt the delta will still be there, but it could shrink quite a bit. Possibly to a second? Who knows? But I am stepping on a VERY slippery slope of arm chair "expert opinions" here - something I don't want to pursue any further, as I still recall where it led when I suggested that the last gen Z/28 was not worth 50% price premium over the last gen ZL1 as IMO its pace was largely (but not totally) due to near slick Trofeos vs Good Years. I've already said too much so I am going to hide under the table now
However, money and value considerations aside, I'd love to have a ZL1 1LE for a track, ZL1 for the street and a 1LE just because it is so special. Cheers!

I agree with you on the price premium of the Z28 over the previous Gen ZL1 or even the SS 1LE. With that kind of money, it didn't really deliver that amount of performance IMO.

The ZL1 vs ZL1 1LE however, the price gap is not that big. It is very hard to guess how/if it could benefit from those sticky R compound tires since going with a very sticky tires might be even detrimental in some cases since it will alter the whole MRC suspension tuning. Also, the car is a total package tires, aero, suspension (most likely tuned and has stiffer springs because of the additional down force)..etc

The whole reason I will consider the multimatics is because I want to be able to benefit from running wider and stickier tires. Running an NT01 on the MRCs shouldn't make that much of a difference since the newer hybrid tires (extreme performance tires) are very close to NT01s in terms of peak performance, G in the skidpad and braking zones..etc

[TrackClub]

Agree the delta between R comps like NT01 and super summer tires has dwindled to almost nothing. However, I'd say that sticking near/or pure slicks on just about any car will make it faster based on my first hand experience with not a very stiff suspension. I also believe Provoste tried slick scrubs and got more pace out of them with good balance overall? So personally I'd prefer spending $ on rubber vs suspension mods especially on a capable car out of the box like a 1LE. As to the ZL1 1LE I don't believe pricing has been published yet? At least I can't find any news on this subject. If you know what it is would you mind posting it? Dying to find out what the delta is Cheers!