[Rodan]

Originally Posted by Chevmaro

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews...amaro-zl1-1le/

Welcome to last week...

[TheRealJA105]

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

His RT was much better AND his 60 ft was about 1 tenth faster. However his MPH was 101 and mine was 111. I was 8 tenths faster to the line.

A full second is huge when you lose that much and your competition doesn't. As far as DRs, we will have to see. Like I said before, it isn't one thing that GT500s suffer from but multiple things. In ideal conditions it will beat a lot of cars out there. Remove one thing and it will be playing catch up.

On your 180 mph road course you might not see an increase in lap times after 3 laps, but myself and others who frequent much slower tracks know the tires fall off that much alone...

I've yet to drive on the G3Rs which don't fall off as much, but I've read plenty of reviews of the Sport Cup 2s being famous for 1-2 hero laps and falling off.

[BlaqWhole]

Originally Posted by TheRealJA105

On your 180 mph road course you might not see an increase in lap times after 3 laps, but myself and others who frequent much slower tracks know the tires fall off that much alone...

You are correct. The tracks you run at are definitely a lot slower than the road courses I've raced at. That much is for certain. Stay on your tracks and I'll stick to mine.

Originally Posted by TheRealJA105

I've yet to drive on the G3Rs which don't fall off as much, but I've read plenty of reviews of the Sport Cup 2s being famous for 1-2 hero laps and falling off.

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by ST1LE

Treedyou tried that same argument here. A lot of people, especially these days, will discredit a test that provides data they don't like. 90%-95% of GT500s will never see a strip or a track, trying to say acceleration on an unprepared surface is irrelevant, defies logical thought in my opinion, as you said these are street cars, not race cars. It isn't the only thing that matters, but it is VERY important and will sway buying decision long before drag strip 1/4 mile times ever will.
.

Very well said.

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

I think it does deserve some question as to why after 6 years they can't beat the ZL1. And I think it does need to be questioned if that entire time was spent on it or just a portion of that time. The ZL1 took a 1 year break even tho the LT4 was in the C7 in 2015. So what gives? Why is the GT500 struggling this much against cheaper cars with a significantly less amount of HP? Wasn't the 500 dynoing like 710 to the wheels or something bone stock? 11.3 is extremely sad for that kind of HP.
.

The alpha is that good. That is your answer lol. Also, knowing that it was going to get the LT4 and transmissions and all that stuff probably helped speed up the development process for the ZL1. GM knew it was going to go in the Z06, ZL1 and CTS-V. That's the major parts bin advantage, and as much as teh ford fan boys love to make that joke the camaro is a parts bin car, that is why the ZL1 and ZLE are so affordable compared to the GT500. GT500 the predator engine is only in the GT500, the DCT is only in the GT500, the brakes are only in the GT500. Unique parts cost moneys.

It was mentioned somewhere in here that there was work being done on the 500 after the last one was done most likely. Priority probably did shift to the 350 but still working on the 500. If you follow the tea leaves, it does look like it was supposed to show up in 18. I think it was Martin (sorry if it was not) mentioned that the big delay was probably from switching to the DCT. they basically went to tremec and asked for a transmission that didn't exist yet. And that was probably a reactionary move based on seeing just how good the alpha cars were because again, GM caught Ford with their pants down.

As to your second point. You kind of answered it yourself. That's a lot of power to put to the rear wheels with factory tires. Also and this will come up later is weight. Don't forget that when compared to say the C8, the GT500 is almost 600 pounds heavier. So the C8 is lighter, and has the huge advantage of the ME layout. In regards to against the camaro, well sort of like you said less power to the wheels. Less power/less likely to lose traction and again weight. a ZL1 weighs what in the 3800 pound range, the base GT500 is in the 4200 pound right? That's a lot of weight to overcome. Yes the CFTP is lighter, but still heavier by almost 200 pounds compared to the ZLE. Advantage alpha.

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

The article alludes to the ZL1 besting the GT500 around a track. Although they did not come out and say it in a straight forward manner, nor did they post up times, they did say the following...

"but the more affordable ZL1 1LE manages to match or surpass the Shelby's performance while offering a much longer list of features."

True, but they didn't say it. You may be right or it may just be close enough that the extra $ makes the CFTP not worth it in their minds.

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

The way I see it, 11.3 on the 500 and 11.6 on the ZL1 can be considered a match. Although 2 tenths is a driver's race, I could see someone saying that 3 tenths is close enough to being a match. Remember, the S197 Coyotes were typically around 2 tenths faster than the 5th Gen Camaros and that was a driver's race. In some cases the GT managed 12.7 while the SS was always in the 12.9 - 13.1 range. But they were still a match. The second part, "surpass"...well that means that the ZL1 actually beat the 500 at something. So far we know it isn't the quarter mile. And I doubt they would consider braking and Gs an actual measurement worth mentioning if the ZL1 still lost around a track. So that must mean it beat the 500 around a track and they just didn't put the numbers up yet. This is all just speculation but I think it is very sound.


They did not publish actual lap times but statements made suggest the ZL1 beat the 500 around a track.

GM has nothing to lose with the ZL1 being slower. Frod would have something to lose. So I think the mags are tiptoeing around this so the Mustang community as a whole won't have a conniption.

Per the article in the stats posted, the ZL1 bested the GT500 in 0-60, skidpad, braking 70 to 0, braking 100 to 0. GT500 bested it in the 1/4 mile. those are the main stats that most people will look at. So if you take it literally the ZL1 bested it in 4 out 5 main categories. Yeah the GT500 won past 100 but that starts to get into "cowboy science" lol. So to me that is the matched or surpassed. I just reread the article and they don't really reference the track at all. They say at the test track and then talk about the stats like acceleration and braking etc. Other then that they don't say anything about being on the track. They go right to how the cars are on the street, they don't even come close to saying anything about lap times or on track tendencies. They didn't say anything like the Camaro carved through the corners and the 500 devoured the straights or anything like that.

So at least to me, that doesn't infer anything about lap times. It tells me that in 4/5 of the main performance categories (4 out 6 if you want to include 0-100) that the ZLE matched/surpassed.

But like I said you may be 100% right. Hopefully they have another article come out soon.

Originally Posted by Chadicus

Seriously doubt we will ever see a ring time for the 500. I'm not 100% convinced the that base 500 will beat the 350R on very many tracks to be honest.

You won't see a ring time for it unless a magazine does it. Ford doesn't do lap times. Hasn't done them in the last 20 years of performance vehicles.

Originally Posted by ST1LE

LOL...really? You think Jay Leno will be upset that his C8 Z06 is faster than his Ford GT, the same Ford GT that he would be able to sell for a lot more than he bought it for one day? You dont really think people that can buy $500K cars are Ford fan boys do you?

Rich car guys dont give a crap about stuff like that. They are the kind of people that will park the first C8 Z06 to come off the line right next to their Ford GT in their garage of cars worth MILLIONS of dollars and smile at their awesome collection, not once being upset about which is faster than which.

The ones who will be upset are the fan bois that drive Mustang GT's and scream from a mountain that Ford is blessed by Jesus himself, not the people that actually buy Ford GT's.

I think it's awesome that GM showed what they could do against the Ford GT. The Ford GT was made so Ford can race, and like you said the people that can afford it probably don't care if anything is faster than it or not because they probably have that faster car parked right next to it in their climate controlled garage lol.

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

The only way to know for sure would be if Ford allowed a comparo with the 17 and 19 Shelbys to prove that they actually did tweak the newer ones. I am not aware that such a test exists. So I have to remain skeptical.

There haven't been any back to back tests or tests done at the same tracks. But the updates were significant enough that that is why there are so many new reviews coming out for the 19 350. That's why MT brought it back to best drivers car, and C&D has had multiple new articles on it. C&D came the closest, because they made note of the 19 updates compared to the one in their long term fleet which would be a 17 or 18.

"GT350's chassis has been tuned to maximize the newfound levels of grip, including 10 percent stiffer front springs that work better to keep the car's nose level under hard braking."

"the updated GT350 managed a heady 1.09 g of lateral grip, a sizable 0.07-g improvement over our long-term 2017 Shelby GT350 on Super Sports and just shy of the GT350R's 1.10 g of stick."

Originally Posted by RobbyBeefcake87

This, if the 19+ changes were so substantial in terms of actual performance gain and not just steering feel there would be tests showing better lap times from 19+ gt350r's. Hard to use the regular gt350 since it's wearing better tires along with the updates.

Yeah I have only seen a few tests of the 2020 GT350R and they only mention driving characteristics, it does appear the updates were done to make the car more street friendly. VS the regular 350 were performance updates

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

At the very least, can someone even tell me what those upgrades include? Bigger brakes? Better cooling? Any skidpad info? Quarter mile? Lateral Gs? Figure 8? Changes to the ECU tuning? Or did they slap some better tires on it, tighten the steering up, and say "look, the GT350 got some crazy upgrades...it's $5K more expensive now"...??

Solid brake rotors, updated steering knuckles from gt500, revised suspension. Basically from the few reviews the updates were more made to make the car more driver friendly, vs performance oriented. The regular 350 updates were performance oriented as documented above via C&D tests. the R updates seem to be made to make the car more friendly on the street.(all the articles mention it does wonders to fixing the tramlining issue and the steering is much more responsive . I don't think there would be any measurable data on this, other then driving one and seeing if it's really better.

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

My work is done.

The only thing I can see that might explain it is that with the GT350, the extra $5K is actually part of the price of the car itself. So it increased by $5K. Whereas with the C8 and the ZL1, $5K on the C8 is the price of the Z51 package and $7500 is the price of the 1LE package. So you are buying a package. Frod basically increased the price of the car but then did a few things to it. Dodge did the same thing with the Hellcats in 2017. So maybe that explains why there isn't much that comes with the extra money. It is a horrible value for that car tho. I would have thought it wouldn't sell but apparently it still sells well enough for Frod to continue it.

BTW, does anyone have any idea if the 500 will be a continuing vehicle offered every year or just a 2 year thing?

Yes that is the way to look at it exactly. Before you were comparing like it was an option vs the price of the vehicle increased. And as I mentioned above for the R it seems like the updates were more on the drivability side vs performance oriented.

And another way to look at is in 2014 a C7 started at 51,995. In 2015 a C7 started at 54,995 - what major updates did GM to make the C7 jump up in price 3 grand in one year. I think the A8 was swapped out for the A6 but all C7s went up 3 grand in one year.

I agree, I didn't think the 350 and R would keep selling, but if people want to keep buying it Ford should keep making it.

I think the 500 would be a vehicle offered every year. I mean they said a 2 or 3 year originally for the S197 GT500 and they just kept cranking them out. Ran for 7 years, so I would assume the current 500 will stay around as long as the S550 is around.

[BlaqWhole]

Way too much to quote and reply back to.

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

Way too much to quote and reply back to.

I missed 4 pages worth of posts I had lot to catch up on! not my fault this place was active over the weekend lol

[BlaqWhole]

Originally Posted by shaffe

I missed 4 pages worth of posts I had lot to catch up on! not my fault this place was active over the weekend lol

Back when I said that the GT350 increased in price you said it was because Frod updated it. But those updates do not add up to anywhere close to a $5K value. My argument was that the price increase was due to Frod wanting in on that extra money that people claimed the 350 was well worth. My other argument was that Frod knows good and well that the GT500 is not going to sell at MSRP. So they can increase the price of the 350 and those who want something higher than a GT would have no choice but to pay it. You insisted that was not the case. And true, Frod will never come out and admit to it. But they are a business. And they are out to profit. If they can profit off something then they will. There was nothing done to the 350 to warrant a $5K increase in price. Even if it did gain some drastic increase in performance it still should not have increased in price because it was overpriced to begin with. Even that old price with the new performance it allegedly has is still a mismatch in comparison to the competition. It still won't beat a cheaper ZL1 on any track in anything. And it is still a 12 sec car. So now it is more expensive, has more performance according to some, and still loses. Heck you could hit up the aftermarket for shocks, springs, and tires. You'll still lose races but at least you won't lose $5K.

So my question to you is if you truly think that $5K increase was worth the upgrades?

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

Back when I said that the GT350 increased in price you said it was because Frod updated it. But those updates do not add up to anywhere close to a $5K value. My argument was that the price increase was due to Frod wanting in on that extra money that people claimed the 350 was well worth. My other argument was that Frod knows good and well that the GT500 is not going to sell at MSRP. So they can increase the price of the 350 and those who want something higher than a GT would have no choice but to pay it. You insisted that was not the case. And true, Frod will never come out and admit to it. But they are a business. And they are out to profit. If they can profit off something then they will. There was nothing done to the 350 to warrant a $5K increase in price. Even if it did gain some drastic increase in performance it still should not have increased in price because it was overpriced to begin with. Even that old price with the new performance it allegedly has is still a mismatch in comparison to the competition. It still won't beat a cheaper ZL1 on any track in anything. And it is still a 12 sec car. So now it is more expensive, has more performance according to some, and still loses. Heck you could hit up the aftermarket for shocks, springs, and tires. You'll still lose races but at least you won't lose $5K.

So my question to you is if you truly think that $5K increase was worth the upgrades?

No I personally do not think the upgrades were worth 5K - but on a car that only churns out 5 or 600 units per year I don't know what those actually cost Ford. Remember those updates were specific to the R

Since you skimmed over my post, I showed that the C7 jumped up 3k in price from its first year to second year with only advancement being A8 instead of A6. Was that worth the 3k price increase? especially on models with the M7.

the 19 Z06 MSRP went up 1400 despite the fact dealers are giving them away because of demand for the C8. What updates did the C7 Z06 get from 18 to 19 to go up 1400 bucks. According to GM authority - none

Point is cars get updates- price goes up. You are acting like this is a Ford only issue and want to slam them for it.

[BlaqWhole]

Originally Posted by shaffe

Since you skimmed over my post, I showed that the C7 jumped up 3k in price from its first year to second year with only advancement being A8 instead of A6. Was that worth the 3k price increase? especially on models with the M7.

the 19 Z06 MSRP went up 1400 despite the fact dealers are giving them away because of demand for the C8. What updates did the C7 Z06 get from 18 to 19 to go up 1400 bucks. According to GM authority - none

"Well GM did it too" is hardly an excuse. A $3K price increase due to an A8 trans which was kinda state of the art at that time and the ECU tuning that went along with it on a car that already was an amazing performer and got better is not even close to a $5K increase for some tires and stiffer springs on a car that even after the upgrades is still lacking. But to answer your question, with the $3K increase I still would have bought a Corvette. I would not (and did not) buy a GT350 even at the lower price because I thought it was too much and offered too little.

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

"Well GM did it too" is hardly an excuse. A $3K price increase due to an A8 trans which was kinda state of the art at that time and the ECU tuning that went along with it on a car that already was an amazing performer and got better is not even close to a $5K increase for some tires and stiffer springs on a car that even after the upgrades is still lacking. But to answer your question, with the $3K increase I still would have bought a Corvette. I would not (and did not) buy a GT350 even at the lower price because I thought it was too much and offered too little.

the 3K price increase also went onto the M7 cars that did NOT get any of those upgrades.

So your justification is because you like the Corvette better it's ok.

What's your take on the Z06 getting 0 updates but increasing in price from 2018 to the 19 model

[BlaqWhole]

Originally Posted by shaffe

the 3K price increase also went onto the M7 cars that did NOT get any of those upgrades.

So your justification is because you like the Corvette better it's ok.

What's your take on the Z06 getting 0 updates but increasing in price from 2018 to the 19 model

I'm not saying that it is ok because it is Chevy. I'm saying that the performance was still worth the price. But to have to pay extra for nothing extra sucks. I was not aware of any price hikes on the C7s. But when I saw the prices of them, I always thought it was a great deal. I never thought that about the 350s. BTW, I do think the Base 500, at MSRP, is a good deal. But kinda on the high side of a good deal. That is in comparison to the Hellcat. I'll be watching to see if the 500s increase in price. Because I do think they will. At which point the base might tip over to the not worth it side of things.

[BlaqWhole]

Whoa. I actually gave some credit to a Mustang. This JD Tennessee Honey must be hittin different tonight.

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

I'm not saying that it is ok because it is Chevy. I'm saying that the performance was still worth the price. But to have to pay extra for nothing extra sucks. I was not aware of any price hikes on the C7s. But when I saw the prices of them, I always thought it was a great deal.

Ok I got you. Just the way it read, or at least the way it read to me was you were acting like it was a Ford only thing. I get what you are saying about the performance/value. Corvette has always been insane value

Yeah paying more for nothing sucks.

IIRC the C6 had a price increase mid model year one year.

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

Whoa. I actually gave some credit to a Mustang. This JD Tennessee Honey must be hittin different tonight.

Haha

[ST1LE]

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

I'm not saying that it is ok because it is Chevy. I'm saying that the performance was still worth the price. But to have to pay extra for nothing extra sucks. I was not aware of any price hikes on the C7s. But when I saw the prices of them, I always thought it was a great deal. I never thought that about the 350s. BTW, I do think the Base 500, at MSRP, is a good deal. But kinda on the high side of a good deal. That is in comparison to the Hellcat. I'll be watching to see if the 500s increase in price. Because I do think they will. At which point the base might tip over to the not worth it side of things.

I am sorta with you there. I keep going back and forth, and only because the content of the 500 is a bit anemic compared to the ZL1. If it came comparably quipped, I think it would be a good buy. I have always balked at HC prices too, so maybe that is where I need to adjust my thinking a bit.