Z/28 Reviews

[Mikebrinda]

Originally Posted by Mikamaro

Here are some new stuff written ...
http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/news/...d-availability

http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/car-c...atives-for-75k

http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/car-c...rvette-3lt-z51

Thanks for the finds, one of which brings me here:

Notwithstanding the legit personal opinions such as, "the car is meant to be driven not garaged, etc." I have three words on the 2014 Z/28 for those who couldn't/can't fathom the $75,000 or $76,150 MSRP and overlooked the elephant in the room:

Instant. Collectors. Item.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/news/...d-availability

[Zfatuated]

Originally Posted by Mikebrinda

Thanks for the finds, one of which brings me here:

Notwithstanding the legit personal opinions such as, "the car is meant to be driven not garaged, etc." I have three words on the 2014 Z/28 for those who couldn't/can't fathom the $75,000 or $76,150 MSRP and overlooked the elephant in the room:

Instant. Collectors. Item.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/news/...d-availability

Yeah, you are spot on. As a tracker and not a "bubble-wrapper", this is painful for me to confront. There is no doubt the '14's are going to be highly desired and the prices will reflect that.

The problem this causes is- insurance reimbursement values in a worst case situation. You ball up the car, get your $75k back, but the car is actually worth $100k, $125k, or whatever, and you can't replace it for what you paid for it.

[brt3]

[brt3]

Linked article on the LS7 engine to the first post (also attached below): READ MORE HERE

Added Z/28 sections of Owner's Manual to PDF section to first post (also attached below)...

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READ ORIGINAL HERE

The Z/28, resurrected
Wicked is as wicked does.

By Chris Chilton April 7, 2014 / Photos by Jamey Price



They call it the "flow tie." In the pursuit of maximum cooling efficiency for the Z/28's 505-hp V8, someone realized that the Chevy's bow-tie-shaped grille badge was acting like a giant stop sign for airflow. Why not take it off? No, the General wouldn't like that. Instead, an engineer whipped out his humble Dremel and cut away the center of the emblem, leaving only the outline. A simple solution, maybe, but that "what if?" attitude sums up the Camaro engineers' approach to the whole Z/28 program, a skunkworks project to create a genuine, no-compromise track car and hang the expense.

Chevy knows the Z/28 will only appeal to a certain type of person, just as the original did in early 1967. Built to homologate the Camaro for the SCCA's new Trans-Am racing series, the first Z/28's party piece was a solid-lifter small-block that helped Mark Donohue run off with the championship in both '68 and '69. But the average customer found it hard to rationalize spending big on a piddly 302 when less money would buy GM's 396-cubic-inch Camaro, with almost 50 percent more torque.

Fast-forward half a century and history is repeating itself. Thus far, the fastest, most powerful, and most expensive Camaro you can buy has been the supercharged ZL1. 35 ponies stronger than a Nissan GT-R and half the price, capable of lapping the Nürburgring in 7 minutes, 41 seconds and ripping 12-second quarter-mile passes at the strip, the ZL1 seems the ultimate Camaro. Who'd spend 20 grand more for 13 percent less firepower?




]"The kind of person who wants a car because it looks cool won't appreciate the Z/28," says the Camaro's chief engineer, Al Oppenheiser. "We said we'd only build another Z/28 if it was true to its historical origins. This is not a trailer car, but it's definitely optimized for the track."

No kidding. The list of component suppliers reads like a SEMA exhibitors map: brakes by Brembo, seats by Recaro, rods by Pankl, trick tires by Pirelli, shocks by Multimatic. Every one of the Z/28's 190 unique parts was chosen by answering one question: Will this make it go faster? They obviously do, because despite giving away 75 hp to the 580-hp ZL1, the Z/28 bests that car's impressive Nürburgring time by 3.9 seconds.

You only have to catch a glimpse of that front cowcatcher to know the Z/28 means business. Just one part of a suite of aerodynamic mods designed to reduce lift at track speed, that splitter can withstand 250 lbs of aero force, and it's echoed on the Z/28.R racer that made its debut at Daytona in January. Rocker-panel extensions guide air as it passes along the Z's flanks to a two-position Gurney flap, while an undertray delivers air to a rear diffuser. In total, they provided 150 lbs of positive downforce at 150 mph.

What you don't notice is the lightweight battery, that the rear window is made from thinner glass, that the rear seats have been slimmed down and the tire-inflation kit banished to help the pudgy Camaro shift some pounds. All told, the Z/28 weighs 22 lbs less than a Camaro SS 1LE and 224 lbs less than the ZL1, bringing the total mass down to a still-not-svelte 3856 lbs. Also gone as part of that diet are the heavy cast-iron rotors, replaced by carbon-ceramics, and the ZL1's burly differential, not needed here because the Z/28 is packing a very different kind of powertrain.



While the latest (C7) Corvette Z06 shifts to a supercharged 6.2-liter V8, dubbed LT4, the old Z06's LS7 engine finds a home under the Z/28's hood. The single most expensive device on the whole car, it weighs 64 lbs less than the ZL1's supercharged LSA V8, and it comes stuffed full of titanium rods and a forged steel crank. Those ingredients help produce a pushrod engine that'll happily hang out near its 7000-rpm redline as well as deliver the feel and response that only a large-displacement, naturally aspirated engine can.

From both an engineering and a philosophical standpoint, only one kind of transmission was deemed suitable to handle the engine's 505 hp and 481 lb-ft of twist. The good news is that it's the Tremec six-speed manual from the ZL1; the better news, that it's mated to a 3.91:1 rear end instead of the supercharged car's 3.73, to more efficiently make use of the LS7's torque curve. Zero to 60 mph took us 4.0 seconds on a less than ideal surface, putting the car ferociously close to its ZL1 brother.

But judging a track car by its spec sheet is like reviewing an album based on the liner notes. So we've come to Alabama's Barber Motorsports Park, site of the Z/28's media launch, to try the car ourselves. While too technical and compact a track for us to feel out the car's high-speed aero prowess, there are enough elevation changes and transitions to uncover any car pretending to be something it's not.

Earlier, we did a handful of familiarization laps in a Camaro SS with the 1LE option, a handling package that turns the coupe from ho-hum to ho-ho. But the Z/28 is different almost beyond recognition.

It's obvious immediately. You feel it in the measured precision of the steering and the tautness of the damping that checks every minute body motion. Chevy says the car's bolt-on wheel-arch lips are there to promote stability, but they're also preserving the modesty of some humongous tires. The rear 305/30R-19 Pirellis are an inch smaller than those on the ZL1, but instead of that car's 285/35R-20 fronts, the Z/28 gets 305s at the nose as well as out back. That's an outrageous amount of tire for a front axle to deal with, 10 millimeters wider than the rear rubber fitted to a Ferrari 458. Did engineers worry about winding up with the steering sensitivity of an autistic Audi?

"This was a big debate," says GM's Adam Dean, the lunatic responsible for that 7:37 time on a partially wet Nordschleife. "Of course, the worry is that you'll have tramlining and a loss of sensitivity. I think we're close to that limit, but we have to run a big tire because we don't benefit from a camber change in cornering with a strut-type front suspension."



Translation: Everything's a compromise. And the front rubber is beyond monstrous, and monstrously grippy, so stop complaining.

The tires in question are Pirelli P Zero Trofeo Rs, summer track rubber that frightens in the wet but clings to dry pavement with prejudice. They take a couple of laps to warm up, while the oil pumping through the LS7's dry-sump system does the same. By lap three, the turn-in understeer has gone and the full extent of the car's staggering grip is revealed.

We're told the Z/28 can pull a mighty 1.5 g under braking, thanks in part to four-wheel carbon-ceramic brakes that are as impressive for their pedal feel (a common carbon-brake failing) as their total refusal to fade. But here's the crazy bit: The Z has so much stick that the 19-inch wheels are media blasted to add texture, because they were found to be slipping within the tires during testing. Not by a couple of degrees, or even 10, as Chevy first thought, but a whopping 370.

The electric steering is neither particularly quick by modern standards nor the last word in feel, but it relays all the important signals when you near the outer limits, remaining just on the manageable side of meaty, the weight falling off, tugging at your wrists ever so slightly as you push. Lower-control-arm link bushings stiffened by 50 percent lend a welcome improvement in precision around and just off the straight-ahead.

It's a well-judged setup, but it's the damping that steals the show. Instead of the computer-controlled, magnetorheological shocks fitted to the ZL1, the Z/28 gets a fixed-rate damping system designed to work with springs that are 85 percent stiffer in the front and 65 percent stiffer in the rear than on the SS. A pair of spool valves in each shock allows superior control of oil flow and independent compression and rebound tuning. Normally seen in top-flight motorsport, the only other road car to use dampers like these has been Aston Martin's $1.75-million One-77.



Predictably, they're awesome. You never forget that you're hauling nearly 4000 lbs of car, but the Z/28 manages its weight so well in braking and through transitions that you find yourself taking liberties. Turning in on the brakes late to point the nose. Climbing back on the power early to do the same. I can't think of another track-focused car with this much power and so few vices, so much stability. Whatever your own level of performance, the Z/28 has something to offer, nothing you need fear.

A five-stage Performance Traction Management (PTM) stability-control system is on hand to spare any novice blushes, but the first two settings would rather you just park the Z/28 in the paddock, and even the third feels like a sop to the tires' propensity to give up in the face of precipitation. No, modes four and five are where it's at. Four when the track is damp and you want the comfort of both throttle and brake intervention. Five when you want to go as fast as it's physically possible to go and just need help with the gas. Dean's 'Ring heroics were achieved with the stability system in mode 5. Switch it off altogether and you'll almost certainly go slower.

Fortunately, PTM's subtle nature and the combination of sticky rubber and a new Torsen limited-slip differential means the system never dominates the driving experience. The diff stays relatively open on the approach to a corner to kill understeer, the Z relying instead on its ABS for stability. But hit the throttle at the apex and the LSD hooks up quicker than high schoolers after prom. Chevy's guys say the diff is worth 0.7 second around GM's Milford proving ground and that the whole Z/28 package helps the Camaro lap 5.34 seconds faster than the brilliant last-generation Ford Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca—in some turns, achieving speeds an absurd 10 mph higher.

The Z/28's light, short-throw shifter also bests the Boss's, its gate precise enough to make wrong slotting inexcusable. Unlike the latest Corvette, there's no La-Z-Boy rev-matching software on hand to make you look like a hero. If you want to get downshifts right—and on a circuit, if you want to stay out of the sand, you really ought to—you need to do it the old-fashioned way, rolling on that throttle and hearing the growl from what must still rank as one of the best engines to come from America.

So it's a shame that GM's fear of unintended acceleration has the pedal spacing favoring snowshoes over Sparco boots. And when you do manage to connect with the throttle, there's just the tiniest smidgen of slack, engineered in to dial out driveline shunt at the behest of the GM passenger-car guys and against the wishes of the Z/28 team's racers.

But when we leave Barber and venture out on the road, it seems that Oppenheiser is being modest about the Z/28's streetability. The lack of trunk insulation is apparent in the increased tire roar, and those fat front Pirellis like to settle into the grooves in the pavement. But the ride is bearable, the big LS7 tractable, the clutch light. You probably wouldn't want to drive it every day, but you could, in which case you'd want to add a little weight with the optional radio and air conditioning.

Of course, doing so makes a pricey car even less palatable. At $75,000, the Z/28 is $20,000 more expensive than either the Camaro ZL1 or the new Corvette Stingray, brilliant cars both. Worse still, BMW's new M3 will undercut it by at least $10,000. But none are so focused as this.



Stuck in traffic, gazing at the sub-Korean plastic of the center console, the Z/28 feels as convincing a $75,000 car as a Toyota Yaris. But on a track like Barber, it feels invincible. Not as exciting or engaging as the $130,000 Porsche 911 GT3 I jumped into for context days later—arguably the benchmark street racer—but money well spent, all the same.

If you want a quick car, there are better buys, better Camaros. A ZL1 makes more sense for all but a few hardy souls. But for the guy who recognizes the difference between a fast car and one whose every fiber has been optimized in the pursuit of total performance, this Z/28, much like the original, is the real deal.

[2cnd chance]

This is quite good. Sorry if it's already posted.

http://www.chevyhardcore.com/news/vi...the-z28-camaro

[LT4SS1997]

Does anyone know the build number of the 2014 Z28's? I hear only 20 for Canada? Then I heard 40 for Canada. I'm one of them and know 2 others being built for Alberta.

[brt3]

New review on Driving.CA, eh? READ IT HERE

First drive: 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28



Once porky American muscle car has been transformed into a truly impressive top-tier track weapon

By David Booth
Originally published: 8 hours ago

Monticello Motor Club, N.Y. — I hate it when Motor Trend gets it right. But props must be accorded when props are due, and the latest May edition of the magazine was absolutely right when it dared to compare Chevrolet’s new Z/28 with Porsche’s 911 Turbo S and the Track Edition of the Nissan GT-R. I can’t vouch for its contention that the Chevy “pony” car was quicker around Barber Motorsport Park’s 3.6 kilometres (like many of you, I have always found it suspect when the magazine anoints yet another American-made machine superior to the imports), but author Jonny Lieberman was completely correct in saying that “never in one million years” would one have predicted that a Camaro could compare, favourably or not, to two of sportscardom’s most iconic hot rods.

Indeed, the latest performance version of the much maligned Camaro is proof positive that if you’re willing to throw enough high-tech and high-priced (the Z/28 will retail for $77,400) performance parts at something, you can turn a ponderously steering sow’s ear into a corner-carving silk purse. The Camaro, after all, isn’t even a true sports coupe. The underlying chassis is something General Motors calls its Zeta II platform, itself an offshoot of Australia’s soon-to-be-defunct four-door Holden Commodore.



Early renditions of the transformation were hardly encouraging — the transition from Commodore to Transformer-inspired Camaro hardly had the stuff that made GT-Rs and 911 Turbos quake in their boots. The V6 was just plain piffle and, while V8-powered SS may have made the requisite vroom noises, it, too, largely failed to disguise its origins. It wasn’t as waffly soft as Dodge’s Challenger, but a good Mustang would eat it for lunch, and trying to mention the Camaro in the same breath as Tier II supercars would have been laughable.

The 2012 introduction of the ZL1 gave a slight indication that there might be more potential to the Camaro formula, its Corvette ZR1-sourced 580-horsepower supercharged V8 mustering some serious moxie and its Performance Traction Management (PTM) was one of the better vehicle stability control systems, allowing even the most lead-footed of drivers the ability to oversteer the big Camaro with none of the abrupt “throttlis interruptus” common to lesser electronic nannies.

The basic handling was still lumpy, however, there being the typical overweight American muscle car delay between when you turned the steering wheel and when the car actually responded to said inputs. And then, despite much stiffened suspension compared with the base models, the big ZL1 would heel over, not quite as much as SS or V6, but much more than a true sports car should. Only the magical throttle control of the PTM saved the ZL1 from being yet another long-on-brute-force, short-on-sophistication, over-engined muscle car. Impressive it was, but still no real indication that a Camaro would someday stand comparison to 911s or Nissan GT-Rs.



And yet here we are hurtling towards Monticello’s decreasing radius corners — New York State’s poshest club track has no shortage of those — in something that looks suspiciously like a Camaro but feels surprisingly like a 911. Indeed, the Z/28 has — dare I say it — a delicacy of steering that all but matches the usually untouchable Porsche and way, way more front end grip and steering feedback than the oft-understeering GT-R.

How did they do that? How does one render silk from such an obvious sow’s ear?

The first thing, says Mark Stielow, Performance Variant manager for Chevrolet, was the decision to jettison the ZL1′s LSA supercharged V8 in favour of the Z06-sourced LS7 7.0-litre V8. Yes, 75 horsepower — 580-hp versus 505 — is lost in the transition, but the lesser engine precipitated all manner of weight loss. Sans blower, the reduction in maximum torque — 556 pound-feet versus 481 lb.-ft. — also permitted ditching the ZL1′s heavy cast iron rear differential in favour of a lighter Torsen limited-slip affair. Smaller 19-inch tires and rims remove even more weight as do the Z/28′s standard carbon ceramic brakes. Thinner rear window glass and the deletion of the air conditioning system also helped lighten things. All told, 137 kilograms (300 pounds) have been Slim-Fasted in the transformation from ZL1 muscle car to Z/28 track weapon.



Surprisingly, the Z/28′s ultra-sophisticated Dynamic Suspension Spool Valve suspension system was chosen for exactly the same reason. Despite the Multimatic system’s (manufactured right here in Canada, by the way) advanced spool valve damping adjustment mechanism, Al Oppenheiser, the Camaro’s chief engineer, says the DSSV system was chosen over the ZL1′s Magnetic Ride Control mainly because it reduces weight. According to Oppenheiser, the ZL1′s magnetorheological suspension offers as much damping adjustability as the new DSSV, but unsprung weight is substantially reduced using the Multimatic system, helping suspension performance and steering feel.

This last — despite the Z/28′s monumental grip, phenomenal brakes and excellent balance at maximum cornering g’s — is really the most amazing thing about the new Z/28′s transformation. GM chose Pirelli’s PZero Trofeo Rs for their massive grip — lateral acceleration is said to peak at a Porsche-challenging 1.08 g’s — and specified the monumentally wide 305/30R19 front tires to combat the Camaro’s traditional understeer.

And, mission accomplished, there is precious little understeer to be found in the Z/28 chassis, roll well is mitigated thanks to the stiffer suspension and the balance of front to rear grip is almost perfect. But — and this should be the biggest of buts — those front 305s are the biggest tires offered on any current mass-produced automobile and should, along with their phenomenal grip, render the Z28′s steering heavy and truck-like. Instead, thanks to the tuneability of the Camaro’s electric power steering system (I think it’s just about time to bury this growing prejudice against computer-controlled steering systems), there’s a delicacy to the Z/28′s steering wheel that is both communicative and confidence inspiring.



The rest of the Z/28, at least from a performance perspective, is equally impressive. The carbon ceramic brakes, like all of their ilk, are powerful and fade-free. Unlike some of their brethren, however, the Camaro’s work well in low load situations, not requiring the high-speed of a racetrack to generate enough heat to grip effectively.

The other superlative is the Z/28′s engine. Essentially lifted from the previous generation Z06, it revs more freely than the newer supercharged variant and produces its torque more linearly, an important advantage that favours the racetrack’s need for delicate throttle application. Ironically, for a car usually associated with brawn over brain, the area in which the Z/28 suffers compared with some of the competition it now targets is in the power department. Acceleration from zero to 100 km/h is said to be somewhere around four seconds flat, impressive enough but comparatively lethargic against the sub three-second recordings of Porsche’s Turbo S and the monster-motored GT-R.



That said, the Z/28′s overall speed around a curvy track is jaw-dropping. According to GM, a Z/28 is over two and a half seconds faster than the more powerful ZL1 on its Milford Road Course, and more than five seconds more rapid than a Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca. Motor Trend, meanwhile, saw the Z/28 besting the Porsche by 0.17 seconds and the GT-R by 0.28 seconds around Barber.

Neither of those offers independent adjudication. Thus, it is probably more impressive that the Z/28 has lapped the famed Nurburgring in 7:37.47 (faster than a Lamborghini Gallardo LP-570-4 Superleggera) in the rain. On dry-track tires. An only slightly smug Oppenheiser wants to go back, certain that a time of 7:28 is in the cards.

That would be as fast as a McLaren MP4-12C. Yes, in a Camaro.

[brt3]

READ JALOPNIK REVIEW HERE

The 2014 Chevy Camaro Z/28 Can Actually Kick All Of Your Asses



Designers might make a sexy looking car, but engineers make cars that you actually want to drive. Engineers made the 2014 Camaro Z/28. And it's transformed the Camaro for the better in every conceivable way. That means this is a modern Camaro that's actually as good as Camaro fanboys pretend it is.

(Full Disclosure: I drove up to Monticello Motor Club to get some track time in the Camaro Z/28, which Chevy kindly provided. I didn't crash. Not even once!)

I've never liked the new Camaro. I think it's a great looking car, but there a number of aspects you can't ignore if you're not a hardcore Camaro fan. First and foremost, you just can't see out of it. It's like driving a tank but with less visibility. It also feels gigantic and heavy like a tank, and that's mainly because it is gigantic and heavy.



In addition, the steering was rubbery and it never felt as fast as it could be. I do love the supercharged insanity of the ZL1, but it was never going to be a lithe corner cutter. Not close.

But that was never the realm of a car wearing the ZL1 badge in the past. That always fell to the car that was racing in Trans Am and on road courses across America. That was the Z/28. And the new Z/28 has only one objective: To be as pants shittingly fast around a race track as humanly possible.

Mission accomplished.

The Z/28 is an amalgamation of parts that makes up an engineer's wet dream. The weight has been shed to bring the portly Camaro down to a more respectable, but still heavy, 3,800 pounds. The engine is the 505 horsepower LS7 straight out of the last Corvette Z06. There is a ton of aero work including a simply ridiculous front splitter and a bowtie that has been cut out to make for more airflow to the engine. A flowtie, if you will. A super trick suspension setup with F1-style monotube shocks replaces magnetic ride. The carbon ceramic brakes are ridiculously unbelievable and probably the best part of the car. The tires are Pirelli's semi-slick and barely street legal Trofeo R.



That all sounds well and good, but how does it feel? Is it still a fat Camaro? Or is it something more that's actually worth $75,000?

It's the latter. When you drive the Z/28, the overwhelming impression is that the engineering team was given the New GM mission to build something great, not just something cheap. They've taken a car that was never meant to be a track car, a car that was inherited from the Australians, and transformed the performance parameters in every conceivable way.

The LS7 has instant power. It's one of the last great naturally aspirated engines out there. A real big bruiser of a motor. Sure, Z/28s traditionally have a 302 under the hood, but this 427 has so much torque and thrust that to complain would be like arguing that the person you're about to sleep with is too gorgeous.



But the real news is just how this car turns and stops. Can we talk about the brakes first? I want to talk about the brakes. We need to discuss these brakes. Chevrolet has fitted next generation carbon ceramics to the Z/28, brakes that are very much like the ones on the upcoming 2015 Corvette Z06. They are spectacularly good.

Bite is hard and immediate and they refuse to fade. And this is a 3,800 pound car, you'd expect it to have massive weight transfer and be sluggish under braking. That's not the case. The trick suspension keeps it totally flat and the brakes are magic. I now totally understand why the tires were rotating on the wheels when they initially tested the Z/28.

The cornering performance is also out of this world, and a lot of that is down to the super sticky tires. While I find the slightly numb steering (especially on center or at lower speeds) to be the weakest part of this stellar car, the actual handling is mind blowing to a level that would make Gandhi eat beef.



Chevrolet put what are probably the most aggressive tires that you can get on a production car on the Z/28. They're worth every penny, as long as they're warm. When they're cold and you push the gas, expect a butt clenching wiggle from the rear end that definitely didn't happen when I was driving. Nope.

But once they're warm, they're magic. At the limit with the performance traction management set in track, you have tons of grip and it doesn't immediately bite you if you surpass the edge of grip. It breaks away progressively enough that a little correction will bring it right back in line.

This is not a car you finesse. You grab it by the scruff and boss it around. Don't ease into the brakes and trail it into a corner. Stab the brakes (and do it late. Like really late.), turn in, and get right back on the gas. If you don't boss the Z/28 around, it won't dance for you. It'll think you're a bitch and won't show you its magic.



The biggest debate is the price. The Z/28 is $75,000. I think it's totally worth it, especially since a lot of cars it competes with are two or three times the price. But you have to remember that it's also a bit of a one-trick pony. It won't be a comfortable road car, especially without AC and a radio. Those Pirelli Trofeo R tires will make it absolutely useless in the rain.

But that one trick, well, it's like this pony can fly.

[brt3]

Popular Mechanics: One-Track Pony

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PDF copy of Z/28 Parts List added to first post; thanks to RadRace19 for posting this info in his sticky thread!

[Mikamaro]

Here's a new one: Track-Racing the Fastest and Priciest Camaro Ever: http://youtu.be/_WkL1nplV9U

[brt3]

Video on AFTER/DRIVE: IS THE Z/28 WORTH $75K?

[brt3]

Originally Posted by Mikamaro

Here's a new one: Track-Racing the Fastest and Priciest Camaro Ever: http://youtu.be/_WkL1nplV9U

About 17 seconds in, the guy describes the Z/28 as "supercharged". OUCH!!!