C7 Corvette Z06 Track Report: Hard Data for the Temperature Talk
We all know the stories about the new C7 Z06 and its heat soak issues. Well, rather than take a look at a lot of random foum posts, Corvette Forum member sushisean has given us a legitimate collection of data that we can start using to see just how big this issue really is. Sushisean spent two days playing around at Chuckwalla and he gave us track temps, air temps, and various car temps after lapping. He even loaded up the PDR video (shown below). Now this is just one car, with one driver, and only at one track, but it does give us a performance baseline to work from.
Let’s start with car prep. Sushisean’s Corvette is a stock Z07 package car with the M7 transmission and the wheels have been swapped for a set of Forgelines wrapped in Continental slicks. Only 3500 miles are on the odometer. To prepare for the heat, the car was running an 80/20 mix of water and coolant with WatterWetter added. The alignment is set to track specs, and RBF 600 can be found in the brake fluid reservoir. The only real change to the car is the “LawDogg Mod” of pulling the weather strip from the base of the windshield to help underhood airflow.
The track itself was hot and dry. Air temps hovered in the 100-degree range and track temps could be as high as 140+. Lapping sessions were limited to 6 laps – one out lap, four in anger, one in lap to cool down – and sushisean says he ran with no A/C, but temps still managed to climb. Max temps ran at 261 for oil, 220 for the transmission, and 234 for the coolant. None of those numbers are out of this world, but that climbing oil temp could get worrisome if there were a few more laps.
You can see from the PDR vid that this was not the most aggressive driving in the world, and the relatively high speeds will help in cooling, but it is promising to see that all track days won’t be cut short due to overheating Corvettes and throttled power.
So, let this be the start to a long and fruitful discussion about what works and what doesn’t with the new Z06. If you are tracking your car, head over to the main thread and see how sushisean set up his information. If we can use this as a base for standardized data gathering, we can get some real facts and figures and maybe we can force GM’s hand into providing better cooling.
Now go forth to track blast and data gather!
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
