JoppaTheHut

I'm in the market for a C6 Corvette and my friend has a C6 Z51 and told me not to get a C6 Zo6 because its not worth the money difference if i was going to upgrade it anyway. Thoughts?

rjacobs

your friend is dead wrong.

C6 Z06 has over a Z51:
MASSIVE BRAKES... Z51 brakes are so marginally better than base brakes its a joke, especially compared to Z06 brakes.
427
aluminum frame
wide body
wider wheels & tires
"better" transmission and rear end
better/different suspension

Im sure there are quite a few other differences. You will spend FAR MORE than the actual price difference between the two cars to "upgrade" a Z51 to something resembling a Z06. Hell the wide body, to do right, dang near covers the difference in price.

JoppaTheHut

Thank you i have more questions also about power adders. TT or A and A supercharger kit? i know i will need to upgrade the diff. and clutch and axels but i am trying to figure what one would be a better route.

njk4o5

if I could go back and do it again, id buy a base car and add a ECS kit and be at or above the power level of a z06 with H/C/I and still less price and no worries about the engine.

Then id keep my eyes out for wide body parts and pick them up piece by piece. My .02

Nowanker

Only thing steered me into the Z over modding a base model was the removable roof bullsh*t. Have a base C5, never found a reason to take the top off. Only listen to the squeak.

rickyb

I have owned both. I liked my 2000 over the 2005 z51. The 2005 is like a very fast sedan. It just doesn't have that raw feel. After a few months, it didn't even feel fast anymore. My z06 still scares me.

z06clif

Me too

Clif

rjacobs

base model or grandsport with LS3 will be a far better candidate for a blower IMO. Stock LS7 cant run a lot of boost. Cylinder liners are pretty thin and the motors dont tolerate detonation. I would say MOST guys that run blowers on their Z06's have built bottom ends with real sleeves. This gets into a lot of $$$$ to make reliable HP in an LS7. LS3 is different animal. There are a few local guys I run around with at the 750-800whp level on stock LS3 bottom ends and blowers spraying meth and they BEAT on their cars. I would say the majority of LS7 guys you see stay NA, do the heads, throw a cam in, headers, CAI, etc... and run 550-600whp all day long reliably with great driveability, no cooling issues, etc... Dont expect an N/A LS7 to ever make 700+ whp. If you have to have 700+ WHP the journey is expensive with an LS7.

Any of these cars with high HP you will end up having to run drag radials or something like an R888 as a daily driver tire in order to put power down. 3-5k miles life, maybe less. Thats another thing to think about. At 550whp I run Invo's, they dont hook 1st at all and 2nd can be squirly as well. And remember a base model without wide body doesnt have nearly the tire that a Z06 or Grand Sport can put to the ground.

Clutch would have to be swapped no matter what you go with. Rear diff's are crazy strong on these cars with the most common breakage being output shafts(which tend to take other parts out with them). Axle shafts are pretty strong as well. I believe most of the high HP guys running around here are still running stock axle shafts at 750-800whp. 06-08 Z06 can actually be "upgraded" with c5 Z06 shafts, where as the 09+ shafts are ZR1 shafts and are pretty stout, but not backwards compatible with 06-08 stuff unfortunately.

Do a lot of research. All of your questions can be answered here.

Chris Scott

I have a bored LS7 block (so thinner sidewalls), stock crank and rods, bumped up the compression and running plenty of boost.

Makes north of a 1000hp and still kicking just fine. Just have to have them built and tuned correctly!

Anyways, I own both a base model 2005 Corvette and a Z06, so I'll weigh in my thoughts...

It really depends on what you want out of the car. I originally wanted just a daily driver to not mod, so I bought a 2005 Corvette with a widebody conversion and Z06 brakes for a great price. Also I had the benefit of removing the top (which I actually use quite a bit here in Florida). It even handles phenomenal after I put in coilovers. It's done great and I saved a lot of money from it. Even if I wanted to go faster I could have easily toss on a bolt-on supercharger and cam and make 650rwhp and still came out way below the Z06.

However now you can find a good clean Z06 for low 30s, if you really want the most performance out of the car then swing for the Z06. You get some real nice equipment with the Z06.

You can swap and upgrade anything on either side, but the one thing you can't swap over is that aluminum frame. Just know what you want in the end and go from there.

rjacobs

you dont mention forged pistons, guessing you did those.

That definitely takes 1 of the 2 weak points out of the LS7.

Guessing you are also running a fat spray of meth or E85 or both.

Chris Scott

Yup, forged pistons to raise the compression.

Car has flex fuel, but I primarily run it on Ethanol.

olddragger

rarely do you hear of people going with lower ratios in the diff. Most just don't play around with gearing and that is something I just don't understand.
Get a stock c6 ZO6, put in a 3:92 or 4:11 built diff and for a DD street driven car you will have something very hard to beat. With the right tires it is a very low 11 sec car and actually has the capability to get into the 10's. That's roll cage times.

HOXXOH

The first question is how you intend to use the car for the upgrades you'd consider.
There's a world of difference in performance and $$$ spent.

HOXXOH

Roll bar times. Roll cage doesn't start until 9.99.
It won't make a difference anyway, if the OP never goes to a dragstrip that bothers to check that stuff.

Chris Scott

The reason for that is because you can't change the gear ratio in a Z06 Differential.

The Z06s with different gear ratios have to swap them in base C6 differential housings and have custom (I think RPM makes them) gears that maintain the same input/output spline numbers.

Totally doable, and you can make some money when you sell the stock Z06 differential to help, but probably a "hassle" that a lot of guys don't want to deal with.

It's almost easier to just do some light mods to the LS7 and be overpowered for any non-track benefits of a steeper gear ratio.

I agree though... some gears, tires, couple bolt-ons (for lulz) and you have a scary surprise for some people.

rjacobs

Gotta tell the whole story, especially to a new guy that doesnt know these things. You left out a solid 50%+ of what makes your car run right. If the OP attempted to make 1k hp on stock pistons with 93 octane he would very quickly have a paperweight of a motor.

Chris Scott

Not giving instructions on how to replicate my build.

Just stating and giving an example that a LS7 engine block is perfectly capable of holding boost.

rjacobs

no, but when a new guy sees your post he is going to go "****, I can throw a blower on and run 1000hp" which, to us, is very obvious that you cant do that, but to a new guy who is brand new to vette's(and who knows what other experience he has with high HP cars) you cant leave out important details such as you did.

Chris Scott

Again, that was not the point of my post. I only referred to the block, crank, and rods.

sccaGT1racer

Having owned a 08 Z51 and now a 09 z06. The z06 is a whole different animal. I'm not talking about drag racing but in autocross and tt. There is not many cars that in stock form beat up on the best cars in the world. So far this year with the Z06 I have finished first in class and no worse than 4th overall for FTD. My car is stock with rims ,koni's , front sway bar and a7 hoosier tires.