yeah, one of my friends thinks that the old 911's handled so much better than vettes. Then I show them that article and he says its a biased magazine :confused:

I also referenced the pantera vs C3 test where the C3 was right on par with the pantera and he of course refuses to admit that as well. Some people
:cheers:

 

I've got lots more where that came from. :yesnod:

 

Quote:

Without some (a lot) work on them all American cars handle and brake like crap compared to European standards

TWINNIE, What European standards?:confused: Because I lived in Europe for all my life and european standards are set by Renault Clio, Peugeot 106, and "crap" like that.:lol: I would never buy a BMW or Mercedes or even the so call suspension Porsches over a vette. My all family has had E300, 740 my girl friend has a Z3, and my best frien in Portugal has a SLK 230 BRABUS and I'm sorry to tell ya buba that all of this doesn't outperform a vette or even a mustang. That SLK is nothing but over priced kids stuff.
The C3 has a chassis design that goes back to 63, and my 82 handles better than my old 94 Ford Escort RS Cosowrth. Now I don't know in what condition is your C3 in order to scare you on the autobahn, I've driven my at 155 mph on the highway(405 hp LT-5 engine) but if you don't like American cars fine, it's your opinion, but don't come out saying that they're crap, because europe has much more than america.
So if your vette continues to scare you just sell it, and don't make any generalization about all, when you only have one case.:nono:

Oh, by the way R&T results of the skipad for these cars are:
Corvette ZO6 1.01g
BMW M3 0.91g
Porsche 911 0.96g
The facts are shown, no bull s#!t
Good luck in autobahn next time!:reddevil
Paul :flag











[Modified by inferno-vette, 5:24 AM 4/19/2002]

 

DAMN! Tell us more about your Vette! :eek:

 

Gymkhana ?, F-41 BB ?, FE-7 SB? Flav, your younge Padawon needs your assistance in translatting this. (Yes, I speel really bad...today:jester )
:cheers:

 

F-41 was heavy duty suspension for earlier big block cars (stiffer springs, etc)

BB is big block

FE-7 and Gymkhana are the same thing - they are the F-41 package carried over from '74+.

 

Since GM had a no racing policy the high performance or racing parts were called "heavy duty".

:cool:

See my website 77 facts- Performance 77 FE-7.

 

Well, to answer the original question, for a 27 year old car with a suspension designed in the early 60's, it handles very well. The brakes seem to be subjective. I think my Stingray brakes VERY well, better than my C4 does, better than my boss's '83 911. To say American cars handle like crap is a silly statement to make. I have driven quite a few different Vettes and they ALL handle diffferently, to state every car made by an entire nation handles worse than another continent's is just too broad of a statement. I do like European cars but the comment I have is similar to the Europeans, they are too expensive here to justify buying one. I recently drove a '00 Porsche 911 twin turbo. The owner insisted I drive it hard and really work it out. The car was phenomonal and very impressive. After that I drove another friend's '02 Z06. While an impressive car,for threeto four times the money, the Porsche was not 4 times better. The Z06 would hold its own against it. Besides, us Americans don't care about handling, we like to blow the doors of of eurotrash stoplight to stoplight.:D:D:D:D

Tell me if this looks familiar (oo=oo) :)




[Modified by Fastguy, 11:12 AM 4/19/2002]

 

If you want to know truly bad handling try driving a Renault 30!
:cheers:

 

I would like to add some actual testing to this topic: I let a friend of mine drive my stock 73 on the fun roads around his house. He drives a 2000 Audi A4 Sport and his familiar with the road and his car. His first impression was the Vette was very easy to get confident in. The brakes were smooth and progressive and the balance of the car very good. After about half an hour, he was squeeling the tires around some of the tighter turns, exploring the limits (he is a good friend). I asked him how it compared to the Audi, and he said the Audi was definitely much faster, but it was the Vette's tires that seemed to be giving up first (BFG Radial T/A's). So, I guess that 30 year old state of the art suspension is still OK, even if compared to one of the best sport sedans in the world. Joe

 

Let me answer this topic briefly from my point of view. Yes, C3's can be made to handle very well. If you use urethane bushings on the suspension components, stiffen up the front and rear springs, install high pressure gas shocks, and install front and rear sway bars with urethane bushings and mounts, and have new bushings pressed into your trailing arms, then even on stock tires, you will experience a very dramatic improvement in handling.

Now combine that with improved rubber, and you will have something that'll handle about as well as almost anything that Europe can put out. The C3's are gifted with very near a perfect 50/50 weight balance, which helps very much. A little attention to detail with improving the suspension pays big dividends.

With rubber, wider is often better, but along with wider comes unavoidable dartiness over road ruts. Or you can use a narrower tire with a higher rating, such as ZR, for the softer rubber, and you'll still handle better than stock without the dartiness. You may have to upgrade to a 17 inch wheel to get the best tires now.

 

I will not sell my vette, I never said it scared me.. :crazy:

But of course you all are right.. I am not allowed to have my own opinion so:

The C3 has ultimate suspension, the steering is tight & crisp and the brakes are the finest ever produced... :rolleyes: happy now?

Sheesh...

And don't pull things to extemes, I never said american cars were crap.. I would be the biggest fool if I thought these cars were crap and then to spends thousands and thousands of dollars on one...

Marck

 

This is a Gymkhana FYI for those who want to know the difference (from Corvette News, Oct/Nov 1975):

 

SuperFast80

I respectfully have to disagree with you regarding the Vette vs T/A. Find someone who has a 78/79 WS6 equiped Trans-Am and get them to take you for a spin round the block. Then jump out and have a look at his sway bars, they make Vette bars look skinny. From my experience even a Gymkhana equiped Vette would have no chance against a WS6 T/A on a road coarse if both cars were FACTORY STOCK. I have owned four Trans-Ams and one Bullnosed Formula 400 and I have ridden in and driven a good few Vettes including a C5.


Chassis wise, the Trans Am had no equal from cars built in America. Car & Driver subjectively proved that in the September '79 issue, when the T/A was pitted against Corvette, Z28, Capri, the new front wheel drive Phoenix. Hands down, the Trans Am was judged to be several notches above the rest by having better road manners and in real world driving conditions. Even though the Camaro Z28 was an extremely close cousin to the Trans Am, the handling was dialed in for understeer while the big stabilizer bars and higher rate rear springs made the T/A much more neutral. The surprising equation in all of this is the Trans Am chosen to do battle was only fitted with a 150 hp 301 cubic inch V8! The 301 was picked because it put less weight over the nose, but we folks with 400's known you offset the nose-heavy tendencies with subtle applications of horsepower. The most important news here is that even handicapped, we won.

When it comes to handling, no four place car made in America had a prayer in keeping up with a WS6 equipped Trans Am. What is WS6 you ask, well you are about to find out more than you wanted to know.

First off, on automatic cars you got the obligitory stiffer rear springs (25-lb/in higher deflection rating) that in Detroit-speak means "tuned". The rear stabilizer bar grew to .75" versus the .62" of the non-WS6 car and all stabilizer bars received polyurethane link bushings versus the softer rubber bushing of all other Firebirds. The shocks were valved a little tigher for greater wheel control, and a new steering gearbox with a ratio of 14:1 replaced the 16:1 variable ratio unit of lesser TA's (is there such a thing?). Finally where the rubber meets the road (litterally) a P225/70R15 steel belted radial of Goodyear or Uniroyal origin was mounted on a set of 15 x 8 inch wide snowflake wheels. The wheels are easily recognized by the deep dish look versus the flush appearance of the standard T/A snowflakes.

If you are looking at a T/A and wondering if you have the WS6 suspension, there are two ways to find out, an easy and a hard. Unfortunately for me, I found out about the easy way only after doing things the hard way. The hard way was to make a pair of gauges, preferably out of metal, of .62" and .75" respectively, crawl under the car and see which one just barely fits the rear stabilizer bar. This is what I did, suit jacket, tie and all. Pretty dumb when you consider if I would have been thinking all I would have had to do is open the left door and check out the tire plaquard on the door. A non-WS6 car will have a GR70x15 listed as the tire sizes while the real deal will list the P225/70R15. If a door has been replaced or someone has taken the time to counterfeit a sticker, then maybe the hard way isn't so dumb after all. By the way I have a WS6 car.

The WS6/W72 combination quickly established the 1978 Trans Am as the "King of the Hill", long before there was such a thing a a Corvette ZR-1. Magazines loved the car and the Spring 1978 issue of Road Test magazine squared off a Z28, a Corvette, and a Trans Am in a street fight. The T/A was clearly chosen as the easiest car to drive fast.


J.

 

Qoute:

If you want to know truly bad handling try driving a Renault 30!

Yep, that one and I've aslo driven the Citroen 2CV!!! :U
Paul

 

I guess I'll jump in here too. I about wrecked my 73 the second week I had it becouse I thought I could pull the same stuff as my step-fathers 86 Z-51. Not even close stock to stock, of course an 86 Z-51 is one of the better handling vettes of all of them. With some good rubber, 16" wheels and larger front and rear swaybars the difference isn't near as much and I can actually say now that it handles pretty good. The 86 has more miles on it but the 73 is older so I'm not comparing a high mileage old car to a newer low mileage car so they should be similar as far as wear and tear. My goal with the 73 is to get it to handle as well as my mothers 3 series BMW. The BMW is firm but not harsh and is very predictable in a corner, you just feel very confident with it. I'd shoot for par with the 86 but that would take some big $$. Oh well I'm going to get off of hear and order some shocks for the 73 to help out even more.

:cheers:
Pat Kunz

 

Yes my 82 has the 94 ZR-1 drive train, but it was like that when I bought it from the local hot-rod shop (not cheap) It's not very good around town because the engine only awakens past 2500/3000rpms but it can go all the way till 7K, although not every day. I'm instaling new suspension mods for the next few months and after that maybe I can drive faster than 155 (stock ZR1 was 180??/185??) I also istalled a set of hooker side pipes for the BB (nightmare) :smash: had to cut flanges, bend pipe, weld new flanges, O2 sensors...etc. I hope to have all the susp. done for the 50th Anniversary Celebration in Nashville. :cool:

 

What bothers me is that my car is very unstable at high speeds (55+).
Although I have adjusted to max caster the self centering is close to zero.
It's very sensitive to uneven road surface and I have to baby sit it all the time. Just a split second of distraction and I'm off the road....
If I floor it at high speeds the car shakes, twists and is really hard to control. Passing other cars at WOT on our narrow roads is really scary.

Since there are no C3's in my area I haven't had a chance to compare my car to others

I've never ever had a car that feels so unsafe.
My sisters MB SLK is another world when it comes to stability and control.

(complete rear end rebuilt, new shocks, new idler arm, adjusted steering box, no detectable slack in front bushings/*****)

 

Ingar,

My 69 and later my 79 were quite stable at extremely high speeds. I have seen many Vettes that sit too high in front which would probably make them atrocious at highway speeds and above. Too little caster will also make the front twitchy, but easier to turn if you have manual steering. 30 years of wear on parts also make a big difference. Every little bit of front suspension and steering all adds up. I would guess that there are still several wear items that have not been replaced.

Don't be satisfied with your car's present condition. If you like the car now, you will love it and be richly rewarded when you get it to drive and handle the way it was meant to be!

The point of my shiny front bumper is 17" (I think this is about 43 centimeters) off the ground and the rear half shafts parallel to the ground. With this height and a factory front spoiler in good condition you should be able to cruise 150 mph on the Autobahn without any trouble if your steering and suspension are up to spec. I should also add that your suspension should be at least the equal of the Gymkhana or F41 suspension. The factory base factory suspension is only good to about 120 or so.

Make sure that your suspension is coordinated. Many people improve one part of the suspension, but not the rest. This often makes the problems worse. Kind of like installing one super sticky tire, but leaving the original bald OEM tires on the other 3 wheels. People who would do this kind of thing would then stupidly complain that the new tire is a crummy product.

Don't give up!

Chuck :)

 

-Yeah ! - listen to this guy, he knows his stuff....

I just completed a rear suspension re-build and MAN ! -what a difference in handling..... it's funny how the car now goes where I point it ! :lol: :chevy :flag
Hang in there - I've seen C3's beat C5's on autocross tracks !!! (not original of course :D )