ronsc1985

Don't assume a rev limiter solves all problems. Down shifting to the wrong gear can still put the valve train well over 7K for a time. One time doing this may be all it takes. This is true for any car especially, pushrod engines.

joe11204

C'mon Captain.. You should know better... It's not stock with 2 people in the car...

I heard if you have a passenger in your car over 221.8 lbs and "pop" your engine while accelerating the warranty isn't covered because the additional clamp force from the sprung mass in direct relation to the unsprung mass in the suspention caused additional stresses in the drivetrain which the car wasn't certified for.



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jimman

Both of you should know better, it's mods that affect the disign limits of the car. If you don't know how to interpret that along with what has been said on this thread I wish you would buy some other brand that's more durable. You might want to advise my neighbor on his 500 hp BMW and 11k dollars on motor repair this week.

joe11204

For a minute there I thought my father just joined CF and was scolding me..

You really need to lighten up...

What I am interpreting here is that anyone with whatever set of data can interpret it to read however they see fit.

I for one don't care if only 9 or 900 LS7 were warrantied in stock Z06's. The car definitely has an issue with the dry sump system and if something breaks then I will bring it in for warranty. I love the car. There is no better bang-for-the-buck out there IMHO !

In the mean time I will Zaino it, drive it and enjoy my 09Z06 as much as I can.

If someone wants to say that only 9 of of 25,623 C6 Z06 engines were warrantied in stock cars from GM in the last 3 years then that's there business putting that out there.

You can SPIN the numbers as much as you like.

Am I to believe that in 3 years only 9 LS'7 engines were shipped from GM to dealerships for warranty repairs? That must be some stockpile of LS7's in the warehouse.

I for one see the data as flawed. All that is know for sure is that there were 25,623 C6Z06's produced by GM as of date. This data is from GM and it is precise. Until GM provides us to the number of failed and warrantied C6Z06 there will not be an accurate conclusion.

Not every one who owns a Corvette is on Corvette Forum.
Not everyone who "popped" a motor reported it on Corvette Forum.
There are other Corvette Forums out there, was any data about failed LS7's researched on:
smokingvette.com
digitalcovettes.com
z06corvette.com
Corvettes on Twitter
All the Corvette goups on Facebook
c6corvettefoum.com
vetteweb.com
corvetteactioncenter.com
corvette-nation.com
corvettevalley.com
etc... etc... etc...


Again, I LOVE the C6Z. It is the best out of all the other vettes I owned. If my motor "pops", as some put it, I will bring it in for warranty.



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'06 Quicksilver Z06

OK, well lets work with that.

You said:

"I say the people who do tire/suspension mods are the only people who drive the car hard enough to expose its weaknesses."

When one does tire and suspension modifications, what effect does that have on the remaining components of the car, and the propensity to reach the extent of, or exceed, their design limits, when it is driven hard on some of the most demanding road courses in North America?

And if these "weaknesses of which you speak, are not "exposed" until the machine is altered by the owner, then why should we fault General Motors for that?

Secondly, you said:

"But it sure seems far fetched to blame engine failure on *tires*, especially when there are multiple non-oiling related failures (e.g. dropped valves".

How many instances of dropped valves, in bone stock engines, not bone stock cars mind you, we'll get off bone stock cars for the purposes of this single post, how many descriptions have there been, of dropped valves having destroyed bone stock engines in members of this board's cars?


The best way, to find examples of unmolested/unmodded Z06s which would meet the requirement of spending most of their lives being flogged on the road course, would be to look to the top driving schools, Spring Mountain, Bob Bondurant, etc.

They do have some modified cars, but most are stock.

Spring Mountain, according to Jane Curran has 7 2008's alone.

The biggest hole in this argument about Z06s popping their engines at an alarming rate, is the issue of Spring Mountain and their Z06s. Their cars are driven hard, driven hard frequently, by multiple driver's, in the desert of Nevada, with the airconditioning on.

Without question, the number of duty cycles their cars see, their maintenance program has to be top notch.

That said, I have a few points I'd like to state here.

1. We have had several members here to pay the $3,000.00 and attend Spring Mountain. These members come back to the forum, and typically relay their experience.

The cars are driven under some of the most grueling conditions.

Anyone says those cars aren't "driven hard" I'd disagree. I don't think that you will find anyone who says that these cars are not driven hard.

The cars are driven hard by the instructors, and the students.

Yet I can find no instance, of any member in here, who came back to us and told us, of an engine failure that he had during his course at Spring Mountain in one of their cars, nor a failure that he witnessed, nor a failure of one of their cars that he heard of, occuring at Spring Mountain.

I also can find no report of this from former Bondurant students in here either.

If these STOCK cars (or even their modified cars for that matter) were "blowing up" at the incredible rate some in here want to believe, and want us to believe, Spring Mountain would not be able to keep them on the track.

At right at 13K for a new engine, how would that be cost effective for them to wind up putting several engines into the same car if they were "blowing up" at the rate some of you in here want to indicate?

People love sensationism. But when you look at the facts, the history, something altogether different emerges.

2. There are also no such reports of incidents at Bob Bondurant from any member in here who has attended his school.

It would hardly be cost effective, for these schools, with their own road courses facilities, to run Z06s, if the engines weren't durable enough to endure lap after lap, student, after student, instructor after instructor, day after day, month after month.

Furthermore, and more importantly, it would make no sense for them to run these cars until they popped.

Therefore, they must be paying particularly close attention to the maintenance on those cars.

The SAME or SIMILAR attention would need to be paid to a privately owned Z06 approaching the duty cycles of the aforementioned cars.

If you don't want to do that, then don't bitch if it pops.

3. I want you to take a look at this. As mentioned, Spring Mountain has 7 2008 Z06s alone, not counting any '06s or '07s they may have.

Now if these cars are popping, and are broken half the time, what sense would it make for them to keep using them in their schools?

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-c...corvettes.html

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-z...-mountain.html

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-z...post1562714210

Now all that said, with the number of duty cycles, and Jason, I hate to keep quoting him, (so I'm going to paraphrase to my best recollection), pointed to this as well, as extreme duty cycles go up, so does the failure rate. It is to be expected.

If you are going to be flogging the hell out of the car, then you can expect that your maintenance intervals/ schedule, and inspections to go up as well, if you want to keep any car running.

This could, depending upon how frequently you track your car, and how you drive it when you get to the track, result in you needing to make more of an effort to inspect the parts of the car which you can inspect, to insure their proper working order, or, it could mean replacing components which are prone to wear, and fatigue and which could lead to catastrophic failure if neglected in the enviorment of extreme duty.

Translated: "If you are beating the $#** out of your car on the track, then you are going to want to check it more closely than if you are driving it to the store and back. That could include oil analysis, inspecting beneath your valve covers, etc.

Painrace alludes to it to. They decided to tear his engine down and discovered that his bearings were not in great shape. Painrace is a former professional racer. And very few people in here drive their cars as hard as he does.

That brings me to Frank Gonzales another racer. He has spoken in here on several occasions about the durability of his car.

I don't know about you, but I'll take the word of Jason, Painrace, and GonzalezFJ, look to what cars the people at Spring Mountain, Ron Fellows and Bob Bondurant elect to use for their classes, and go from there. I don't believe that they would use these cars if they were the crap that some of you are trying your damnedest to paint them as.

Wives tales, sensationalism, idle chatter about a "crisis" which exists nowhere else except among a few folks on the internet, because people want to discuss something, and my brothers, girlfriend's aunt's ex husband had a Z06 "blow up", don't interest me a whole lot.

Finally, for joe11204 who posted with regard to "other forums" out there.

I'd point out, that this is a part of the problem. Many of the same stories which get told in here, get told over there and they are describing the SAME car.

Many members in here, also are members on other fora as well. This however is the largest community of Corvette owners on the internet.

Those of you who want to believe that there is a "crisis" and that these engines are "flawed" and that they have a propensity to "blow up" go right ahead. But there is nothing to support that notion.

2002rich

Yep, an engine blows up and folks swear they did nothing wrong. While that might be true when the engine actually let go but they forgot to tell you about the missed "downshifts" .... meaning actually going into the wrong gear.

Missed upshifts and free revving are protected by the rev limiter while downshifts are not. It's the latter that will destroy the engine. Maybe not today or tomorrow but sometime or another when you least expect it, "KABLAMMO". After, someone will start a thread on this forum, that's titled "Another LS7 Engine Bites the Dust" Well, the rest is history

Failures like the one above get mixed up in the failures that are true weaknesses in the design of the engine and/or a bad batch of parts that got installed in some engines.

The bottom line......."the truth will never be the truth"

dbhajek

He didnt say anything about racing, he is talking about HPDE events. You do know what the Z06 option is all about?

But according to one of the conclusions on this thread is if you run anything other then stock tires on the track, if your motor pops, you might be out of luck on warranty.

dbhajek

But Diry Howie or I are not talking about racing, we are talking about HPDE events and I think there is a big difference.

I have seen you post that you use to race. So I think when you hit the track in a HPDE you are still in that ***** to the wall race car driver mod and are still racing so maybe and you think every one that does HPDE is doing the same thing, so maybe a race car is what you need. When I go to a HPDE I go to have fun and learn to be a better driver and that doesnt take a race car and I think thats what the Z06 is sold as.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Theres a lot of truth to that.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Yeah, you could be.

As pointed out already, if you went in there with General Exclaims, or whatever street tire some of the people are replacing their runflats with nowadays, you probably won't have a problem.

But if you went in with Hoosier R6s, or some other similar tire, well then you just might.

Here is a good thread too, if you want to take a look at it.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-z...s-opinion.html

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rlp6162

Holy Cow, how dense are you? GM also never specifically stated that installing a supercharger pushing 12 psi would be harmful to your engine - somewhere common sense has to be injected. If you are that unhappy with your Z, if you have one, just get rid of it.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Lets try and keep it civil. I don't want the mods coming in here.

rlp6162

Sorry, I've let some of the post here get to me. :o

'06 Quicksilver Z06

I hear you, understand and I agree with you too. Like you stated above, somewhere common sense has to be injected. And unfortunately we aren't always seeing that when it comes to these cars and modifications done to them.

Just because GM didn't specifically state that you shouldn't do something, if you want the car to operate normally, doesn't mean that its OK to do it.

They don't specifically say "Don't put dirt into the gas tank". But that doesn't mean that its OK to do it.

If you are following the thread closely, you will note that a lot of it comes down to accountability, as well as that injection of common sense you mention.

For example, it has already been pointed out that the car is capable of just under 1.3gs on it's stock tires.

That "common sense", you speak of, would tell you that if you make ANY alterations to the car which would allow it to exceed that, and then have resulting problems, that it is not a "design flaw", but rather a case of the end user, having altered the product in such a manner as it would operate beyond its initial design, and the capabilities of it's stock systems.

Now how GM is supposed to be "at fault" or "derelict" as a result, defies that "common sense" you speak of.

And when problems happen, we don't want to be "accountable" ourselves.......we want to hold GM accountable, for having "screwed up" and "not building this thing so that I could make the alterations I wanted to make to it".

We want to badmouth the product, start a "panic", because it failed after we made alterations to it, which allowed it to operate outside its original capabilities.

ronsc1985

So you think GM should honor your warranty because you say you can't hustle the car around the track no matter what tires or suspension modifications you make.

That is silly if for no other reason that everyone at these events is trying to go faster. Do you know anyone who comes back from the tracks and talks about how slow they went?

Accept the fact that if you chose to change the car from stock and go to the track you may lose your warranty as you should. If you can't accept then then sell the car and buy some other brand which doesn't care what you do to/with the car. Good luck with that.

allanlaw

I'm all in favor of common sense. I've been running C5 coupes, and now my C6Z, at HDPE events since 2000. I'm not the fastest guy at the track, but (usually) not the slowest, and almost all of the time I'm on non-oem tires of the type that you can safely drive 350 miles each way to the track (L.A. to Spring Mountain, for example) - like Kumho MX's on the C5's and Nitto 555RII's and NT01's on the Z. I've also been on this Forum for almost 10 years. Now, in all the years I ran the C5's, I never heard any suggestion that running 100-200 treadwear tires would make the engine go kaboom because it caused it to exceed the tested specs. Note that I am not talking about C5's used in actual racing, nor those abused to within an inch of their lives whether on oem or non-oem tires (and some guys I've met on oem tires can run rings about me and my non-oem tires).

The expectation (perhaps erroneous) that we C5 guys gathered from this and from GM's advertising for the C5Z did not put us in a state of mind to worry that our tire choice would lead to the consequences that are now being suggested. Sure, "common sense" dictates that blowers, turbos, hot cams, tunes etc. can stress the engine beyond what it can tolerate, but simply putting on non-runflat street-legal treaded tires? I don't think so. So, some folks who bought their Z's as a street/HDPE, drive-to-the-track car may feel a little disappointed to read the conclusions you draw. Now, please note that I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just indicating the state of mind that you may see being evidenced in some of the posts, whether expressed that clearly or not. My own conclusion is that expressed by Dreamin in other posts, that the the culprit (at least for oiling failures, not dropped valves) is left-hand sweepers, and so I personally have avoided running the Z counterclockwise on tracks with potential turns under that category, leaving me free to run my NT01's to avoid chunking my runflats on the track. As far as the other solutions being suggested for cars that are tracked (third party baffles in tank or pan, higher capacity reservoir), I'm waiting for a little more experience with an installed base before reaching any conclusions.

BTW there will be a certain number of engine failures that will occur even in garage queens, just due to the nature of mechanical devices. I have know way of knowing for sure what percentage of the total failures fall in this category, nor does anyone else but GM and they aren't saying.

joe11204

Well put !






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allanlaw

No, we come back and talk about how slow Dirty Howie went . . .

dbhajek

Whoa, Whoa I never said anything about suspension.

Dirty Howie said

"You should be able to put on any other street (non R-compound) tire of comparable rating, like the NT05.

You should not be restricted to the GY runflat !!!"

and I agreed to that. No where was the words suspension mentioned on that post.

So to answer your question yes I think GM should warranty my Z06 if I have nothing other then NT05, which is a street legal tire, at a HPDE and no I am not going to sell my car.

dbhajek

Perfectly said. Also coming from a X C5 Z06 owner that ran NT01s.