Howdy Folks! I’ve been lurking here for a few weeks and appreciate all the knowledge I’ve gained from everyone. I just got my first Corvette, and first convertible. I was waiting until reviews of the Grand Sport hit, but when I found out Riptide blue, and the Sky Cool Grey/Ash/Habanero interior had both been discontinued for 2027, I started questing on Chevy’s inventory search engine. Evidently that’s a unicorn color combo, because out of the ~3,000 Z06s on dealer lots, there was only one in the country, in Florida. So I had to grab it because it was “last call”!
It was expensive to have shipped out to Oregon (especially with diesel at $7 a gallon!), but $11K off MSRP more than made up for it. It even had the carbon ceramics without the Z07 package that I was looking for. Here it is:









I’ve got about 850 miles on it now, all point A to point A driving on the gorgeous twisty mountain roads we have here in Southern Oregon and Northern California. This car is impressive, and beautiful! And I love the convertible way more than I thought I would! I’m already falling down the mod rabbit hole though, which is also fun. I’ve just installed and/or ordered:

• Scrape Armor grills
• ACS rock guards
• jacking pucks
• Wide angle mirrors (did the sequential turn signals while I was at it)
• Trunk/frunk/all-weather floor mats
• The grey “euro” style taillights
• Black tailpipes
• Blue washer fluid/brake fluid covers
• And a blue stick on metal “start” button because I couldn’t find orange to match my interior accents.
• It goes in for PPF on the front and rockers (and anywhere else you suggest?) next week. They “sand” the roads in winter here with red lava rock, which stays around all spring. So it’s a necessity out here.
• Oh, and it’ll get full ceramic and windshield PPF while they’re at it.

I’d love to get your thoughts on other mods you think are worth it. I’m particular interested to see who’s had luck eliminating the “hockey stick” glare on the windshield, which is particularly bad with this light interior. The surround around the HUD is medium ash but still a lot of glare in an HTC.
I’d like to add a window to the HTC’s engine cover, but the GM OEM one is out of stock and even off GM’s website. The aftermarket ones seem to lack heat shielding - anyone had issues caused by theirs?

I’m coming from Porsche & Lotus, so my only complaint with the Z06 so far is the lack of feedback from the road. Does using the factory lowering capability help in that at all?

I’ve also read a lot of posts about throttle controllers being more “responsive”. Then a lot about the 92mm throttle ports. Not sure if they’re talking about the same mod?
I don’t really need more power, or more noise. I’m glad I found that if you put the exhaust in “stealth” in My Mode when you turn the car off it’ll start up somewhat more quietly. My neighbors will appreciate that on my Sunday morning drives!

TIA for the advice!

 

First off, congrats! My first C8 Z06 was riptide blue with 2-tone black & sky cool gray. The hockey stick reflection in the windshield was very irritating initially, but then I got some polarized sunglasses and it eliminated a lot of it. If that doesn't solve it for you, you can find overlays on Amazon/Ebay to fit over the various dash trim pieces.

For the engine cover, you can find them all over the place. I got a carbon fiber one off Ebay and have been very happy with it (have used it on both Z06s I've had), pic below. I added some stick on heat shield that I cut to fit to the back of it. Not because I really needed it for heat, but to cut down significantly on the "creaking" it was making with the bare CF going over bumps.

As to the "feel", sorry you're basically out of luck. That's the one area the Z06 and C8 in general aren't great. The C8 uses fully electric steering and GM just didn't do a great job of adding much feedback to it. Doesn't matter whether you run it in Tour, Sport or Track for steering, it's honestly less feedback than my racing sim with a Fanatec wheel. Given how great the rest of the car is, though, I don't really mind it that much. And no, lowering the car isn't going to give you any different feel.

Throttle controllers and throttle bodies are two different things. Personally, I don't see the point of a throttle controller as it's just remapping the throttle by providing a more aggressive ramp when you push the throttle. Some people swear by them, but I find the stock throttle to be perfectly fine. Modified throttle bodies (Soler or Mamo) also seem to provide some change to the throttle mapping and might gain you a few HP. If I were going to do one, I'd probably do Mamo and have him do a "stealth" version without any engraving so it looks completely stock (avoid any warranty issues).

FYI, you can also hold the ignition button for 3 seconds without holding the brake pedal to turn on the car without starting the engine, then switch to Weather mode and it'll run in stealth for the exhaust as well. I do this when I want to be quiet, as I have MyMode set to Sport for the exhaust.

 

Don’t mod it. Best mod, drive it 10-12k miles a year, enjoy it.

 

Congrats on the purchase, a couple of thoughts:

It goes in for PPF on the front and rockers (and anywhere else you suggest?) next week. They “sand” the roads in winter here with red lava rock, which stays around all spring. So it’s a necessity out here.
Consider a track pack of ppf for front bumper, hood, a pillars, and mirrors in addition to the rockers.


RE: glare - the widshield tint (70%) that ive had on my SR and Z have worked out well for me.

RE: Mods - this car is fairly stout for what it is, however, depending on your end goal and budget:

Wheels: magnesium forged wheels are significantly lighter than even factory carbon fiber wfibes (around 4-8lb ea).

Throttle bodies: 100% improvement on drivability and throttle response (i went with Mamo v2, but some do soler also)

Throttle controller: i have yet to recieve mine (backorder), but this is similar to a pedal commander in that throttle input percentage is modified compared to stock (need to "press the gas a smaller amount to get the same % output). This is more of a "fun and preference mod than a HP gain.

Intake: i have both the JLT and Eventuri (currently installed). Throttle response and minimal HP gain for bith, sounds amazing, stock box is a pain to remove.

Exhaust: cats yield most HP, titanium and race Exhaust yield most weight savings (costly, barely performance gaining, but depends on the "pitch" you are looking for primarily)

Corvettestoreonline.com has a bunch of OEM paint matched show parts in case you are interested in any engine compartment or interior dressup (i have their interior LEDs and will be doing exterior LED and engine bay painted parts eventually).


Cheers and welcome again!

 

Beautiful car. Biggest seat of the pants imo single mod would be magnesium wheels and pair them with non runflat tires (drops a ton of rotating weight). Keeps warranty, increases response, speed, acceleration with minimal tradeoff aside from the runflat part.

 

Yeah I’m always taken aback when someone is gung-ho to mod a new car they haven’t lived with long enough to even have a clue what might need modding, if anything.

 

If anything, just stuff like ppf, grill screens and other protective measures.

 

Lithium battery to save weight. They are $300 online.

 

Unless you're going for every last thousand for track times, I really wouldn't bother. Besides which, I'm not sure where you're finding a lithium battery for a C8 that's only $300 that I'd trust.

 

My OEM+ build I planned out before I got the car might give you some ideas. A key mod missing on that list because I got it later is ceramic tint (first time I ever got tint). I'd prioritize that as a first mod.



My biggest visual cues that don't make it look stock are the satin PPF and wheels. Tint also complements the Carbon Flash top/mirrors.

 

Thanks all for the advice! Some things I’d never considered in here like tinting the windshield, DIY heatshielding for an engine window, and lightweighting like the lithium battery (I installed an Antigravity brand on my Lotus and love it) and magnesium wheels (serious $$!).

I was curious to see a dashcam in one of those lists. I haven’t messed with it yet, but is the built-in dashcam feature of the PDR not any good?

The mods I’ve done so far are either cosmetic or protective, and it takes about 1 drive in the Z06 to realize the wide angle mirrors should come standard with the gigantic blind spots caused by the nacelles. I got my scrape armor side intakes installed last night and there were already about 10 pebbles in the passengers side side intake. I was curious if anyone knew what this white 2-pin electrical connector in the drivers side intake is? I fed the picture to chatGPT and it only had guesses.



And the lucky dice - how could I have forgotten such a critical item!

Thanks folks!

 

The PDR dashcam is very good. 1080p, you can set it to record automatically at vehicle start and to overwrite when the card is full. I actually used it on my previous 23 Stingray to support an insurance claim for a cracked windshield when a small rock hit it. They loved that I could provide a video clip as it made it super easy for them to approve.

As to blind spots, I've had 4 C8s, all HTCs, and with the mirrors set properly, I haven't really had any issues. That's with about 40K combined miles over them, a significant portion of that top down having to use the regular rearview mirror function instead of the rearview camera. Paragon has mentioned trying to see if they can get the ZR1 rearview camera to work on other C8s, as on the ZR1 it's moved to above the license plate due to the massive wing blocking the camera view from the normal position, but I haven't seen any updates out of them.

 

I would add Soler Performance Throttle Controller (for throttle pedal lockout) and/or immobilizer (I got hidden DroneMobile X2Max w/ built-in back-up battery, tilt sensor...) to make it harder for someone to take you new ride (it's easier than you'd think and can be done in under 30 seconds!). OnStar easily disabled.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...ztk-coupe.html

There's also a module (search YouTube) that allows you to put up the top with the remote fob.
Handy for unexpected rain up in Oregon (found out about these while visiting son at UO)!

Radar detector with mirror mount/tap.

Agree with most other recommendations mentioned previously.

Enjoy!

 

I'm really curious to know if anyone with the carbon fiber wheels and the carbon ceramic brakes also feels the same way about the steering. I have these and no complaints.

For reference I have plenty of seat time in carts and cars that don't even have power steering. I don't expect the z06 to feel that way, and I was actually quite impressed with the steering, at least for what it is. I can feel the pavement quality just fine.

 

Only one correct answer, VTForged wheels!!