My dreams of owning a Viper... Crushed today with a 20 min test-drive!

BADVENOM

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almost, hey clint check out this comment!

cobra said..

You all think people don't buy vipers b/c their scared or don't have enough money. Frankly, it was a cheaply made car w/ a big ass motor. You ask why people hop up vettes to meet a viper. When I'm done w/ my vette it'll spank a viper in every category and cost less too. I like to mod cars so even if I bought a viper it wouldn't stay stock.
 

CAS

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almost, hey clint check out this comment!

cobra said..

You all think people don't buy vipers b/c their scared or don't have enough money. Frankly, it was a cheaply made car w/ a big ass motor. You ask why people hop up vettes to meet a viper. When I'm done w/ my vette it'll spank a viper in every category and cost less too. I like to mod cars so even if I bought a viper it wouldn't stay stock.

Now I have to LOL at that one - my piece of [******] with a rocket strapped to it is faster then your more expensive piece of [******] with a rocket strapped to it.

:rolleyes:
 

genXgts

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This thread is hilarious.

I like Vettes, after a few buddies picked up some this year I am thinking of picking one up to run up the driveway to get the mail. Lots of storage and ample room for your fav. beverage in the cup holder. Nice stuff.........
 

sbkim

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I hate to say this but I think C5's are getting cheap enough where you can pick one up in decent shape for under $20k. I can't imagine what's going to happen once C6 is released. May be I can get my old car back as winter ****** #2 :laugh:
 

JRod

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Well, I'm not about coming over to troll around on y'alls site. Okay, I can accept the fact that many of you bought Vipers because thats what you wanted. I hope that many of you can accept the fact that many of us bought Vettes because thats what we wanted. I have a very good friend who owns a

1988 LPE prepared Corvette
2001 Z06
1996 GTS (with a Roe S/C)
2003 SRT-10 (with a H/C + Stroker)

I find his comments about each of the cars pluses and minuses to be a lot more informed since he actually has both, and can point out what is good and bad about both cars.

I will give you the fact that Vipers are unique, and you don't see them on every street corner. Actually in the small town where I live there are 3 or 4 that I see on a regular basis. I probably see about 2 to 3 times that number of Vettes on the same basis. But by and large I see more Vettes than I do Vipers. Just like I see many more Vipers than I do Ferraris. But anyhow...

I don't think Vipers are a POS. In fact I really like the looks of the GTS cars. But, like any car, there are flaws in it. Everyone who owns one and frequests these discussion boards can talk about some of the cars "character" just like we Vette guys can talk about the ones in our cars.

A car is a mechanical thing built by humans, so it is completely open to flaws.

Dodge realized this and has made improvements in the Viper. The current SRT-10 is a much more refined car than the GTS. I'm sure the next generation will be even more so.

I know when my buddy first bought his GTS having come over from his C4 he thought the car was an ill handling pig with poor brakes, but had good acceleration. He's refined the car over time and gotten used to its characteristics . He bought a new SRT-10 and thinks it a quantum leap forward over the genII cars.

I expect the new C6 to be the same way. It'll fix many of the issues in the C5 and be an improvement over the existing car.

Just for me, if I wanted a Viper I would have bought one. I like Vettes, so thats what I have. I enjoy hanging out with Viper guys, etc... after all we're all car guys right?

I enjoy drag racing. I used to have the fastest time in a stock Z06 of a 1.85 60' / 11.933 @114.52 in my car in a 100% stock state. I bolted on a set of Et Streets and pulled the lid off my stock airbox and coaxed the car to a 1.675 60' / 11.596 @118.56. Since my record has fallen, to one of my ffellow owners who ran an 11.81 I will be putting the lid and the stock tires back on the car to make an attempt at an 11.79 in a 100% stock as delivered state.

I am currently driving a car prepped by LG Motorsports of Dallas. The car is a head and cam car making 463RWHP. We are still sorting the car out and hope to be in the 10.5's at some point. Here is a breakdown of my best timeslip in the car from this past weekend.

60' - 1.450
330 - 4.449
1/8 - 6.923
MPH - 99.43
1000 - 9.050
1/4 - 10.828
MPH 126.55

Again, like I said there are folks who like each car for what it is, and what it isn't. It not that they are bad, its just a matter of preference, and what works for you.
 

ssssssnake

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said jrod:

"Well, I'm not about coming over to troll around on y'alls site."

then why did you????

"I used to have the fastest time in a stock Z06 of a 1.85 60' / 11.933 @114.52 in my car in a 100% stock state."

Can I have your autograph??


"A car is a mechanical thing built by humans, so it is completely open to flaws."

Watch out guys we have a scholar here????

Cobra was here just to bash our cars, he could have done his whining over at the vette forum...........
 

BADVENOM

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Okay here we go again.. Listen Richie Cunningham, this isn't happy days and were not at potsy house.. This is the VCA forum for viper owners and enthusiasts.. If you want advice or help in getting a viper we are all here with open arms,BUT you say..

Well, I'm not about coming over to troll around on y'alls site. Okay, I can accept the fact that many of you bought Vipers because thats what you wanted. I hope that many of you can accept the fact that many of us bought Vettes because thats what we wanted.


WHO SAID WE CARE THAT YOU CAN ACCEPT ANYTHING!
20715-thumb.gif
 

JRod

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I understand your frustration with his post, and I can see where you animosity might come from. I don't go troll around on svtforum slamming on the Cobras , or come over there to rag on the SRT or the GTS. I always try to act as if I am a guest when visiting the home site of another marque, and I try to treat the owners of those cars with respect. Basically, I feel like this is y'alls house, and I don't want to come in here to start any trouble.

My reasons for posting the times on the car were simply because for some reason folks tend to believe Z06s are much slower than they really are. I find that folks tend to believe a magazine time if if hold a car in a poorer light.

I see a lot of GTS owners with stock GTS running low 12's do I believe that is all the car is capable of, no. Just like folks see that a Z06 only does 12.4 or 12.7 in a magazine test. Is that the best they can do, no.

My only reason for posting what I did is to show that maybe they are a bit quicker than some folks give them credit for. Again you might feel like the Corvette is the biggest POS to ever roll off a production line, again that is your right.

Like I said, there are pluses an minuses for both cars. And, like I said, I like the looks of the GTS. Again, its all about your personal preference. I had a buddy who traded his '02 C5 Vert for an ACR, and he got rid of the ACR for a new Hummer H2. Does that mean the Vette and the Viper were somehow inferior to the H2, nope, he just decided it was time for a differnet playtoy....
 

Shelby3

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I understand your frustration with his post, and I can see where you animosity might come from. I don't go troll around on svtforum slamming on the Cobras , or come over there to rag on the SRT or the GTS. I always try to act as if I am a guest when visiting the home site of another marque, and I try to treat the owners of those cars with respect. Basically, I feel like this is y'alls house, and I don't want to come in here to start any trouble.

My reasons for posting the times on the car were simply because for some reason folks tend to believe Z06s are much slower than they really are. I find that folks tend to believe a magazine time if if hold a car in a poorer light.

I see a lot of GTS owners with stock GTS running low 12's do I believe that is all the car is capable of, no. Just like folks see that a Z06 only does 12.4 or 12.7 in a magazine test. Is that the best they can do, no.

My only reason for posting what I did is to show that maybe they are a bit quicker than some folks give them credit for. Again you might feel like the Corvette is the biggest POS to ever roll off a production line, again that is your right.

Like I said, there are pluses an minuses for both cars. And, like I said, I like the looks of the GTS. Again, its all about your personal preference. I had a buddy who traded his '02 C5 Vert for an ACR, and he got rid of the ACR for a new Hummer H2. Does that mean the Vette and the Viper were somehow inferior to the H2, nope, he just decided it was time for a differnet playtoy....

JROD, Speaking for myself, I don't have a problem with your posts at all. Where are you running those times at the drag strip? Those are some very quick times for your RWHP's. :2tu: :usa:
 

Jeff Torrey

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Hey, I like Corvettes (62 fuel injected ones). Like it was stated above, It's more personality than anything else. But don't come over here and tell me what's wrong with my personality.
There have been advances over the years to make better cars, but somewhere style comes into play too...
(I don't have to have the fastest car at the track either :confused: But, thats just me).
 
OP
OP
C

Cobra4B

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But don't come over here and tell me what's wrong with my personality.

That's where some of you are getting it all wrong. Taking my coments as a kind of personal insult. My coments pertained to my experiences w/ one car.
 

CAS

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I understand your frustration with his post, and I can see where you animosity might come from. I don't go troll around on svtforum slamming on the Cobras , or come over there to rag on the SRT or the GTS. I always try to act as if I am a guest when visiting the home site of another marque, and I try to treat the owners of those cars with respect. Basically, I feel like this is y'alls house, and I don't want to come in here to start any trouble.

My reasons for posting the times on the car were simply because for some reason folks tend to believe Z06s are much slower than they really are. I find that folks tend to believe a magazine time if if hold a car in a poorer light.

I see a lot of GTS owners with stock GTS running low 12's do I believe that is all the car is capable of, no. Just like folks see that a Z06 only does 12.4 or 12.7 in a magazine test. Is that the best they can do, no.

My only reason for posting what I did is to show that maybe they are a bit quicker than some folks give them credit for. Again you might feel like the Corvette is the biggest POS to ever roll off a production line, again that is your right.

Like I said, there are pluses an minuses for both cars. And, like I said, I like the looks of the GTS. Again, its all about your personal preference. I had a buddy who traded his '02 C5 Vert for an ACR, and he got rid of the ACR for a new Hummer H2. Does that mean the Vette and the Viper were somehow inferior to the H2, nope, he just decided it was time for a differnet playtoy....

JROD, Speaking for myself, I don't have a problem with your posts at all. Where are you running those times at the drag strip? Those are some very quick times for your RWHP's. :2tu: :usa:

I agree - great times and 60'. JRod - your post was real eloquent and civil :2tu: .
 

PhilC

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Jrods track numbers dont seem to add up. I'm not buying that part of his post but the rest of what he had to say was reasonable and well put.
 

Lee00blacksilverGTS

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From JROD......
"I enjoy drag racing. I used to have the fastest time in a stock Z06 of a 1.85 60' / 11.933 @114.52 in my car in a 100% stock state. I bolted on a set of Et Streets and pulled the lid off my stock airbox and coaxed the car to a 1.675 60' / 11.596 @118.56. Since my record has fallen, to one of my ffellow owners who ran an 11.81 I will be putting the lid and the stock tires back on the car to make an attempt at an 11.79 in a 100% stock as delivered state."

11.596 at 118.56?? Is that possible? The et streets were the only real help, you could not get more than 10hp from the airbox cover, and the trap speed should be higher for that kind of time? Hard to believe? I would like to see a time slip or two here if we're supposed to buy this. That's the usual way to prove it. Nice job if you did it, in that car it's the driver making the difference.
 

GR8_ASP

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I also find the numbers incredulous. Maybe down hill and down wind.

The 11.81 is compared to his "record" of 11.933 in "100% stock state"
 

Lee00blacksilverGTS

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Also from JROD....
"I know when my buddy first bought his GTS having come over from his C4 he thought the car was an ill handling pig with poor brakes, but had good acceleration. He's refined the car over time and gotten used to its characteristics." quantum leap forward over."

And I bet he really missed that digital playstation dashboard too! LOL. Seriously, telling that kind of a story here with the percentage of guys who probably owned C4s being around 90% is really laughable. I think you heard your buddy wrong...What he said was the C4 was the ill handling pig with the poor brakes and NO acceleration! Yeah, and he refined that GTS so the handling and brakes were up to the C4???? Gimme a break, I owned a couple C4s. Your buddy must have all the seat of the pants driver diagnostic skills as Homer Simpson. I might even tolerate that comment if C5 had been mentioned as a comparison but not C4, sorry. Dave Hill has done a magnificent job making a comeback with C5 and I'm sure C6. Makes me sick when I see Dave Mclellan making money selling books and having NCRS honor him with a level of Mclellan awards. The C4 was his only accomplishment and if you've read "All Corvettes are red" You would know the C5 almost did not get built because the platform design was so far behind and so badly based on C4 that GM thought the car could never be built and be competitive. By the time Hill got there and took over, GM had almost killed the C5 entirely. The C4 is absolutely the worst designed and built generation of Corvettes, and I've owned them all. Still own a C3 big block.
 

JRod

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The owner of that car I am referring to is none other than John Myrick the co-driver of the car that won one lap this year. He also owns as I stated a Roe SC 96 GTS. When he bought the GTS his main complaint was that the car sucked as far as handling, most especially in braking. On his first time out driving the car hard he drove into a corner and the brakes locked on him and he flat spotted the tires. He called Ron Adee and discussed why the car acted the way it did. Ron and he discussed some of the peculiarities of the car. Ron asked him what he drove currently. His answer at the time was that his track car was an LPE prepared C4. The car has Alcon brakes al the way around, and rode on Fikse's with race tires, etc... Ron told him he'd hate the GTS if he was used to a C4. Its a totally differenet car, and he'd probably never like the brakes by comparison. Wel,, things have gotten better, and John has gotten the car set up the way he wants it now. You can call BS on my story if you'd like. Or, you can ask John about it. He's on here from time to time... As I said, John has a GTS, and an SRT-10 (along with two Vettes). I like John's commentary on the cars because he doesn't mind being objective about what he feels the strengths and weaknesses of either car are.


Now, as for my times... They are well documented on the Corvette sites. Lots of folks have seen me drive in person. In fact I have driven several cars for folks to see if I could better their times for them, and help sort of the car for them. I do it because quite simply I enjoy driving cars, and I enjoy drag racing.

Like I said, John Myrick is a friend of mine. Right after he got the new SRT-10 (and it was still stock) he brought it over and we went an lined them up. From a dig I beat his SRT-10 by 2 car lengths to 150MPH. We had two roll on races and I lost by about 2 lengths in my car. This was posted in the SRT-10 forum on this forum, and John got on here and verified my story.

I have a few videos of my car running on ET Streets, and a few videos from a recent event in the car I am driving now. Keep in mind that a Z06 with 4 gallons of fuel weighs 3021-3050 lbs with no driver. With driver you are looking @ ~3200-3250 depending on driver weight. In the recent event I ran (the Thunder Shootout) it was the first time out on the new pacakge with no testing on it. We also had to add over 220 lbs to the car to meet the minimum class weight for the car since we were competing with Camaros and Firebirds. Best pass @ the shootout was 11.19@121.

The next week we ran at a private test for GMHTP magazine in Dallas. Track prep was sub-optimal, and we lost over .1 on our 60'. Best time there was an 11.02.

This past weekend we went to HRP and ran a best of 10.82. I don't have and of the videos of my car running from this weekend D/L'd yet, but if I do I will post up.

Here is a video of my Stock Z06 running on ET Streets
The one thing that you really notice in this clip is how much the stock intake whistles if you are in front of the car. This pass is leaving @ around 6600 on Et Streets.


There are two versions I made, a lo-res 600K, and a high-res 9.2meg

Please right click on the link, and do a save as. Don't stream the video, as you will blow my allocation at my ISP right out of the water. Thanks.

lo-res
http://users3.ev1.net/~black_ops/video/J-Rod1%20lo-res.mpg

hi-res
http://users3.ev1.net/~black_ops/video/J-Rod1%20hi-res.mpg

Here are a couple of videos from the Thunder shootout.

http://users3.ev1.net/~black_ops/video/11.26.WMV
http://users3.ev1.net/~black_ops/video/11.27.WMV

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images


Here is the thread on my 11.596 pass in my car.
http://www.z06vette.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30089

Here is the thread on my 11.933 pass
http://www.z06vette.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10491

Thread on my 10.82
http://www.z06vette.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48937

Again, like I said. I think the GTS is a beautiful car. I'd never fault anyone for owning one. The makes gobs of torque, and I have been fortunate enough to see several fast ones around the streets of Houston. As for me personally, I like Chevrolets. I have raced Chevys for a long time. Thats just my deal. So, owning a Vette is a pretty natrual thing for me. Just like owning a Viper would be a pretty natural thing for many of my Mopar inclined friends.

Again, it wasn't the point of my post to throw stone at the Viper. Simply to point that there will always be someone who doesn't like a car for whatever reason be it a Corvette, a Viper, a Porsche, a Ferrari, or whatever. Its ok, really.Thats what makes us all unique we dig different things.

Just like on the Corvette forum. There are lots of guys who shudder at the thought of runing your car hard. They spend al their time on looks, and how many coats of Zaino their car has. We call them lugnut polishers. Their mods consist of cosmetics rather than performance additions. If thats what trips their trigger, ok. But its not what does it for me...

Here is a thread on my main competitor from Cartek who just ran a 10.58 @ 130 in his H&C Z06.

http://www.z06vette.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48792

And finally, my main competitor for the stock record, on his recent 11.81.
http://www.z06vette.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48180
 

cratica

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Whew... getting deep in here!

1) I would really like to see John Myrick post that he thinks Viper GTS's are ill-handling pigs.

2) here we go again with a vette guy saying "I ran a xx.xx in a STOCk z06". PLENTY of tests/reviews/comparisons with same driver and VERIFIED 100% STOCK vehicles and there is NO comparison between a z06 and a viper.

3) What I find humorous is that the odds the original poster actually drove a Viper is pretty low in my opinion. This was all a hoax by some kid to get a rise out of us Viper owners! Kind of funny really.

4) Viper and z06. There really is no comparison. (and I'm a lifelong vette fanatic as well). =
 

joe117

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"The car spun really hard and tracked to the right quite a bit. I picked up my slip and was actually amzed that the car picked up again.
60' - 1.469"

Perhaps you picked up the wrong slip?
 

JRod

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I can always ask John to post in here.

How can you get a 10.50 out of around 480RWHP. Its real easy, its the weight. The Z06 is a light car. I raced a modded '03 Cobra in my car. He was making 455-461RWHP to my 372. We raced 8 times. I beat him by around 1-2 car lengths each time from a dig, and he beat me each time from a roll by 1 or 2. How did my car keep up, its simple really. His car was over 3600 without the driver and 3800 with the driver. That 600lbs makes a difference.

Again, I'm sure John likes his car better now than when he first got it, but I remember several of his comments on the car when he first got the car.

As for spinning and getting a 1.469, I don't know how much drag racing you do, but I am pretty tuned into what the car is doing. Trust me when I say a car car spin on Et Streets and still cut a good 60'. In this case a 1.469 vs 1.450.

Heck in the stock car I have to spin the ET Streets, if I don't the car hits the tires so hard the car bogs on takeoff and loses .2. So, on my stock car I run 21 psi in my ET streets and I spin the tires about 20 ft out of the hole and still cut 1.69-1.61 60' times.


Here is an open invitation either car runs regularly at HRP if you want to see the car in person to verify any of my claims, let me know and I will see you out there. If not, you can join us in a few months at the big Corvette shootout. Vipers are going to be welcome in one of the classes, and you can run against some of us...

Here is a thread on the car when it was first completed by the tuner.

http://www.z06vette.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47309

Here, I'll underwhelm you. Here is my dyno graph with 3.42s it dropped to 463 when we put in 4.10s. Here is the dyno graph.

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~lgigliot/LGM/lgm470.jpg
 

JRod

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Its not my pic (its LGs pic), so I changed it from a pic to just a link. Its not big to me, but I have big monitor.

Also, like I said, if I really, really wanted a Viper, I would have bought one. But I am quite happy with the cars I currently have. But like I said, i think the GTS is a really cool car.
 

agentf1

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I like the way fast freddy thinks. Get one of each... I got the Z06 and the Lightning and am working on a GTS.
 

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