Ralph's twitter

[ACRucrazy]

is a bank of knowledge.

Production Spec seats arrived today! Huge improvement in comfort! Thanks @Drivesrt Engineers & Sabelt! Off to the keys!

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@RalphGilles@drivesrt Thats great news! Been watching everything Glad to see you guys r on top of it... Tires, brakes next? I WILL own one.

@myidsucks@drivesrt test cars were old very hard preproduction spec. These are the final spec for customers ,we'll issue NEW media cars too

@KWShepherd@drivesrt Thanks! We are still in final development, media feedback has been helpful! Lots of potential in her!

Some quotes from Ralph's Twitter between him and Jonny Lieberman

I think Jonny would have liked these production Spec seats a lot better. Spent 1500miles in the others ouch!

See Ralph, I speak the truth! Also, I do love caramel

I think the harsh ride you speak of was a combo of the Corsa's and the Hard seats. My trip car has Pzeros @32psi smooth!

the ride was fine. It was the seats! (and the foot furnace and the noise)

we found a leak path. Production cars get a redesigned mag dash seal, seems to fix the heat issue. Thx for the feedback

Glad to see Ralph and team still at it!

 

[Sleekride]

^ promising. Thanks for posting.

 

[bcmarly]

Kenny Wayne, blues guitarist extraordinaire inquiring about the tires and brakes on Twitter...more exposure on a known issue on an even bigger forum!! Good news!!

 

[madninjaskillz]

That is encouraging. He should have waited to give MT a finished car though if he knew about these issues.

 

[viper04]

Good info. Good to see they are working out the bugs!!

 

[GTS-R 001]

Why doesn't Ralph post this stuff here?

Not all of us are twits following tweets...

 

[SSGViper]

Ok so let me get this straight. We now have the magazine guys ie (Johnny Lieberman and crew) test our cars? To top it off, Ralph is twittering all this... ***?

This whole Gen V Viper thing is getting more surreal every day. Ralph, just pull the f'ing car until it is up to par and ready to run with the Big Boys! No need to twitter this crap...just pull the car and delay the production run. This whole thing is like a bad dream!

 

[bluestreak]

Looks like they had some deadlines they werent quite ready for. Why would they send out a car on old hard tires? Thats asking for it. This release has been botched a bit but nothing they cant recover from. Looking forward to some instant changes.

 

[eucharistos]

it does sound like they were more concerned with press time than lap time this time....say it ain't so

 

[SADVIPER]

And they want me to renew my subscribtion!
Ralph started the whole Gen V as a great cool dream, but is surely had it bad pumps just like any real dream. Hopefully it'll get sorted in time I put my hands on this beauty.

 

[01sapphirebob]

Why doesn't Ralph post this stuff here?

Not all of us are twits following tweets...

You can follow his twitter feed right here an the boards! There is a forum dedicated to Ralph's twitter.http://forums.viperclub.org/forums/319-Twitter-Feeds

 

[01sapphirebob]

This whole Gen V Viper thing is getting more surreal every day. Ralph, just pull the f'ing car until it is up to par and ready to run with the Big Boys! No need to twitter this crap...just pull the car and delay the production run. This whole thing is like a bad dream!

Pull the car. No. Again...these were preproduction mules and i'm sure all the magazines were made aware of this before they tested the car. Now that production spec items are on there way magazines will get to taste the real GEN V soon.

it does sound like they were more concerned with press time than lap time this time....say it ain't so

What Ralph and team have done is actually quite genius. They are getting the magazines to work for them. Taking all kinds of professional shots of the new Viper and it's interior. They are getting all kinds of images out there. Then when they have production spec cars for the magazines ready they will blow the competition away with performance numbers. It may sound backwards BUT I think it will work in SRT's favor.

 

[I Bin Therbefor]

Again...these were preproduction mules and i'm sure all the magazines were made aware of this before they tested the car.QUOTE]

Possibly, but the headlines don't read "Corvette ZR1 beats worn out development (pre-production) Viper Gen V which does not have production specifications or parts." Nor do they read "Corvette ZR1 again beats worn out development (pre-production) Viper Gen V which does not have production specifications or parts." Magazines are in the business of selling magazines. Nothing sells like blood and/or controversy . Headlines are designed to attract attention. Neither MT's article nor Car & Driver's article emphasize the difference in the nature of the two cars. The whole "test" is nonsense. Why would you even compare the two vehicles in the Viper's present state of development? TO SELL MAGAZINES!!! MT and C&D have gotten tons of exposure all over the web with these "tests." No where is the difference between the nature of the two cars explained. If the worn out development (pre-production) Viper Gen V which does not have production specifications or parts had beaten the ZR1, the response would have been Oh, Hum.

 

[I Bin Therbefor]

it does sound like they were more concerned with press time than lap time this time....say it ain't so

It is so and always will be so.

 

[SnakeBitten]

I'm saddened and encouraged at the same time. Saddened because I was right to suspect they let this car out for testing KNOWING it ain't ready for prime time. The Viper brand took a beating, literally and figuratively, because of this desision by Ralph and SRT. Yeah I know its just a car but still.

However, I'm encouraged to see that this is NOT the final word in comfort, ride and performance that we saw in the two tests according to Ralph's tweets. Hopefully the production model will be retested against the ZR1 with PDE and the results in comfort, ride and performance will be improved drastically. Im skeptical after all the previous hype of course but we shall see.

 

[yellowmz3]

It still begs the question why give a pre-production car to the media, that's not been sorted and get bad PR. The last tweet I read was an apology to Richard Hammond for having to drive in uncomfortable seats for hundreds of miles. Does that make any sense?

 

[ViperSmith]

It still begs the question why give a pre-production car to the media, that's not been sorted and get bad PR. The last tweet I read was an apology to Richard Hammond for having to drive in uncomfortable seats for hundreds of miles. Does that make any sense?

What would have been worse PR? "SRT refused to provide us any vehicle to test in"

 

[mnc2886]

What would have been worse PR? "SRT refused to provide us any vehicle to test in"

I don't think that would've happened at all. The car was just revealed in April. If the magazines actually complained about that, they would've looked stupid. Not really an alternate argument here. SRT should've sorted the car out. It is very obvious in hindsight that they hadn't. Want proof? How many spy shots are there of track testing?....Zero.....

 

[yellowmz3]

Well, obviously SRT wasn't ready with this car. You release the car to the media/public when it is in its final version. Now, you have two major magazine giving a so-so review.

 

[GTS-R 001]

You can follow his twitter feed right here an the boards! There is a forum dedicated to Ralph's twitter.http://forums.viperclub.org/forums/319-Twitter-Feeds

Hi Bob,

Saw that a while back, I just think that it would be a tad bit more "respectful" to post a thread in the Gen 5 section that informs us all officially, there are a lot of people that have been concerned about the recent tribulations and a response by Ralph or SRT would be nice as I don't think there is a gathering area of as many "actual order people" than the Gen 5 forum and given the demographic of the Gen5 buyer, I don't think these guys are tweet followers, just my opinion.

Glad they are addressing the problems, much more constructive response.

 

[GTS-R 001]

It still begs the question why give a pre-production car to the media, that's not been sorted and get bad PR. The last tweet I read was an apology to Richard Hammond for having to drive in uncomfortable seats for hundreds of miles. Does that make any sense?

Maybe it was a final production but sometimes you need a critique of your work by someone that is not an insider to rattle your cage and bring you back to reality.

I'm just glad the response is now that they are listening versus arguing and blaming the drivers. They could have hired outsiders from the beginning but they were just confident in their internal assessments.

 

[yellowmz3]

Well, I hope you are right. I have an order on a 150k Stryker Red GTS and I really wanted it to be everything I was told it would be. I can only hope that everything is sorted out by the time customer cars are being made. It will certainly be hard for me to buy this car until there is a review of the final/real production car.

 

[Paul Hawker]

I am confident that when the SRT team got these results feedback, they will look hard at the results, and are making running improvements before the production cars get to their customers.

I saw this before when Dodge inveiled a new model Viper at a VOI. The crowd went wild, but some criticism was leveled at the rear end treatment. Before the car hit the production line changes were made, and the Viper Nation's imput was instrumental in makeing the car even better.

The magazines are out there, generating interest for these cars. A pre-production mule is made for just this purpose. Get some miles on it with different drivers, on different tracks and roads. Sometimes all the computer time in the world cannot totally accurately perdict how it will perform how it will perform in the real world.

I remember when Dodge released the 96. They put Tommy Archer behind the wheel on several race tracks to shake it down. While many changes were made, they felt the power steering pump did not need a cooler. Only after a bunch of ham ****** owners began sawing away in track corners did the pump reveal it needed it's own cooler. The problem was that Tommy, as a professional, was so smooth and steady in the corners, steering more with throttle than wheel the pump was never stressed.

These things are not all that unusual. I would predict that with a little fine tuning, the Stryker will show it's true fangs.

(and remember...2013 is the Year of the Snake------------>)

 

[yellowmz3]

Well Paul, from your mouth to Ralph's ear!!

 

[ferraritoviper]

Hi Bob,

Saw that a while back, I just think that it would be a tad bit more "respectful" to post a thread in the Gen 5 section that informs us all officially, .....

I hear ya GTS-R, but that's not going to happen imo.

Ralph has been the MOST accessible executive in the automobile industry ever...we seem to lose sight of that.. and his brief tweets work well. When was the last time anybody heard from a honcho at GM, Ferrari, etc???

Getting into discussions in a public forum like VCA back and forth (trolls included), is not what a corporate executive would be wise to do, and potentially hugely problematic...especially in our amazingly left leaning liberal society these days.

SRT is doing well, and will vindicate the Gen V. The why's, how's and wherefore's are only fodder for winter time banter...my ubiquitous 2 cents??

 

[kdaviper]

The bottom line is that comparison articles between the ZR1 and the Gen V sell mags. Now the rags have an excuse to devote 2 separate issues to the battle!

 

[bushido]

He should have waited to give MT a finished car though if he knew about these issues.

This..

After checking out the reviews,and hearing Randy Pobst saying that the car rides terrible in the video. Seems like the suspension is too sprung,and perhaps the shocks needs re-valving or finer re-adjusting. Laguna is a very smooth track,and the only thing there really is. Is a dip right at T6. You can put more padding on the seat,and your back,neck could still feel like crap after a decent drive. A good example of this was my ACR when I first got it. The ACR seats are good, with good amount of padding,but the stock street setting on the KW shocks were horribleIMO. The car felt like it rode on no shocks. Too springy like jumping on a pogo stick. Very dangerous too if you go around a fast corner with a bump or a dip. Causing the car to shoot right back up and lose control. The suspension didn't have enough rebound. So I cranked the rebound down first,and boy did it make a difference. Transformed the entire car,and made it less bone&back jarring on the street too..

 

[TrackAire]

This..

After checking out the reviews,and hearing Randy Pobst saying that the car rides terrible in the video. Seems like the suspension is too sprung,and perhaps the shocks needs re-valving or finer re-adjusting. Laguna is a very smooth track,and the only thing there really is. Is a dip right at T6. You can put more padding on the seat,and your back,neck could still feel like crap after a decent drive. A good example of this was my ACR when I first got it. The ACR seats are good, with good amount of padding,but the stock street setting on the KW shocks were horribleIMO. The car felt like it rode on no shocks. Too springy like jumping on a pogo stick. Very dangerous too if you go around a fast corner with a bump or a dip. Causing the car to shoot right back up and lose control. The suspension didn't have enough rebound. So I cranked the rebound down first,and boy did it make a difference. Transformed the entire car,and made it less bone&back jarring on the street too..

Do you remember what your street setting was for the compression and rebound, front and rear?

When you say you cranked the rebound down, did you turn to the (-) side of the adjustment knob or the (+) side? I guess what I'm asking, did you dial in more rebound or less rebound for a better street ride?

I find that the actual "clicks" on my shocks can sometimes be a little vague to feel...wish they had a little better system for making adjustments easier.

Cheers,
George

 

[bushido]

Do you remember what your street setting was for the compression and rebound, front and rear?

When you say you cranked the rebound down, did you turn to the (-) side of the adjustment knob or the (+) side? I guess what I'm asking, did you dial in more rebound or less rebound for a better street ride?

I find that the actual "clicks" on my shocks can sometimes be a little vague to feel...wish they had a little better system for making adjustments easier.

Cheers,
George

Stock street setting was (fronts) Compression 13 Rebound 18 ( Rear) Compression 13 Rebound 17.

When adjusting the rebound you want to crank it all the way +. Then count the clicks going back. I first dialed mine at 10 Rebound fronts,and 9 rebound rears. Now I'm at 9 rebound fronts and 8 rebound rears.Compression I have 11 fronts,and 12 rears.The car handles much better now. As far as the feel when adjusting it. Just make sure you don't have any distractions, radio etc. You have to feel each click/notch when you're moving the adjustement wheel. Start with the rebound( primaries) first though. Drive it around..

 

[Mopar Boy]

Why doesn't Ralph post this stuff here?

Not all of us are twits following tweets...

Ralph is not trying to cover just Viper info. He is just trying to connect with his market. Lets face it, the VCA forums are a small part of the SRT brand. So if someone via twitter asks him a question on the Viper, he will answer it. It is not intended to be a slight at the VCA for not posting it here, but he is just using twitter. Much larger and broader demographic. Yes, it does **** for those that do not follow twitter. But thats why there is a section here to watch.