When I saw the Corvette Z06 build appear in this Garage I was beyond excited. I've been anxiously awaiting this car for quite some time. Sadly, I've been dealing with some personal issues so I didn't have the time to build this car right away. Fortunately, I did have time today, so I called my mechanics in and told them to get to work.
My initial reaction was actually one of disappointment. I don't blame Ridox for this. After all, there is only so much that he can do to bring us replica builds. So, I hope no one takes what I'm about to say as an indictment of Ridox's replica tuning. I was disappointed for a few reasons. First, the brakes on this Z06 are terrible. The brakes are one of the real Z06's shining features, and even with brake balance set to 8/10, I felt braking distances were just way, way too long compared to the real car. Perhaps Racing Brakes should be installed? I know that we're trying to modify a base Vette and it probably has an average braking setting coded to the car, so there is only so much we can do with the Standard Brakes.
This Z06 understeers like crazy. On throttle, off throttle...it doesn't really matter, this baby is going to plow into barriers if you aren't careful. Of course, I can adjust my driving to minimize this understeering, but I'm just disappointed that I have to adjust my driving so severely. Again, I don't think that the real Z06 suffers from this at all.
From what I have read, the Z06 with Z07 package doesn't pull very hard above 130mph. After all, this is a track focused car and the real Z06 w/Z07 package suffers at higher speed due to drag -- I'm wondering if a Flat Floor should be applied to this build? I think that would help keep some of the top end speed down a bit and it should improve downforce, right?
Also, it's a real bummer that we can't set the actual gear ratios of the 7 speed manual Z06. The actual gear ratios are listed at this
chevrolet.com link (warning: PDF file). Unfortunately, as I'm sure Ridox discovered, there is just no way to set the actual ratios exactly 100% perfectly. This is yet another reason why PD needs to fix that tranny bug that appeared with the last update. I'm sure if we used a different starting Final Gear, we could probably figure out a Max Speed setting that WOULD give us all of the 7 gear ratios we need, and THEN we could move the final gear back to 3.420, instead of having to set Final Gear to 3.420 before anything else. In the meantime, I'm just using the Paddle Shift Auto (8 speed) gear ratios that Ridox provides.
Please remember, none of this is Ridox's fault. We all know that he does his research and he applies the settings of the real cars, when possible, and he deviates from the actual car settings only when it is necessary to fix a problem that exists because of the issues that are caused by Gran Turismo's flaws, ie. physics issues. I'm just so surprised that this car has so many issues, at least according to my expectations.
I would love it if you provided an opinion on the questions I posed regarding the installation of Racing Brakes and/or a Flat Floor. Obviously, I like to keep the replica build as close to 100% stock in real life, but do you think there is anything that can be done to the suspension setup that would get the enormous understeer out of the car without drastically deviating from real life values? I was thinking specifically about the front toe value...
Does anyone else feel the same way as I do regarding this Z06 with Z07 Package?