2002 C5 Z06 vs 360 Modena

My thoughts are that the Z06 is redline limited to the speed you state. Meaning: it runs out of RPM at 170 some MPH.

The LS engine in that Z06 is a world class engine.

 

It's just a gearing issue.

In the C5 Z06, you'll hit max RPM at 178 in 5th, and 6th gear (which is really an overdrive) is geared too high to be able to pull you past that.

 

Your gearing, power curve, tq hp, and aerodynamics all play a role in top speed.

Ferrari's engine is much smaller but is built with internals to handle 8500 rpm.

In your case, you're drag limited meaning you cant go much faster without adding significant power. Adding top speed requires copious amounts of power like turbo or sc.

Enjoy what you have. Top speed is for bragging rights. 99.9 % are prudent not to try on any public road

 

Try changing your differential final gear.
Rule of thumb if your final gear is X, then -X gives top speed +X gives (to a point, better acceleration and vast difference in the desired revs).

once again, you have to excuse the bad english, so here we go.

Whenever you swap from a lower final drive ratio to a higher drive ratio, this affects your top speed.
If you make the final drive a much bigger number that the curent you'll be shifting too much and greatly decrease your top speed, but this can be very usefull in a mountain track, or in a track with very tight turns and no need to reach top speed.
You put more power down in certain revs.

For example, if you have your max torque at 5.500 rpm, the ideal track setup for a tight course would be a diff ratio that will keep you in the ideal speed (ex 80 miles) with the certain rpm (give or take 500 but not below).

So for a bigger top speed without hitting the rev limiter or the redline, on the Vette, you should check your speedo reading taking in mind that you have a 3.42 ratio. (on a standard Z5)
So if you hit the rev limiter, you should, as said above, reduce to 3.30 or less so as to let the engine spread it legs some more.

Off course tyre size (inces of rim) etc have to be taken into consideration.

If you give me your redline reading, I can calculate for you the ideal final ratio for top speed.

I just hope that you do your tests in a track and not on the street.

I hope I once again made sense.

Stay Safe.

 

Ferraris are geared like drag racers down low and for top speed in 6th gear (7th for the new DCTs). If you took your C5 Z06 (I owned 3 of them) and put in a 6th gear that reached top speed at the power peak of 6000 rpm, top speed would be about the same as the 360. It is strictly a gearing issue on the Z06 and has nothing to do with hp or drag, one of which is adequate, and the other of which is low enough, to reach a much higher top speed.

Just like smoltz said.

Note that on the C6 Z06, too, top speed is in 5th gear so 6th can be for good mileage at highway speeds. In the C6 Z06 case, though, 5th is geared for a top speed, or very close to it, of 199 mph, so a gearing change would not affect top speed much.

 

If you had a higher gear ratio in 6th gear you could top the Modena. The Corvette has enough power to reach very high speeds, but it needs the correct gearing with top speed in mind. The Corvette was never designed to win a top speed battle..

And no, A Modena will not take the Corvette from a roll if both cars are in the same gear. The torque of the corvette is a huge advantage.

 

I would like to see some vbox runs or organized races from a roll. I suppose that if you are at a higher speed and a lower gear, that would put the Modena at an advantage because of it's high redline and rather high power band.

If you were doing a slow roll I suspect the Z06 would have an advantage due to it's torque in the lower RPM compared to the 360's relative lack of torque below 4K RPM.

 

You do not want to change the entire gearing by putting in a higher speed rear end, you just need a longer 5th gear or a shorter 6th gear, but of course the shorter 6th will affect mileage considerably. The C5 Z06 gets way better gas mileage than a 360 or any modern Ferrari. Mainly because nobody cares about mileage in a Ferrari and Corvette did not want a gas guzzler tax.

 

You have to use some mechanic equations in order to come to safe conclusions on this.

The ideal gearing for a Vette would be calculated not only by the redline but also on the power curve.
For instance, lets just think (for the sake of the example) that you have a max torque at 4.500 and max HP at 5.700
So in order to win a drag race you have to make the minimum gear changes (so as not to waste time) and also hit max speed within a time frame better than the 360.
Given as a fact that the engine will go down on revs at each time you press the clutch (friction) you will lose some 300 to 500 revs at each gear change.
So you have to be OVER max torque and just below MAX hp.

So, caclulate your gearing for the final top speed as, high 1st gear, Low 2nd and high 3rd so as to compensate with the 360 (at least) and then take advantage of your monstrous torque with the 4th and 5th gear so as to run away from your rival.
Then HP will take over and keep the engine revving high for the finish.

This was the limit of my english language skills, I hope I made clear what has to be done.

But the Vette is such a nice track car, why bother with top speed and don't try to burn some rubber on an autocross session?

This would give you more pleasure than a "russian roulette" chase on a highway.

 

or just for the kicks, you can do what Dmitry Samorukov did with his underground racing Lambo, and ad diameter to your rear wheels.
Example, lets say you have 17 inch rims with 245.40/17 tyres.
You can (only for drag) switch to 19 rims with 255.60.19 tyres and gain more rotation that equals a bigger final gear ratio. (numbers are totally for example purpose)

But all this is just not right to do on the street

 

Just get a ZR1

 

I think you're looking at this in the wrong way.

When you're talking about different cars there are many factors which effect comfort, drive-ability, speed around a road course, 1/4 mile time on a drag strip, etc. Size, weight, power (and how it's delivered), torque (and how it's delivered), gearing, suspension and countless other considerations make up the overall performance of any particular car.

But when it comes purely to top speed, the situation is much more simple because there are only a couple of variables. The big factor is aerodynamic drag. It increases as the square of the speed; the drag at 120 mph is four times that at 60 mph. In other words, as you increase speed, the drag increases even faster.

And because power has to do with the speed at which work is performed a little simple math will show that vehicle speed is related to the cube of the power. That means that to go faster, the power required increases even faster than the aerodynamic drag. Bottom line, it takes a lot of horsepower to go really fast and when you're talking about speeds up above 175mph, going a little bit faster takes a HUGE increase in horsepower.

The other major retarding force is rolling resistance (mainly tire drag) but it is nearly linear. That is to say, if you go twice as fast, the rolling resistance is roughly doubled. So it's important, but not as much as aerodynamics.

So what does that really mean? Well, it matters not how long it took to engineer an engine, the displacement, the number of pistons, which fuel it uses, where it's made, at what RPM the engine produces maximum power, or any of many of the factors discussed in this thread. The question boils down to the maximum power the engine is able to produce (at the wheels) and what is the overall drag of the car (aerodynamic and rolling resistance combined). Assuming the Corvette in question makes 405hp and the Ferrari 360 makes 400 hp (nearly identical) then the top speed will depend mainly on the aerodynamic efficiency of each car.

Of course, you have to assume that the gearing isn't way off the mark. If one car is geared so that top gear allows the engine to red line at 120mph then all bets are off. The idea is to have the car producing pretty close to maximum horsepower at the speed where total drag uses up all that power. It's all about power vs drag.

If the published Wikipedia speeds are correct and if the 360 really goes 189 mph and the Corvette really tops out at 171, then it's a safe bet to assume Ferrari has significantly less aerodynamic drag.

Put another way, for the Corvette to match the top speed of the Ferrari it would need to produce about 540 horsepower, well above the published number of 405hp. The speed increase based on only 30 extra hp would produce only a very small improvement in top speed.

I'm no Corvette guru, that's for sure. So if the published top speed is electronically limited or something, then someone please set me straight.

 

2006 ZO6 top speed 191
2003 F 360 top speed 178
2001 Viper GTS top speed 168
I own both cars and the ZO6 is the faster of the two 0-60 is about even, 1/4 and top end goes to the Z06. My 2004 turbo porsche is the fastest of all of them!

 

Real world numbers, I own all the cars and don't ask me how I know the top speeds.
you can't trust numbers unless you take the cars out and compare, alot of the stated
top speeds are calculations by factory. porsche turbo you are correct on a roll, however
it is the fastest on top end of all the above cars and also the best handling.

 

he's comparing C6 vs C5 Z06... he didn't read your actual post about the model. Big difference between the two, 405 vs 505 hp, LS6 vs LS7 among other things

 

Mozella- The C5 Z06 bounces its engine off the rev limiter in 5th gear and would go quite a bit faster with a higher 5th gear or much lower 6th gear. The HP on the 360 is 400 and on the Z06 405 and they are about the same weight and have similar frontal area and drag. All that is different is gearing. The Z06 does not need more hp, all it needs is optimized gearing for top speed, and that was not a priority for the C5 Z06 design team. For the C6 Z06, they optimized 5th gear for top speed and that is why it got to just below 200 mph. With 505 hp.