Driving this for the day, AMA

"Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast" (danimalk) 08/31/2018 at 11:45 • Filed to: King of the hill, zr1

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ZR-1, LT-5, 6-sp.

These seats are amazing. Underrated, but changed in later C4s.

All the bodywork from the front of the doors back is unique to the ZR-1. Here you can see how much wider the rear end is by the “step” between the fender and the non-ZR-1 door jam. The widening starts mid door.  

The most subtle flared fenders ever!

blacktruck18 > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 11:53

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Do you feel any difference switching between suspension modes? My 96 had that and all the modes felt the same to me.

Also, gib!!

Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast > blacktruck18 08/31/2018 at 12:05

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It’s SO subtle, but I can tell between the extremes changing back and forth between “T our” and “Perf. ” If I go 1 step to Sport, I usually can’ t tell the difference right away.

I almost always h ave it in Performance. Keeps the car feeling sharp. Tour is a little too floaty for me .

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 12:08

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Neat. I’ve never driven an ZR-1 , but I did used to own a 93 LT-1/6-speed. I used it as a (fun) daily driver for about a year and half and 25k.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 12:14

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I love how subtle the modifications are. Most people would never know it’s a ZR1...then you see today’s ZR1 and it’s basically, “RACECAR OMG!!!”

BeaterGT > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 12:16

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How does the engine feel?  Those are the best wheels.

Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 08/31/2018 at 12:26

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Pretty car! Vettes look good in red. I’m looking at C4s, but my current daily is red so I don’t want another red car, haha

Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 08/31/2018 at 12:27

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So true. I love the sublty too, but it was almost to a fault because even a trained eye couldn’t always tell right away . They actually added more Zr-1 logos to the interior and exterior of later models to make it easier to notice.

Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast > BeaterGT 08/31/2018 at 12:33

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My current daily is a tiny 1.4 turbo, so this is... pretty much the exact opposite of that.

The DOHC LT-5 loves to rev. Pulls plenty hard down low, but it really is all about high rpm. From inside it’s all induction noise of that big beast breathing under the hood . It is honestly scary when you have your foot down (power key on) and you see that needle screaming to 7000 rpm. It just keeps pulling harder and harder, getting louder and louder as you approach. Feels like it could rev past 8k.

Those wheels. This car is surprisingly a master class in subtly .

CaptDale - is secretly British > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 12:36

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I am very jealous. That is a dream car for me. In the teal with black interior. 

Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast > CaptDale - is secretly British 08/31/2018 at 12:39

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I’ve been looking at C4s. Found a sweet blue with lt gray interior ZR-1. only ~ 15k mi!

CaptDale - is secretly British > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 12:48

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Can I have it please?

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 12:53

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As much as I enjoyed mine, I won’t own another C4, and I’m not sure I could recommend buying one. You’ve gotten a taste of the ergonomics, and I certainly got tired of them after a couple of months. That looong, heavy clutch is no fun in traffic. There are also plenty of electrical and/or mechanical time bombs waiting, and there isn’t always a good solution available for those problems anymore.

All of them will have problems with the A/C control box and controller module under the dash, sooner or later the optispark will give it up and eventually the clutch will give out on the 6-speed cars.

There is exactly one guy (a retried electrical engineer) who rebuilds the A/C boxes, so as long as he is still at it that problem is solvable . The optispark situation is currently such that there are no longer any quality replacement options available, and so far even the big corvette restoration part sellers haven’t been able to justify enough demand (or enough customers willing to pay 4 digits for a replacement optispark in smaller numbers) to justify buying the quantity required for Mitsubishi electronics to do  another production run of those optical sensors, and there are no more known NOS or later A/C Delco remains with the quality sensor out there. Every replacement on the market now is a cheap, Chinese optical sensor that may or may not work out of the box, and may or may not work for more than a few thousand miles. Changing the opti-spark is not a small job on those cars.

The 6-speed cars also have the issues of there being no more new dual mass flywheels available, and the original tooling was sold for scrap many years ago . A clutch replacement now involves converting the cars to single mass flywheel and using f-body clutch discs and pressure places. The problem with this is that a car that already has plenty of driveline NVH, ends up having a lot more driveline NVH after the conversion. Throwout bearings and clutch hydraulics will also be an issue at some point going forward. Right now, there are only a relatively small number of quality replacement parts still out there on shelves. Unless these cars ever start being work really, really serious money (such that folks can justify spending huge money on parts), I don’t see the demand out there to justify the costs for someone to manufacture these parts again.

I will likely own a corvette again, but for the money I would steer folks to a C5. The cost difference between a good LT-1/LT-4 6 speed C4 and a non Z06 C5 isn’t much, and the C5 is such a more modern and capable car in every way. A C5 is also orders of magnitude more comfortable.  

functionoverfashion > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 12:59

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Does that have a dash that looks like an 80's video game? I drove a white one of that generation and it was fun; I got a kick out of the dash, though.

Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast > functionoverfashion 08/31/2018 at 13:20

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No, this is post refresh so they swapped in arched gauges instead. maybe better functioning but not nearly as cool  

nerd_racing > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 13:41

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I’d love to rotary swap one of these.  

blacktruck18 > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 08/31/2018 at 15:24

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The only time I noticed a difference was when I would drag race it. It seemed to squat the rear more in touring mode compared to performance. I kept it in performance all the time too 

Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast > blacktruck18 08/31/2018 at 15:59

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I could see that helping at a drag race. The new cars magnetic suspension let s the back end squat automatically when using launch control.

Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 08/31/2018 at 16:30

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I hear you on all counts. Awesome post. I’m sure you know more than me from actual ownership. I have been close to C4s most of my life . My dad had one, my friend. I am pretty aware of the major issues you mentioned. Optispark, A/ C (but I have never really had to source fixes for them myself before. It would be awesome to find one that has already addressed some o f those concerns. )

I probably wouldn’t be daily driving it, so ergonomics and heavy clutch aren’t total deal breakers. And I’ve heard the “get a C5 instead” advice too, which I also totally understand and might consider when it comes time to really pull the trigger on something .

There is just something I really like in the C4. I feel like a Top Gear host but it’s old and worse in the best ways. Crouching down and sliding into the tight seat over the frame rail, sitting almost reclined feels like a super car compared to the upright almost- Malibu seats in the C5+ 6 . The heavy steering and clutch remind you this is no modern speed machine. The thin A pillars, the tiny mirrors. It feels more special/unique to drive compared to the more DD-friendly modern Vettes.

I compare it to the early Countach vs the later ones. Cleaner, prettier, more original and time less vs the superior-in-every-way models that followed. Probably won’t make a move for another year, so I’ve got sometime to think about it. :) 

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast 09/01/2018 at 00:23

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The problem of sourcing replacement parts for some of the will fail things on these cars is a relatively recent problem. Five years ago, if you were willing to sniff out places that still had the good stuff on the shelf and cough up the money, the parts could be purchased. Today, the parts I mentioned are things for which there are simply no more parts to be had at any price.

These cars occupy a weird spot now where enough of them are still around and being driven to completely deplete the replacement part stocks of certain things, yet there aren’t enough of them and/or they’re not worth enough money to be able to charge exotic car parts prices that would be necessary to justify anyone doing additional production runs. And in some cases, like the DMF, the tooling doesn’t exist anymore to make more parts at any price.