Two weeks ago, I drove the Blue Bullet II on a trip with my pals in Corvette Club Santa Barbara. Called "Bob's Back Roads" and organized by (who'd a thunk) a guy named "Bob", it took us from Carpinteria west of L.A. on the coast across the coastal mountain range to Kernville in the southern Sierra Nevada Mtns.
The first part of the trip was over the Coast Range on State Route 33. This highway runs from Ojai over to Taft in the south end of the Central Valley. If you look at this road on Google Maps you'll see why I like it. It's a very fast, twisty road which gives you 20-min or so of really sporting driving. We drove it early in the morning on Saturday so once we got out of the lower elevations traffic, both car and bicycles, thinned out.
We got about a quarter of the way up SR33 and the leader pulled over to wait for some stragglers. Frustrated with the lack of speed and wanting to "exercise" my Pilot Sport Cups, I went around him and hauled ass. I figured to pull over after I got through the twisty parts and wait a few minutes for them to catch up.
There's no other way to say this....The Z06 w. Z07 is BAD FAST.
A lot of experienced drivers say that while the ZR1 has 133 more horsepower, because of its extra weight on the nose and the difficulty in getting that extra power to the ground, the Z06 is better balanced and an easier car to drive at the limit.
After about 30 miles over SR33, the only part of today's trip where I knew the road well enough to go really fast, man oh man did I understand why some people say that about the Z06.
The car's handing is much improved over earlier versions of the car I had driven. The first several years of Z06es tended to oversteer in an unpredictable manner. The current FE4 suspension seems to have been tweaked to greatly reduce that tendency–slight adjustments in rear spring rates and stabilizer bar rates. Also, the Z07 option gets you Magnaride which is an absolutely awesome damping system. GM first calibrated MR for a track-ready suspension when the ZR1 came out. Now that the "performance version" of MR is available with Z07 on Z06, the benefits of MR's near-real-time ability to change shock valving extends the car's performance envelope. You really see the value of MR on roads like SR33 which, in places is pretty flat, like a race track would be, but in other places is full of swale, dips and undulations which really which, when run at speed, demonstrate quite handily the advantages of Magnaride. There is no way any fixed valve shock absorber system would have as much damping bandwidth as does MR and make available just the right amount of damping to match the car's speed, lateral acceleration and suspension movement on a millisecond by millisecond basis.
I did not try out Performance Traction Management. My original plan was to use PTM during my run over 33 but, I decided that since I was running between 8 and 9/10s most of the time, I'd just use Magna Ride in the "sport" mode rather than delving into PTM.
As for the Cup tires. Wow. They stick like freakin' glue
Brakes. Holy crap does this car have brakes. I really got to exercise those carbon brakes on the downhill parts of 33. No trace of any fade. Admittedly, I was not using the brakes like I would on a race track, where you'd build a ton of heat, but the fact remains, it's the best set of brakes I've ever driven on a street car.
Last but certainly not least, is that 427-cu in LS7 engine. SR33 has a few intermediate-length straights..."intermediate" meaning near the rev limiter in third gear. You come out of a turn in the mid-range in second, floor the gas, run the motor to 7000 rpm in second then shift to third and run the motor to 7000 rpm again, then brake. Man, what a rush! The LS7 is just a whole lot of gearhead fun.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had installed an aftermarket tunnel plate I got from Zip Products. After running the car really hard over SR33, I can say that the decrease in heat radiating off the console and sides of the tunnel was noticeably less.
That "Thermal Abs" product works well for more information see Zip's web site at
Corvette Parts - Performance and Restoration and or read the review at:
Driveline Tunnel Plate - Corvette Product Reviews
Based on my test trip over CA State Route 33, I want to do still more to address the interior heat issue and I think wrapping the exhaust is the best way to go. I also want to change the car's sound a bit. I think cutting off the second set of cats and putting stops on the bypass valves is the way to go. Lastly, I'd like to install some kind of aftermarket air box. I'm considering a Mamba system which is sold by Zip.
After about 30 miles I pulled over and waited. I figured the rest of the folks would be a few minutes behind. Well...it was actually 10 minutes. Figuring they were running the speed limit, which over SR33 is 55-mph, they were about nine miles behind me.
That Carlisle Blue Bullet is definitely BAD FAST.
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