'evo' reviews the Lingenfelter Corvette Z06

[gangajas]

Copy&paste:

Lingenfelter Corvette Z06
Rating: 5 stars

For those of you who think the 505bhp Z06 is a bit limp
Text: Jethro Bovingdon / Photos: Kenny P February 2007



How much power is too much? When is fast a bit too fast? When do you stop searching for huge bhp numbers and tiny acceleration figures? Well, the good men at Chevrolet decided that 505bhp was quite enough for the ultimate Corvette. And when you drive the car they re-engineered, fettled and tweaked to cope with all that power, it’s hard to disagree. The Z06, even with a thoroughly revised and exotically-constructed chassis, only just copes with the sledgehammer delivery of its thundering 7-litre V8. When you open the taps, it’s like mother nature is coming to eat you…



But for some people 505bhp from 7011cc just looks like an opening gambit. Meet David Yu, friend of evo, power junkie and perhaps one of the few men for whom the Z06 is a little, well, limp. In fact there’s a whole industry dedicated to tuning the Corvette in the US, and the Z06 is its new darling. Lingenfelter, based in Decatur, Indiana, is one of the most respected of the Vette tuners and when Yu found out that the company was offering a 616bhp package with a full three-year warranty for just $5700 (circa £2900), it was just a matter of time before his Z06’s block was in pieces.



The kit consists of freer-flowing exhaust headers, race cats, a high-flow induction kit and mass airflow sensor and a more extreme camshaft (just the one, of course). The resulting boost in power sounds almost unfeasible given the relatively simple nature of the upgrade, but Lingenfelter is very well respected and has been working on the enduring Chevy V8 for 25 years.

Ian Goss Services, the Surbiton-based specialist in US muscle, fitted Lingenfelter’s hot parts in just a few days. Total cost: £5500 (including VAT, duty and £1500 fitting). Unfortunately the three-year warranty doesn’t stand in Europe as Lingenfelter only guarantees cars prepared in its Indiana workshop, but the fact that it offer a warranty at all gives some peace of mind. Besides, your life expectancy is probably severely reduced with a 600+bhp Corvette anyway; you’ll be lucky to be around long enough to hear it go pop…



After a lap of Bedford’s West Circuit I’m almost praying to hear valves clattering into pistons. That big V8 is borderline scary in standard form; with the Lingenfelter kit, it’s just plain terrifying. The extra muscles start to flex almost from tickover (despite an uneven, dragster-like idle, the lumpier cam soon smoothes out), but it’s when extended beyond 5000rpm that the engine starts to feel uncomfortably violent. Few supercars offer such an enormous and sustained hit of raw acceleration.



You can use it, too. The 325/30 ZR19 Goodyears manage to convert most of the power into forward motion, and although you can spin them up gratuitously in second- or third-gear corners (third is good for 123mph!), the Z06 remains surprisingly composed. It’s not an easy car to exploit, though. Deliberately breach the limits at lower speeds and it’s easy to slide for whole minutes, but when you’re trying to nudge up against its ultimate potential it feels ready to punish any indecision or clumsiness.

There’s a bit of turn-in understeer (no bad thing), but it’s when you’re in the middle of the corner that the Z06 feels a little remote. You want that understeer to stabilise and then bleed away as you apply more throttle, but it doesn’t. Instead the front keeps pushing and then, when you’ve flexed your right ankle a millimetre too far, the car snaps sideways – this lack of equilibrium means you tend to need lots of small, accurate corrections.



Considering the very stiff ride, it’s very odd to find a bit too much body-roll, almost as if the anti-roll bars don’t match the springs and dampers. Trying to combat the knife-edge balance and managing the body movement makes for a wild ride, but the results are stunning. After five laps the Lingenfelter Z06 posts a best of 1:22.40. Faster than the optimised 599 GTB (p92), faster than the Lamborghini Gallardo, just a tenth behind the Koenigsegg CCX. And all for £60,000. Incredible.

Lined-up on the long back-straight at Bedford for the acceleration runs (Millbrook was unavailable) the conversion proves its worth again. The in-gear times all but match those of the 599 GTB (even more impressive when you consider that the Vette has much longer gearing – second, for example, peaks at 77mph in the Ferrari, 91mph in the Z06, third is 107mph versus 123mph), and although it can’t quite live with the GTB’s incredible launch technique, a 0-60mph time of 3.8 seconds is pretty impressive. The numbers flash by: 0-100mph in 8.2sec, the quarter-mile in 12-flat at 125mph, 0-140mph in 14.5. It’s a mighty performance in any context, and substantially quicker than we managed in a standard Z06 (0-60 in 4.1, 0-100 in 8.9).

However, the difference is perhaps not quite as marked as you’d expect with a 110bhp boost. Next we visited WRC Technologies in Silverstone to put the Lingenfelter Z06 on the Dyno Dynamics rolling road. It showed a strong gain but couldn’t better 552bhp. Not bad, but we’d hoped the magic number might start with a ‘6’. David Yu is now in discussion with Lingenfelter to see if some of the horses drowned somewhere mid-Atlantic. Just imagine how fast it’ll be when it’s running the full 616bhp…



The route from Bedford to Silverstone takes in narrow and extremely bumpy B-roads, fast A-roads and dual-carriageway. On the B-roads you never venture over 5000rpm. Combine a very hard ride with masses of power and the result is that you simply don’t have the confidence to fully unleash the engine. On the fast A-roads it’s much more assured; stable, grippy and devastatingly rapid. Here the extra performance can be put to good use.

So is the Lingenfelter kit worth the outlay? Well, it’s hard to sniff at a ten per cent gain in power in a normally aspirated engine (perhaps more when Lingenfelter gets to the bottom of the missing horses) for a relatively low asking price. The fact that the brawny V8 remains tractable and well-mannered is even more impressive. However, for me the Z06 is already quite fast enough. I think I’d invest my £5500 elsewhere, and with track driving in mind the suspension would be a good start…



evo RATING:

+ Even mightier performance

- Limited opportunities to use it

Engine:

V8, 7011cc, 16v

Max power:

616bhp @ 6250rpm

Max torque:

540lb ft @ 4800rpm

Top Speed:

200mph (est)

Price:

Standard Z06 plus £5500

[RC45]

Besides, your life expectancy is probably severely reduced with a 600+bhp Corvette anyway; you’ll be lucky to be around long enough to hear it go pop…

Typical "media hyperbole" - why not say the same thing about other "over powered" cars.. :roll:

Few supercars offer such an enormous and sustained hit of raw acceleration.

Uhm - this is what the rest of us have been saying abotu a couple grand thrown at any V8 powered car.. this is truely nothing new - there are literally thousands of cars in this power range rolling around the streets in the US :roll:

Instead the front keeps pushing and then, when you’ve flexed your right ankle a millimetre too far, the car snaps sideways – this lack of equilibrium means you tend to need lots of small, accurate corrections.

Get used to it - this is how rear biased cars drive and are still plenty quick enough to lap at astonishing rates..

we visited WRC Technologies in Silverstone to put the Lingenfelter Z06 on the Dyno Dynamics rolling road. It showed a strong gain but couldn’t better 552bhp. Not bad, but we’d hoped the magic number might start with a ‘6’. David Yu is now in discussion with Lingenfelter to see if some of the horses drowned somewhere mid-Atlantic. Just imagine how fast it’ll be when it’s running the full 616bhp…

Well - thats because first off the owner and local shop are twits for thinking they would go from 450rwhp to 616rwhp with only headers and a cam..

The Lingenfelter claim is accurate - its 505bhp to 616bhp... the 557RWHP is just about right.

I can't believe these guys actually publish inaccuracies like this. You would swear they are all noobs.

Oh and also, the car they tested is NOT a Lingenfelter Z06 - it is a Z06 with Lingenfelter parts bolted on... VERY different - its the same as buying some RUF parts in a catalogue then claiming your Porsche was a RUF...

The devil is in the tuning guys... any yahoo can claim to know how to eek the last HP out of a motor, but very few actually can.

My LS6 went from 385bhp to 485bhp with only headers, cam and intake and TUNING by MTI in Houston. Thats the detail this magazine article and owner seem to miss - unless the shop you are working with knows EXACTLY how to extract the power with the cam/air/exhaust combo at the tuning level, its a wash no matter whose parts you bolt on.

On the B-roads you never venture over 5000rpm. Combine a very hard ride with masses of power and the result is that you simply don’t have the confidence to fully unleash the engine. On the fast A-roads it’s much more assured; stable, grippy and devastatingly rapid. Here the extra performance can be put to good use.

Uhm - again.. the reviewer misses the point, the car already has more than enough power to exploit the B-Roads and be dominating... so you don't BOTHER going over 5,000rpm until you hit the A-Roads and then yuo pull 10 car lengths on the Enzo and CGT

However, for me the Z06 is already quite fast enough. I think I’d invest my £5500 elsewhere, and with track driving in mind the suspension would be a good start…

and yet again - the stock - stock stock suspension is good enough for a 7m43s Northloop lap... if anything, he should spend the 5 grand on driver training

So - in summary - this article is nothing new to those in the know... and the folks in the know are the 10,000's of Chevy enthusiasts whom have been adding 100's of BHP to their Vettes for decades...

And again, just cause you bolt on parts from the catalogue, doesn't make the package the same as a "package" deal from the tuner themselves.

[nthfinity]

616 hp from Lingenfelter... like any of the top 'vette guys out there... Lingenfelter have so much more to offer when they are actually rebuilding the car from the ground up... there are 3 Lingenfelter's in my town, with a 4th schedule for delivery in the not so distant future. basically, no bold is left unchecked, and often revised...

There is one 720 hp LPE car that has been recently delivered

sure this car is cool, but it can hardly be called a LPE car... its just LPE parts

[RC45]

Originally Posted by nthfinity 616 hp from Lingenfelter... like any of the top 'vette guys out there... Lingenfelter have so much more to offer when they are actually rebuilding the car from the ground up... there are 3 Lingenfelter's in my town, with a 4th schedule for delivery in the not so distant future. basically, no bold is left unchecked, and often revised... There is one 720 hp LPE car that has been recently delivered sure this car is cool, but it can hardly be called a LPE car... its just LPE parts

I checked the LPE promotion of the 616bhp kit...

These are the specs...

616 BHP Package 524 RWHP / 486 RWTQ Click here to view chassis dyno sheet Includes: Engine disassembly to allow camshaft replacement Professional degreeing of camshaft and reassembly of engine High performance dual valve springs & titanium retainers Lingenfelter custom LS6 ZO6 camshaft by Competition Cams Lingenfelter High Flow C6 ZO6 Air Induction with 4" diameter Lingenfelter Mass Air Sensor 160 degree thermostat Crank bolt, gaskets and fluids Professional installation, testing and tuning Chassis dyno report Excellent drivability, highway mileage not adversely effected Lingenfelter 3 year/ 36,000 mile warranty

So at 552bhp (thats only 470rwhp) the tuning is the weak link for sure.

I would also like to see the dyno chart of their car... heres Lingenfelters

[SPEEDKILLAR]

Cool, but why bother to increase the power and in doing so, decreasing the life expectancy of any engine. Just add a roll cage if possible, some slick tires, maybe upgrade the tires and suspension, and away you go. But I do like the gargeling thundering sound it makes.

But I guess some people just like to drag race.

[666fast]

The devil is in the tuning guys... any yahoo can claim to know how to eek the last HP out of a motor, but very few actually can.

Thats the first thing I thought of when reading that bit of the article. I started thinking that they just bolted the stuff on and that was it. You will always gain a hell of a lot more with proper tuning.

Cool, but why bother to increase the power and in doing so, decreasing the life expectancy of any engine. Just add a roll cage if possible, some slick tires, maybe upgrade the tires and suspension, and away you go. But I do like the gargeling thundering sound it makes. But I guess some people just like to drag race.

You increase the power to increase the performance. Millions of people do it. If it's done right, you won't decrease the engine life. If taken care of the way a car should be, it'll last just as long as it would have if left stock.
A roll cage is a great idea, for a track car, it's an unbelievably bad idea for a street car. It can kill you.

The drag racing comment just doesn't make sense IMO. Yea, putting out more power is good for that, but it's also good for the road course. Which is sort of obvious, it being a whopping 1/10 of a second behind the CCX around Bedford. Thats million dollar supercar performance for $80k.

All in all, I want one.

[TopGearNL]

Very cool car!

But after seeing the Brabus feature on TG I don't know what to think about these cars..

Seems you might aswell go for the standard car afterall...

[RC45]

Originally Posted by TopGearNL Very cool car! But after seeing the Brabus feature on TG I don't know what to think about these cars.. Seems you might aswell go for the standard car afterall...

But thats the neat part - his car is still essentially stock

Exhaust and intake anyone with a set of wrenches can do... cam is a simple install... drive up to your local GM SuperTuner and have them work the fuel/ignition timing magic and hey presto... for $5,000 you are 100bhp quicker

One day hopefully they will get to savour an actual Lingefelter (LPE) engineered car - the ground up rebuilds as nth points out are from a nother dimension - like the MTI Z06 and DevilRay cars - makes a Brabus look like the boat anchor it is

[TopGearNL]

/\/\ LOL!

Ok well that is neat indeed and I like it but this might seem like a stupid question, is it still reliable?

[RC45]

Very reliable - with 2 and 3 year warranties.

[graywolf624]

^^I think its a pretty safe bet or they wouldnt give it a 3 year warrenty.

I can tell you with a cam, header, exhaust, intake, and tune even my transam would gain 100 bhp and still be reliable. Now ask me to gain 2-300 and in my car we start to break some weak pieces. Then again.. originally 27000 dollar 3 year old trans am... 75000 dollar brand new corvette z06.

[TopGearNL]

Thats not all bad then! 8)

[obdr]

I have this issue of Evo as well. One interesting thing I couldnt help but notice: The Corvette outlapped the Ferrari 599 GTB. Thats pretty amazing considering I can walk down to my local Chevrolet dealer and literally LOOK at a Z06 thats stickering for $62,000. They actually have a standard C-6 vette soft top fully loaded with NAvi and every other option for MORE then the Z06 hehe.

On top of that, The ferrari was helped along by a special team flown in by Ferrari from Italy to make sure the 599 was given the best possible results. The Ferrari team showed the Evo guys the exact way to maximize performance from the car. Basically the Evo crew got professional level training on driving the car from the best of the best. They also brought along sets of fresh tires, hooked up the car to engine monitoring and management to make sure it was constantly running PERFECT, (Im sure they made adjustments on the fly too in roder to maximize power) etc. Not only that, before every run the Ferrari team would warm up the tiures by running zig zags and such.

To me, that isnt actually a good thing. I would be far more impressed if Ferrari had sent Evo the 599 GTB WITHOUT the babysitting team. It certainly does not inspire confidence for me in the brand that it takes an 8 man team of Ferrari specialists following the car around and giving it fresh tires and adjusting things all the time just for a magazine to run a decent performance test on it!!!! Worlds greatest GT car my ass!!!! GT cars have to be able to be driven hard for miles and miles WITHOUT a million dollar dream team of engineers from the Ferrari factory in Italy driving behind you all the way!!

The 599 did that already you say? It was in Evo right? Yes and no. The 599 did the "PanAmerica" thing but, again, it was babysat by about 50 dedicated Ferrari engineers and support staff the entire time. Kinda makes you wonder what would happen if just you and the car went on a 500 mile jaunt.......as GT car owners are prone to doing at timesssss

In all seriousness Im sure the Ferrari would do fine. Although there has been a recent spate of F430's catching fire all over the place, Im sure Ferrari builds fine and generally reliable cars. However, Im far more impressed that a Corvette sent over with a low costs tune package not even installed by Linginfelter itself and in the hands of a private owner and driven by Evo writers without a GM performance team there to coach them as to the EXACT driving characteristics of THAT specific corvette can still post a FASTER time then Ferrari's Enzo powered flagship model.

As others have said, do nothing at all to the Corvette other then put R-compound tires on it (the same ones most of the cars it competes against have as standard) and it will beat out most anything out there. Top Gear tested the Z06 as faster then the base Pagani Zonda. Motor Trend tested it as faster then the 997 Gt3 on thier track, its Nurburgring lap time is faster then the 360 modena and F430..............and it costs as mutch as a modestly equiped Porsche Cayman.

Nuff' Said.

[obdr]

Not only that, the Corvette Z06 is a developement of the C6R which is one of the most dominant forces in racing in Europe. Anybody that goes to Le Manns can tell you about the yellow Corvettes and the winning performances they put in. To me, they are modern day GT-40's.

[RC45]

^a development of the C5R more correctly...but the same general idea.