Tested: speed vs. MPG, 2008 Corvette Z06 (505 hp)

[Winfield1990]

As far as the Cd goes.... is it really .28 because....

Well the wiki automobile drag coefficients are not 100% correct , especially not their CdA those are horribly inaccurate...

From what ive found the average Cd of corvettes are more like .31

[Jethro]

This is also the 2nd baddest factory corvette you can buy. Look at an "old man" C5 corvette. My buddy has the Z51 (step down from Z06) C5 and with me driving it having fun dabbling over 100 at times I got over 30 MPG. No, it's not 'stellar mileage' but compared to what my Ford Lightning got at those speeds (see 10 mpg) Yea, it's pretty damned impressive!

[scotte3497]

sigh thus thread really makes me nostalgic for my old dart 273 v8 4 speed auto and 276 rear gears either got 8 miles to a gallon as a teenager or 28 when I got older and kept my foot out of it.

[diesel_john]

My '92 vette gets best mileage at 45 MPH where it just locks up in to 4th. About 32 MPG. Best complete tank full 30.0 MPG. all freeway. Rear gears are 2.59. Oh, yeah, with the pedal to metal it shifts into 4th at 126 MPH. The mileage? I didn't notice, but at that speed only once.

[user removed]

First twin cam cross flow Hemi was 1907. (Welch I think the name was).

Chevy had a OHV 4 cylinder with no valve cover in 1925. Small cups drip fed the rockers. You had to fill the cups every 100 miles.

Chevy 6 was ohv from something like 1932. Still used babbit mains in the early 50s.

Consider the ancient tech NASCAR "stock cars" (what a laugh) getting close to 6 MPG at 180.

Alfa built a grand prix car in 1950 based on their mid 30s straight 8 design. It was two 45cubic inch, 4 cylinder blocks bolted nose to nose. One crank ran the two stage blower, the other ran the car. All accessories were gear driven from the crank with no fan belts to fall apart at close to 10k RPM.

90 cubic inches, 390 horsepower, and 2 MPG.

The first operational car built by Benz, had an overhead valve and a side valve (1886, I have the Franklin mint model).

Whats new is the computational capability and almost instant response of electronic controls and the ability to read engine parameters at amazing data transfer rates.

My 59 Vette would cruise at 100 MPH at 4 k RPM. The manual steering and manual drum brakes were an adventure at those speeds, but it would still go 70 MPH around an Interstate cloverleaf.

The front suspension was standard 53 chevy, without any rubber bushings anywhere.

I commonly drove back road curves at double the posted (yellow sign) speed limit and still got 22 MPG, without even thinking about hypermiling.

Engine and wide ratio M22 were out of a 71 Z28. Carb was a 600 Holley. Tires were Goodyear Polyglass.

Even my 37 Ford was a great handling car with 5 inch wide radials. This was with the original Flathead V8 and cable operated mechanical brakes, and it got 20 MPG even though it was redlined at 3800 RPM and 82 MPH, which I did in the car when it was 67 years old and still had the 4 original brake cables.

The 37 Coupe weighed 2500 pounds and had a 231 CI V8. It would pull in high gear from 350 RPM. You checked the idle speed by letting it idle in high gear at 7 MPH and 350 RPM.

regards
Mech

[user removed]

1913 Peugeot L45 Images, Information and History | Conceptcarz.com

1913 twin cam Hemi, and this one was not the first.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Lean+b...IP)-a098901449

High turbulence, higher efficiency engine, hauntingly similar to the Honda ISDI design.

regards
mech

[docrings]

This article and the results parallel my own experience with my 400HP C6 manual Z51, bought in 2005.

My average interstate mileage at 65mph is about 28mpg, and around town about 21mpg.

I'm sure at 35mph it would easily get in the 30's for fuel economy.

The joke in the family is that the Vette is our "economy" car!

My 300hp Lexus GS400 averages about 26mpg on the interstate at 70mph, 24mpg with A/C on at that speed.

Cheers!

Doc

PS: The fuel "savings" for me to convert to a 40mpg car would only be $100 a month. The fun in the vette is worth that and more...

[Blue Angel]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I'm new here and just read through this whole thing noticing a common specification error that was never corrected.

The 2008 Z06 in this test has a 0.50 6th gear. All C6 Corvettes have a 0.50 6th gear except the Z51/GrandSport (0.57) and the ZR1 (0.68), along with a 3.42 final drive. The ZR1 is the only C6 Corvette geared to do its top speed in 6th gear, all others do their top speed in 5th.

The gearing for the 2014 C7 Stingray has not yet been announced, but the manual transmission will have 7 (seven!) gears, no doubt the highest of which will be nice and tall for freeway cruising. Looks like the Corvette will be keeping its position as an ultra-efficient supercar.

[MetroMPG]

No apologies necessary for bumping an old thread when there's new information to add. Nobody should mind around here.

Thanks for the correction.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by Blue Angel

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I'm new here and just read through this whole thing noticing a common specification error that was never corrected.

The 2008 Z06 in this test has a 0.50 6th gear. All C6 Corvettes have a 0.50 6th gear except the Z51/GrandSport (0.57) and the ZR1 (0.68), along with a 3.42 final drive. The ZR1 is the only C6 Corvette geared to do its top speed in 6th gear, all others do their top speed in 5th.

The gearing for the 2014 C7 Stingray has not yet been announced, but the manual transmission will have 7 (seven!) gears, no doubt the highest of which will be nice and tall for freeway cruising. Looks like the Corvette will be keeping its position as an ultra-efficient supercar.

...and, you'll find the Cruze, too, reaches it's aero-limited top speed in 5th gear rather than 6th gear...at least that's what most of the car magazines seem to report.