Why You Should Own A Corvette

You know what I give up. Fighting against fanboys isn't conducive to my mental health.

Concede I will, a Mustang chassis is the greatest ever made. Ferrari and McLaren are idiots for not using it in their super cars and their F1 racers.

And poor Viper007 to have bought a Dodge Viper when all he needed was a $50 buck gift certificate at Pep Boys to turn his Mustang into a Bugatti killer.

I'm out.

No one in this thread has said the Mustang chassis are the greatest ever made. My arguments simply show that the third and fourth gen. chassis allow for simple and effective improvements to take advantage of their not "completely terrible" suspension geometry and make them into capable performers for little cost.
 
anything can be improved. the starting point of a mustang couldn't really be made much worse unless it was FWD.

but anyway, tell me again about simple upgrades like swapping entire subframes.
 
Last edited:
but anyway, tell me again about simple upgrades like swapping entire subframes.

simple is in the eye of the beholder, to me simple = anything that can be easily swapped/replaced via removing/securing nuts and bolts. hard = any kind of custom fab work.

The IRS has a bolt in subframe. The k-member is also a bolt-in subframe.
 
The mustang setup is so good that it needs to be replaced.
 
simple is in the eye of the beholder, to me simple = anything that can be easily swapped/replaced via removing/securing nuts and bolts. hard = any kind of custom fab work.

The IRS has a bolt in subframe. The k-member is also a bolt-in subframe.
Ah, by that rationale the Miata is better - you simply get coilovers, new wheels and tires, bigger brakes, and easily bolt on a turbo kit with no custom fab work - voila! 300whp monster that will devour a stock Corvette.


The mustang setup is so good that it needs to be replaced.
:roflmao: +rep
 
Ah, by that rationale the Miata is better - you simply get coilovers, new wheels and tires, bigger brakes, and easily bolt on a turbo kit with no custom fab work - voila! 300whp monster that will devour a stock Corvette.

It probably would.
 
Fanboyism just went to another level in the past 3 pages.
 
I'm sorry,* but any track day wannabe racer who thinks they can engineer an effective modded Mustang/Miata/nameanyotherjalopy that actually competes with a Corvette or any other real sports car not only in terms of precision and handling but also in comfort, drivability and ease of maintenance is either delusional or retarded.

I work around, with, and against (sadly) track day drivers 3-5 days a week 52 weeks a year. The go-to solution for any problem is "hurr durr, bigger tires bro, slap some Hoosiers on bro, gonna do *insert easily attainable lap time for a stock Corolla here* at Laguna once my car is done bro". And it's sad because they end up passing a Porsche like once when a beginner got just good enough to move up to the intermediate group and they think they achieved their goal. The irony of course being that it ends up costing way more in the long run because, being on a budget, they had to skimp on something somewhere down the line, which breaks, almost continually. Every track car build has this issue. That's fine. You might enjoy fixing these continual problems. I'm a tinkerer too. But I'm not under any delusions that my car is better than some other car that has had actual engineering poured into it over years and years by hundreds of talented people and honed by millions and millions of test miles.

Go actually drive, and learn to drive, a proper sports car that has had millions of dollars wisely invested by people who actually do this shit for a living, then you will realize that some forums and a $1,200 coilover set isn't even in the same galactic supercluster in terms of overall prowess on and off the street. As someone who has spent a good few hundred hours driving and being driven in supercars and high end sports cars by good and bad drivers for a modest living, I think I'm qualified to say that.


*I'm not.
 
You know what I give up. Fighting against fanboys isn't conducive to my mental health..

Come over here, we can easily make my Megane 1.6 faster than any Mustang with a few simple mods.
 
I'm sorry,* but any track day wannabe racer who thinks they can engineer an effective modded Mustang/Miata/nameanyotherjalopy that actually competes with a Corvette or any other real sports car not only in terms of precision and handling but also in comfort, drivability and ease of maintenance is either delusional or retarded.

I work around, with, and against (sadly) track day drivers 3-5 days a week 52 weeks a year. The go-to solution for any problem is "hurr durr, bigger tires bro, slap some Hoosiers on bro, gonna do *insert easily attainable lap time for a stock Corolla here* at Laguna once my car is done bro". And it's sad because they end up passing a Porsche like once when a beginner got just good enough to move up to the intermediate group and they think they achieved their goal. The irony of course being that it ends up costing way more in the long run because, being on a budget, they had to skimp on something somewhere down the line, which breaks, almost continually. Every track car build has this issue. That's fine. You might enjoy fixing these continual problems. I'm a tinkerer too. But I'm not under any delusions that my car is better than some other car that has had actual engineering poured into it over years and years by hundreds of talented people and honed by millions and millions of test miles.

Go actually drive, and learn to drive, a proper sports car that has had millions of dollars wisely invested by people who actually do this shit for a living, then you will realize that some forums and a $1,200 coilover set isn't even in the same galactic supercluster in terms of overall prowess on and off the street. As someone who has spent a good few hundred hours driving and being driven in supercars and high end sports cars by good and bad drivers for a modest living, I think I'm qualified to say that.


*I'm not.
Holy shit, THIS! Your post also reminds me of all the Subaru fanboy friends of mine that would spend hours and hours, as well as thousands and thousands of dollars modifying and then fixing the cars only to hopefully make as much power as a used bone-stock factory-reliable Corvette. I'll say it again - nothing touches the 'Vette for performance/dollar ratio.
 
Holy shit, THIS! Your post also reminds me of all the Subaru fanboy friends of mine that would spend hours and hours, as well as thousands and thousands of dollars modifying and then fixing the cars only to hopefully make as much power as a used bone-stock factory-reliable Corvette. I'll say it again - nothing touches the 'Vette for performance/dollar ratio.

Dude I can kill a Vette in my Outback bone stock, it's got AWD bro, you can't touch AWD bro!
 
Why You Should Own A Corvette

HOLY FUCK. I don't think I've ever had my words and points twisted this badly before, so I guess it's time to wrap it up:

I still believe that the Mustang has a better performance/dollar ratio than a Corvette.

I don't think the Mustang is a better platform than the Corvette.

I do realize the modifications available are just bandaid fixes, but fortunately the bandaid fixes are good enough to elevate the Mustang to achieve Corvette levels of performance.

I also don't think any of you are qualified to speak to the reliability of the modifications as none of you seem to care to know what they are and thus how they were engineered and tested, so I would quit tossing out the reliability factor as some kind of unique counter point that invalidates the possible performance.
 
Last edited:
Holy shit, THIS! Your post also reminds me of all the Subaru fanboy friends of mine that would spend hours and hours, as well as thousands and thousands of dollars modifying and then fixing the cars only to hopefully make as much power as a used bone-stock factory-reliable Corvette. I'll say it again - nothing touches the 'Vette for performance/dollar ratio.

True. Having hammered a 458 Italia and a C7 Corvette around Thunderhill back to back, I think the C7 offers 90% what the Italia offers at a fraction of the cost.

Is it perfect? Hell no. Like a Mustang modded to be as fast as a Corvette, the Corvette gives up some road performance to get near the Italia on track. The Italia rides much better while cornering harder, and the Corvette ends up being even a little too stiff for the track since it was skipping the rear end a bit in turn 1. The Corvette lost out by a lot in the braking zones too. Driver ergonomics are better in the Italia, and the engineering extends beyond the C7 in ways you might not expect. The Corvette had 3k miles on it but the interior trim was already starting to come loose, and the suspension isn't designed for abnormal loads. The owner hit a pot hole and sent the front strut through the hood.

Of course the Italia does more stuff better, like downforce, high speed balance (Corvette is good in slow corners but pushes like a pig at high speed), and driver feel.


I do realize the modifications available are just bandaid fixes, but fortunately the bandaid fixes are good enough to elevate the Mustang to achieve Corvette levels of performance.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. NO TWISTING REQUIRED.

You do not understand performance. You think performance is lap time or ET. It's not. It's that plus comfort, drivability, reliability, ease of repair, cost of repair, economy, and all the other things road cars do that track cars don't.


I also don't think any of you are qualified to speak to the reliability of the modifications as none of you seem to care to know what they are and thus how they were engineered and tested, so I would quit tossing out the reliability factor as some kind of unique counter point that invalidates the possible performance.

I doubt you'll care, but I am actually paid to drive and understand these things. I spend most of my time around modded track cars. I think I can be justified in saying what I said because of that. Like the C7 vs. Italia deal above, I was paid to do that and coach drivers in both cars. A not inconsiderate sum, I might add.

I also think I am justified in saying you are being a real dunce about this.
 
Last edited:
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. NO TWISTING REQUIRED.

You do not understand performance. You think performance is lap time or ET. It's not. It's that plus comfort, drivability, reliability, ease of repair, cost of repair, economy, and all the other things road cars do that track cars don't.

The definition of what does and doesn't constitute performance is an entirely subjective thing and not a new argument I'm trying to have here. By your definitions, a fox-era Mustang cannot compete. Since this entire time I was referring to outright handling I'm sticking to the anecdotes (the slalom test and the hill climb video) I had posted.

Also, the Cobra R in the C&D comparison was 2.4 seconds slower than a C5 Z06, what if it was a base C5?

I doubt you'll care, but I am actually paid to drive and understand these things. I spend most of my time around modded track cars. I think I can be justified in saying what I said because of that. Like the C7 vs. Italia deal above, I was paid to do that and coach drivers in both cars. A not inconsiderate sum, I might add.

...and I worked for nearly 4 years as a test engineer testing components to failure. The one thing you're missing in regards to Mustang modifications, is that most of the modifications available come from Ford via Ford Racing, which means that those parts were designed by the engineers at Ford themselves under similar standards as the original stuff.
 
Last edited:
All I know is that Mustangs are not at all competitive at autocross. I went to a Mustang club autocross once - every single Mustang finished behind every single Miata. Corvettes, meanwhile, are fantastic at dodging cones, even in stock form.
 
And yet, police use the Mustang.
 
Top