Ok, folks, some of you have asked. I have to talk to someone, anyone, about this terrible thing I've done. It takes all the energy I can muster to tell you what happened. Yes, I admit that I have been unfaithful. I've had a quick go with a new C5 Corvette. I turned my back on Honda, S2000s, and technological sophistication - all that is good and pure in this world. All that I have ever loved, and that has loved me in return and without question. All that has encouraged, nurtured, and guided me to a healthy and mature racestyle. I am so ashamed....

And what's just as sad is that some of my so-called

 

You evil evil man (in best John Cleese impression) BUUUUUUUURN HIIIIMM!!!!

in all seriousness, we all still love you, but you may want to get on your knees and pray to the S2000 gods

 

Hope you didn't catch anything...

 

IMO, Corvette and S2000 both are great cars, just for different kind of people....

great story though.

 

I'll be down on my knees for the rest of the week praying, as soon as I find exactly what direction Takanezawa is...

I'm looking at a map now...

And, this way I'll have more money left over for shrubberies...

 

I used to own a C5. Had a 2001 Millenium Yellow before i got the S. I'll say this about the fifth-gen Corvette: it is 80-90% of _any_ supercar _ever_ manufactured, for under $50,000.

There are some downsides: One, the interior is pure Lumina. It's cheap as hell, but at least it's well laid out.

The motor takes SEVEN LITERS of oil, and the factory and recommended fill is Mobil-1 Synthetic 5W/30. That's not cheap.

My mileage was around 18-20mpg combined, but in pure city, driving the way I wanted, I was getting about 12-15mpg.

A full tire change @ Discount will run you $1800 with balance, mounting, and certificates. Tires last about 10-12 thousand miles.

Mine suffered from shoddy build quality, body panels out of alignment, etc.

The 2001 run of LS1 motors had an issue where somehow the line guys had failed to install the oil rings on the pistons. I was burning through a quart of oil every 1500 miles, the manufacturer's limit. Others were going thru 2-3 quarts every 1k miles.

My steering column was not securely attached to the frame rail behind the dash. It wobbled badly. This was fixed by the dealer.

The brakes are good for about one panic stop, then the rotors are shot. I had two sets replaced due to excessive runout in the five months I owned the car.

The motor overheated after about 15-20 seconds of full throttle running. My guess is that it's the stock thermostat, a 190 degree unit. It's cheap to replace and is almost always the first thing done. Changing this to a 172 or for me a 160 (texas heat!) would more than likely have fixed the problem. The manifestation of this was a detonation at high (5000+) rpms where the computer would pull timing to get it to stop. Net effect was that the car's dyno plot showed a 25hp dip near redline, after which it would recover. That was incredibly annoying.

HOWEVER...

All these things aside, (and there are some other minor bits of weirdness), the car was generally _very_fast_, and reasonably fun to drive. There is no replacement, i repeat, NO REPLACEMENT, for heroic power, something the S lacks. The LS1's overall potential is HUGE. Heads, cam, and headers, plus some other minor goodies, installed, will run around $5k US. With NO FURTHER TUNING, that should get you around 400rwhp. And that's EMISSIONS LEGAL. An even hotter cam will net somewhere in the neighborhood of 410-420rwhp, if emissions aren't a concern.

That being said, I still prefer the S. It's lighter, smaller, convertible (w00t!), has orders of magnitude better build quality, snappier handling, better visibility, superior interior trim, and equally trick gauges (altho the HUD in the C5 is just kewl). In the long run, it'll hold it's value better, keep running longer, and be more fun to drive all at the same time. MUCH cheaper to own and operate, and while not as practical, far simpler to drive at or near 10/10ths than the Corvette. The performance limits for the 'vette are so high that, not only are they too much for the street, if/when you exceed them, the car breaks away so quickly that you'd better be Emerson Fittipaldi if you want to recover. I consider myself a pretty good driver, but I turned the Active Handling off _once_, and scared myself so bad I turned it back on and never touched it again. I have yet to repeat the experience in the S, and I drive hard.

 

jwfisher-damn you should be a writer(if not already...heh). its ok, at least your back with your one true love, your s2. we all think about or had a cheap fling.

 

Don't misinterpret - my little trip on the "wild side" was purely a fact-finding mission. I like to drive cars, a lot of different cars. Driving different cars gives you perspective, so you don't end up a single-brand bigot.

Read the response from Netwiz. It's exactly the type of balanced knowledgeable reply I had hoped to get. That's exactly why I wrote this silly thing... it's the only way I could think of to describe this disappointing car and it's image. Yes, like he says "heroic" power, but an unforgivably terrible build quality. And, an extremely bad image for it's owners. Way too much hype in the press. It's absolutely absurd to eat that much oil, or go thru rotors that quickly. I've seen very few of these survive a weekend of hard driving on a (roadcourse-type) racetrack (brakes, cooling, at least 1 quart of oil a day). To make this a real track car, minimally you will need real seats, real brakes, and coolers for both the tranny and diff (both of which leach heat into the other... making for even worse problems). I have no doubt it could be fixed up and do well... at the cost of another 15 grand.

This is very typical of relying solely on car magazines and "hype" for the true story. You have to talk to people who have actually done it for the true story - and done it for a lot longer than it takes to write a road test. It takes several months at the least. You really know it after a year.

In reality, the C5 is a terrible car. By "car", I mean something you can actually live with for the duration. Hence the wording in my story.

And, in reality, the S2000 is a great "car". It runs forever, makes amazing numbers (instead of relying merely on cubic inches), and is built very well. It has a few things that could be better optimized for my purposes - but none that are absolutely necessary for normal use.

Hence the final wording in my story - everything has faults, but it's true love when you can love "her" as she is (well, ok, maybe I'm not ready to apply my own philosophy here, but maybe a supercharger and some Brembos at all 4 corners would fix it? I guess I'm a hypocrit..). Regardless, this car is a "keeper".

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by GDPzS2000
[B]ou should be a writer

 

Just thought I'd check in... the treatments are going very well, the prognosis is good. I've stayed with my therapy sessions these last few years. The doctor has even allowed me to drive an S2000 again!