Michael Chuang takes a Corvette C7 Z06 to New Jersey Motorsports Park and tests how aero stages affect lap times. Stage 1 setup nets 139 seconds, Stage 3 nets 134.2 seconds, a difference of about 4.8 seconds that downforce makes over a full lap.
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It's amazing how a few pieces of carbon or fiberglass can change a car's aerodynamics. On the Corvette Z06 it comes in three flavors. Stage one provides the least amount of downforce but the most amount of straight line performance. Stage three is the opposite and Stage two is somewhere in between. Anyway, last month I did a season opener at NJMP Thunderbolt hosted by Northeast Drivers Club. I had two goals that find out how much of a difference the Aero packages make in the 6130 and set a baseline lap for myself in the C7Z06. Hopefully you guys don't get a headache from my helmet cam. Let's begin. This first run is with Stage one Aero and my car is an intake X pipe and ported throttle body. Now we'll try again with Stage three Arrow in its most aggressive setting. Almost half a second. That's quite a bit, but it's worth it around a track. Stage three feels significantly more planted around those high speed corners, yet I'm sure it more than makes up for that half a second in the turns. Get that lap time. It's. It's. So 134.2 is by no means fast. There's a lot of room for improvement because I know the car in stock form is capable of a sub 1 min 30 time. But summer tires don't do great in the cold and this was my first time around Thunderbolt, so I think it's not a bad starting point. For comparison's sake, with stage one arrow, the fastest lap I did was something like 139. Not a conclusive test, but from a driver's standpoint you can feel the confidence from the additional downforce. I've been taking it easy these past few episodes and narrating more because I got hit with a bad cold. That's also why my voice might sound a bit more Batman than usual. Things should be back to normal next week. Thanks for watching guys.
