2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE: Chevy Sharpens Its Lead Pipe

MotorTrend

On this episode of Ignition presented by Tire Rack

Transcript

00:00 (orchestral music)

00:02 (engine revving)

00:16 - Hi there.

00:22 I'm up in nowhere Washington near the Canadian border

00:25 driving the brand new 2018

00:28 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE.

00:31 Before I can tell you what the 1LE version is like,

00:34 let me refresh your memory about the ZL1.

00:38 (engine revving)

00:40 (upbeat music)

00:46 (phone ringing)

00:55 (birds chirping)

00:58 The 1LE moniker is Camaro shorthand

01:03 for tracked up versions that can stop and turn better.

01:06 Though, there's no increase in power.

01:09 Currently, Chevy will sell you a V6 1LE,

01:12 a V8 powered SS 1LE, and now this,

01:16 the ripped, snorting 650 horsepower ZL1 1LE.

01:21 How do you tell if the Camaro you're looking at

01:24 is part of the 1LE family?

01:26 The telltale sign is a blacked out hood.

01:28 Other than that, the body's the same.

01:30 Same grill opening, but the grill itself is more aggressive.

01:34 In fact, it flows more air.

01:36 Why do you want more air?

01:37 Well, more cooling, more aero,

01:38 whatever you wanna do with clean air, you got it.

01:40 (engine revving)

01:43 They also removed the DRLs, the daytime running lights,

01:46 which saves seven pounds.

01:48 In fact, this car is 60 pounds lighter than a regular ZL1.

01:52 But by removing those DLRs,

01:54 the openings are bigger,

01:55 so you can now flow more air into the intercooler,

01:57 into the brake ducts, whatever you wanna do with it.

01:59 Speaking of air flow, up front,

02:01 you've got that giant splitter

02:03 flanked by those insane canards, or dive planes.

02:07 In fact, they're so aggressive,

02:09 you can't sell this car in Europe

02:11 because it'll fail pedestrian safety standards.

02:13 How cool is that?

02:14 I mean, that's reason enough to buy the car right there.

02:17 (engine revving)

02:22 Moving to the back, you have that giant rear wing,

02:24 which was co-developed by Pratt & Miller,

02:27 and that's Chevy's race partner for Le Mans.

02:29 At 150 miles per hour,

02:31 this thing creates 300 pounds of downforce.

02:35 You might be thinking, when will we ever need that?

02:37 Well, if you watch the Nurburgring lap video,

02:40 you'll see that the ZL1 1LE

02:42 goes over 155 miles per hour four times,

02:46 and over 165 miles an hour three different times.

02:50 So, there's that.

02:51 Also, don't forget,

02:53 this freak is a 650 horsepower force of nature.

02:57 150 miles an hour will happen.

03:00 (engine revving)

03:03 Number one rule of business is know thy customer,

03:05 and Chevy knows that track rats

03:08 like nothing more than adjustability.

03:10 Even if the cars don't need it,

03:11 they love to tinker and adjust their cars.

03:13 So, there's three places you can adjust the 1LE.

03:17 You can raise and lower the ride height by 10 millimeters,

03:19 although I would suggest against lowering the ride height

03:22 10 millimeters if you're on the street, track only.

03:25 But, if you wanna break your splitter off,

03:26 hey, it's a free country, do what you like.

03:29 Out back, the stabilizer bar has three positions,

03:31 neutral, understeer, oversteer.

03:33 Why would you want understeer?

03:34 I'll tell you something,

03:36 high-speed stability is increased by more understeer,

03:39 so sometimes you want it.

03:41 But hey, if you're a real tough guy,

03:43 put it in oversteer mode.

03:44 Plus, also, every track is different.

03:46 You do wanna set a car up based on the track it's on.

03:49 The final and coolest part of the 1LE's adjustability

03:52 is camber, and lots of it.

03:54 Normally, the car has negative 1.7 degrees of front camber.

03:58 However, if you jack it up,

04:00 remove three bolts from the blue

04:02 anodized aluminum camber plates,

04:04 and rotate 'em half a turn,

04:05 you suddenly have up to 3.7 degrees of negative camber.

04:10 Though, Chevy thinks negative 2.7 is best.

04:13 But hey, do what you like.

04:15 Now, it's true, 3.7 degrees is hell on your tires,

04:19 but again, man, it's your car.

04:21 Destroy 'em.

04:23 Speaking of tires, the Z01 1LE rides

04:25 on the new Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar R3,

04:29 and it's the first race compound street tire

04:32 that Goodyear's ever sold.

04:33 Their target, of course,

04:35 was the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2,

04:37 and from where I'm sitting, they basically got there.

04:40 (upbeat music)

04:43 (engine revving)

04:45 The most significant difference between this car

04:48 and the regular Z01, if you can call that monster regular,

04:51 are the shocks.

04:52 They're made by a little company in Canada

04:54 called Multimatic.

04:55 They're referred to as DSSVs, or spool valve dampers,

04:59 and you will find them on F1 cars,

05:01 the Aston Martin 177, the new Ford GT,

05:05 and this here Camaro,

05:06 and it is exotic advanced race car technology.

05:10 The big advantage with spool valves is this.

05:12 The same damper at low speed

05:14 can do a completely different compression

05:16 and rebound profile than at high speed.

05:19 So you can actually tune the damper

05:21 to make sure that the wheels are in contact

05:23 with the ground as much as possible, no matter the speed.

05:26 They are non-adjustable in the traditional sense,

05:28 so you do give up a little bit of ride quality,

05:31 but again, this is a track car.

05:32 You wanna give that up so you can get more control.

05:35 (engine revving)

05:38 I was being too kind.

05:40 Over rough surfaces, the ZL1-1LE's ride sucks,

05:44 especially when the rear dampers run out of travel.

05:47 Stay away from potholes.

05:49 And then Chevy took those awesome dampers

05:52 and hard mounted them to the body.

05:54 There's no rubber in the suspension.

05:56 There's no bushings.

05:57 It's just metal on metal, and it's severe,

06:00 and it's abnormal, and it really makes this thing

06:02 an uncaged race car, and that's totally cool with me.

06:06 (engine revving)

06:08 (upbeat music)

06:11 This car is so analog.

06:16 It's just a machine that you drive.

06:17 You're doing everything.

06:18 (upbeat music)

06:21 And when you get it right, I mean, just yeah!

06:27 Yeah!

06:28 (upbeat music)

06:31 It's just awesome.

06:33 Oh, what a machine!

06:35 What a beast!

06:38 It's way too much for this road.

06:40 I've gotta find a race track.

06:41 (engine revving)

06:45 You can tell that we must be really close to Canada,

06:48 that the people are really friendly,

06:49 because this whole area is infested with hitchhikers.

06:53 There's one right there.

06:54 Bo Bandi?

06:59 Randy?

07:03 Johnny?

07:04 What are you doing here?

07:06 - Well, I was on my way up to this great new race track

07:09 in Canada, just over the border.

07:10 It's called Area 27.

07:13 I got in a little hot water, and now I'm walking.

07:16 - Well, what a coincidence, because as both fate

07:18 and our script would have it, I'm in search of a race track.

07:22 - Well, can I ride with you?

07:24 - Yeah!

07:25 - Can I drive?

07:27 - You always say that.

07:28 - Thanks, Johnny.

07:29 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

07:30 - This is my lucky day.

07:32 - Yeah, yeah.

07:35 (dramatic music)

07:38 (engines revving)

07:41 (dramatic music)

08:02 (engines revving)

08:05 - All right, we made it to our race track.

08:18 Randy, let me ask you, you spend a lot of time

08:21 tracking the ZL1, the regular car,

08:23 if you can use the word regular to describe that thing.

08:25 - Yes.

08:26 - How does this one differ from the regular ZL1?

08:30 - It's got more race car in it.

08:32 It's a lot firmer suspension.

08:34 - So you notice that the Multimatic DSSV,

08:38 or as they're called, spool valve shocks,

08:40 they make a big difference compared

08:41 to the magnetic dampers on the ZL1.

08:44 - Yes, they do.

08:45 They're very firm.

08:46 The car is completely controlled.

08:49 No sense of body roll, squat, dive.

08:51 Everything is so controlled.

08:54 (dramatic music)

08:59 - What do you make of these tires?

09:01 'Cause these are the tires that Goodyear developed

09:03 to compete with the legendary Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2.

09:06 - Well, I think the grip is very good, Johnny.

09:09 It's a tire that is just kind of safe, right?

09:13 - So what are you feeling is the dominant characteristic?

09:17 Understeer, oversteer, neutral?

09:19 - The car seems to be extremely well balanced to me.

09:22 It's stable, so it's got enough understeer to be stable,

09:26 but not enough to be annoying or frustrating.

09:29 I mean, that's a lot of power to put down, Johnny,

09:31 and it's a sign that the Goodyears are working.

09:34 Look.

09:35 That's second gear flat out, 650 pound-feet of torque,

09:40 and it just bites.

09:41 - Yeah, it really does.

09:42 - It just bites.

09:43 - Yeah, the car gets serious all of a sudden.

09:45 (car engine revving)

09:47 What do you make of the brakes on this car?

09:49 - You know what?

09:50 The car stops really well.

09:51 I'm not feeling fade.

09:53 The tire grip is amazing in braking.

09:55 I'll bet we got a really short stop in this concern.

09:58 (rock music)

10:01 - Okay, so tell me about the aero.

10:03 - We do know that we've got 300 pounds of downforce

10:06 at 150 miles an hour.

10:08 - Yeah.

10:09 - Right?

10:10 - Yeah.

10:11 - So to honestly say that we're feeling downforce,

10:13 we're gonna be going well over 100.

10:15 (rock music)

10:17 - So we need to be at the Nurburgring

10:20 to really take full advantage of what this car's capable of.

10:23 - Oh, it'll be a good setup for the Nurburgring.

10:25 Even though we're not at the Nurburgring,

10:27 maybe it's time for you to set a hot lap in this car.

10:30 - Yes, please.

10:31 - Okay, but not here.

10:33 How about at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca?

10:36 - Oh, yeah, I know the line there.

10:38 - Before we leave Canada,

10:40 I should mention that Randy was able

10:42 to beat the Camaro engineer who set the Nurburgring lap

10:45 on area 27 by a tenth of a second

10:48 after only half a day on the track.

10:50 As for knowing his way around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca,

10:54 well, Randy has set and broken the production car lap record

10:57 there close to 20 times.

11:00 Here he goes.

11:01 (car engine revving)

11:04 (car engine revving)

11:07 (car engine revving)

11:11 (car engine revving)

11:14 (car engine revving)

11:17 (car engine revving)

11:25 (car engine revving)

11:32 (car engine revving)

11:43 (car engine revving)

11:46 (car engine revving)

11:53 (car engine revving)

12:12 (car engine revving)

12:15 (car engine revving)

12:21 (car engine revving)

12:31 To put one minute, 34.30 seconds in perspective for you,

12:41 the lap record for a production car back in 2012

12:44 was 134.43 set by a Corvette Z06.

12:49 An Audi R8 V10 Plus is seven hundredths

12:52 of a second quicker, hundredths.

12:55 Last year's Best Driver Car winner,

12:57 the mid-engine carbon-tubbed McLaren 570S ran a 134.58.

13:02 Remember the fifth-gen Camaro Z28,

13:06 the super track-focused freak

13:07 with one speaker and no air conditioning?

13:10 It could only muster a 137.82

13:13 and cost about $4,000 more than the ZL1 1LE.

13:18 What Chief Engineer Al Oppenheiser and his team

13:20 have achieved with this fiend is remarkable.

13:23 Again, a Camaro, any Camaro,

13:25 is quicker around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

13:28 than a McLaren, any McLaren?

13:30 Do you believe it?

13:32 I don't even know if I believe it, and I was there.

13:35 The ZL1 is an ear-shattering full stack

13:38 of a car to begin with.

13:40 The 1LE version grabs the knob and cranks it past 11.

13:44 The only lame part of the new Camaro ZL1 1LE is this,

13:51 this X sticker, and really it's just stupid.

13:54 The good news is, it peels right off.

13:56 (whooshing)

13:58 you

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended