Even though it only arrived in dealerships less than two months ago, the 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 has been through a lot of ups and downs from a marketing perspective. The first crashed model was photographed even before the car was launched, then it lost several straight-line races to a Dodge Viper TA and last, but certainly not least, one example said farewell to its engine with under 1,000 miles on the clock. Well, as it turns out, the unlucky man whose Z06 engine decided to unexpectedly blow up at 891 miles is back, only this time it is all good news.
As you can expect after watching from the track video above, the 2015 Corvette Z06 owner had the engine replaced with a crate LT4 V-8 under warranty, drove the car like a grandma for a proper 1,500 mile break-in period and then took it to a track event at Road Atlanta. So far, it seems that the new engine behaves more than adequately, with the owner admitting that the 2015 Z06 actually feels faster and much better planted than his Viper on the same track.
According to a discussion on Corvette->ke1280 Forum, the only problem he had with the Vette consisted with three of the car's lug nuts coming loose after a few driving laps on the Road Atlanta circuit. Not to say that the car remained without wheels after a few hard runs, but he apparently had to check the lug nuts every other 15-minute driving session. As a refresher, the latest Corvette Z06 gives you 650 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque to play with, all those numbers being transmitted to the rear wheel via a standard seven-speed manual or an optional eight-speed automatic transmission. As it seems, the model in the video above is a bone-stock manual version without the Z07 package.