Can the Corvette Stingray Handle a Bit of Revving?
Can the Corvette Stingray Handle a Bit of Revving?
Can the Corvette Stingray Handle a Bit of Revving?
This weekend I paid a visit to one of the first dealer-issued C7 Corvettes to arrive in California. I posted a brief review and a revving video on our forum. See the video + review pasted below:
“This [Saturday] morning I was driving to the Guasti Homestyle Café, a SoCal breakfast joint I hadn’t been to in about 20 years. On the way to breakfast, I passed by M.K. Smith Chevrolet in Chino, CA, and I began to wonder if they had any C7s in stock. While at the restaurant eating my spinach omelet, I gave the dealership a call. I was in luck: they had just gotten a new Corvette off the truck. I told them I was a writer at CorvetteForum.com, and they invited me to have a look.
“Before getting them to rev it for me in the video below, I got to sit in the car, and the first thing I noticed was how comfortable the GT bucket seats are. You can tell this car was built in the South just by how accommodating the shoulder bolsters feel … sitting in the C7 Corvette feels like Aunt Bea giving you a hug; you can just feel the Southern hospitality.
“The next thing I noticed was how big the door speakers are. I’m a bit of an audiophile, so I cranked up the bass and treble on the nine-speaker Bose audio system, and pumped the volume with the radio tuned to 93.5 KDAY, a hip-hop station in L.A. The Corvette’s Bose system is now as impressive as the Porsche 911 Convertible’s Bose setup … the Porsche has one of the best Bose systems I’ve ever heard in a car. The Corvette’s system might actually be better than the Porsche’s system, but I would need to test it more to confirm.
“That’s all I can report about the new Corvette after my short visit to the dealership. Check out the video of my visit below.”
After posting that, forum member “rayw1128” asked this question:
“Is it safe for them to rev a brand-new engine that high? Is that smoke coming out of the tailpipe normal?”
“C7 4 Me” had this to say:
“It’s threads like these that make me want to be there when my car comes off the truck and take delivery ASAP.”
I replied:
“That wasn’t smoke; it was water vapor. I have faith in the reliability of the GM powertrain. I’m familiar with the Corvette’s break-in procedure, and I believe a couple of revs won’t hurt … sure, the engine could have been warmer, but it wasn’t completely cold.”
I will add that the high rev where all the water vapor exploded out the back was the only high rev the engine had to endure. I’ll estimate it was a 5,000-rpm rev, so he didn’t quite rev the nuts off the C7 … we can say he revved off half the car’s sack.
I pose this question to you, CorvetteForum reader: Am I taking these revs too lightly? Do I need some serious schooling in break-in procedure, or should I have faith in the new LT1’s ability to handle a few revs off the delivery truck?