This Corvette was built to surprise and dominate the market. The Z06 was designed for the track and pushed the boundaries of what was really possible from a production car that could drive to the track, make better times than its competition, and drive back home with the air conditioning kicking and the radio blasting.

Engine and Transmission
The LS6 is essentially a more powerful version of Corvette’s LS1 V-8 engine. The engine starts with a redesigned intake manifold with better flowing internal passageways. Reengineered cylinder heads create more flow through the import and exhaust values, combustion chambers are redesigned to reduce valve shrouding and add a higher compression ratio. Also, redesigned thin-walled cast-iron exhaust manifolds provide a smoother exit for the combustion escape.

Of course, all this extra flow wouldn’t be worth much without a redesigned camshaft. So a beefier cam was installed by Corvette’s engineers with more valve overlap and greater valve lift. Chrome-vanadium-steel valve springs and stronger pistons cast from a more durable alloy were implicated in the engine’s design for toughness. And the LS6 was given windows cast into the internal crankcase walls to help air retreat from the underside of the burning hot pistons.

This new engine setup gave the New Corvette Z06 385 horsepower at 6,000 RPMs and 385 lb-ft of torque at 4,800 RPMs, and a redline RPM of 6,500.

In between all the power and the rear wheels was a beefed-up clutch (with lighter pedal effort), a larger-diameter driveshaft, and a revised six-speed manual transaxle. This new M12 gearbox was introduced with shooter 1st, 2nd, and gears to better utilize the new higher-revving LS6. All gears were 10-16 percent shorter except for the 4th gear which remained the same.

Suspension
More power always means more changes all around. To accommodate the power of the LS6 Corvette was a new FE4 suspension that included revised shock calibrations, a stiffer rear transverse leaf spring, and stiffer anti-roll bars front and rear.

To add ground support, each corner of the Vette receives 1-inch wider tires – 9.5-inch wide in the front and 10.5-inch wide in the back. New custom 10-spoke wheels are wrapped in Goodyear F1 Eagle tires: 265/40ZR-17s; the rears are 295/35ZR-18s. The F1 Eagle SC tires were designed with more flexible sidewalls, which permitted a half-degree more negative camber to keep the tread flatter during hard cornering.

To prove the Corvette was built for business, engineers found places around the car where they could shave pounds off the curb weight. Tires, mufflers, windshield, and rear glass were all lightened to help bring the Corvette’s curb weight down to 3,118 pounds.

Making sure everything was performance built was what this Corvette was all about, even both the dual mess grilles in the front and the rear brake coolers in front of the rear wheel wells are completely functional.

Let’s Go Over Some Numbers
The Corvette’s proof of superiority is in the numbers. A 0-60 MPH time is recorded at 4.3 seconds, and a 70 MPH – 0 stop takes only 152-feet. In a quarter-mile sprint, the Corvette can cover it in 12.7 seconds at 113 MPH, and hitting a 150 MPH will only take you 28 seconds, while a top speed of 170 MPH is easily manageable.

Hitting corners is another place where the Corvette Z06 shows no mercy to its competitors. Pulling 1.0 Gs in-and-out of corners is just what this sports car does.

The 2001 Corvette Z06 is just like the new Z06s and ZR1s, although classified as a sports car, they perform like a supercar.