I recently purchased an 2001 C5 hatchback corvette (as in on Monday).

I am unsure of the suspension setup and the gear size at this time. Incidently, how do I find out?

Anyways - here is my issue:

My friend who has a sizable amount of experience building and driving cars (I know a thing or two but he knows significantly more) was doing approx 125 on the freeway when during a normal slightly banked turn, that we have both taken a few times before and has no posts indicating a reduction of speed, the car seemed to get very sloppy. From my perspective in the passenger seat and especially from Ken's perspective driving - the amount of control available just felt VERY wrong. Especially considering that both of us had driven lesser cars at the same speed through that particular turn. ALSO - Spirited braking makes the car a lot looser than expected and it doesn't take terribly fast speeds to induce this rear end wiggle (Fairly hard braking at 70 MPH will do it).

The tires certainly aren't brand new but they are in decent shape. I'm a little confused why the right front tire is harder than the left front tire when they are the same tire with the same PSI (the tires are the stock tires). The car FEELS wonderful at lower speeds and responds firmly yet enthusiastically. But what we felt today was JUST WRONG. Does anyone else have any experience with what I am describing?


Are these common characteristics on the C5? Perhaps Ken and I are just very unnacustomed to this particular type of suspension setup and the vette? What usually goes first in the suspension and what are the most common types of problems?

Those of you who have freeway driven your C5 at fairly high speeds - is the sloppiness common? Is there something that I should do differently to avoid this in the future? (no I do not plan on taking it 125 MPH on the freeway often but it was 2:00am and I got the car yesterday and some cocky rice rocket was asking for a butt whipping and I yelled at Ken that no riced out integra was going to even try to get uppity with me in the first week of me owning a corvette and that he was either going to reconcile that rice rocket or I'd yank the wheel and send us both careening into a ditch and our deaths - he happily obliged).

Up front I really do appreciate all of the help. I do not know how often I will be checking these posts and if you have some helpful advise I would very much like to hear it.

PLEASE e-mail comments to sacredrage@aol.com

 

That does not sound normal. What tires are you on and what was the pressure?

 

That sounds like the FE1 suspension. Its designed for old farts to cruise down main street in comfort. I would upgrade to 2004 Z06 shocks, springs, and sway bars. If you still have runflat tires, I would look into something else.

 

start with tires,check to see if you have the old plastic sway bar end links if so upgrade to the newer metal ones

 

Doesn't sound normal to me either!
But I have the Z51 suspension and it is nothing but stable, even at 150mph thru sweeping turns!
I would have the entire suspension checked out, just to rule out anything obvious. Then upgrade your suspension with better shocks, sway bars, etc. Tires are a limiting factor, but I have stock tires on my car and it still handles great.

Dean

 

Read what 66Impala just said. I had the FE1 on my Vette when I purchased it and my modded 96 WS6 would have handed it it's *** in the corners. It was very sloppy and not stable at speed. After upgrading to Hotchkiss bars, Z51 springs, BFG KD's and Bilstein sports this car handles great. It is very stable at speed (I've seen 178) and corners almost perfectly flat.