2008 Chevy Corvette review featuring the LS3 engine

The first thing that we will pick up on with the new 2008 Chevy Corvette is the sexy upgrade it had received in the engine department; the LS3 is a 6.2 liter with 430 hp. The heads have been made larger and there is a new high-flow cylinder head, to give the engine a sweet sound is the intake manifold that has been acoustically-tuned. If you feel 430 hp is not enough for you then there is an option for a dual-stage exhaust system, this achieves more power by using butterflies in the two inner pipes this adds about 6 hp more.
So what everyone wants to know is what the performance figures are:
Firstly the top speed of the 2008 Chevy Corvette is 190 mph
0-60 time is about 4.3 seconds

So let us review the updates on the new 2008 Corvette:

Let us start with that engine, it is a 6.2L LS3 V-8 small-block, this comes as standard in both the coupe and convertible. As we said before it will produce 430 horsepower, with an exhaust upgrade that will rise to 436 hp. To get through all six gears in the use of a paddle-shift system, which can be turned off to become fully automatic. The LS3 engine has an aluminum cylinder block and Corvette have used cast iron cylinder liners, as the engine has larger bores some enhancement were needed to strengthen the engine, this was done by revisions and machining in the bulkheads these also resulted in the bay to bay breathing.

As we said the 2008 Corvette has a six-speed paddle-shift automatic transmission, the hardware has been much approved and thanks to better controller calibration the shifts between gears are much quicker, this means you have less power loss between gear changes.

As the car is much faster improvements needed to be made to the steering system, which is why revisions to the rack-and-pinion steering system to give the steering a better response and feel. In the wheel department the Corvette is now sitting on 18-inch wheels to the front and 19-inch rear wheels which have a sparkle silver finish.

To give the front end a strong visual look is the way that the fender has been formed and how the headlamps are now exposed, add to this a new grille design and you have that end result. As the fascia has also been improved this helps to achieve greater performance, well it is all about the aerodynamics these days. As always the rear of the car raises up, this is great for airflow as it helps to push the rear end down to keep it glued to the road.

Corvette state that they have used some of the best materials and craftsmanship, but we will only know this after people has owned the vehicle for some time. Both the doors and the instrument panel have been covered with a cast-skin foam-in-place trim, it cleverly makes it looks like leather but this extra padding does help to reduce road noise.

There is a choice of three different suspensions; the first is just the standard suspension this has been tuned to give the perfect balance between comfort and handling.

The second choice is the Magnetic Selective Ride Control suspension, this system has magneto-rheological dampers this allows the system to detect the different road surfaces which will then adjust the setting of the dampers to give you the optimal setting.

The final suspension choice is the Z51 Performance Package; this choice offers more aggressive dampers and springs which is perfect if you take your 2008 Corvette to the track.

All in the entire 2008 Corvette is set to be a far better car than its predecessors, but only time will tell this.

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