you guys are missing the point. if GM is to project on to the market that it's making progress and deserves the buyer's attention, IRS is paramount. most people who buy a car never take it to the track. what's more important is the interior, fit and finish, durability, and RIDE-QUALITY. it would take something really special to make a live-axle have as smooth a ride quality as an IRS. also, re: axle hop, GM's problems with their IRS are out of the norm, they're doing something wrong. on the other hand, you pretty much expect axle hop with a live-axle. meh.

 

this IRS better be optional... its by far the better choice for a daily-driver and even the occasional road racer. However, I didnt buy my car for the luxury, and I dont want wheel hop and/or a higher price, so give me the live axle with a 4.10 please

 

I would also prefer live-axle over IRS. I don't take 20MPH corners at 50 because it's stupid, with or without IRS.

Sign me up for a live axle with 4.10's and a 6-Speed.

 

Once package protected for a live rear axle, a vehicle loses all kinds of advantages if it maintains an IRS.

That high shelf in the hatch area of a 4th gen is a direct result of having a live axle, an IRS wouldn't need such an intrusive design. The other thing an IRS will allow is moving back the rear seats a little bit... which Buick will demand.

The magic will be maintaining the car as a Camaro (or whatever it ends up being called) while fighting off Buick's urges to turn it into a barge, relatively speaking...

That seems to be a mission for Marketing, so I imagine mighty arm-wrestling contests are underway as we speak... as Camaro enthusiasts, we can only hope that Chevrolet Marketing has enough steam behind their position to ensure that their car is packaged the way that is most advantageous for their market (2+2), while Buick can worry about making a true 4-seater... and hence a bigger, heavier car that would be intended to compete with BMW.

Live axle + Buick = non-starter. Don't even think about it. Concurrently, I wouldn't waste my time as Chevrolet Marketing even considering it. There are other, more important, battles to fight, and the IRS is an important selling point to move the car away from it's "dinosaur/barbarian" persona.

To be honest, I'd avoid anything that even smells like a 10-bolt at all costs and take a robust IRS in a heartbeat...

... notice that I used the word "robust".

No grenading half-shafts....

While I'm hijacking this thread... I'll continue...

My suggestion would be this...

Build a GTO mule with the proposed axle system and about 100hp more than the target for the production vehicle and a manual transmission, find a few generally abusive drivers (like... ummm.... ME!), give them a set of normal street tires and a set of drag slicks, and turn them loose with the edict to do everything they can to destroy the drivetrain (not the motor).

Find the failure modes and then progressively eliminate them through develoment.

At all costs I would avoid the fragility of the 4th gen drivetrain... weak clutch, poor clutch hydraulics, weak driveshaft, weak live axle...

The specifications as written were not catching the failures before they happen, particularly with the T-56 and clutch system. I think EVERYONE knew the 10 bolt was marginal at best. The 4th gen driveshaft is also puzzling... did anyone TRY to destroy one? Any launch at stock power levels on a true slick had a good chance of blowing something apart. The specifications should be written such that the drivetrain can survive greater than normal power launches (that's why you want the added 100hp...) on a drag slick REPEATEDLY without failure.

 

AMEN! It saddens me that I am scared to launch my LS1 equipped F-body. It is also disheartening that I can run 108mph trap speeds (off the bottle) and it's all for naught because of a poor sixty time.

 

Wouldn't it be better for Buick to use a a "GTO sized" car rather than a "Camaro sized" car?

Or is the "GTO sized" car as small as it's going to get?

 

Zeta can be moved to fit many different sizes. What gets me is that how many coupes can you fit on to one chassis?
I also agree with IRS and not live axle. This is a deffinate move in the right direction, untill one of us wants to put in a set of 4.10's and we find out how much it is to install them . There are pros and cons to the IRS debate, but I think over all the IRS system wins out. It would be too expensive to redesign a rear subframe for a live axle and to have that produced along side the IRS cars.

 

There are indeed pros and cons to the IRS... which is why it should be optional. If its going to be expensive to modify zeta, well then make the live axle the more expensive option, even if its a simpler design. If the live axle were an additional cost option, I wouldnt be happy about it, but I probably would still fork out the extra cash to have it (assuming its not a 7.5" 10 bolt )

 

I think the IRS should be an available option. Pony cars were made for tran am racing , not drag racing, but things have changed. It would be nice if maybe they had a drag and twistie version with different suspension set ups, different rear ends, different rear and tranny gearing. As for the CTSV's wheel hop. It does not effect 60ft times if you learn how to launch the car right and having IRS in the street enables me to take hard turns on bad roads and not have the *** end kick out on me. I don't think I could ever go back to a live axle.

 

you think GM is going to pop out a brand new rear end (car cirtified) just to put it in as a premium cost option in one car (where the hell else would they put it? not Buick, not Caddy, not Pontiac. oh, maybe a Saturn )? the 7.5 is EXACTLY what you'd be getting.

 

Lets see, first Buick is getting a sports car, Caddy has a bunch now, Gee, maybe the newly designed GTO could use one.......GM isn't going to put the usual 7.5 in a 400hp car. Glad you thought that one out though.

 

Once again, I'll repeat:

THE PROBLEM WITH A LIVE AXLE IS WITH PACKAGING.

Package protecting for a live axle WASTES SPACE if you're going to end up using an IRS for the majority of cars.

Forget it. Ain't gonna happen.

 

GM should reverse engineer an architecture to accept a totally new solid rear axle...whose only advantages will be seen by people who drag race (an activity that voids most warrenties)?


Think like a business owner.....what would you do?

The Mustang has a rear axle because it would be in the majority of Mustangs made. As much as Ford clamors bout how they "listened to enthusiasts"....trust me, the hundreds of dollars in peice costs talked much louder.

Only way a Solid rear would make sense would be in GM designed Zeta from the start to accept both...last I heard...that was not the plan.

 

Problem is the solid rear axle is already fully developed. THe LCA/tq arm/Panhard bar arrangement is basically the highest evolution you can get to for a street driven live rear axle car. YOu could go to some kind of ladder bar arrangement but it would be beneficial only at the drag strip and would probably handle like garbage in the twisites.

 

ford did it with the mustang by putting IRS in the cobra... and that is a car that by no means handles well