First impression of my new TA

[ACRBruce]

OK guys this is by no means a review of the TA, but rather a first impression of the car as compared to a Gen 4. I got the car 2 days ago, so with only 150 miles on the car so far, here's what I like and dislike about the car...

Likes:
-Seats now can go up and down and hold me in place much better than Gen 4 seats
-Seats are firmer and more supportive, yet very comfortable in my 75 minutes rush hour traffic commute today
-Ride is firm but much better damped than the ACR, combined w/ the firmer seats car now won't bounce the occupant up and down like a trampoline
-Car feels a stiffer than my Gen 4 ACR with roll cage bolted in.
-Shift throw is shorter and crisper, almost no need to get a short shifter or short shift knob.
-Shifter doesn't shake at all
-Steering feel is good, turn in is good, probably due to the increased in negative camber
-New instrument cluster is much better and informative and 21st century
-Butt dyno says power is decent but not as good as the ACR w/ headers/ECU/hi-flow cats/ported intake (but really didn't get on it hard yet)
-Love the carbon hood and deck lid, wish the paint was translucent and allow the CF weave show through.

Dislikes:
-Too much wheel well gaps all around, especially in the front. Can someone recommend the proper sized wheel spacer? 20mm, 25mm, or thicker?
-Brakes though linear, efforts are lighter than in the ACR, too light for my taste. My reference brakes are Porsche's PCCB brakes and Lotus' which can be pushed very far w/o ABS kicking in.
-Steering wheel's rim is too thick - I always wanted a thick rim like in the M3, now after 2 days, I'd rather go back to Gen 4's steering wheel's thickness
-Plastic panels behind door opening rattle as they are held together by just a few clips and this is the worse part of the car so far. And they rattle already
-Manual seats don't go low enough still
-Front under splitter is too low. It sticks down another 2" from the front bumper and would scrap easily, easier than my lowered ACR as with the ACR I can take a driveway approach at an angle, with the under splitter on either side of the car, you scrape whether you go in straight or at an angle. I'll take them off of the car and only use them for track days.
-Rear CF lip looks trick but sits too high and blocks much of the rear view if you are not that tall. I'm 5'11 and still find the lip block the headlight of many cars behind me as I could only see the top half of some of the cars, especially the lowered rice rockets. Maybe that's why Chevy is doing a see through popup rear lip. I tried to adjust the rear view mirror up and then tilt downward to get an angle out to the rear but the new mirror only has one joint.
-Keyless is not really keyless as you still have to press the buttons on the fob to lock and unlock the car. Or did I miss the lock and unlock buttons on the car?

Even though I have more dislikes than likes, most of the dislikes are quite minor so overall the Gen 5 is a big improvement over the Gen 4. And that's it for now, will report back after I get some spirited driving in.

Here are a few pictures:

See those wheel gaps...

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

CF lovers, here's your fix...

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Love the view down the side of the car...

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

The Orange paint is very well done, hardly any orange peel can be seen...

You must be registered for see images attach

CF lip sits on top of the truck lid w/ an integrated lip already and blocks 1/3 of my rear view, not good for safely reasons and for sure my wife won't be able to see out clearly if I allow her to drive the car.

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[Paul Hawker]

Bruce.

Congratulations on your new Viper. New T/A is pretty special, and hope you get some track time with it soon.

Think it looks much more agressive than that pink Mini in the garage : > )

Thanks for your review of the Gen V vs. Gen IV. Think your comments are right on.

Thinking of selling my Gen IV and getting one of the new Carbon Editions.

Paul

 

[viper srt10]

Congratulations on your TA

I am a big fan of carbon fiber, I love how the hood and deck lid looks like, along with the other carbon package all around it.

I like how the new slotted rotors look like

TA by far is my best viper at the moment, I want the white one, but my local dealer only brings GTS with limited allocation

enjoy and looking forward for a feedback after tracking this snake

 

[Bruce H.]

Congrats again on the new TA! Hopefully some of the initial dislikes will lessen as you get used to them, and no others will appear. The fender gap is huge on the Viper, and I'm surprised more people haven't commented on that. Darker colors tend to lessen it visually I think. Using wheel spacers alone tend to magnify fender gap, and only settling or lowering it will help without changing tire size as Nine Ball did.

 

[SADVIPER]

huge gap! nice car though congrats

 

[PDCjonny]

Beautiful car, absolutely the only color to get. Defines the TA.

 

[Nine Ball]

Very good comparison, I noted all of those between my Gen 3 and Gen 5.

Thick steering wheel takes a little driving to get used to. I don't hate it, but I do prefer my Gen 3/4 wheel thickness more. Especially if you track with gloves on, because that makes the thicker wheel feel even more huge. Maybe my hands are too small? HA

Rear spoiler visibility isn't good, but you get used to it. I don't care about seeing headlights of cars behind me, I can usually see the top of their hood and their windshield just fine. If anything, the spoiler has been better for night driving since I get blinded fewer times by headlights. Visibility isn't that great even without the spoiler, as the ass of the Viper sits pretty high anyways. The rear window on the Gen 5 is smaller than the Gen 3/4, to begin with. Here is what the view looks like, for those wondering.

You must be registered for see images attach

Wheel gap will settle another inch with some miles. The front gap is awful because they seemed to have spec'd the vehicle ride height based on using the previous Gen 3/4 tire sizes, and then put a puny 25" tall front tire on the car. I really dislike that tire size. I put the normal 26" front tire size on my car, and the wheel gaps are perfect now. Without even touching the suspension. You might try some spring caps if you want to drop it another half inch easily. Or, I can sell you some wheels/tires to fix the issue

You must be registered for see images attach

Tony

 

[BLEBYU]

if you cannot walk up to the car with it locked, key fob in your pocket, and open the door without touching key fob you need to have it checked out. just tried it on one right behind me and i did not have to unlock it manually.

 

[Bobpantax]

Congrats!! See comments next to yours.

Dislikes:
-Too much wheel well gaps all around, especially in the front. MY GAPS DO NOT APPEAR TO BE AS LARGE.
-Brakes though linear, efforts are lighter than in the ACR, too light for my taste. My reference brakes are Porsche's PCCB brakes and Lotus' which can be pushed very far w/o ABS kicking in. BETTER THAN MY GEN III BRAKES.
-Steering wheel's rim is too thick - I always wanted a thick rim like in the M3, now after 2 days, I'd rather go back to Gen 4's steering wheel's thickness. I GOT USED TO THE THICKNESS BUT AM STILL GETTING USED TO THE SQUARED OFF BOTTOM.
-Plastic panels behind door opening rattle as they are held together by just a few clips and this is the worse part of the car so far. And they rattle already, I DO NOT HAVE ANY RATTLES OF ANY KIND.
-Manual seats don't go low enough still. NOT AN ISSUE FOR ME.
-Front under splitter is too low. It sticks down another 2" from the front bumper and would scrap easily, easier than my lowered ACR as with the ACR I can take a driveway approach at an angle, with the under splitter on either side of the car, you scrape whether you go in straight or at an angle. I'll take them off of the car and only use them for track days. THE WIND DEFLECTORS LOCATED ON EACH SIDE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FRONT OF THE WHEEL WELLS ARE 2.5 INCHES FROM THE GROUND. THE FRONT FASCIA/SPLITTER IS 4 INCHES FROM THE GROUND. I HAD THE SAME ISSUE WITH A SPEED BUMP AT WORK IN THE OFFICE GARAGE. I HAVE TO ANGLE OVER IT. BUT IT IS A NON SPEC SPEED BUMP. I DID NOT HAVE THE ISSUE WITH MY FORMER VIPER WHICH WAS LOWERED A BIT AND HAD A 4" CLEARANCE IN THE FRONT.
-Rear CF lip looks trick but sits too high and blocks much of the rear view if you are not that tall. I'm 5'11 and still find the lip block the headlight of many cars behind me as I could only see the top half of some of the cars, especially the lowered rice rockets. Maybe that's why Chevy is doing a see through popup rear lip. I tried to adjust the rear view mirror up and then tilt downward to get an angle out to the rear but the new mirror only has one joint. I AM PRETTY HAPPY WITH THIS AFTER ADJUSTING THE SEAT AND PEDALS. I BROUGHT MY SEAT BACK UP A LITTLE; ANGLED MY MIRROR A TAD AND THE REAR VIEW IMPROVED.
-Keyless is not really keyless as you still have to press the buttons on the fob to lock and unlock the car. Or did I miss the lock and unlock buttons on the car? YOUR SETTINGS MUST BE OFF. THE PASSIVE ENTRY SYSTEM WORKS WELL. I THINK YOU CAN GO TO SETTINGS AND FIX IT YOURSELF.

 

[DMan]

What an awesome looking car, congrats.

Interesting list for sure.

Not much orange peel, hmm, I'd expect none from Prefix and all the hype on the painting process & Ralph referring to it as a custom show car, but OK.

Yea on the gaps, but that's also a tough angle there in the pic. But, it would be nice for a car of this calibre to look more like the BMW in the wheel wells. Those Germans know how to set a wheel in a fender nicely.

 

[Bruce H.]

What an awesome looking car, congrats.

Yea on the gaps, but that's also a tough angle there in the pic. But, it would be nice for a car of this calibre to look more like the BMW in the wheel wells. Those Germans know how to set a wheel in a fender nicely.

Maybe that's one reason why they kept it the way it's always been, and it has nothing to do with calibre. There's something appealing about a car that's confident enough to do it's own thing proudly.

 

[ViperJohn]

Congrats on the car and thanks for the taking the time to post your impressions. Hopefully the brake effort will go up a bit as the car gets broken in. I have had some cars require very light effort when new, to the point that my eyeballs feel like they are poping out of my head when I lightly touch the brakes. After a few weeks, the brake pedal effort felt more normal or in line with other cars.

 

[denniskgb]

Great post. It allows me to live your live through them.

 

[ACRBruce]

Wheel gap will settle another inch with some miles. The front gap is awful because they seemed to have spec'd the vehicle ride height based on using the previous Gen 3/4 tire sizes, and then put a puny 25" tall front tire on the car. I really dislike that tire size. I put the normal 26" front tire size on my car, and the wheel gaps are perfect now. Without even touching the suspension. You might try some spring caps if you want to drop it another half inch easily. Or, I can sell you some wheels/tires to fix the issue

Tony

As the lower front spoilers, lets call them mustache, already scraps more than my lowered Gen 4 ACR on Motons, lowering it more to reduce the fender gap would make the car scrape everywhere. But lowering it I must, so I'm now thinking of taking those mustache off. Has anyone looked at how they can be taken off? I see a few screws holding the scrub strips underneath them, these scrub strips are made of the same material as the ones underneath the ACR's front splitter, just a lot smaller.

So are spring caps already available for the Gen 5? So all 3 models of Gen 5 can use the same spring caps? Can someone post some pictures of a Gen 5 w/ spring caps? Would love to see them. I was running 315/30-18 Kumho XS on the ACR when street driven and those tires are great and fill the wheel gap very well, but heard Kumho stopped making the 345 rear tire due to lack of demand, oterhwise I'd switch to those tires in a heartbeat. BTW the OEM front tire size is exactly the same as the Gen 4 ACR's - 295/30-18, so SRT isn't putting a smaller tire on the Gen 5, I think it is because the front fenders are more voluptuous in comparison - like big **** would make the waist and hips look smaller!??!!

 

[VENOM V]

As the lower front spoilers, lets call them mustache, already scraps more than my lowered Gen 4 ACR on Motons, lowering it more to reduce the fender gap would make the car scrape everywhere. But lowering it I must, so I'm now thinking of taking those mustache off. Has anyone looked at how they can be taken off? I see a few screws holding the scrub strips underneath them, these scrub strips are made of the same material as the ones underneath the ACR's front splitter, just a lot smaller.

So are spring caps already available for the Gen 5? So all 3 models of Gen 5 can use the same spring caps? Can someone post some pictures of a Gen 5 w/ spring caps? Would love to see them. I was running 315/30-18 Kumho XS on the ACR when street driven and those tires are great and fill the wheel gap very well, but heard Kumho stopped making the 345 rear tire due to lack of demand, oterhwise I'd switch to those tires in a heartbeat. BTW the OEM front tire size is exactly the same as the Gen 4 ACR's - 295/30-18, so SRT isn't putting a smaller tire on the Gen 5, I think it is because the front fenders are more voluptuous in comparison - like big **** would make the waist and hips look smaller!??!!

Those little plastic air dams reduce lift as they deflect air so they don't go into the the wheel housing. They come off with a couple of screws, literally a 2 minute job to swap them, very easy.

Mine scraped here and there on the street, but on some race tracks they may bottom out and break off. I drive my Viper hard at tracks, and some curbing or dips like at the bottom of the corkscrew at Laguna Seca will hit them hard. I busted one off at Buttonwillow Raceway, and the other off at Laguna Seca. But at $14, I don't sweat it as they're easy to replace. They are made of soft plastic, easy to cut with a bandsaw, jigsaw or even a hacksaw. I will be cutting about 1/4" off of them to reduce bottoming at tracks, as I don't want to run without them at high speeds and creat lift.

Lowering caps do not work on the Gen V, per SRT engineering. There are lowering springs that have been prototyped, but who knows if/when Mopar will offer them.

Your car is sitting higher than mine, my guess is that it'll settle soon, just drive it more and let us know what you find.

 

[ACRBruce]

Those little plastic air dams reduce lift as they deflect air so they don't go into the the wheel housing. They come off with a couple of screws, literally a 2 minute job to swap them, very easy.

.... But at $14, I don't sweat it as they're easy to replace. They are made of soft plastic, easy to cut with a bandsaw, jigsaw or even a hacksaw. I will be cutting about 1/4" off of them to reduce bottoming at tracks, as I don't want to run without them at high speeds and creat lift.

Hi Venom,
When you say $14, do you mean just the scrub plates? Or the entire lower splitter? One solution for me is maybe to take mine it off for the street and buy a set of non CF ones from the aero kit and use them instead of the CF one if I were to go to high speed tracks or do standing mile runs etc. Then save the CF pieces for show and shine events.

 

[VENOM V]

Hi Venom,
When you say $14, do you mean just the scrub plates? Or the entire lower splitter? One solution for me is maybe to take mine it off for the street and buy a set of non CF ones from the aero kit and use them instead of the CF one if I were to go to high speed tracks or do standing mile runs etc. Then save the CF pieces for show and shine events.

I just realized that we are talking about two different things- I believe you are talking about the carbon fiber splitters which have plastic wear pads. I was talking about the vertical plastic pieces just in front of the front tires. Are you sure you're rubbing the splitters, and not the vertical plastic pieces? Hopefully it's the latter, take a look under your car to see where the scrape marks are. If it's the vertical plastic pieces, just trim a little off and you'll be good.

 

[Nine Ball]

The carbon splitters are likely not rubbing at all, they are pretty high off the ground. They actually don't lower the nose any further than the stock bumper cover. The black plastic rectangles in front of each tire are typically what rub. I like having those as audible scrape detectors

 

[ViperSmith]

yeah $10 says the black pieces in front of the wheels

i've noticed a bit of rattle in the door, but more when the stereo is going and there is odd sound resonation

 

[Jay M]

Bruce, Do you plan on bringing it to the Palm Springs Auto-X in march? I'm sure there will be some C7 Corvettes for you to beat up on

BTW- nice white "station wagon" in the garage

~Jay

 

[Brian E]

Congrats Bruce!
I envy you. I am still waiting for some nice weather to be able to drive mine for the first time.
The camber is set pretty aggressive on the TA, something like -2 3/8 front and -1 1/2 rear. Makes me wonder how long a set of Corsa's are going to last.

 

[ACRBruce]

Bruce, Do you plan on bringing it to the Palm Springs Auto-X in march? I'm sure there will be some C7 Corvettes for you to beat up on

BTW- nice white "station wagon" in the garage

~Jay

Hi Jay,
Still thinking about Palm Sprints, 2 hours to and 2 hours back is a long distance to drive for a few runs of autox. Especially if I put on those A6's, yeah I have 335/345 on 18" OZ's that will fit just fine on the TA. hehehe Just not sure if I want to drive those A6's for 4 hrs. on the freeway, even in good weather.
The white "wagon" is the family car with a baby seat in the back and my daily.

 

[VENOM V]

Hi Jay,
Still thinking about Palm Sprints, 2 hours to and 2 hours back is a long distance to drive for a few runs of autox. Especially if I put on those A6's, yeah I have 335/345 on 18" OZ's that will fit just fine on the TA. hehehe Just not sure if I want to drive those A6's for 4 hrs. on the freeway, even in good weather.
The white "wagon" is the family car with a baby seat in the back and my daily.

Well since Jay asked, any chance you can join us on the big track at Willow Springs March 1 - 2? A whole bunch of SoCal folks are attending, and a couple of us NorCal guys as well, including two Gen Vs. The link is on the SoCal Viper Club forum, Sidewinders section. Good times ahead, in more ways than one

 

[ACRBruce]

Congrats Bruce!
I envy you. I am still waiting for some nice weather to be able to drive mine for the first time.
The camber is set pretty aggressive on the TA, something like -2 3/8 front and -1 1/2 rear. Makes me wonder how long a set of Corsa's are going to last.

I went through 2 sets of Corsa tires on my '04 Porsche GT3, both sets lasted about 5K miles. One rear tire delaminated at 75MPH, got my rear fender all scratched up, not a fun experience. So watch out for these tires, they wear much faster than expected, especially the inner shoulder at -2.xx degree camber, come to think of it, the GT3 had adjustable camber plates and I was running close to -2.5 degrees too.

 

[ACRBruce]

Well since Jay asked, any chance you can join us on the big track at Willow Springs March 1 - 2? A whole bunch of SoCal folks are attending, and a couple of us NorCal guys as well, including two Gen Vs. The link is on the SoCal Viper Club forum, Sidewinders section. Good times ahead, in more ways than one

I'm scared of Big Willow, I'm chicken...

 

[VENOM V]

I'm scared of Big Willow, I'm chicken...

LOL, me too. That's why I'm taking my Camaro there first to learn the track, this will be my first time venturing to a track that south. I'll be there Feb 15 - 16 in the Camaro, then will be ready to track the Viper March 1 - 2.

Bruce, I buy track day insurance every time in the Viper, just in case. Gives me peace of mind should a big oops happen.

 

[Jay M]

Big Willow is great. There are very few walls to smash into. I'm in the slow group when I go there, and have a blast! If you can talk Bob Blizzard into instructing you, it will make a huge difference.

~Jay

 

[ACRBruce]

Yes Bob Blizzard is a great instructor and he has instructed me a few times in Socal Viper's car control clinic in the past few years.

 

[VENOM V]

Big Willow is great. There are very few walls to smash into. I'm in the slow group when I go there, and have a blast! If you can talk Bob Blizzard into instructing you, it will make a huge difference.

~Jay

I'll look for him, thanks.

Jay, are you going to join us at Willow Springs?

 

[ACRBruce]

if you cannot walk up to the car with it locked, key fob in your pocket, and open the door without touching key fob you need to have it checked out. just tried it on one right behind me and i did not have to unlock it manually.

It turned out "Passive Entry" was unchecked, checked it and now doors will unlock automatically. But what about locking the car, there's no button anywhere on the outside of the car to press to lock the car, is there?