wtknght1

It was a crap shoot choosing tires at Road Atanta this past weekend. The track was wet...but drying quickly. But from my standpoint, there was only 1 choice - grooves! Stan and Jerry chose the slicks. By about lap 7, I had a 1 minute lead but had to start searching for puddles and wet pavement to keep from torching the tires. The Hoosier rains are spectacular guys!!!! The new LS3 engine with the Phoenix exhaust does have a great sound to it too! Other than my ps pump doing its best impression of the Exxon Valdez, it was a fun weekend. Here's the Youtube of the first 2 laps. Which tires would you have chosen? Enjoy! (You know where you can see the whole race....)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjUIWkrjd-s

Short-Throw

Nice video Chris!

How many laps was the race?

Mike

wtknght1

The overall leader (GT1 Vette) did 18...but he lapped me on the last lap, so my race was 17 laps...which was fine with me!

Short-Throw

Nothing like a little rain to equalize the power!

02impactblue

Chris- How does the c6 compare with your old c5. Power and Handling?

Z06Fix

WOW... what a start. I love watching these vids.

fhturner

Yeee-ha.....slip-slidin' in the rain! Nice catch comin' out of 5 on the 2nd lap!

Fred

AU N EGL

Sounded great Chris

gonzalezfj

Chris, glad to see you have overcome all the engine issues. Good luck for the rest of the season.

And, yes, the Hoosier Rains are outstanding.

Frank Gonzalez

yakisoba

That paint at the top of five is slick in the rain, yes? It was a great catch.

rasrboy

Congrats Chris! Glad to hear the motors working for you .

Aaron

BuckeyeZ06

I can answer that question: fast, real fast!

wtknght1

It's really hard to say so far. The numbers just aren't there yet though. Neither my lap times nor my top speed in the new car equal my old C5...yet. This new car must weight 3530 at the end of the race and that much weight in this car just kills it. I wasn't even able to get to 150 mph in the new car on the straight while my old C5 was between 150-155. I'm hoping to figure it all out, but right now, it's not as good as my old car - just looking at the data. My lap times were about .5 off of my C5, which is really depressing to be honest. It doesn't even feel as nimble as Dave's Viper which weighed 3700!! I'm just glad it ran with no issues (other than the damn ps pump) and now we'll start trying to dial up some speed and handling in it.

It looks and sounds great, and was pretty balanced - we just need to start figuring it all out and seeing if the extra ballast can be overcome. Right now, I have my doubts. The extra engine power doesn't seem to overcome the weight and the brakes and handling suffer after a few laps. We'll see.

Diesel68

Awesome Video!

You mentioned in the past that you were going to use the Z51 rotors. I'm assuming that you have had some seat time in the car doing some initial sorting out. Can you tell us how they are holding up compared to the standard C5 rotors?

Thanks,

José

wtknght1

Yeah, I've got the big rotors on there. But, as I said, I just don't have enough seat time in the thing (running it really hard) to tell you how they've done in comparison to the C5 rotors. The Z51 rotors have significantly thicker walls, but since they are cross-drilled, I didn't expect them to last much longer. If I added up all the really hard laps I've done with my first set of front rotors (which haven't cracked yet), I'd say I've really only done about 2 days of hard lapping. They are starting to show some stress cracks, but haven't popped yet. The rears still look perfect.

I bolted on a new set of fronts for the morning warm up and then raced on them, just because that's what I always did with the C5 rotors. But I didn't have to.

I'll swap back to the old front rotors and keep pounding on them until they crack. I'm headed up to the June Sprints in 3 weeks which is a brake torture test, so I should definitely be able to give you some good info when I return. So far, the calipers seem to be doing fine and I haven't noticed any significant fading with the Z rotors. Despite the cross drilling, the Carbotech brakes seem to last about as long too.

Stay tuned. As I get more test data, I'll pass it along.

Diesel68

That is great info. It would be great to finally get some confirmation on how they work vs the solid rotors. It would be a great upgrade if one can get more life out of the rotors. I look forward to you posting what you find after the June Sprints.

wtknght1

I also had to make a decision when I built the car whether or not to stay with the C5 type rotors and the 17" wheels (which are both lighter and have less rotational mass) or try the big rotors and 18" wheels. I may not ever know if I made the right choice, but I decided to experiment with the bigger equipment and see how it did. I think I'm the only one using the Z51 brakes. Only time will tell.

BuckeyeZ06

It's fast, really, really fast!!

Diesel68

You may already know this, but some have been able to fit the stock 17" C5 Z06 wheels over the C6 Z51 brakes. While you don't want to use those wheels, at lease there is a possibility of running 17" wheels again. You are going to have to find the right wheel that fits but if the rotors prove to last longer, it might be worth experimenting between 17" and 18" wheels to see if reducing the rotating mass will improve your top speeds.

Cobra4B

Sucks to hear the LS3 is slower than your T1Z, but I'm sure you'll work the kinks out. Car sounds great and seems to pull smoother than the T1 Z06s do... seems to be less tached out all the time, but that could be due to the wet.