godzilladude

Oh Great and All-Knowing Ones,

I've had my base 2009 for a year and a half now, a daily driver. I've had it on the track three times for HPDE kind of stuff in 2009, and am looking forward to 3-4 events in 2010. I did a cheap upgrade of the suspension, adding Z51 sways and Bilstein Sports, and the car does OK.

At a recent event, I was running with most of the Vettes, pretty much maxing out what I could do with it, but there was this one guy . . . He was just flying past us, again and again. It was amazing how fast he was going around the track. Back at the pits, I asked him what he had done to the car, and he said absolutely nothing, it was a stone stock ZO6, even the tires. Well, I didn't crawl under and check the suspension, but I did look at the skins, those were indeed generic Supercars.

So, I'd REALLY like to get my car closer to that level of handling. And I was curious what the folks who know better than me thought: Which makes the bigger difference, the wider Supercars or the stiffer suspension? Obviously both would help, but which one has the most bang for the buck? Which do I want to do first? And I was thinking to NOT keep a separate set of racing wheels and tires, I go on the track so rarely, so it'd be street skins like the Supercars, or maybe some PS2s. If I went suspension, I was thinking Pfadt adjustable coilovers.

Thanks!

wtknght1

Wheels and tires dude!!! Leave the suspension stuff alone until you've had LOTS of experience and know what you're doing.

Upgrade contact patches first - tires, brakes, rotors, seat, belts... anything that touches something else.

Then get lots and lots of seat time - repeat often!

DarkMastyr

With 3 events under your belt, you may say you're maxing out what you can do, but you're probably still quite a bit away from maxing out the car itself. My suggestion is more seat time first, preferably with some good instruction. That's the most bang for the buck in my opinion. The C6Z06's that "fly by" me in my bone stock C6Z51 tend to be on much stickier tires, so driver skill can really close the gap between the two cars (I've passed my fair share of stock C6Z06s).

godzilladude

OK, maybe the signature didn't point it out. I've had lots of training and lots of driving the last ten years, and yeah, I'm getting 90% or more of what the car will do. Certainly not that last 5% of near perfect driving, but I regularly run down folks with a lot more money invested. I'm just trying to upgrade the beast. I KNOW more drive time is always a good thing. And a fun thing!

L98Terror

Wheels and Tires, seat time and more seat time.

BTW Years of driving experience doesn't always make you fast. I've had the same thing happen to me except we were in the same car and Dave Mullen was on street tires I was on NITTO 555 RII and he just would kill me around Nelson Ledges, I couldn't keep him in my sites. I did the same to him a few years later at Grattan. Sometimes it's the car, sometimes the driver and sometimes the track

95jersey

3 events and your just learning the basics. Your car has TONS more potential. It sounds like he has a couple things you don't...power and more experience.

My suggestion for now is a good allignment and cornerwieght. Get what you have to work better first, then learn to push the pedal down harder coming out of turns and wait longer before you hit the brakes going into the turns. I guarantee with some proper instruction, I could get another 5 seconds out of you in just one day.

97coupechuck

upgrade brakes to hawks maybe but seat time is what you need now.

Take an instructor every chance you get, I've been doing HPDE's for 5 years and thought instructors were for newbies only and I couldn't get away from them fast enough! Ha! Now I enjoy (and respect) those guys and all their experience and learn a bunch from them, ESPECIALLY on a new track.

I have C6 Z51 and absolutely LOVE blasting by C6Z's! Well, some of them anyway! Don't brake until you see God and work on coming out of turn OR turns faster and faster, it's exit speed you want.

longdaddy

you already know the answer, but if you must spend money on the parts, get some brakes/safety stuff first.