pro71bird

What are you going to take to Fontana?

klodkrawler05

Well I just signed up for the NCM event and looking at the roster there looks like a whole lot of Corvettes signed up! Hopefully I'll get to meet some more new faces from this site there.

I attended a car control clinic this weekend and really got to spend some time familiarizing myself with the new suspension. Out of the box I'm blown away how good it is without any tweaks or adjustments from what Sam recommended as a baseline, it's really quite good!
My overall impression of the changes are that the overall balance is still almost exactly what it was when stock, which is perfect as I found the car quite well balanced for my driving style. Except now I find myself fighting less to turn the car in on fast sweepers, it simply goes where I point and reacts to my inputs much quicker. I spent a fair amount of time re-adjusting to how much speed I could carry in sweepers, where I would normally lift off to get the nose to turn in I could stay more on the throttle and maintain a higher speed while still keeping the line.
Transition/slaloms are now easier as the car reacts so much quicker that I find it easier to keep up/stay ahead of the car which ultimately means I can carry more speed through them.

The short summary of the new suspension is it makes the car feel as though its on brand new sticker tires, instead of the heat cycled out, nearly bald BFG Rivals from last year that its actually on. I can't wait for this weekend to try out the new suspension combined with the new tires! I think this year is going to be a lot of fun!

chetly

My C5z in the light weight class.

klodkrawler05

Well its been almost 2 months so I guess that means it's probably time for an update!

Since the end of May I've competed in 2 local time attack weekends and 2 USCA events (in 5 weeks!)

Event 1: #Gridlife (yes their name has the pound sign in it) Time Attack at Gingerman.

Gridlife is a huge weekend long car extravaganza, show cars, music, drifting and time attack all converge for a weekend of appreciating different types of cars and exposing each other to various aspects. My relatively stock car on narrow tires (275/18 Bridgestone RE71R's) gets to run in the 2nd "slowest" of 4 total time attack classes. This was also the final event on the old pavement.

Overall the weekend went really well, I got to shake down the car for the first time this year in the dry and set a pretty quick time of 1:41.6 which was 10th fastest time of the weekend and good enough for 1st in my class!

We did get some rain throughout the weekend but once the track dried out it was a lot of fun. The bridgestones in the wet were good enough to get me staged in front of a few awd cars:




Event 2: USCA at National Corvette Museum Bowling Green KY

This event started as a huge mix of emotions for me, I knew going into it between the new tires and the Ridetech shocks/Strano Swaybars my car was faster around a course than it's ever been for a USCA event in the past. But signed up for the GTS class along with me was Jim Mckamey (All around fast corvette guy in the ridetech development car) and Hugh Bate (2nd place overall at this years One Lap of America in his wicked GTR)
Add into that this was the first event that sold out and the GTS class had a total of 20 cars!

Saturday started with the speedstop which I managed to take a respectable 3rd place in .35 seconds behind 1st place. Next up was the auto-x portion, this is still my strongest event although I feel I'm picking up the speed stop and road course stuff pretty quickly. I managed to take 1st place in class and 6th overall in the auto-x out of 75, which sounds pretty fast except it was still 2.20 seconds slower than 1st overall in the auto-x! (Andy Smedegard and Danny Popp are freaks of nature)
Saturday wraps up with the road rally portion of the event at which point I noticed a bad wheel bearing noise from the drivers rear, upon completing the road rally and jacking the car up to check it out I felt quite a bit of play in the wheel/hub.

With most of the autoparts stores closed there was nothing I could do except wait until Sunday morning, thankfully Advanced Autoparts is a sponsor and has someone on hand at every event! they checked and didn't have one local to us but they called a nearby O'rielly's and they did! the Advanced guys then drove to Oreilly's picked up the part and brought it back to me! needless to say they earned a new customer that day.

While waiting on the wheel bearing I decided I had better at least try to learn the course get in the required 3 laps running at 60-70% I managed to put in a few ok laps but the RE71's get greasy after a couple laps combined with the wobbly wheel meant I kept fighting to keep the back end behind me going through the Deception corner.
I managed to get in a couple 1:37 lap times despite the issues and at least got a bit of taste for the track.

Giving up after 2 slow sessions I began pulling the old wheel bearing apart expecting the new parts to arrive over the lunch break, unfortunately I busted my ring finger into something sharp while breaking a stubborn bolt loose. I didn't notice at first until feeling something wet in my palm which was blood, at that point I noticed my ring finger had swelled to twice its normal size. Ann and Andy Hollis (whom I had never met until that moment) were paddocked next to us and Ann being a nurse jumped in to help get my finger cleaned out and checked over. Meanwhile the awesome RS motors guys jumped all over my car and got the wheel bearing changed in the time it took to get checked out by the ambulance.
The paramedics had suggested going to the hospital, having my wedding band cut off and getting stitches, Ann suggested soaking my finger in ice water to reduce the swelling and keeping the finger clean/elevated. I liked her idea better so I did that until it was time for the final road course session of the day.

Knowing there was no way I'd be winning the road course portion against the blistering 1:32.3 laptime already set by Hugh Bate
I decided to see if I couldn't at least get in something faster than a 70% speed lap, on my 9th lap ever on the track I managed to pull out a 1:36.9 lap while working my way through traffic. not exactly what i had hoped for but at least I improved in the last session and still got to drive my car home
That time was good enough for 5th in the road course which netted me a 2nd place overall for the weekend! not quite good enough for an invite to the OUSCI in Vegas but close.

a parting shot from NCM turns 1-2



Since this post is getting so long I'll end it here and create a new post for Gridlife round 2 and the USCA MIS event at a bit later date!

mountainbiker2

Thanks for the update. How are those shocks working for you? I have a 04 Z06 with stock shocks. I think I might be able to find more time for Autocross if I bought some after market shocks. What do you think?

thanks,

Steve

klodkrawler05

The shocks are working great for me! I have to admit I'm not a big "**** turner" during events, which was my big reason for going with the single adjustables.
I purchased them through Sam Strano and followed his recommendation for starting settings on firmness then based on the event/venue I'll adjust the rear shocks as needed. 1-2 clicks of adjustment is enough to change the car from a slightly loose dancing autox setting to a balanced road course setup.

The biggest selling point of the ridetechs for me is that they're slightly shorter overall with a shorter body. This means on the course (or big bumps on the street) you don't wind up on the bump stops as much which makes for more consistent handling.

My first Impression of the shocks was that they handle exactly like OEM but faster everywhere. There's slightly more rear traction the car turns in slightly faster it slaloms slightly better etc. it almost feels like the difference between brand new tires and slightly older tires.

I'm not saying you'll shave multiple seconds off a run but you'll certainly go faster and it's easier to drive which will make your runs more consistent, the ability to change the handling balance mid event for various courses/conditions is nice too especially for something like optima where you run 3 types of events in 1 weekend.

If you've got any other specific questions about them I'll be happy to try to answer them

mountainbiker2

Thanks for the great review. Because of the different events I go to, I'm constintly changing the rear sway bar. It would be nice to leave it alone and just change shock settings.
What exactly are you running for suspension? You feel that the shocks have plenty of travel? Lowered on stock bolts? I like the fact that you say that there like OEM, but just a little quicker everywhere. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

thanks,
Steve

klodkrawler05

They're definitely short enough, without the bump stops in the shocks will compress until the wheel bottoms out on top of the inner fender!
My setup is stock 2002 z06 springs the Strano hollow front bar and Strano rear bar and the ridetech hq1 shocks.
I just got a set of ridetech delrin control arm bushings too but I haven't gotten those installed yet. I also built my own adjustable sway bar endlinks but haven't installed those yet either.

mountainbiker2

Looks like the shocks are easy to adjust on the car, except for the passenger side front. Have you tried adjusting it with the reservoir in place? I also have to check to see if there A-Street legal for SCCA.

thanks again,
Steve

klodkrawler05

The easiest way I've found to adjust the fronts is either by removing the two 10mm nuts that hold the reservoir or alternatively you can jack the front of the car up and reach over the top of the tire to adjust them that way!

Just depends if I have a jack handy or a 10mm seems usually I have one or the other not both lol

chetly

There is no reason why they wouldn't be legal in A-Street. Shocks are open and your allowed to drill hole for the sole purpose of mounting and or locating reservoirs. And if your really worried about it, you can look at the JRi's like I have that you can purchase as non adjustable, buy a few parts make it upgradable to single or double. No reservoirs on the JRi's because of their design.

NemesisC5

Subscribed...

mountainbiker2

These are not legal. There to short in the rear.

chetly

Interesting, I never knew that rule was there on the length. JRi might be able to do a custom length shock for the rear or Guy Ankeny would be your best bet.

klodkrawler05

Alright time for another update! My goal is to get up to date on this thread before this weekend when I attend the next event (Motorstate Challenge at Gingerman and Tirerack)

My last update got through the first 2 of 4 big events I attended during June. The next 2 were very similar but at different venues.

First up, USCA at MIS. The USCA events have been my big focus with the car, I've been building towards their ruleset and then competing in other local events wherever my car may happen to fall. I failed to win an invite to Vegas at the NCM event due to the failed wheel bearing keeping me from getting the seat time I wanted on the road course.

I was hopeful after having run the MIS event last year (my first event ever with the z06 while it was still bone stock) that I'd be able to put in a good showing on a track I already had some seat time on.

The even started for me with Auto-x this is usually my best area as I've got the most seat time there. I managed a 3rd place finish that was a real nail biter, leading up to our final runs I was in 1st for auto-x by nearly a full second, my final run I managed to drop another .1!!!! I thought for sure it was in the bag, Unfortunately for me Jim McKamey and a well driven evo both managed to pull out flying final runs and bumped me down to 3rd.

Moving onto the Speedstop I was pretty nervous how this would go as the course was basically a drag race down to a 180 degree sweeper into another drag race before jamming on the brakes. AWD helps with the launch and big HP wins on the drag portion. Most folks seem to forget how much time can be lost in a corner though and while many focused on launching their high HP cars I concentrated on making the turn. The strategy seemed to work as despite having the lowest HP in the class I managed to finish 2nd place here behind only Jim Mckamey in an awesome 500whp ridetech built car.

Last up was the road course, by this point I knew there would be no catching Jim for the overall win so I resolved myself to improving my laptimes over last year and battling for the 2nd place spot on the podium to increase my season points standings.

Amazingly after a couple sessions I was already running 3-4 seconds faster on the road course than I did last year! (it's pretty amazing what a few well chosen parts and more seat time will do) More amazing was the fact that I was within striking distance of Jim Mckamey!!! I was really happy with this and he and I kept improving all day, every session he'd go faster then I'd go faster, after 2 session's he gained a lead on me that I wouldn't re-claim he kept dropping a tenth here and a tenth there while I dropped 2 tenths here and 2 tenths there but I just couldn't reel him back in. Ultimately I had to settle for a road course time .5 second behind him, which was good enough for 2nd place on the road course and sealed my 2nd place overall finish for the event!

it was a weekend full of 2nd places as the MIS event also moved me into the current 2nd place spot for season points in the GTS (over 3200lb) class.

At this point its pretty easy for me to say "oh sure 500whp vs 375whp, 275 wide tires vs 315 wide tires" or any other number of excuses I had running through my head right after the event as the reason Jim beat me.
But he drove the wheels off his car to a well deserved win.
After getting home and uploading the recordings from my data logger I discovered if I had put together all my best sesgments on 1 lap I could've beat him!! Which is pretty inspiring to me because sure the car needs more work, but the driver needs just as much! and I find seat time to be the most fun part of the whole experience!

One last thing to note, Last year at MIS I ran a best lap time of 1:30.X this year I ran a 1:25.0 as a testament to just how much faster the competition is at these USCA events last year my 1:30 was good enough for 2nd in the road course, the 1:25 would've demolished last years first place time. this year? that 1:30.X I ran would've placed me dead last in a class of 8. It's awesome to see the competition improving so much and it really pushes me to improve!

Rather than splice pictures throughout I'll just dump them here at the bottom!

Lastly the weekend after MIS some friends from RS motors and I attended an event at autobahn country club, the Gridlife Time Attack round 2. These events run so smoothly and the atmosphere is very laid back, its a lot of fun attending and its cool to see a grassroots time attack series locally so we try to support them. Overall the weekend went pretty uneventful, I managed to secure a win in the Street Modified category that I was pretty happy about and I got to experience a new track so it was a good weekend in my book!





arriving in the rain





Lucky clover!





the lingenfelter collection





Great turnout at MIS!





On the roval





Overall GTS winners





Gridlife trophies collected by the RS motors guys and me!





Loaded up after a muddy weekend ready for home!





A bit different than the typical USCA grid

klodkrawler05

Update time again! (and only a week after the last update woohoo!)

I was originally planning to make the trek to Charlotte this past weekend to try again at securing my invite to Vegas, a week before the event I did one last sanity check on budget/trip costs and decided it just wasn't in the cards to make the trip. An event that far away I prefer to borrow a truck/trailer that way I know I'm not getting stuck a full day's drive from home with a broken car and no way to get home. Typically anything I can drive to in half a day or less I'll just take the z06 and a tire trailer.

Not wanting to waste a perfectly good weekend of racing I signed up for the Motorstate Challenge which is a local Optima-esque event close to home taking place at Gingerman and Tirerack.

In addition to racing Friday/Saturday I got the opportunity to attend a Ridetech test'n'tune day on Wednesday. This was a super awesome experience with both Ridetech and Fox Shock engineers on hand to make setup tweaks/suggestions. The process was very well controlled and after learning and mastering a relatively simple auto-x course (running it within .2 multiple times in a row) we began the fine tuning on the car. by the end of the day I'd tried both ends of the shock tuning adjustments, all 5 of the sway bar setting options and managed to drop just over 1 full second from the baseline time. Definitely a cool experience and amazing how much time can be found without bolting more parts onto the car.

Moving onto Friday and the start of the motorstate challenge I was pretty excited to tackle my home track of Gingerman, all the reports I've seen from folks who've been say the re-pave is a good bit quicker plus I had newly dialed in suspension and some fresh 18x12 335/30/18 Rival S to try out! The best I've managed in the past has been a 1:41.2 but I was hopeful all the improvements could result in a 1:3X time.


The cars most current form, 18x10.5 and 275/35/18 RE71's on front, 18x12 and 335/30/18 Rival S on the rear + dialed in Ridetech smooth body shocks and Strano Parts sway bars.

We headed out for a parade session and I was amazed how smooth the track really was now, turns 7-9 are glassy smooth combined with the rear grip I was pretty excited for tackling that section which in the past I've always felt was a battle between speed and the rear end wanting to swap places with the front.

After the parade lap our group headed out to lay down a timed session. The group self grids but with 5-10 seconds between cars you shouldn't have to make too many passes since the groups are generally laid out by times. during the warmup lap everything went well, practiced hitting the apexs and finding new reference points on the new pavement. by halfway through the first lap I realized I'd have to make a pass on a first gen camaro, no problem, he pointed me by right away and I slowly started upping the pace on the 2nd half of the lap trying to stay enough ahead/out of the camaro's way to not mess up his time while also allowing any other potentially slower cars ahead of me to pull further ahead. Heading into turn 11 I was running pretty close to my "full speed" intending to get 2-3 hard flying laps without catching more traffic and then take a cool down to avoid wasting the tires.

Most of the lap went un-eventfully until completing turn 10, moving along the straight away I glanced down to the gauges to prepare to make a shift and noticed "LOW OIL PRESSURE" on my display. I lifted off the throttle, checked my gauges saw nothing over heating, didn't hear anything strange and oil pressure began to build again. I decided since there was no weird noise and I hadn't noticed any other issues during the lap to shift into 4th finish the straight, make turn 11 and finish the lap to at least get a single time.

That proved to be my undoing. as I completed the lap and passed the finish line and lifted off the gas to prepare to coast for a cool down lap I heard a deep diesely sounding knock and wasn't building any oil pressure. I shut the car off immediately and coasted through turn 2 up to and behind the flag station for turn 3. The corner workers checked my car and found no leaks or other visible issues so I stayed parked for the rest of the session and then was directed to idle back to the pits.

My heart dropped as I fired the car back up, saw the oil pressure only go up to 15 and then began slowly limping back to the pits.

Once back to the pits we confirmed my fears of a spun bearing when we pulled the dipstick and saw lots of mettalic shavings in the oil.

At this point I figured I was done, however I got a shred of exciting news when the Announcer said I had run a 1:41.0! a new personal best and on my very first lap on the new changes and track! I was pretty pleased with that.

I decided at this point I had better call AAA and get them en route to pickup the car and tow it home, 3 hours later they showed up. figuring the damage was done already I offered to drive the car onto the truck bed rather than risk something else being damaged from pulling it on. Amazingly it fired up and built perfect oil pressure and didn't knock at all! We got the car strapped down and headed home, then I went to make my good byes before riding home with my Father.

At this point the weekend got even better! Bret from Ridetech offered to let me co-drive their shop C5Z at the auto-x which is built nearly identically to mine! After talking to the motorstate guys to ensure this wasn't an issue they agreed to let me drive the car. Unfortunately since I wouldn't be completing the event in the same car I couldn't earn/score any auto-x points but as a small silver lining whatever place I finished in those points would be removed from all the scores (e.g. if I was 1st the 10 points I should get wouldn't be awarded to me but they wouldn't give them to 2nd either)

While my chances of winning the event were over I was stoked to be able to finish the event hanging out with good friends and driving a similar car.

Saturday dawned another bright sunny day, I was definately still bummed about my car but a bad day at the track is better than a day in the office! The SBRSCCA group put on a fantastic auto-x course for us to tackle at the Tirerack, pretty technical and fast. Amazingly I managed to pull off 1st place in the borrowed car in my class!

And then they began calling out the awards and I was amazed to learn that my single flying lap had been good enough for fastest on the road course (in the class) and the points I earned during the cruise Thursday, and Road Course Friday were good enough for a 2nd place overall!

I had a lot of fun at this event and will certainly be planning to attend again next year and take a shot at winning the overall!

A few pictures from the event:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/laneau...7656356808606/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/laneau...7656356808606/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/laneau...7656356808606/

klodkrawler05

So at this point I must begin the tear down and diagnosis of my car. I suspect that oil starvation could be the culprit. perhaps maybe not even from the single Gingerman lap but from the last year and a half of racing. This just happened to be the lap that broke the camels back so to speak.

This late in the summer my microscopic racing budget is pretty much gone. I have pre-paid for 2 more events (USCA at Road America Aug 29 and Gridlife Time Attack Round 3 at Gingerman October 3-4)

I'd love to be able to make both events but I simply don't have the money to buy a new short block/crate engine, I likely don't have the time required to do a full tear down, get my engine to a machine shop get it repaired and put back together in the car either.

This leaves me exploring the option of a used motor while saving my LS6 to repair/build over the winter.

However on that front I've had no luck finding a local LS1/6 that isn't absurdly priced (i.e. I can't afford or justify a $2k motor just to run 2-3 events before being done for the year) Which moves me down the desirability scale. I'm considering a junkyard 5.3l engine and swapping my ls6 heads/cam/intake manifold onto it as a stop gap to get through the last 2 events of this season, It's not the best option, its not even a good option but it could/would work. I've been missing 1st place at the USCA events I've been to this year by inches and I'm convinced the new tire/wheel setup combined with the suspension tweaks would be enough to win.
And I'd love to beat a few of those 600+ hp LS7 swapped c5's with a junkyard 5.3 (remember this is an ultimate street car without the ultimate budget)

And so that's where I sit at this point. Will the car be running in a couple weeks on a 5.3? will I call it quits for the rest of the season and begin letting the funds restore themselves to start the ls6 repair sooner? Tune in next time to find out.

r0nd3L

Glad I found your thread on here! Not sure if you remember, but I was tracking that dark blue FRS with Infamous Decals stickers. I talked to you about C5Zs for a little bit.

I have decided to start prepping my C5Z for track as well! Took the Procharger off and acquired/installed all the stock radiator shrouds and intake parts. Installed aftermarket steering wheel, Brey-Krause harness bar, and will be installing Sparco Evo seats tomorrow. Next round will include DRM oil cooler and brake ducts/lines/pads. I'm trying to get it ready for August 4 SCCA track night at Blackhawk so I can shake the car down and see how it feels.

I haven't had a chance to go through your thread, but will do so within few days.

Keep on racing!

Edit: Sorry to hear about the engine troubles, hope you get it sorted out!

klodkrawler05

Definitely! glad to see you're taking the jump with the Z! let me know if you start a build thread so I can follow along!

gandalf1969

Just want to encourage you to keep soldiering-on. I'm enjoying this thread and the theme. Sorry to hear about the engine - I feared that outcome for you as I read through that post. I too have had that same sunken-stomach feeling resulting from the same glance at my gauges, same noise, same track and actually the same corner (actually 9, coming into 10). I feel for you brother. I'm hoping you can get the LS6 rebuilt and back on your way.

G.