yellow01

You guys who do this regularly... ever feel like you're getting in over your head (John I'm not sure if your opinion counts here j/k)...

Seriously though... I'm frustrated. I love doing this. Like making changes, adjustments etc. Moving to track tires this year... that brings with it alot of items (tire transport, alignment etc. - read $$$) This was a street car... now over time it seems I'm making changes that mean less and less street time (more agressive alignment is rearing it's ugly head in my front tire wear)... I guess that in itself is ok, but I sometimes wonder.

I'm also finding that the further you get from standard street setup, the less help there is out there. I do alot of my own work, but I'm no pro, and need vendor/shop help every once in a while.

Recent story... took car in for install of Gary's camber plates and an alignment tweak. The place didn't know how they went in so consulted a local vette tuner (I'm not saying) who told 'em to "put the parts back and run like hell" - i.e. don't touch my job with a 10ft pole. WTF?! these are big-time tuners...

This isn't a vendor bash, but just goes to show you whether it's liability driven or who knows, the further you get from stock, the more you are on your own... at least it seems that way. Sure I could buy a guage and mess with alignment myself, but it will be FAR from accurate and then it's just one more thing I'm on the hook to maintain myself. I do have a job that keeps me busy 5-6 days a week.

The alignement is just an example.

Anyone else feel this way sometimes? I'm probably just being a baby. Thanks for letting me vent. It has clealry been too long since I've actually driven on the track.

Red Gump

I'm totally with you. being in sebring you'd think there'd be more race-type shops but there are NONE. and I'm mechanically retarded. so there's that. as such the transition has proved VERY stressful and frustrating, cost probably 3x more than it should have and taken 10x longer.

emf

IMO, it's the nature of the beast. The farther out of the mainstream you get, the farther up you go on the pay-scale for getting things done, and the farther away you have to go to find someone who's able to do the work.

I'll put it this way -- out of the billion and a half shops out there that you can find for your honda or toyota . . . . how many "vette friendly" shops are out there? Heck . . . there's whole threads and arguements about which 1/2 dozen shops you should take the car to for 'vette friendly' service . . . . and that's just for main-stream work!


As someone who's taken a car from daily-driver to dedicated track car, I know what you mean . . . it's tough to find folk who can (let alone want to) work on a track car, which is why I do most of my own work. If you end up being all thumbs, this is probably a bit more problematic . . . but means that you'll end up taking the car to more race-specific shops, as opposed to corvette shops.

but that's just MHO

varkwso

It does get you frustrated. It is like building a Hot Rod - "what year" depends...

I have found it hard to get a non-stock alignment or a nail hole patched in my town...much less a "change"

Track prep shops are few and far between

yellow01

I agree with everything you just said.

I know the effort and cost is an exponential function. I expected the turning point to be out there, I just didn't realize I was close to it at my limited experience level.

After thinking about it over some Starbucks at lunch, I've just come to the conclusion I'm trying too hard/doing too much. I get stars in my eyes sometimes thinking about big brakes and track setup and this and that...and fantasizing about being a real driver. I should just keep it the way it is and drive what and when I can. So I'm not going to be the fastest out there, I can live with that, I'm not racing anyway. I think ultimately it will be more fun in the long run. If it turns from a hobby to a chore the fun goes away - I have enough chores to do.

I was just very surprised to get the reaction I did from who I did. It was kind of an eye opener in the sense that if you can't go to X, then wow, I guess you can't go to anyone...

danswofford

I've started doing most of my own work because of the difficulty to find someone to do it and huge expense having someone else do it.

When I bought my used 02Z last summer I took it to my usual shop that works on my Dodge truck and asked them to do a bunch of things on the brakes like change to Motul, add stainless steel brake lines and install new Napa rotors. And I asked them to install the Penske shocks that were in the trunk. Well with the Penske install you would have thought I had asked them to tune my F1. They spent several ours installing them, couldn't figure out how they worked or adjusted, they coundn't figure out how to bolt them down. AND THEY ARE JUST SHOCKS, THEY JUST BOLT IN LIKE ANY OTHER SHOCK!!. mercy....

Thanks for letting me vent.

The total charge was $700 labor for the above work.

Anyway, now I do all the work I possibly can myself.

freefall

One of the funniest stories I've heard is about a friend of mine taking his wheels in to get some new tires mounted. The first guy looked at them, scratched his head, muttered "Oh $%!&," and got someone else. The next guy said something similar, then that they could try to do it. I couldn't believe it - they are just stock wheels and tires! Needless to say, my buddy closed up the tail gate and never went back.

yellow01

i've had that exact thing happen.

Falcon

Everytime I think about or read about this hobby and how big the effort gets, I think back to the Adam and Eve joke:

-When Adam first sees Eve in the Garden of Eden they look at one another and Adam, feeling a party beginning in his loin cloth, says to her, "Get back Eve, I don't know how big this thing is going to get."-

That's how I felt about what we do with our cars. I made my mind up that there would be certain safety/endurance mods I'd make to my car and at that point I'd quit modding. I've been pretty faithful to that promise and haven't gone past that point in the past year. All of my time now is spent on getting better at driving and when I feel I want to mod more, I'll buy a T1 car or some other full fledged race car, more for the safety than anything else.

There's a point of diminishing returns with mods. Certain ones are worth their weight in gold, while others are minimimally effective (I stay away from those).

freefall

Jody - when you need a little more speed, get one of these: http://hotrod.com/projectbuild/hdrp_...project_build/

yellow01

That's great advice and I think the point I've reached.

ScaryFast

A couple of suggestions I can offer from my struggles with the same issues:

1. Do as much and learn as much as you can. I know, that one's obvious, but you need to understand what shops, CF members, salesmen, etc. are saying. Once you start modding the car you're out of most people's league. I was killing batteries due to an electrical bug, and the sears guy was giving me trouble because the cheap-O battery I bought wasn't standard replacement for my car...

2. Find a small, privately owned non-OEM affilliated shop in your area. Give them a little work, see if they're competant. If so, become friends with them. I went to the R&R shop up the street for something small, got to talking cars, and now we're buddies. His knowledge of "race car" parts isn't necessarily that of Pheonix, but he'll work on my non-standard car and let me look over his shoulder. There are so many things that are changed that he couldn't possibly know about, and most mechanics don't want someone second guessing their work, they take it as in insult.

Bring some beers by, shoot the breeze, and most importantly, stop by once in awhile when your car is NOT there. Not only will he do jobs I don't want to mess with (time or whatever), but he knows my car well at this point. I fully trust him and his guys to get it done right. They don't give me crap about bald tires (read - slicks), non original equipment, squeaky brakes, etc. But they do perform burnouts in my baby from time to time...

Oh, and send everyone you know to him for their repair work. Nothing says "thank you" like sending more business his way. Pretty soon your stuff's getting done for free.

3. Get a scan tool or get access to one. Getting codes and being able to diagnose stuff on your own is a huge savings.

4. Get a nice set of tools. Fuel pressure guages, noid lights, vacuum guages, etc are crucial. None of them are that expensive and pretty soon you'll be able to check all the standard items in a matter of an hour when something goes wrong.

5. Get tight with some other local racing buddies. Nothing is better that having some "free" help when you're tackling a tough job. Offer to help everyone you can, then they'll be there when you need them. Borrow tools, knowledge, and a car when yours is up on jackstands

95jersey

I feel all the pain as well. My pain is not finding a shop to do my work that I trust (that I have), but all the damn things that I keep breaking on this POS car. It seems that it just keeps breaking every other event at this point.

Falcon

Holy Smoking Tires and Melting Asphalt, Batman!

I wouldn't last more than one lap at VIR full with that thing.

Good find, John!

Lancer033

Even when you find Vette friendly shops, how many of those have experience in racing other than a dyno and 1/4 mile??? I know of 3 LG, DRM, and Phoenix. Then add in the fact that i'm 3,000 miles away and a lot of people here think the Corvette is some exotic foreign car (well, i guess it is an a foreign car) plus begging people to ship USPS, then dealing with extra shippig times which they have no control over. Doing any simple task can be an exercise in frustration. At least i'll be back in the states next summer. With a little luck, I'll be able to join ya'll at VIR or Road Atlanta. I've asked for bases in North and South Carolina to get close enough for those 2 tracks, plus I'm looking for a truck to just tow the car next year.

one lesson I learned from doing project management with the Air Force is that you have two resources, time and money. If you run out of 1, you've got to spend more of the other to make up for it.

2K3Z06

Yellow01, talk to Lou when he gets back from Mid-ohio. His guys have lots of experience with "race car parts". The 21st CMC guys are good, but are more street car biased. Are your alignment settings not staying put? If there not moving, do you really need the hassle of camber plates. Or are you trying to get massive amounts of negative camber?

Best of luck

yellow01

I have had trouble with the stock stuff shifting. I don't know if it was too hard a curb hit on track or what because I'm not sure when it shifted ubt I know it's happened.

Lou's folks were great and said they'd install them, the issue was setting the alignment after (tweaks of toe etc.) so many recommended a local non-vette tuner to do this. They were great to work with, it was the reaction of another local vette tuner that shocked me.

never had any bad experiences with lg.

thanks for the advice.

tigerdrvr

Maybe we're just lucky (which I doubt), but there are a good number of shops that can talk the talk and walk the walk here in the SF Bay Area.

The way I've found good people to do the stuff I'm not prepared to do (alignment, corner weighting, nitrogen charge for shocks, etc. etc.) is through talking to people at SCCA events, Shelby club events (great source for help through the "friends of the club" lists) and other places where there are lots of folks with the same needs. Don't take the first referral and run with it, but see which shops consistently get talked up. Then, as others have said, get to know the guys who run the shops.
As far as hard part installs, I do that stuff mostly myself and then take the car to an expert for dialing in the stuff I've added.

That's what works for me and has also resulted in a couple of sponsorships, saving money on tires, alignments and some other small stuff.

ErnieN85

That is a great Idea. Sometimes hard to stick to your guns though.
I find in my area that there are no good shops. If I want something done I either have to do it myself or in the case of something I don't have the tools for such as an alignment.....stay with them and show them how to do it! Usually you get paid for teaching, but in our case we teach the mechanics (around here) and get charged for it too.

Jason

And then, you make that one lap that out of nowhere something clicks and it's all worth it again.