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New race car intro-Nasa st2-09 c6 z06-lots of pics
Hi there, some of you in Northeast might have met me through hooked on driving or Chin track days. I haven't been at track much this season as I decided to take the plunge from Track day car/time trials to racing. Nasa northeast has a good group of guys running in super touring 2, (st2) mostly c5/c6 vettes including forum member Amt-Motorsports c5z06 and decided I wanted to run with them.
A lot of people asked why I decided to deal with caging the aluminum chassis of the c6 z06 versus selling the car and starting with a c5z06 or base c6. Well, for starters, its a complete buyers market for c6 corvettes right now (sorry c6 owners, that's the truth, great if you are looking to get into a c6 though!). So I weighed out taking the hit on selling my car and building a c5/base c6 (buying a grand sport would be too expensive and not save me anything) and decided my car had a lot of things going for it that outweighed the complications of dealing with the aluminum chassis.
My car is already a wide body, so running the essentially mandatory 315/335 or 315/345 hoosiers wouldn't mean a wide body conversion. My car is also an 09, which meant it has the larger factory dry sump, the beefier tr6060, and a not insignificant detail-came with a freshly installed ls7. The car only had 18k on the odometer when I bought it so I would be starting with a fairly fresh drivetrain vs essentially piecing one together from scratch with a c5 or base c6. My friend Peter Agapaglou at Autosportfab Ct. (AutosportCt. on facebook) was willing to take on challenge of caging my car and so I decided to pull the trigger...
There are a lot of different opinions on what is the best way to cage these cars, and there are definitely some sketchy cages in c6z06s out there. We decided to go with a simple (in reality, not so simple) thru-bolted cage. The other controversial issue is whether or not to cut the factory halo out on these cars. I personally, do not think cutting the factory halo/b pillars are necessary and did not want it done on my car. You are welcome to disagree, its my car :-). First up, the ever important main hoop mounting plates. Here is what the guys at Autosportfab came up with:
Machined sleeves for thru-bolting to sandwich plates
As for the back portion, when the car was still a "street car" I had a rollbar made for the car. The fabricator had welded 1/2 aluminum plates to the rear of frame and we decided to just incorporate those into the new cage.
Then real progress! The bent harness bar is so if down the road a larger driver then my 5''9' self takes over car the cage/seat can accommodate them. Also, without cutting the factory halo/b pillar the main hope fitment could not be any tighter.
I stopped in to get fitted, and since I currently don't have a halo seat, Pete threw in the one out of his own car to make sure the cage will accommodate one down the road.
After getting fitted, more progress...Its hard to tell in this shot, but the door bars are bent so they jut outwards. This meant gutting the doors but since this is strictly a race car I could care less. This gives more intrusion protection and the driver more room.
Then they obliged my love of dimple dies, the door bar gussets.
Want to see something cool? Before final welding of the door bars and halo bars, we knocked the tack welds off them and were able to pull both halves of the cage entirely out the car. The cage actually received some paint while it was like this!
Then the whole thing was put back into the car to do the final welding and tie everything together. I don't know the first thing about bending or notching round tubes to fit a chassis, but I'm actually a somewhat proficient welder and for my own amusement I tried my hand at the contortion act that is welding a roll cage. It is definitely a different animal then bench welding! I welded up fair amount of the back half of cage and then a few tubes with easy access on front half of cage. Ahh, much easier when you aren't contorting yourself.
The rest I left to Pete. Fia bars are sexy, and with the main hoop location, they don't hinder egress.
Here, the cage was resprayed before the car was reassembled.
My car was previously a Florida track day before I owned it, and had a nice set of brakes on all four corners. However, I did let myself splurge on a set of these with massive 372x34 rotors up front.
Again, this car had a set of pretty mediocre coilovers already on it when I purchased it. Since I wanted to actually go racing, they weren't going cut it. I ponied up and ordered a set of double adjustable penskes from Anze suspension. Mark at Amt made me these offset clevis mounts for the rear shocks, I know this has come up in another thread. I've also had alignment woes with the stock eccentrics, and again, going "full retard" I am also running Mark's (AMT)camber kit and control arm studs. Camber is at a healthy -3.2 up front and -1.8 rear, and Marks kit allows us to go crazier in the future if we deem necessary.
The other thing to address is making the car St2 legal. Nasa super touring classes are pretty cool in that the rules are pretty simple. For super touring 2 (simplifying things here) basically its 8:1 power to weight. My car has an ls7 with trickflow heads and manley stainless valves for reliability purposes on track. The cam, intake, throttle body, etc. are all stock other then a set of kooks longtube headers. The car put down 475whp. Pretty healthy for a stock cam ls7. Anyway, at aprox. 3200lbs with me, Total Induction Tuning Solutions detuned it to 394whp by capping the throttle body.
I am not familiar with the details of the aluminum frame vs roll bar debate. I can not see how the mounting system your fabricator used would not be totally acceptable and as strong as welding.
Can you summarize the debate or point me to a thread? I will search also.
Yup! Car has a log book now, I should add some details about the fire suppression system and the kill switch for anyone else thinking about taking the plunge. After a big set back (my own fault) we now have completed our first 2 races. I'm on my provisional license so i drove conservatively but was pleasantly surprised to come second to follow forum member Adrain at FAST auto both days. Next season should be a blast in St2 with Adrain, Mark (AMT), Doug (also a forum member I believe) another c5 and myself all in vettes.
So right off the bat, caging the aluminum chassis adds a pretty significant expense as it is a lot more work. Then there is the debate of what is the correct way to mount the cage to the chassis. Welding aluminum mount plates to the frame, thru-bolting, rivnuts etc. Welding alum. mount plates to the frame provides the most direct attachment to chassis but to some extent you risk annealing the aluminum frame. Thru-bolting presents some challenges, mostly in how and where you are thru-bolting and accessing sandwich plates etc. I know there are some very strong rivnuts out there, but I wasn't comfortable (personally) trusting my cage attachment to them but I have seen it done. The other factor to consider....repairablilty. It's racing, crashing happens, as I've painfully already learned. I put the car in the tire wall my first time out with car after I hit some water that puddled off curbing. Luckily, other then a bent rear control arm the damage was strictly cosmetic, and yes I did have the car on a frame rack to check for straightness. (Phew!). That being said, a steel chassis is much easier to repair.
Heya Mike! The car looks great and congrats! Really looking forward to more info/details about the fire suppression system and kill switch. I am certain I will see you at the track next year with NASA, in particular at Watkins.
awesome thread. LOVE all the build pics and cage stuff.
but im confused, a Z06 with a Targa top?
Oh yea good point! not many people realize that the magnesium roof panel on c6z06 is just bolted in place. Once you pull the headliner the bolts are accessible.
Oh yea good point! not many people realize that the magnesium roof panel on c6z06 is just bolted in place. Once you pull the headliner the bolts are accessible.
On a car without a full cage would be possible to build a brace to connect the a pillars to the B pillars for rigidity purposes??
On a car without a full cage would be possible to build a brace to connect the a pillars to the B pillars for rigidity purposes??
Without actual halo bars running from base of a pillar to a well constructed main hoop at b pillars (like if you had just a halfcage) My simple mind doesn't see a way to meaningfully achieve that. :-/
Hey Anthony! Hope you and your car are doing well!
So here are some pics of the required kill switches and fire suppression system. The car needs to have an internal and external kill switch and internal external fire suppression activation. For simplicity sake, I went with a manual pull system that's a newer Novec type.
The blue anodized pieces on the small aluminum brackets are the nozzles. Two by the firewall, and two up by radiator.
Here is the interior kill switch and fire pull in a dash filler panel. The hvac was deleted for the dash bar.
Exterior kill switch and fire pull.
The kill switch uses a bimmer world solenoid that kills power from the battery. The charge wire from alt. is interrupted by the kill switch as well and the setup works great. The solenoid does have a draw on it though, so I have to remember to make sure kill switch is off before putting car away.
So keep it! At 500whp you can still detune to st2/tt2 and have a killer, flat powerband. I think there is a heavy modification factor for cc brakes so you might have to sell those. Other than that, you already own the car, you see what a buyers market it is right now(40k for your car is a steal!), so cage it, do comp school, and race! Feel free to pm me
What kept you out of ST1/TT1? Is it lack of participation in this class?
No one really runs st1 in the northeast for starters and st2 honestly just appeals to me more. Take the Glen for example, to be competitive in st2 you need to be around 2:00/2:01 range and cracking into the the 1:59s (I suspect 1:58s might happen next season) to podium. Running those lap times with slightly less then 400Whp/around 3200lb car really appeals to me as a driver. Njmp lightning, 1:09s , njmp tbolt 1:25s, again those are just to be competitive next season. Lime rock this season I think guys cracked into the 56s. It's a fast class.
11-08-2017, 01:59 PM
New race car intro-Nasa st2-09 c6 z06-lots of pics
Looks like a lot of fun! Let us know how your racing goes.
