Bullet Tooth

I have run multiple searches, but I am not finding the answers I need. I have a 2016 C7 Z06 which is mostly stock (DSC V2 controller, x-pipe) and I run 1-4 HPDE year. I bought the car new and it has about 16K on it now. I am not a track rat, but I am able to turn very competitive times with the car and I routinely pull around and in excess of 1.5 g in corners. I recently purchased 18" wheels with Pirelli DH scrubs.

1. How often do I need to have the wheel bearings replaced? I am having zero problems that I know of concerning the wheel bearings, but the thought of a wheel bearing failure in a high speed corner is not amusing.
2. How often should I replace the wheel studs? Is it enough to simply buy Katech titanium nuts?

The goal is to avoid a failure, but these items may not need any attention for awhile. I do not have enough experience with these issues to know how often they need attention. Thank you in advance.

Kyle

BigMonkey73

I have a C6, not C7. It took me about 3 years since I was in novice..maybe 14+ events before my hubs needed replacing. I upgraded the front to SKF heavy duty hubs. Got them from Phoenix Performance forum vendor

harrydirty

I have a 2007 C6Z and I run mid-pack Advanced.........it took about 30 track days (less than 20K miles on car) before one of the rear bearings started to go. Thankfully it was not a catastrophic failure, but a severe wobble developed. I replaced both rear with oem, but will upgrade to SKF heavy duty eventually. I upgraded to SKF heavy duty in front just in case and did the work in my garage.

argonaut

My experience in a C5:

• Doing about 10-12 track days per year - I used all oem hubs for the first few years as I moved from novice to advanced run groups
• At that point as preventive maintenance I put in SKF fronts and new oem rears.
• A couple years later I completely broke one rear hub exiting a corner under power. There was no warning, no wobble, nothing - it just broke. Fortunately I made it back to the pits without too much drama (thanks to LSD)
• New rear oems went in (same SKF fronts). A couple years later I had a rear start to wobble while at VIR.
• Rears are easy to replace, so I went to Autozone and got their house brand (which turns out to be chinese crap) and installed it that night. Next day, two sessions in, it was done - bad wobble. End of that trip.
• At that point I replaced front with new SKF and new oem style rears, better brand. Drove a few more events and sold the car.

With regard to bearings - I think the moral is that they *may* tell you when they need replacing but don't count on it. If a front had broken without warning I hate to think about what could have happend. For any car that is tracked frequently and at an advanced level I highly recommend SKFs on at least the front - do it now, before there are problems.

With regard to wheel studs. I've broken a stud probably 4-5 times. Always when torquing them. I believe what happens is that the frequent wheel changes and torquing wears them out. I never broke a ARP stud though, they seem to be much better. If you break a stud at the track - the front is not so bad to replace, but the rear is a MF'er. For that reason its a good plan to replace oem studs every couple years (depending on # of track days and how often you change wheels). ARP studs can probably go a year longer.

ErnieN85

Hubs on C7 are much better, There haven't been any reports on here of them breaking (that I have seen)
they are also much cheaper than the good ones for C5 & C6

Bill Dearborn

The C7 hubs are very similar in construction to the aftermarket SKF hubs used on C5/C6.

No need to go with Titanium Lug Nuts.

I have 3 seasons on my C7Z, just starting 4th season and have yet to replace anything but consumable parts/fluids.

Bill

GSpeed

For what its worth, we have failed several SKF C7 hubs, and even sent them into SKF for evaluation. As cheap as they are, we recommend changing them early and often. They are not quite at the level of the C5/C6 X Tracker, but they are much improved over the factory bearings/auto store bearings.

You can never OVER maintenance, its more of a juggle between timing out parts too early and spending unnecessary cash, and waiting too long to time them out, and ruining a weekend from failed parts. for what its worth, on the endurance cars, we time them out around 100 hours. On the SCCA/NASA cars that have Hoosiers or Slicks, we time them out around 60-70 hours.

If you always wait until something is broken, you can never truly get ahead of the curve, and will continually have issues until you are so fed up with the problems you move on to another hobby or another car.

Rx7Rob

Argo, what tires were you using?

Thanks

Rob

Mick14

Very nicely said and true. It is tough to balance what takes priority due to funds. I also know that not doing preventive maintenance on a race/track car causes other components to either fail or cause premature wear.

argonaut

The info I posted was accumulated over many years and many different tires but in general probably 50/50 between R-Comps and UHP street tires.

RapidC84B

Does anyone know if all C7 hubs are the same? Or, is there a "Z07" hub? Anyone with a Z07 want to PM me the last 8 of your VIN and I can check with my dealer?

Poor-sha

My 2015 C7Z had over 120 track hours at the advanced group pace on slicks and when I sold it the wheel bearings all seemed fine. I did replace the wheel studs with ARP studs. At least with my C6Z you could hear the bearing start to make noise when loaded and then it was time to replace.

RapidC84B

Were you able to replace the studs w/o taking the bearings off? On the C5 you could get the OEM ones out, but no room to get an ARP one in w/o taking the bearing off.

I have VINs from a Z06 and ZR1 and will check part numbers on the bearings and report back.

Poor-sha

The fronts you can do if they are stock length or you cut them down to stock length. You need to remove the hub to do the rears and I paid someone to do them on my 2015 after I buggered up a stock stud. On the 2019 GS I just pulled the hubs and swapped the studs myself but I had the entire car apart.

P.S. my issues with the stock hubs on the 2015 turned out to be from the 13" wide wheel binding on the UCA when it was in the air.