norvalwilhelm

My problem was hitting the brakes at the same time as turning. I would go into a corner at about 100 mph and then get on the brakes. It just doesn't work for me, braking and turning.
MY car would not be good in autoX. I would smoke my way around the short coarse. I need at least 3rd gear to start getting on it.

25th silverbullet

[QUOTE=72 RAY]Oh forgot!
Here's a video of one lap at buttonwillow Ca. with a lot of passing and a lotus that is purposely trying to hold me up. (so I won't beat his best lap time). Friendly competition.
[QUOTE]

Nice driving...looks like fun.

Turttle,

The best mod that I have done for this type of driving is the suspension (VBP) I love it!!! No detectable body roll... and the streering is crazy. It took a little getting used to and going back and forth from the vette to the SUV is difficult but you'll be able to tell right away.

DaveL82

Lostpatrolman - I ordered the calipers from Summit Racing. I went with forge Billet instead of the superlite 4's for now. The forged superlites have 4 1.75" pistons while the 4's have two with 1.88" and two with 1.75".

dave

72 RAY

Here's what my experiences have taught me:
Straight line braking. Come in hard and strong but with little or no input to the steering.
Late apex almost always. Let the car drift out and get it rotated. Then ease onto the gas late apex and move on down to the next corner.
Never stomp the gas on the exit of a corner. (spin)
Don't grab a candy stripe while braking. (you will only do this once)
Exceptions:
You can left foot brake if your good on some corners.
Throttle steering in the bigger sweepers. (usually when the tires start to go this works to minimise the over or understeer).
Best advice:
Watch other faster cars lines thru corners but only heavy cars. Try some differnet things to see what works and listen to the racers/instructors. They do not approach a single corner they approach a series of corners. This advanced technique will make you faster overall. It's amazing how you enter one corner can affect how you exit a corner 3 or 4 away. Study the track and watch video's if you can this helps also.
I love this stuff!
Later

NHvette

Hmmm - posted here earlier - musta failed for some reason.

I'm interested in getting involved in this (casually).
Can you answer a few Qs ?

What club is this ? Are they local to NE ?
Where do you race ? NHIS - or is there a local circuit ?
How much does it cost you to join and run a couple races a year ?

I'll be the guy in your rear-view mirror. Call me snail - I'll paint a "S" on my hood.

turtlevette

NH,

you can be as casual or as involved as you want. As mentioned i usually only go to 2 of 10 events so i am casual. NHIS is the home track but we go to Mosport, Mt Tremblant, Watkins Glen, Summit Pt. VMP yada yada yada.

membership is 30 bucks a year and DE events where you get 4 20 minute sessions is 150 bucks. It sounds like a lot of money but 80 minutes of white knuckle heart pounding driving is definietly worth it.

Here is the website. I would be thrilled if you came up and ran with me. We need another C3.

http://www.comscc.com/

72 RAY

Just thought I would elaborate on some of the techniques used in Road Racing a c3 vette.
If you Guys are bored with this thread Sorry!
I don't run with any other c3 vette's. So it's kind of that I can pass on some of what I have learned and maybe learn something myself.

So here goes: http://members.***.net/keiferpkr/buttonwillow.wmv
Early apex verses late. The orange mustang (early). I'm late and pass him on the inside no problem but! I was trying to get all three of them.
Decided not to push it with the lotus. Good thing I was a little inside on this corner and you can see the car twitch on the exit. (little early apex and to much throttle) I wanted to catch him and go inside at the next corner but!! My little voice told me don't do it he's not really giving you the corner it's just his wild line. (1700 lb car 200 h.p.). As you can see I'm glad I waited.
After this I was just trying to stay close enough to pass him later on the exit of the big right hand sweeper.
A little brake check right before the big sweeper left me with some catch up. You will notice in the sweeper I could not make up much ground. This was the limit of my front tires (you can hear the understeer, squeeling Tires) So with a little throttle steer to keep me close. I decided to try and get him after the hill but lap traffik gave me the chance I needed. Pass was made outside going over the hill (little hairy but I knew the car could do it).
After this I'm on to the BMW. I left foot brake going into the closing radius Right hand sweeper. I knew if I could enter the esses properly I could exit at almost full throttle 4th gear and catch him at the entrance to the straight. If I did this I could easily pass him on the straight with my H.P.. As it turned out I got past both cars with a little help from lap traffik.
So there you have it: Apexs, Left foot braking, throttle steering, oversteer and understeer, track awarness, little voice, multiple corner technique and a heck of a lot of fun.

turtlevette

this is great, keep the videos coming. Some of those guys do not look smooth at all. Even a little scary. You said that was the advanced group? Your right to be worried about your car... if you care about that car better get a beater C3 like mine so if you swap paint its not a big deal. And they way its going you will swap paint.

it didn't appear that there are much straightaways there. NHIS has enough to let you build up some scary speed. I hear Watkins Glen is really fast.

I need to get some good tires. It looks like your car handles much better than mine.

blue72

I'm really enjoying this thread! I too am interested in becoming involved with something like this where I can start off casually and progress as skill (and money) permits. Are there any members of the TX chapter present on this forum? I would love to accompany on a race trip sometime!

-Jason

72 RAY

Turtle,
Yeah Buttonwillow is very technical. There was about 40 cars on the track of all different levels. Learning to be smooth at this track is the key. Not everyone is there yet. I know who to watch out for.
As far as using all of my car. That would be California Speedway with the Oval. I max out in 4th at 6500 rpm (aprox. 155 mph) entering turn one of the oval. Really big GoNads if you can leave your foot in it all the way around. I can't and know no one that does. Very intimidating. Once you see the skid marks going up to the wall you ease off the throttle a tad. So I go thru at about 145 mph and exit at about 155 to 160 mph. This is where the wilwoods come in handy. From here 150 mph it's a short distance to a 90 degree chicane (aprox. 60 mph). Very hard threshold braking. This track is made for our cars. Mine Loves it. In fact I have a track record in my group that is faster then the class above me. My avatar is at this track. I have a vhs video that my brother took that is really good of my car at this track. The car sounds so awsome at WOT going by.
Stuff man!!
Later!

StingrayDK

You need to rip that video on your computer, and upload it to a server


I bet you could even sell copies in here

gkull

72 Ray - Is it to far for you to go to meet up at Thunder Hill? It's better than Willow Springs and you would really have to try to hit a solid object. Very safe track.

We have a local track outside of Reno Nevada. The track is not safe as is. They are expanding to 3.8 miles and they have to chicane the main straight.

72 RAY

I will see what I can do. Somehow I would have to convert it to digital. Maybe I can at least get one lap or two on here. There is a good one of me catching a c5 exiting the oval and passing him and another c5 at the same time in the infield.
Stuff!!
Later


gkull:
Thunder Hill is not out of the question for me. It is a long cruise though.
I just went to Infineon in August. First time on this track. We ran the ALMS config. Talk about no forgivness. There are walls at everyturn it seems. No funny business at this track.
To pat myself on the back I ended up doing very well here. No funny business for me (4 new tires) just burning off some killer laps. At first I was worried 52 cars on the track Sat. It was a Norcal/Socal crossover event so everybody came out to play. It took most of the day for everyone to get comfortable on the track. Example 2nd session got a 1:56.7 (not really pushing it) then in the 3rd the best I could do was 2:00.2 (traffik). In the forth however I got a 1:53.7 to set a track record for my group and 3rd fastest overall.
Sunday was even better because we got down to about 40 cars.
I ended up with a new track record at 1:52.3, second fastest overall.
Here's my First Podeum picture with the girls.


Next season may bring me to Thunderhill. My buddy runs American Iron and they have events there often. I may join him next year. We will see.
Later!

FB#1

Great thread.

I Auto-X my 81 and always seem to pick up some useful things when I pay attention to you Road Race guys.

Thanks

gkull

72 Ray - no wonder you won. Your at least 50 lbs lighter than the competetors!

I've got to run TH in both directions. The little track video doesn't do this place justice. the guy is just driving around in the vid. But just look at the amount of straight skid marks angling off the track where people have lost it going sideways. Great lap times are anything sub 2:10 for the three miles running the track backwards or clock wise.

Your 434 HP would luv this track. I've got a couple of videos from TH. I don't have a way to host them. In car of a C-5 doing some laps and doing a 360 off the course. Also a c-5 in car chasing a BBC convertiable C-3 and the big block just leaves the c-5 out of the turns

http://www.thunderhill.com/html/trackmap.html

CrossedFlags77

Gkull go to putfile.com. You can upload vids for free.

gkull

72 Ray for turtle vette you need to list your suspension mods.

I've had the Smart Struts since the late 80's. The like the idea of no camber change during the verticle wheel travel. Smart struts also allow me to change the wheel camber at the track for the road coarse wheel bias. Thats much more camber on the side that sees the most rolling under of the tire.

The whole idea of sway bars is to progressively (sp?) increase the spring rate. I have a liter car. The 550# and 1 1/8th sway works nice. I have a racing only c-3 friend with 71 496 ci BBC who has 720# his car is only 2850 with him in it. I drive mine on the street.

turtlevette

Whats this rear end jacking that can occurr on C3s all about?

Is my rear jacking in these picts? It looks like i'm getting a good bit of compression on the loaded side say about 1 to 1.5 inch. The unloaded side looks like its got about +2 inches of extra height between the top of the tire and wheel well.

Edit: these picts are with a 5 leaf steel spring. I have since gone to a softer fiberglass spring...a forum Christmas present.

550s up front. 1.125 sway bar. no rear bar.

Do we need to go to circle track type 1000 pound springs to keep these silly things from rolling?

adding any sort of decent sized rear bar causes it to be as loose as Paris Hilton.

Twin_Turbo

jacking is a result of a too high roll center in the rear, sideways forces will then try to lift the rear, especially on the inboard wheel...think of a pole vaulter, it's exactly the same principle.
The only cure is a revised rear suspension geometry..meaning having to " fix" the camber rbacket.

Looking at those pics...what you also need is more roll stiffness. If adding a rear bar makes it oversteer add an even bigger one on the front..bigger than you already have. What I don't get is why you don't invest in a nice speedway bar ot at least something with several holes in the arms (or the bar itself) and a heim end setup (weld proper brackets on the lower control arms, not those flimsy things that the factory put on there) so you can set the arms to 1 tooth stiffer (1 hole closer to the bar) and play w/ it. IMO the trick to having a successfull road course car , or at least being as comptetitive as the car can be, is adjustability that allows you to quickly set the car for the track.

I like the pics turtle...that's what these thigns were made for, looks beautiful out on the track (especially like the 2nd pic)

72 RAY

OK guys, Here's what I know:
Nothing about the factory suspension. Sorry!

When I bought my car the suspension was metal on metal. So I completely replaced it with the VB&P performance plus system.This was at least 7 years ago. As a result all of my experience is with this setup. ALSO I run BIAS ply tires. My suspension is setup and adjusted to track conditions differently than if you run radial type racing slicks. I don't need as much negative camber. Which may be good for those of you that cannot change the camber easy. The benefit of this type system is the adjustability. In the early days oversteer was an issue. So I could soften the rear and stiffen the front which helped some. Removing the sway bar and going to the steel bushings helped the most. In fact after having my car weighed I keep the suspension pretty balanced. It's rock solid now no difflection in the suspension. Which means when it gets loaded up it stays. When the tires can't take anymore I'm at max. The front has always been pretty good but now that I have the rear working a few things have changed. The VB&P suspension allows you to lower the car quit a bit. This is good for many reasons but one negative is the bump stops. If the car loads up to much in a corner the suspension will max out against the bump stop and then go into push (understeer)as a result. I've got my car working good enough now that this has happended a couple of times. So I cut the stops in half to give me a little more travel.
I have upgraded from the basic VB&P kit on a few things. The changes I have made to it is the steeroids, Pole Position upper a-arms, boxed smart strut bracket and steel bushings everywhere. I also converted the lower a-arm to monoball bearings. The rear has Guldstrand tow adjusters instead of shims, and Heim joint camber rods.
At this point I think I have the car working as good as I can. I could go to the radial type tires but they are very expensive (with an unknown benefit). Mostly now I think I will concentrate on weight. Next season with less weight we will see what this does to my settings.
I looked and don't really have any pictures of the car loaded in the corner (like Turtle). I guess the one of my avatar is the best.

Sorry i'm not more help with the factory stuff.
Basically the more control you have over the suspension. The more control you will have on the track. The DIHLEMA!! LOL.
Later!!

P.S. I'm working on getting some laps from Calif. Speedway uploaded.