Kevova

I will disagree concerning shocks. Race teams spend a ridiculous amount of money on shocks and engineers to make them work in a forms of racing. Think about how much GM spent on various electronic shocks.

pologreen1

I'll say it again, the bigger challenge is to have a C4 equal power, and all other things and STILL be able to keep up, based on driver input.

Part of driving is the experience. Even a professional has their limits.

The feel of a c4 especially early c4 going in to the same corers, same speed, etc as a C7 ZR1 is 2x+ literally or more scary.

No stock c4 chassis will be able to, it's common sense. You might get a couple laps to be close, but the driver fatigue will soon set in.


I'd think if you look in the race section here you'll see 500-600+hp c4s with all the "racer" mods and c5s are killing them on road tracks. Just a guess....

Viper ACR and Corvette ZR1 might as well be 100 years newer than a c4 (even modified), it's the same difference.

VW's, Fieros, etc. make great kit cars of super car replicas, but they are not super cars even with better parts. Same way I see this topic.

MatthewMiller

It's not that shocks aren't important - they definitely are. They just aren't first priority at all when it comes to best lap time. But imagine a scenario where a race team had to choose only three upgrades out of the following four: tires, power, downforce, shocks. I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that every race engineer would choose the first three over shocks every single time. It's not even close. And yes, pro-level race teams spend what we would consider to be quite a lot on dampers. In some series (like IndyCar) the rules allow very few other parts to even be changed. But in a series where power and aero is open for development, I promise that the damper budget is minuscule compared to the budget for the other two. It would be the same for tires, except that tire companies tend to foot the bill for tire development in exchange for getting their names on the cars. Another way to put this: in the 'Ring bench race, I'd rather be stuck with NOS Bilsteins on the C4 than NOS tires. That decision would take about one second to make.

Well...sort of. There is something to your point about the feeling of security and grip that the newest race-spec production have, but not mostly for the reasons you think. The biggest reasons are 4-digit levels of downforce and tires so sticky that they aren't even legal in most autocross classes. Those things can be address on a C4 relatively easily. There isn't a lot of magic in the chassis geometry of most new cars - it's better but not insanely and unattainably better.