There seems to be some knowledgable people on this site so here is my question. I raced in the SCCA for almost 20 years, but it has been a while since I have been on the track. I bought a 1999 Corvette Hardtop and have about 45,000 miles on it.

I want to start doing some track days with local clubs, and a lot of people have told me that I should just run my street car. From experience I know that you will eat up brake pads and tires, but racing also tends to break any part that is weak or worn.

I have heard that you don't drive as hard as you do when your actually racing, but then the same person will tell me he cut 2 seconds off of his lap time by changing rotors, or exhaust, etc. Since the only way to tell if something works is driving as hard as you can, you start to wonder if anything else they are saying is true.

What kind of experiences have you guys had on road courses as far as wear and tear on the the car. Any dependablilty issues? I am thinking about building a track car and leaving the Corvette for the street, but need some good information.

Thanks

 

Welcome to the forum,
These are all good questions. There is a great section on just roadracing and auto-x's.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zeroforum?id=23
These guys are at the track all the time. Running and modding their corvettes. They should be able to answer any question.

Thanks
Randy

 

The C5 makes a great track car! Your weak points will be brakes and oil starvation.

For brakes, here's what you can do:

1. Flush your brake fluid and install a good race fluid like Motul or ideally Castrol SRF
2. Upgrade your pads. There are many good brands/compounds out there - do a search in the autocross/road race section.
3. Invest in brake cooling ducts from Doug Rippe Motosports (a sponsor of the site)

For oil starvation:

1. Overfill the oil by 1 quart. Don't worry about removing it afterwards, it will harmlessly burn off.
2. Get an Accusump with an electric valve.

From there, you can look into oil coolers, trans/diff coolers, etc.

I've tracked my Z06 about 10 times to date and have never had any type of catastrophic failure (thank God!). Many others here track their C5's as well. Keep an eye on your oil temps, if they get too high (i.e. approaching 300*), run a cool down lap or two. Also, if you see a "high trans temp" message, short shift the car for a lap or two to cool down the trans. Other than that, have fun!!!

 

I take 5 minutes to give you what comes to my mind. A ton of break pads & tires. Cross drilled rotors can crack. I use stock rotor. I have Hawk HP+ pads, but you can find better. Oil catch can. The C5 PCV cannot handle the pressure for long high RPM causing engine leak. Well, for my car. Duck tape the ball joint and tie rod boots. Too closed to the rotor can melt. I’m not there yet, but tranny & diff oil cooler + Pump. You can also have a more aggressive camber. And check the toe when you get out the track. DYI alignment

What surprised me was that I had to replace the 2 rear tie rod. There were loose and the car is 80K. I find it strange, the front ones were ok.

I’m sure you will see a lot of good opinion here. As it was previously said, you can also look in the autocrossing & road racing section.

 

Welcome to the forum!

As mentioned above, there is a good auto-x and roadracing subforum here, but it is well hidden.

Other than using the link above, you can find it via the "Forums" pull down menu in the top left, then "General Corvettes" then "Autocrossing & Roadracing"

In SCCA T1, my car is near stock, so I have had a lot of experience with the durability of the stock parts. You can see my mods here:
SCCA T1 Z06

I believe SCCA T1 racing stresses the car harder than a typical DE does, but with your experience, you never know.

At this point, my car has around 16k total miles, the first 15k as a daily driver with occassional DE, about 10 DE days, and around 28 SCCA races.

I've found the following:
- pads/rotors last about 3 SCCA race weekends (2 races per weekend) using Carbotech XP pads (currently using 11 front, 10 rear) and stock OEM rotors I buy at NAPA.
- DOT track tires (Hoosier R3S04, Kumho V710, Goodyear GS-CS) last about 16 track sessions if your suspenion is set up so they wear evenly
- I replace calipers annually.
- I replace wheel bearings annually.
- I've replaced the lower front a-arms once as the rubber bushings, even the T1 rubber I have, get beat up on the track. I'd go with poly if I could.
- Diff and tranny still original stock units with no rebuilds or repairs (though I lost the left axle seal in my last race and plan to rebuild at least the diff this winter as a precaution).
- Lost my original engine (not running AMSOIL) due to a seized bearing
- Had a timing chain part in my second engine - lost six valves and was lucky. Rebuilt engine and won my division on that motor in 2004.
- Had that motor rebuilt and blueprinted for the 2004 SCCA National Championship Runoffs and the harmonic balancer came off on lap 2 of practice leading to total engine failure (still not sure what failed inside the motor after we fixed the seal and put on a new balancer - I suspect the front bearing was damaged when the balancer bounced between the steering rack, front subassembly and the crankshaft).
- My third motor now has five races on it and is going strong... knock on wood.

Would I do it all over again? Without a second thought.