Hello,

I purchased my first Corvette after a long hunt in early June of this year. It is a base model 2006 black on black stock with 40k miles on it. Ive always been very very into suspension tuning. I bought the car with Firestone tires on it dating back to 2010/2011 production with lots of small rubber cracks. Anyways on the test drive it slide around a lot but i figured it was the old cracked tires. So i researched tires a great deal and decided on the Bridgestone Potenza Re-11's. The vehicle rides a lot smoother but i personally still feel like it looses traction way to easy. I also now have been keeping traction control active handling off as it to me does more harm than good. The only other complaint on the whole vehicle is the droning of the exhaust but thats an easy fix. I want to fix the handling before i do any "fun mods" or add any power to it.

 

What do you mean it slid around a lot? Front end sliding, rear end sliding, both sliding? What are you doing when it is sliding? Braking, accelerating, turning? What kind of a car did you drive before?

Bill

 

Rear end sliding at moderate cornering speed and both sliding at higher speed.

Qualifying driving experiances
Previously owned mitsubishi evo lancer mr-9 which was way more planted than the vette and i have driven at high cornering speeds and or track with McLaren 650, 2015 Turbo s, Ferraris, Lamborghinis , Evos, mustangs,camaros

I feel like the problem lies in the suspension (damper and "spring")

 

Guess you should have bought the McLaren!

Does it have Goodyear run flat tires. If so, that would be the first thing I would replace.

Sorry, I see you bought tires, thanks schpenxel.

 

Well seeing how the McLaren is still 4,500$ a month with 10% down it was just a tad out of my price range.....

Any insightful posts would be greatly appreciated.

-Ethan

 

His first post states he installed Bridgestone Potenza Re-11's.

 

Schpenxel you would be correct thank you.

 

I would call LG and get a set of his coilovers and sway bars.
https://www.lgmotorsports.com/corvet...r-package.html

I have his coilovers and Pfadt bars and will put his bars on when mt Pfadt bars break.

Not sue how modified your car is, but I have stroked LS3 with a 3:73 Quaife diff and it handles much better than the Porsche I sold to get my Corvette in 2006. I have Michelin Super Sports for daily driving and Michelin Cup tires for the track.

 

Do you know what your alignment settings are? Your vette should have some initial understeer when you turn into a corner. It should also have trailing throttle over steer and power induced over steer once you have the car rotating.

Bill

 

Timd38 as stated in the original post it is stock base model 2006 manual trans on bridgestone potenza re-11 tires.... I have looked into he lg set before. Is that what has to happen to get this thing planted better?

Bill I'm unsure what it is aligned at do you have any numbers i could get it aligned at to corner better?

Any help is appreciated

 

How to put this nicely,

While some cars are like a scalpel on a race track, the Vet is more like a meat cleaver instead.

Items like lift at speed, and value engineering of the suspension/brakes helps keeps the price down on the vets. GM solution to the handling/braking problem instead is just to throw more HP at the problem to try to make the difference up in the straights.

Down force is a hard trick to pull off with just bolting splitters/spoilers/side skirts on, and even Katch's best package ends up with less than 200lbs of down force at 100mph with there #4 package.
http://katechengines.com/street_perf...a%20report.pdf

So on top of say that package, you need to pull air from the hood air up and out the top instead of just shoving it back under the car after the motor, and on the rear of the car, need to what air is existing the car under the rear valance, and redirect it back up to pull the back down, as well to use that rear air to fill the void drag behind the back fender cover as well.
Skip to 1:17 to see the huge air vacuum at the back of the car, which just translate to drag back at the front since the air is not exiting the back of the car cleanly instead,

As for most of the suspension upgrades on the market for the vet, lets just say that they are more suited for Nurmburgring work, then any street driving instead. With them dial in for great handing, the suspension is going to be bone jarring brutal stiff over bumps for street driving instead (it's just the nature of the beast when you don't have an active computer system on board controlling the suspension for it needs instead).

So, you want to make the vet handle very well on the track, then it's not had to just T-1 the car. The down side, it going to try to break your back on the street over even the smallest of bumps. What to throw more HP into the car, guess what, you are making the same mistake that GM made in the first place, which is there is a balance to handling and HP, and if you over HP the car, it just makes the handling worse instead (just faster to break out of the handling capabilities of how the car can corner).


Next, and I'm going to throw it out there since you mentioned that the Base car is faster with the AH on and you behind the wheel.

In a novices hands, the Z-51/GS cars are faster on a track than a Z06 instead. The reason behind this, the z-51/GS cars will give you way more notice when you are putting it on the edge, while the z06 pretty much just only lets you know when you went past the edge instead (with you way out of shape each time instead). As for the ZR1, that has beyond more HP that the suspension can use effectively for handing, so even in a profession race car drivers hands, they are faster with the AH still on to a degree in the ZR1, then it completely turned off instead.


So to sum it up, before you start dropping huge bank in the car (which you will never get it back out if you try to sell it), see about just upgrading the suspension to a Z-51 option level and balancing it instead. All that is needed just upgrades on the roll bars to Z51 bars, changing out the front trans spring to a FE3, and swap the shock to the Z-51 shocks; which you can find used pulls off in the for sale section here for around $300 for the above. If you want to upgrade the brake to Z-51 option as well, the you just need pads, the z51 rotors, and then the Z-51 brake brackets. If and when you learn to drive/hold the car to the edge upgraded to this basic level, then you can pull the parts to sell them for the same price you paid, and upgrade the car to the next step.

When you have the car up to this basic Autocross level of the Z51 option car that will give you feed back well before you take the car past the edge (and which you may not recover from when you do put it over the edge), time to get some driving lessons on how to drive the vet correctly so you earn how to keep it on the edge instead.

Again, The vet is a monster, even in base form, with too much power for the suspension in regards to handling for all the models; and it has to be driving as such instead.

If you came up in Kart racing, it's like only running Rotax Karts, and someone strapping you in Super Kart, hence by-passing the 125 shifter kart phase where you learn to continue to skate the kart and carry speed with too much power in a smaller steps instead.
Or in your case, Evo lancer mr-9 to Vet, which is pretty much the same thing as well.

 

I have the street specs on my car. I also have the LG bump steer kit and set the bump steer. Long timely process......

http://www.pfadtracing.com/blog/wp-c...-9.12.2011.pdf

 

First off...you're in the right direction with tires as the R11s are a great sticky tire for the vette. I too am a suspension/handling guy...(would rather have that than engine mods). I've been through some setups, so it really depends on your budget and uses. I am about a 80/20 street/track guy, so I stepped up my game to the LG G2 coilovers and G1 sway bars. Car handles tight, stiff, and planted. Very predictable which was what I wanted especially since I wasn't getting that feedback from the Pfadt coils/sways I had before.....

A good set of coilovers and sways makes all the difference in the world for these cars....You'll never got back to leaf/shock setup ever again.

 

he knows so much and has always been into suspension and tuning, yet he bought a base model? must have had something against the Z51 or the Z06?

 

Dano523, thanks for that comprehensive and articulate post! Learned a few things myself.

OP, before I spent a lot of money on the car, I'd spend some time learning the car and its capabilities. It's more fun than writing checks anyway! If it's really sliding around a lot, then I think an alignment is the first place I'd look.

 

Lfz thank you for your response ive read a ton of articles regarding the leaf vs coil overs. How rough is the ride compared to before? Im thinking about coil overs but also hesitant due to stiffness everyone talks about on here...

Cmy..... Smacking my head over why i would have paid 20,000$ more for a Z06 when i could put 10k-15k into a base and have superior performance in handling braking and acceleration...

 

Don't worry about Cmy. I think he means well but I think he's misunderstood.

I can tell you guys get our cars around the track VERY quickly on the stock suspension. You really don't need to spend the big bucks for coil overs.... maybe when you're looking for the last 10th on various racing surfaces, yes, but for a casual HPDE guy, our cars come amazingly well equipped and more than 97% of drivers can use once you slap on some R rated tires.

But if you are hell bent to spend money, there's a great road racing section that has a ton of great info. There's great info and you'll get great responses over there...

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...roadracing-23/

 

It sounds to me as if you're comparing too many cars with your current ride, esp. the one you owned, an AWD car if I recall correctly (the Mitsu Lancer EVO). Things to do, imo, tire pressure, alignment geared more toward track sessions (which might compromise tire longevity).

If you are, as you say, into suspension and handling, the first things to do are baseline on what your alignment is set to, and the condition of all parts of your suspension such as bushings, end links, shocks, springs, etc. Then, find a road racing shop that can align the car properly for your use, again, which may compromise/reduce the life of your tires (but you sound as if you would be ok with that because of your inclination for handling).

All cars are different, as you know, which requires different setups, parts, and change of specs for your particular use. Throwing parts at an issue is the expensive way; finding out what you have first is to be informed and to know what to change.

 

Its impossible to tell whats wrong with your car without seeing what suspension parts are actually on it but at that age and mileage, your suspension probably is worn out

Replacing the shocks with better units, as well as upgrading the sway bars should be a good start

Check all balljoints and linkages and make sure there is no play. Then get a good alignment and make sure your tire pressures are ok; Ive been running RE11s for a couple years now and keep them at 30 psi front and 28 psi rear when cold.

If you dial the car in it should be neutral and pretty easy to throw around.

Also the RE11s like a bit of heat worked into them before pushing them hard - especially the fronts. When cold, these things do not communicate through noise as much at the limit, but once heated theyre very easy to manage.

good luck!

 

I had Pfadt coil overs before the LGs...they had adjustable dampening and I tell you...on the street, you could set them pretty soft and they rode smooth as silk. Now I have LG G2s with 750/650 lb front/rear springs and it's a bit stiff, but not rough at all. It feels like what a track car should feel like, and just begs to take turns. If you are worried about having a cushy ride, I'd recommend getting a coil over with adjustable dampening so you can set the ride yourself.

Coilovers are usually my first and favorite mod to every car I own....not only do you set the ride height to something low and badass....you gain that planted and predictable feel that you just don't get with OE suspension.