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Get a 2007 C6 Base A6 ready for Track Day, at least for Classes and Instruction
I do not intend to race my Corvette, but it would be a shame not to drive it at least a few times at the speeds it is designed to handle, way beyond most cars and certainly beyond anything I have ever owned.
Currently running Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ ZP’s, Duralast Ceramic pads, Magnetic Shocks and a stock LS2. These are working for the so-called “spirited driving” on mountain roads. I have received some instruction regarding Hard Braking LATE into turns, and the Pilot Sport tires allow stretching the limits of an untrained driver. Another current Limit is the need to have the Harmonic Balancer replaced, which is currently scheduled for next month. That will include Tuning the Engine & Transmission.
For a driver with my lack of skill, the stock LS2 will be more than enough engine.
Now these are the Items and up-to-date Prices for Minimum Equipment for High Performance Class:
Toyo R888R tires, $1,166; and extra Wheels, $650 from CARiD, plus mounting & balancing.
(Will probably need my wife to drive the truck out to High Plains with me, to carry mounted tires and tools, but she needs to know where the track is anyway ... for her Mustang GT-CS.)
PowerStop Carbon/Metallic race brake pads, $240 (install myself at the track)
(I’ve already replaced the brake fluid with DOT4 high-temp)
Hotchkiss Sway Bars, Front & Rear, $425 (install myself?)
FE3/Z51+ Front Composite Leaf Spring, $610 (install myself?)
I’m pretty sure this is the correct replacement Front Leaf Spring (maybe not?):
Should be about $3,500 or so. The F55 Magnetic shocks could benefit from a Grand Sport flash re-program, but that is not a “store-bought, bolt-on” mod … will need some help with that, and Dano523 has a plan for it.
So this is not a lot of money, and it does not involve a cam, exhaust, an intake manifold nor any of that radical stuff.
Let’s just see what a stock LS2 can do for a “novice” driver.
(Well, a novice who does rolls in a 200 mph homebuilt airplane at the age of 62.)
Toyo R888R tires are so you can run the tires on the car for summer street use, as well as on the track for track use as well..
If you looking for track only tires that your going to swap at the track with the brake shoes at the same time, then Hoosier R7's (when can deal with the new SKB wheel hubs when you wear the OEM's out from the increased lateral traction of the R7's tires).
Note, if your looking to save some money over the R7's, and a tire that will hold up a touch longer Hankook Ventus Z214, but you are giving up grip of the R7 .
As for FE3 and Z51 sways, check the EE here, since you can score all three for a few hundred from someone that pulled them off there z51 and wet to a stiffer suspension.
Also, no on the Hotchkiss Sway Bars since they are stiffer than even the Z06 sways. so not only going to cause problems on the track, but even worse when you stick the A/S back on the car for street uses. For slower autocross work with the other parts on smooth parking lot tracks, may be able to get away with it with the stiffer sways, but on a high speed course with the other parts in play, suspension will not be balanced isntead.
Hence we are balancing the suspension to that of a GS F55 set-up so you can learn to HPDE the car safely/quickly with the feed back of the z51/z52 set up, and the stiffer sways will blow this balance isntead. Hell, running R7s, we could set the car up stiff at a Z06 for track use, but this is not going to help you learn to drive the car fast (to skate it) with the reduced feed back of that suspension, and when you go to stick the A/S tires back on the car for street use, will be a train wreck with the car all over the map on rougher sections of road isntead. So bottom line, your keeping the car set for dual purpose, and GS F55 set up will be the best for track/ for street with the A/S base narrow tires back on the car.
Once you learn to skate the car correctly at high speeds, then we can swap out the rubber sway bar bushings to poly, to tighten up the sways a touch more, while keeping the suspension still balanced.
Also, keep your eyes open on craigslist and EE here for a set of C6 OEM rims on the cheap. The oem rims are forged, while most aftermarket cheaper rims are cast, meaning a lot heaver and not at strong as the forged rims as well. Plus, a lot better chance of straightening a forge rim not if, but when you do bend it, over a cast rim that tends to crack isntead.
I would go with the Stop Tech Sport brake pads over the Powerstops. They are rated at 1400* as opposed to 1200*, I would also swap the pads at home and not at the track and do some bedding in on the way to the track. You can get them from KNSBrakes (a sponsor here) and they cost less than Powerstops.
Who is sponsoring the track day and instructions? If this is your first time or two out, some clubs and tracks will not let you go all out without certification of instruction or meeting previous seat time requirements. You may not be exceeding the limits of the stock car, no less the A/S 3+ tires and can leave things alone other than fixing the HB if it is wobbling. The ceramic brake pads are the exception, especially if you're not speed limited in the straight away. Swapping those at the track as you've suggested is a good idea.
Replace the wheel bearing hubs with SKF HD racing hubs if that has not already been mentioned. They're about $350/each. You will kill any other hubs pretty quickly on the track.
Wow ... so much great information. Yeah, big difference with the Toyo R888R's in not having to take a second set of wheels/tires along. And the prices Cultrag has for the Sway Bars and the Front Spring, great. I'm still not really planning, at this point, on needing the R7's anytime soon. I think that just good instruction will keep me busy enough for the foreseeable future. Skating the car at 120?!? ... well, I may not be there real soon.
To Ragtop: At the High Plains Raceway outside Denver, all they require for first-timers is a mandatory attendance at the Drivers Meeting every morning. As Dano523 has explained to me, High Plains is not Road Atlanta nor Watkins Glen, and such. It is much more a second-tier, amateur track all around.
So I visited Corvette Connection in Denver. THAT was a good idea. What a shop, and of course, Corvettes only (well, one Camaro, probly a friend of the owner ...). Rich Lenhart (owner, who built the shop) quoted me $830 for labor for the Harmonic Balancer replacement. I'll set that up as soon as the Belts get here; already have all other parts required. This shop is set up to do everything a Corvette owner can imagine. I'm just much more inclined to go with a big, established shop like this for this car. I had a great experience buying my C6 in the first place, from a big established dealer.
Danno is right, don't want to run A/S tires on a track. The Toyo's may be too sticky too, you want to learn to handle the car when it is sliding (increasing slip angles), stickier tires means you have to go faster to generate slip angle and I suspect the Toyo's may break faster than street tires at maximum. I would go with a good street tire like a Michelin RF or non RF. Actually, the best time to learn to handle the car is running in the rain. It keeps the speeds down to help concentrate on how the car feels as traction reaches maximum.
For novices, stock wheel bearings on street tires works well and saves money for later mods.
As Danno suggested, keeping with the Z-51 parameters works great and balances the car nicely. If anything, you might want to grease the rubber bushings on the sway bars where they contact the bar itself, then when you re-mount them, shim them with washers under the bracket mounts so the bar is firmly held and not binding. Usually one washer under one side of the mount will work. This will give you maximum use of the bar without overpowering your tires. The important point is to make sure the resistance is the same front to rear to keep the car balanced. Starting to notice a trend here?
Pads - street pads will work okay at the novice level, just make sure they are new or nearly new. When it comes time to replace rotors, don't get drilled. Slots are okay, solid is best for maximum swept area. I like slots for street and track use (DBA) as it helps to keep pad material from sticking to the rotor after braking on long hill sections and having to sit at a stop light at the bottom of the hill.
Check your brake lines. Stock OEM rubber works well at the Novice to intermediate levels. Just make sure they are not swelled or leaking or cracked (hardened). Your life and that of your instructor, rides on the brakes so no compromises.
Brake fluid - Motul 600 will work fine, just has to be newly flushed through the system. It will take on water more quickly than Dot 3 so will need to be flushed more frequently.
Watch your tire pressures like a hawk. The outside (of the turns) front tire becomes the work horse and will heat up more than the others because of it. The key is keeping tire pressures balanced front and rear. Depending on what tires you are using, ie street tires, as a rule of thumb keep them close to 30 psi. Toyo's and R-7's is a different ball game. To stay close to 30 and for the novice and until you are used to the track and conditions, try dropping three tires 3 psi and the workhorse 4psi, then measure as soon as your first session is done and with the tires hot. Make them all 30 psi. Check them continuously throughout the day. As your speeds increase, tire pressures will too. Overheated and overinflated tires are like trying to drive in the rain (they get greasy feeling).
Buy yourself a good pair of track shoes. The thinner soles will help you modulate the brake pedal better.
The A-6's are fun on the track! You may have to shift earlier than you want to keep from bouncing off the rev limiter. If the transmission hasn't been tuned, it will up-shift a little more slowly and it won't shift if there isn't time to complete the shift before hitting red-line. My suggesting is to shift at 5500 rpm's at WOT and learn what that rpm sounds like so you can hit it without looking at the tach or HUD because you need to be looking down the track for cars and turn workers waving flags. The weakness of the A-6 or any production automatic is the torque converter. It produces heat when not locked. So in the DIC, have the transmission temp in the window so you can monitor it. When I hit 240 - 250, I'll start taking cool down laps until it is down around 220. This is well below cut-off which I think is 280 (I've never hit it) and the car goes into limp mode to keep from self destructing.
Lastly, you probably already know about the ratcheting seat belts and how to set them - moving the seat back from your normal position, pull the belt all the way out and let it ratchet back in, then pull it tight as you can, then move the seat forward to your driving position. You'll be locked in pretty tight.
I also show my instructor the emergency door handle just in case - the one down on the floor. It isn't common on most cars I know of.
Almost forgot, on the 2007, check your rear axle nuts for torque. They should be around 140 ft-lbs. You might want to use some blue locktite on them if they aren't. Danno may chime in on them with a more accurate torque, I'm going from memory here, but the 2007's and my old 2008 Z-51 optioned car had an issue with them I luckily discovered before there was a problem.
Finally, make sure the camber adjusters (if factory eccentrics) are at least torqued to spec. I had one slip badly and suddenly in a high speed sweeper, had I been close to the traction limit I probably would have gone off track as It really unbalances the car and is sounded like a tire blew. When I came out of the turn, the wheel wasn't anywhere close to being centered. I now use camber plates and its the first thing I changed when I bought the GS. This happened during my first day at the track driving the novice class.
Wow, so much great information. How could a person even think about starting driver class without first reading and doing everything that you guys suggest?
I have scheduled the work for replacing my Harmonic Balancer, the drive belts, Idler and tensioner for this coming week. Dropping the car off at Corvette Connection in Denver Monday morning. They will also do Tuning on the engine and transmission while they have it.
Did you just end up getting two new tensioner pulleys alone to swap on the the old tensioner assemblies, or did you buy the 2 complete tensioner assemblies isntead?
Really, just need to re-grease the bearings only on the current units since they only have 50K on them, but since the shop will be deep into the motor anyway with the belts off, just as easy to have them replace the pulleys or the complete tensions at the same time instead. Just make sure that you get the old ones back from the shop, since they are still fine (just the bearings starting to go dry), and you can clean/re-grease the bearings so you can use them down the road when needed.
I would go with the Stop Tech Sport brake pads over the Powerstops. They are rated at 1400* as opposed to 1200*, I would also swap the pads at home and not at the track and do some bedding in on the way to the track. You can get them from KNSBrakes (a sponsor here) and they cost less than Powerstops.
What brake fluid did you put in?
It seems to make good sense to sort of work my way up, regarding equipment upgrades. So I might get a set of Falken FK510 tires for a first season, for only $700 for all four. Especially if I can score a set of used wheels for them. I would guess that the FK510's are more appropriate than my Michelin A/S, but not as sticky as the R888R's. And street/track brake pads like the Stop Tech Sport pads also make sense. Dano flushed my brake system and we put in Prestone DOT4.
And then, if I keep going in this activity, a following season I could go with the R888R's, brake pads that work out to 1,500 degrees, and the Motul 600 fluid.
RE the Idler and Tensioners --this involves three pulleys, doesn't it?-- the guys at Corvette Connection are going to get new ones from O'Reillys. I'll be sure to ask Rich there about keeping the old ones.
It seems to make good sense to sort of work my way up, regarding equipment upgrades. So I might get a set of Falken FK510 tires for a first season, for only $700 for all four. Especially if I can score a set of used wheels for them. I would guess that the FK510's are more appropriate than my Michelin A/S, but not as sticky as the R888R's. And street/track brake pads like the Stop Tech Sport pads also make sense. Dano flushed my brake system and we put in Prestone DOT4.
And then, if I keep going in this activity, a following season I could go with the R888R's, brake pads that work out to 1,500 degrees, and the Motul 600 fluid.
RE the Idler and Tensioners --this involves three pulleys, doesn't it?-- the guys at Corvette Connection are going to get new ones from O'Reillys. I'll be sure to ask Rich there about keeping the old ones.
Going to a tread wear of 500/440, to one of 300, is not going to add a lot of grip, plus the A/S can be run in colder weather without the fear off cold weather cracking them.
If you looking for a cheaper set of track tires to run for a season, then look for a set of Kumbo XS since they went out of production last year and replaced with the V720 line up, and should be able to find a new set of Xs's only about year old with heavy discount due to such. The spec's will state that the xs tires have a tread wear of 180, but they are more around 120 real world (and why there were class banded in a lot of classes isntead).
Truth is, may want to run the car with the A/S on it for your first few HPDE events with instructor, since the tires are going to have less grip, slip at slower speeds, and get you used to having the car loose at lower speeds skating instead. Hence your not going to break any track records with the A/S tires, but may be able to get you used to the car being loose skating at lower speeds isntead.
I actually have experienced these Michelin A/S tires skipping a little loose already, so maybe this is the way to go. I won't be tracking the car very often, and this would be a simple plan to get started. We have replaced the brake fluid with DOT4, the Duralast Gold Ceramic pads are new, and the Michelins are very close to new.
I actually have experienced these Michelin A/S tires skipping a little loose already, so maybe this is the way to go. I won't be tracking the car very often, and this would be a simple plan to get started. We have replaced the brake fluid with DOT4, the Duralast Gold Ceramic pads are new, and the Michelins are very close to new.
I strongly urge you to change your disk pads from the Duralast Gold's to at least OEM pads. Ceramics are street pads and not intended for track use. Autocross - maybe. The road race track is a very unforgiving environment. You'll be surprised at how much heat will be generated at the end of your first session. I've used OEM pads on my 2008 Z-51 optioned car up to the low-intermediate level so they can take some heat. If you have drilled rotors, once you get to the level where the pad material is filling up the holes it's time to upgrade.
I came up on a Porsche one day, with the GS working at a comfortable level. I followed him into a tight left hand turn setting up for a pass on the next straight when his car suddenly spun on track-out. I left enough room so getting around him wasn't too much of a challenge and when I caught up to him in the paddock after the session I found he was on Michelin A/S tires while the GS was on the often hated GoodYear Supercar OEM tires which actually work quite well once heated to track temps.
Just a bit of advice, track days are great fun, you meet quite a variety of like minded people. Hope you have a great time!
I actually have experienced these Michelin A/S tires skipping a little loose already, so maybe this is the way to go. I won't be tracking the car very often, and this would be a simple plan to get started. We have replaced the brake fluid with DOT4, the Duralast Gold Ceramic pads are new, and the Michelins are very close to new.
It's disappointing to hear the ZP's aren't doing well. I have the non-runflat A/S 3+ on my Cadillac ATS. The non-runflat versions handle quite well having tested the ATS in some of the same places where I've pushed the corvette hard through turns/sweepers. The runflat versions may be stiffer sidewall and more prone to skipping. You probably tried this, but tweaking the pressure a pound or two might help.
When you are ready to upgrade to the Z51 springs and sways drop me a PM I've got a set off my 07
I upgraded my Z51 to Z06 shocks ,springs and T1 sways. Thats what I had on my Z06 until I decided to build a dedicated track car out of a 07 A6 Z51
I picked up for cheap.
Make sure you add an additional quart of oil, even on street tires you can generate enough Gs on braking to starve the engine of oil and with race tires you can do it in turns as well. With race tires I would add an oil accumulator or sell the car and buy one with a dry sump.
If this is your 1st track experience, I'd flush the brake fluid and put a set of aggressive front pads on it and go have fun. It will take several track days before you are out driving your car as it is. Also, get a good alignment with some more camber up front.
When your tires or brakes are crap after 3 laps, then it is time to spend more $$
07-17-2018, 12:55 AM
Track Equipment Upgrades
