[Augusto]

Hi, everybody. I'm really excited to go for an all out track car project.

I'm really puzzled at this dilemma: could a 98 Z28 be modded to match or surpass the handling of a C4 with Z51 like susp (Crossmember and camber brace mods)?

I may be able to trade my 98 LS1 Z28 for an auto '95 C4 (and like 3K of cash, and I would swap a ZF6 and mod susp). C4s are not so cheap to get in my country (as opposed to fbodies), let alone C5s. I was just about to swap a T56 (with relocation crossmember, Z06 clutch, etc) on the Z. Before I just do either of it, I want to make sure to know if I can achieve handling capabilities of a Z51 C4 or close through modding (shocks, tires, rims, sfc, kmember, a-arms, torque arm, lcas, panhard, strano swaybars, rollbar, a little diet, etc). Guys please be honest.

I've seen biased opinions on the C4 side by people who do not really focus on track improvement (and take stock form as a reference) so I thought this would be the right place to ask.

I want to make sure to invest time and effort on the car with better handling potential (modded) on the following couple of years. (Ultimate purpose: Road Racing and a little of AutoX).

[LT4Firehawk]

Here's my personal experience, I've tracked 3 different f-bodies (LT1, LS1 and LT4), a 92 LT1 C4 Vette (6 spd), and a C5 Z06. At my local 1.8 mile roadcourse the LT1 Formula (moderately modded with full slicks, widers wheels, some suspension pieces, and 285RWHP) was still about 4 seconds a lap slower than my stock C4 on street/track tires (Nitto RIIs). My LT4 Hawk is about 1 second a lap faster than the C4 was, and the Z06 was in a whole different league. Here's how it broke down:
Modded LT1 f-body (285RWHP, modded with slicks and race pads): 1:38
C4 (270RWHP, stock, with Nitto RIIs and semi race pads): 1:34
LT4 Hawk (311RWHP, stock w/ Nitto RIIs and race pads): 1:33
C5 Z06 (~335RWHP, stock (tires, pads, everything): 1:29

Looking at the numbers, you'll notice that the C4 was faster than the LT1 f-body that had more HP. The other thing that's not apparent from just looking at numbers is the "feel" of the car. The C4 is way easier to drive on track than an f-body. Yes, you can make an f-body go fast (the LT4 shows that), but it's not as easy. If I was just doing track time, I would definitely take the C4 over my LT4 Hawk, it was much easier to get a fast time out of it, whereas with the f-body you really have to work at it. The C4 is much more neutral at the limit, and is very easy to recover if you go slightly past the limit. It's also much more of a "driver's car", giving much better feedback to what's going on. The C5 Z06 takes all of the C4 characteristics and raises them to the next level. I only had it on track once, and was hitting those times after just two 15 minute sessions.