[Agformula02]

Wanted to introduce myself. New to road racing but not new to cars.
Have been an avid drag racer for years, but 2 years ago I did my first track night thanks to SCCA and I got hooked.
Talked the wife into allowing another race car in the garage. (I refuse to get rid of my 02 Formula. Too much blood, sweat, and tears invested.)

I scored a legit 97 1LE Camaro which should give me a nice start.

Did basic maintenance on it and attended my first event at PIR. Had some brake issues. So did the mandatory C5 front brake upgrade.
Removed the original Koni yellows and put some HD bilsteins for now. Added BMR springs, sub frame connectors, panhard bar, lcas and lca brackets. I know some of these things may offer no benefit for road racing...
I did upgrade to zr1 17X9 wheels and 275 888s all around.

Next event hit the track and had a great time. At some point I did miss a shift which I feel resulted in a blown head gasket.
So had to pull the heads. Since I was that far in I dropped new lifters in for cheap insurance. New valve springs, seals, and added 1.6 rr. Then headers and a cat back.

So where am I now?
Car is completely gutted. Cage is installed. Working on a dash. Spaghetti Menders kit is handling the car wiring and I re did the stock engine harness to remove all the un needed stuff.
Long list of parts to install but I want to make the next Track Night on August 9.

Where am I headed?
Ultimately I want to run the Lucky Dog series here in the west coast. Probably a year out from that.

Anyway, just wanted to say hello.

Larry

[mikedamageinc]

Welcome! I was big into drag racing too until I learned to turn the wheel and it's so much more rewarding. Sounds like you made a good start but I'm curious about some of the details...

What lca's, what bushings, "original koni"? what style cage and who built it?

There's a ton of info on this site but just to hit some highlights: poly bushings are bad unless in panhard, bearing joints are best but wear out and get noisy. Rear lca need to twist or you get bind. Not sure what you mean by original konis, afaik the only factory upgrade was Bilstein and koni yellows are better.

Make sure you read the rules of the series you want to run in. I don't race and have no plans to but I've learned that to be one of the most important things or you could waste a lot of time and money.

[Agformula02]

Welcome! I was big into drag racing too until I learned to turn the wheel and it's so much more rewarding. Sounds like you made a good start but I'm curious about some of the details...

What lca's, what bushings, "original koni"? what style cage and who built it?

There's a ton of info on this site but just to hit some highlights: poly bushings are bad unless in panhard, bearing joints are best but wear out and get noisy. Rear lca need to twist or you get bind. Not sure what you mean by original konis, afaik the only factory upgrade was Bilstein and koni yellows are better.

Make sure you read the rules of the series you want to run in. I don't race and have no plans to but I've learned that to be one of the most important things or you could waste a lot of time and money.

Thanks for the welcome.

On the LCAs, well I wish I had joined frrax before buying them. Will put the stock 1LEs back on until I can upgrade.

On the shocks, 1LEs (96 and 97 maybe others) came from the factory with double adjustable koni yellows. But at 150K miles, they were not salvageable. Not even for a rebuild.

The cage came from Rhodes Race Cars and I installed it with help from my father in law. Not optimal. I feel it could have tucked up better and the angle of the forward down bars is not optimal. Part Number:13-0435-DOM
One of those things were the pride of a self done install led to a sub par product.
I should have just let a pro do it.

I spent 4 hours reading this forum yesterday and have picked up a lot. Incredibly grateful to the community.
Hope to have some pics soon.