new to racing suggestions Options

[lilbuddha]

my name is Robbie, from edmonton canada we only have one road course close by but a 1.2 mile autocross track that i fell in love with
anyways i bought my buddies old 1995 camaro z28, just got the car completly rewired and running this last month
im mostly looking at autox and then if im able to trailer it to road courses south of the border
its a lt1 6speed car with deleted cats and flowmaster 60 with 3inch single pipe and a centerforce clutch,
has h&r springs, hotchkis sway bars front and rear, hotchkis panhard, hotchkis front and rear arms,
i have a set of 18inch oz superleggera wheels on it and plan to put a set of c6 z51 wheels on it for weight over the oz's
over winter i wanna upgrade to c6 z51 brakes on all 4 corners,

im kinda a minitruck 80hp kinda guy and figured this would be the best place to get whatever kinda advice i can
Thank You

[Steve91T]

my name is Robbie, from edmonton canada we only have one road course close by but a 1.2 mile autocross track that i fell in love with
anyways i bought my buddies old 1995 camaro z28, just got the car completly rewired and running this last month
im mostly looking at autox and then if im able to trailer it to road courses south of the border
its a lt1 6speed car with deleted cats and flowmaster 60 with 3inch single pipe and a centerforce clutch,
has h&r springs, hotchkis sway bars front and rear, hotchkis panhard, hotchkis front and rear arms,
i have a set of 18inch oz superleggera wheels on it and plan to put a set of c6 z51 wheels on it for weight over the oz's
over winter i wanna upgrade to c6 z51 brakes on all 4 corners,

im kinda a minitruck 80hp kinda guy and figured this would be the best place to get whatever kinda advice i can
Thank You

Welcome! The only thing I can offer is my experience. I had SLP springs and hotchkis sway bars and I had a hard time keeping the back end behind me. I switched to Strano springs and a Strano rear bar, and that helped tremendously. As far as the brakes go, be careful with the rear brakes. Axle hop under braking is a problem with these cars. I'm using C5 front brakes (C6 rotors) with stock rears. Carbotech XP10's front and AX6's rear. For me, this seems to be the perfect brake set up. Even still, while under braking if I am not smooth with the down shift, I can get the axle hopping.

You're going to love these cars. The best part is passing expensive cars with the driver trying to figure out how a car that is only good for straight lines is ripping around the corners.

Steve

[lilbuddha]

I don't doubt that i will have to change a fair bit of the suspension, maybe ill look at just using the z51 front kit its basically the perfect price for me thats why im using it,
my only main issue right now is the guy who stripped the car down before lost all the abs wiring so trying to figure that out, has anyone deleted that? or is it something good to keep i know abs is good but are these cars hard to threshold brake?
im super excited to get this car out for next year, we are almost getting snow so im done for this year

[Steve91T]

As far as the brakes, for me, ABS is good to have, but I believe most of the people on here have done away with it to comply with racing rules. Some have even gone to manual brakes and they love it. But it's not recommended for street.

As for me, I really do like ABS for the street and track days, but if your car doesn't have it, I'd just get used to braking without ABS. At least on the track, threshold braking is not hard to do. But last weekend when I went a little to hot into a turn, I was laying into the ABS.

Do some searches for brakes. There's a lot of reading on here.

Steve

[Casey_SS]

I deleted my ABS long ago for the simple fact that when tracking a car you bleed the brakes quite often either from replacing / rebuilding stuff or just routine maintenance before an event. The combination of the two means lots of bleeding in most cases. Bleeding the ABS system is a giant PITA - I chose not to deal with it any longer and pat myself on the back every time I work on the brakes.

In the 4+ years I've been tracking this car with C6 front brakes / stock rears I've never had an issue locking up the tires. That's not to say I've never done it but it has been surprisingly rare, always due to driver error (jumping on the brakes rather than squeezing them), and quite easy to modulate without ruining a tire or going off track. In fact I've never once flat-spotted a tire in all the years I've been doing this. I've also never ran a tire that wasn't a Nitto 555R2, Nitto NT01, or Hoosier R6. With street tires it would be a different story.

In wheel-to-wheel racing, I don't feel disadvantaged against cars with stock ABS. Factory ABS systems are legal in my class - NASA American Iron. Quick caveat - the Ford Racing ABS system is a whole different animal with too much internet drama already - I'm excluding that from the conversation. However, for cars running "stock" ABS systems, I brake at about the same point they do and at about the same rate give or take different drivers, setups, etc. Personally, I think ABS is a nice insurance policy if you'd just as soon flat spot a tire as put air in it but it doesn't make you any faster. It just helps you spend less money on tires. On a dry track, it all comes down to driver talent and car setup - specifically camber, shock valving, and to a lesser degree, spring rates. In the rain...yeah....ABS would be very nice to have but still requires driver skill to make it work. It's not the difference between mid-pack and podium...even in the rain. If it was, believe me, it would magically reappear on my car.

On the street - ABS can be the difference between crashing and not crashing. As absurd as it sounds, things happen much faster and with less warning on the street than on a racetrack. All of my family's street vehicles have ABS. We've been fortunate enough not to need it so far but I'm glad it's there in case we do.

You seem to have a car that's primarily a track toy with some street duty. I remember that period of my addiction with very fond memories (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Since the ABS is already gone, I personally wouldn't go to great lengths to restore it but do practice looking as far ahead as possible, every time you're in ANY car. It's a good daily brain exercise for both track and street and lessens the chance of "needing" ABS. If you decide to significantly up the percentage of street duty, that's when I might look into what it would take to put ABS back on. Your financial and labor tolerances surely differ from mine so it's really a "choose your own adventure" book at that point....

This post has been edited by Casey_SS: Oct 6 2011, 04:37 AM

[lilbuddha]

so far what i want for "street driving" is the odd maybe once a month drive it work and back, i bought a kirkey seat for myself that im tiging up alum brackets to fit the factory power seat rails(sorry if this is a wrong move) and i doubt that seat will be fun to drive around on the street with, plus i drove around in my buddies grand sport with a aggressive track allignment and well it work great on the track was horrible on the street, so this is my weekend get the speed bug out toy, i have my 72 blazer to enjoy driving around in summer now,
im gonna start looking at abs delete packages ive seen and do a ton more searching on here,
i only have the hankook ventus v12 tires right now but i need to find a sticky tire that will last a fair bit from just the one guy i talk to two autocross days so 18 runs of 106seconds and they are basically toast which for a fun hobby when the car needs so many other things i cant justify that,
does anyone sell a nice spring rate spring with a good set a shocks that are valved or from what ive been reading it all has to be custom?

sorry i need to use the search button and search a ton more

[trackbird]

...i wanna upgrade to c6 z51 brakes on all 4 corners,

Skip the rears, you don't need to spend the money. Buy the regular "base" C6 Corvette front brakes (with the 13" rotors) and skip the Z51 stuff. One rotor is vented backwards and that side overheats during hard use. The standard C6 brakes are the best package out of the three available (Base, Z51, Z06).

[lilbuddha]

what all should i change suspension wise?
are my sway bars okay? or should i look at something else? that and wheres or whats a good spring/shock setup?
this car will rarely rarely ever get driven on the street,
i know its highly unlikely but id love to be able to out autocross my buddies 06 z51 c6 corvette seeing as this is his old car

[Steve91T]

what all should i change suspension wise?
are my sway bars okay? or should i look at something else? that and wheres or whats a good spring/shock setup?
this car will rarely rarely ever get driven on the street,
i know its highly unlikely but id love to be able to out autocross my buddies 06 z51 c6 corvette seeing as this is his old car

Strano springs, koni front adjustable shocks, Strano's custom valved rear shocks, and a Strano rear bar. That's what I have and I love it.


Google Strano and call him.

[tonycook]

If you aren't going to use the ABS, then you'll need a proportioning valve. You can save a few pounds by removing the ABS unit and replumbing some of the brake lines. Stick with stock rear brakes and sensible pads.