Wow, I haven't posted on FRRAX in over a year!

Here' a brief background of my situation. I've got a '96 Z28 that has a laundry list of mods on it. In college I had a nicely-paying internship and got way, WAY too carried away with just throwing parts at the car. Now I've got a car that's got a bunch of fancy parts on it, but no HPDE or AutoX experience. So basically that makes me an inexperienced driver with a car that's (most likely) not built as a balanced combo.

My car sat for most of last year, and this year I'd like to turn a new leaf. Specifically:
1) Get track experience.
2) Clean up or simplify the mods on my car.

I don't have a truck or trailer, so I'd like to stick to track days that are within a few hours from Chicago. Also, I'm perfectly open to the idea of auto-crossing in a Hyundai Accent if that will help me unlearn any bad driving habits. I'm trying to keep an open mind here. Can anyone recommend a good way to get my feet wet?

As far as parts go, here's the mess that I've gotten myself into:

Engine / Exhaust (abridged)

• "Stage 2" ported by Combination Motorsports
• Cam Motion cam (.575"/.595", 234/241) (probably too big for the rest of the motor, but that's another story)
• Comp 1.6 Roller rockers, LT4 Xtreme duty timing kit
• Ported LT1 intake manifold, 58mm TB, CAI
• Kooks stainless steel longtubes and Y-pipe, Hooker catback
• Hooker catback

Drivetrain

• McLeod street twin clutch, Pro 5.0 shifter
• Home-built Moser 9-inch
  • Moser housing, 4-channel ABS
    
  • 4.11 richmond gears
    
  • C7AW-E center section
    
  • Daytona pinion support
    
  • 1350 series yoke
    
  • 31 spline axles
    
  • Ford Track-Lock
• Z06 front brake conversion (LS1 spindles / abutment brackets, LG adapter plates, Z06 calipers, Hawk HP+ pads)

Suspension

• 17x9.5 / 17x11 GrandSport wheels, BFG KDW on front, BFG drags on back
• LG tubular subframe connectors
• LG front / rear swaybars, energy suspension poly endlinks
• LG coilovers, car lowered ~1" from stock
• UMI trans-mounted torque arm
• Aluminum rod-ended LCA's and PHR ("JonA" style)
• Unbalanced Engineering steering shaft rag joint eliminator

I don't think all the parts are bad per se, but I'd bet that there are parts in the combination that aren't necessarily working together as well as they could be.

I really want to avoid making any radical changes until I get a few seasons of experience, but I do want to address the following things this summer to give the car better street manners:

• The LG coilovers and rod-ended suspension are great on winding roads and hard turns, but after 2 years and ~4,000 miles of street driving, I'd like to tweak the setup to make this a little more street-friendly. Train tracks or bad asphalt can be downright brutal. I'm guessing I could improve this a lot by just changing one side of the PHR and LCAs to a rubber-jointed end. Long-term, I'd like to figure out a better spring/shock combo that will give me a good balance between street manners and handling.
• The HP+ pads seem to brake fairly well, but they squeal a lot for street driving. I blame that on parts-buying fever. This summer I'd like to buy a set of quieter street pads and new rotors, and perhaps keep my current set for swapping in on track days.

Thoughts?

Thanks guys!

IMHO, I'd buy an accusump to protect your motor, get a good racing alignment done, buy some sticky street tires, and another pair (or set) of 17x11's and go have fun. You may need to go up or down with the rear anti-roll bar to get the car balanced, but I'd leave the rest alone. Normally I'd say just go drive the car but with KDW's up front and wider drag radials in the rear its just going to push.

Only problem with this plan is I'm not really aware of any 315/35r17 tire that would be good for dual purpose driving. If you're going to only do autocross I'd say buy kuhmo XS's, but from what I hear they'll overheat at the track.

My experience with the HP+'s on the back of my miata is that they only really make noise when the pads aren't bedded properly. After going to the track or bedding them in they're quiet. Easy thing to do would be to thresh hold brake on a couple off ramps when nobodys behind you...

EDIT: Saw an E30 M3 at evo school yesterday with HP+'s. Rotors were blued, pads were obviously well bedded in. The pads were NOISY in any light brake application area on or off course. Maybe mine are just freaks of nature.

My thoughts are:

1. Don't make the same mistake in the other direction by de-modding or changing mods indescriminantly.
2. Go drive the car and learn how it behaves as is. Once you can drive it, mod/de-mod one thing at a time so you truely understand the results.

Basically don't throw good money after bad. Treat the car as stock as is and work from there. If you decide to autox competitively, many things will change as you will need to make the car ESP legal. As it is, you are in at least SM if not CP with your mods.

You've got pretty stout combination to start with...should be a lot of fun. Do you still have the stock wheels or another pair of 17x9.5s to put on the rear? If so, I'd recommend throwing a set of Nitto 555RII or NT01 tires on 4 wheels of the same size. Being the same size matters much more than actual size for this type of driving. You can also drive either tire to the track...I run the RIIs on both the street and track and have been quite happy with them in both environments. I agree with the above opinion that you would have an excessive amount of push or understeer with your current tire / wheel combo.

Other than that, I would change the brake fluid with ATE or similar, bleed brakes, change oil with Redline, AMSoil, or Valvoline VR1 (10/40 or higher) and register for an HPDE event at a track near you. You'll have a blast and the car should perform well above both your expectations and abilities at this point Start slow and focus on car control and safety above all else. Do at least a few events to get a feel for how the car behaves before you start tinkering with the setup beyond basics like tire pressure, alignment, etc. For the Nittos, I recommend f/r (cold) pressures in the 31/28 range for roadcourse use. For AutoX you'd want to run more pressure but I have no experience in this area so I'll leave that to someone else...

First I'd say you're ahead of the game admitting that you mod'd the car before you learned to drive it. Second I agree with not continuing to make that mistake. The only thing I would do is pick a tire size for all 4 corners and go with it. I tracked my car with 275's on the front and 315s on the rear for like 2 years and never got rid of the push until I evened them up (I went with 315s), more experience didnt hurt either. Except for that keep it all the same and track it. Other than tire pressure I don't think I would change a thing for like a year. You have to figure out what you're doing wrong before you can tell what the car is doing wrong...

To begin to address the rear suspension harshness I'd press some poly bushings in to the stock LCAs or get rubber bushed aftermarket LCAs.

As far as events go, I'd start here: http://www.scca-chicago.com/

It looks like they do test and tunes at blackhawk farms fairly often if you want to get some road course experience. You could also try to find out the autobahn schedule and see if there are any groups you could run with up there. I'm sure they have a full solo II schedule listed on the site as well.

You could also look into NASA HPDE's for road course track time. http://www.nasamidwest.com/season/

3ballsracing.com has some events in michigan that might be close enough for you to drive to.

I'd recommend getting a little auto-x experience before you go to a road race course so that you get an idea of what the car will do under certain conditions. Definitely get some matching tires all the way around.

Thankfully I started with an underpowered mostly stock car and have been able to get quite a bit of seat time (mostly auto-x but a couple of track days as well) as I've made upgrades. Once you get some seat time and dial in your combination, I think you'll be impressed with the car.

Have fun!