I've got a '97 z28 with about 95,000 miles. The car is 100% stock. While too poor right now to get serious, I would eventually like to get in to the road racing/autocross lifestyle. The problem is, I don't know if it's worth the effort to start modding my car or just wait until I can get another one. The car has been great mechanically so far, but I'm afraid it's performance will be severly limited for potential racing with 2.73 gears and an automatic (in addition to the face that it's speed limited). (I know, I know, but I had to take what i could get.) Swaps can certainly change that, but it's just one more thing I'd have to do. The other thing I was wondering is if it would be better to start out with an ls1 car. Brakes are another problem. I know about Bob's brackets, but if I had an ls1 car, the swap seems so much easier. There seems to be a lot of people with lt1's on this board, but I've read that the ls1 is also better in the upper rpm's. I know racing is a huge money pit to begin with, but it seems like it might be easier to just start with something else. I want my car to handle much better for general driving, but I know the more I do, the more I'll want to spend on it. Plus, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it right and that usually means spending more money out of the box. Should I just wait it out a couple more years until I finish school to get something else or just start the madness now? Any insight would be great. Thanks.

I'd say to wait until you're done with school to start modding the car. One motto that I picked up when I was drag racing is "Only morons race their daily driver!" I'm not ragging on the guys that do, but it usually comes down to economics. Don't race it unless you can afford to fix it or buy a daily beater to use when it's broke.

You could probably auto-x it since you'll have less of a chance to hurt the car terminally (vs. open tracking). Definitely put on an additional trans cooler if you want to open track though, I have a burned up 700R4 in the trunk of my beater right now as an example of what happens if you run them hot.

I wish I could take my own advice (college dropout), but stay focused on school and find someone to crew for/volunteer at events if you want a way to get involved. You've already got college making you poor, you don't need the go-fast crack pipe adding to it

Hater...

Just drive it, particularly at autox. You will go a long ways before you grow out of what the car in the stock form can do. Do what folks have advised, put coolers on, particularly the power steering cooler and use redline. Look for used stuff in the classifieds like another set of wheels and tires for autox and you'll be golden! No need to spend a bunch of $ to have fun!

Just go and have fun with the car. This will help you decide what you want to do with it, and what to look for when you get a better car. Despite what you read on this board in other threads, it can be cheap to go autocrossing... if you keep it simple. This will also help you decide what class you may want to run in, and with what group (SCCA, NASA, or whoever else is local)

Right now all you need is seat time, so go get it!

To start auto-x'ing you don't need to change anything to your car to have fun. Its really not hard on the car either, if its a solid car you should have no problems. Just run street tire classes for a year or two, after you finish with school, then think about making changes to the car or to another car. I would recommend not even thinking of track days or wheel to wheel until you have a good job.
So by Aggie, which school?
A&M, NMSU, or?
If A&M, they have a great student club that would be perfect to cut your teeth with.
http://www.tamscc.org/forum/index.php

go have fun now and get some experience while you finish school. after graduation look for a LS1 car that has already been modded a bit.

Get an allignment and an extra set of stocker wheels if you can swing it, and go get some seat time :drive:

Why? Not to knock this as a choice from scratch, but this fella already has a nice LT1 car-more than enough power and a great platform for curvy type drivin'. Back in 98-99 most of my friends dumped their LT1 cars to get LS1 cars and took a huge hit on depreciation on their LT1 cars. This was a bandwagon I did not jump on and in retrospect I am glad for my wallet and for my driving skills to this day. In fact the LT1 'Bird is in my garage right now and I have no desire to sell it. I can't think of anything an LS1 car has to offer the autoxer/RR person besides the ability to roast tires quicker in straight line driving, something most of us here are not too fond of anyway! :drive: This is definitely a case of cheaper to keep her!

Thanks for the replies everyone.



I try to hit the local autocrosses they (TAMSCC) have here when I can. I also want to get out to Texas World Speedway as soon as I round up some cash.

Yes, come to our auto-x! We will be setting our spring schedule in the next few weeks. If you really want to auto-x now, there are a few more auto-x's in the state this year. Some of us Tamscc'ers (myself included) are going to the Houston SCCA auto-x this coming Sunday, Dec 4th, at Gulf Greyhound Park in Houston. You are welcome to caravan down there with us. Also, there is one in San Antonio Dec 11th, and a Houston BMW auto-x at the Houston Police Academy Dec 18th. I'm not sure which of those last two I am going to, if any, but I think someone from Tamscc is going.

If you need any help, just ask, or post over at http://www.tamscc.org

To add to this, Andy Hollis is event master for this event, so it should be a great course

I think you'll be fine autocrossing it. With the 2.73 gears you should be able to run smaller courses in 1st gear. Don't strain the engine too much on bigger courses, you're better off putting it in 2nd gear for those. Once you're out of college you can do an M6 conversion and you'll be good, but for now just drive what you got.

An alignment would be good, though. Just max the negative camber and positive caster, then set the toe around zero. You'll even get more life out of your street tires!

Other than that, just :drive:

Could you please explain a little more as I thought the negative camber would cause the inside of the tires to wear more?

with a stock LT1 you'd be LUCKY to get over 0.8 deg of neg camber.
Get max camber & max caster. you will see no appreciable wear with those numbers. In fact you'll still kill your outside tire edge as it isn't enough (for auto-x).

Got the Camaro back together & running. Now to decide....Firebird (CP) or Z28 (FS) for SASCA? (dec 11th event in SA)

Sounds good. I won't be able to attend that autox in sa due to finals on the 12th and 13th

My car would kill the outsides of the front tires with a stock alignment. Once I maxxed out the settings that you could get stock, they wore much more evenly for street driving. Autocrossing I still had to keep an eye on the ousides of my front tires.

Take the Firebird and give me a co-drive!! Name your price!

Seriously, what would it take for me to get a co-drive? Lunch at Hooters (I believe there is one just down the road...)? Dinner? Both?

dunno. My girlfriend wants to go and she likes the camaro better (she's shopping for an MN6 LS1!!!) and its a hassle to load up and tow for an autocross.... but the car is damn fun w/ slicks!

I will pay your entry fee, lunch, and help load/unload the car. That seems like a perfectly fair deal to me.

It may be a fair deal, but "bidding" against his girlfriend for the ride is probably a losing proposition

Knowing what it takes to build a 'race only' car (helped my friend build a street stock circle track car), if your goal is road racing, wait until you have the money to buy a car that is already built. You can tweek it to your liking and still not have spent as much money or time as you will building a car from scratch.

Your negative thoughts aren't appriciated.

Word! The only reason I had Alan build the second one is because I was just tickled to see him do it and there are no CMC 4th gen 'Birds out here (well now there are two that will be flying around California Speedway this March!). There are a couple of fine third gens available out West here right now (see the classifieds for mine, CMC classifieds for others). Cheaper to go this way and immediate seat time.

I've thought about holding off and buying a third gen when I get out of school...but then again, there's a lot of things I want to buy when I get out of school. Also, I have thought about buying a car that's already built, but it seems as though those are somewhat hard to come by these days. Maybe I'm wrong?

Definitely not!

I wish I hadn't started building my car when I saw all the ASedan cars come up on ebay this fall.

I watched a sorted, National event winning 3rd gen TA with an A-Sedan motor and a stock TPI motor have no bids @ $6000. That was the cheapest, but I saw 4 for under $10k with spares, etc.

I've got that into my car now, and I'm starting over again since this car is too rusty to be safe even with a cage. Unless you want to have one hell of a learning experience/sweat/blood/tears equity (which I thoroughly enjoy ) and spend at least twice what you could buy one for, buy one used.