Sports cars, track driving, wrenching, and sim racing are what I'm into and what I'll cover on the channel.
Started out in the world of older BMWs, E30s specifically(318i, 325i, 325is), then on to E46s with a 330i ZHP. All that time wrenching and driving but never getting out on track.
Sim racing scratched the itch at a time in my life when I could not get out on track. First with GT-GT4 on Playstation(s), then on to PC with GTR, GTR2, and eventually iRacing, Assetto Corsa, and other modern sims.
While sims kept me happy during that time while I focused on "getting my ducks in a row" getting on track for real was always in the back of my mind.
Once I finally got myself in a position to get on track, I jumped in with both feet. Got a capable track car and started to get seat time. The experience was as awesome as I'd always imagined.
My goal with this channel is to share what I've learned and help others get on track.
Omg this is amazing, I'm 18 and this is exactly what I'm looking for. I want a c5 vette that's not too heavily modified (to save money) your channel has brought me inspiration and has really helped me!
There is a drift shop (FDF Race Shop) up in Canada making units. www.fdfraceshop.com/collections/corvette-c5-c6/products/corvette-dual-master-booster-delete The options were that, build something with aftermarket pedals, or see if GSpeed is still making their conversion units(no longer on their website). I went with Tilton 75 series masters and balance bar. That did require a trip to the machine shop with the unit(Tilton specs wider clevis to clevis spacing than Wilwood). Technically since I have ABS I should be using Tilton 79 series masters which will take some thought to mount with this unit. I'm running these lower cost units temporarily to confirm my master cylinder size selection before shelling out the cash for the more expensive 79 series.
I do, Dewitts. During my first season when I put in the oil cooler I noticed the plastic end tanks on my stock radiator were starting to weep fluid. It was slight but I didn't want the end tanks failing while I was on track so put the Dewitts unit in. I'm still using the stock shroud/fans but will eventually put the Dewitts shroud/Spal fans in.
I just switched to a dual catch can setup. (one for the valley cover, one for the valve cover) I drain them after every two sessions, they get maybe 1/4 full. (valve cover one filled to that much, valley was less) My main issue was oiling down the intake bellows/intake manifold. Never heard from anyone that I was blowing smoke on decel but was definitely drawing oil into the intake track.
Love these videos and the data logger setup! I am not sure if you have any aero (need to check out your mod list), but do you feel like the C5Z gets light in the front, heading into "the kink" on the front straight? My C5Z feels great everywhere else, but there. Adding DRM Bilsteins this week and hoping that helps some. Honestly, it feels like there's some lift and those bumps just upset the car.
Nitto NT05. That's what was on the car when I bought it. They were an alright starter tire as they generated a lot of noise before you got to the limit, not a bad thing when first getting out there but that bead failure was crazy.
As some of the others have said thanks for posting information from that experience so that we can all learn. If I have to choose between rain and cold at VIR I pick rain.
That happens a lot coming out of Oak Tree. Folks see a Corvette in their mirrors on exit and maybe assume it's going to pull on them in a straight line, so they stay in it... no realizing they will need to lift to let an old C5 by on the straight :)
I'm not going to put exact figures but can give some ballpark percentages. At the time of my tire wall adventure I had approx. 75% the value of the car in mods. So the amount I insured was value of car + 75%*value of car. (C5 Z06s were cheaper when I got it than they are now) The insurance payout/buy back kind of reset the counter I guess... so buy back, repair, cage, few more mods puts me a hair over my original purchase price of the car.
I was at VIR in November and 3 cars spun in the EXACT fashion you did. Two instructors and a red run group car were totaled going into that same straight off the lower S's
Solid Run. I'm putting together a 02 Z06. It seems like your mod list will be very close to what I am building. That AP Brake package is amazing . Thanks!
The crash damaged the titanium exhaust too. One of the few cars in the world with it from the factory. '04 C5 base owner here. But I think the titanium exhaust on the Z06 is special and people say it sounds good, not too loud and light weight of course.
Yeah, that was a bummer for sure. If the crash hadn't happened I was planning on keeping the stock exhaust and would have added TrackSpec pass through pipes to get a bit extra sound out of the system.
Tires play a role. Compared to this season with 200TW and more power the Pirelli slicks allowed a few more MPH min apex speed at Oak Tree and I was able to go full throttle earlier. Couple that with the 305/660/18 tire being just about perfect height for the back straight at VIR to carry 4th gear up until braking without bouncing of the rev limiter. This year I had to take 5th gear on the back straight and was more consistently in the 146-148 range. On the sound/power, the microphone is inside the bumper right above the exhaust tips. It sounds great in these vids and inside the car but on fly bys the car sounded pretty weak. The new exhaust is LOUD and sounds mean on fly bys. It has an Improved Racing crank scraper, which they claim increases horsepower but I never dynoed it to get a rear wheel value. I'm always skeptical of vendor HP claims.
Phenomenal work on the rebuild! I've got a convertible C5 and to continue doing track days i'll need a roll bar at minimum and eventually a cage. I noticed when you cut the B pillar off of your coupe, all the photos looked like a convertible with the top down even when the cage went on. It's actually crazy just how similar both chassis seem to be, and part of me wonders if with some studying and measuring a similar cage setup could be built on a soft top. There's an available roll bar setup but i've had more than one fellow enthusiast tell me it can be built from scratch for cheaper, and the work you've done here definitely leaves me wondering if there are other options.
Thanks! I assume the vert rear tub would be different from the FRC and Coupe. You could certainly get a cage going just like I did, as you mentioned... it basically looks just like a vert with the roof off. Would you try to get some type of hardtop to go over the cage?
Man I was up there this year on Pirelli slicks when it was 30 degrees and was like driving on ice. Totally feel your pain, its a tough thing. Hope you are back out there!
What's a great tire you like for the street that can do some track work?. I'd like something that heats up fast ... and something not a Michelin 😃 100 or 200 wear.
I'm a big fan of the tire guide that Grassroots Motorsports publishes: grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/track-tire-buyers-guide/ Of everything on this list the RE71RS, NT-01, and A7 are the only three I've actually run. Nittos were not great in the wet which may rule them out for a mixed street/track tire. I'm impressed with the RE71RS but cannot provide any street driving input since my car is track only now. There are a couple of Continentals in the Endurance 200 category that look to heat up well and also wear well. Not the best for absolute pace but might be a good compromise.
Couple things.. I was there for trackdaze Nov 2nd and 3rd. Several cars went into the same wall.. both in the morning when it was cold. Chopped matt is for bulk but not nearly as strong as the biaxial, or woven matt..
That section has a whole bunch of skid marks on track, catches a lot of folks out. I know better and should have given those slicks a number of laps to heat up before getting on curbing. On the glass, there are a number of spots I could and should have used a woven mat. The big flat section left of center would have been perfect for that material. There were a lot of spots with serious contouring and I am not sure a woven mat would have worked. I'll keep monitoring but so far all is holding up.
@@hnel_on_track Do you have any other social media accounts outside of RU-vid? Wouldn’t mind asking you a few questions as I picked up a stock 2002 Z06 recently.
Wow... I didn't even notice that. Things obviously slowed up a bit there but I didn't see his stab of the brakes till you said something. Nice job reacting to that situation and keeping the car composed. I assume the C7 was expecting a point to the right of that Miata and when it didn't come had to check up?(maybe, trying to give the benefit of the doubt).
Love the content. What are you using to pull car data? I have an OBDII adapter but half the time it doesn't work. I'm going to compare my lap and minimum corner speeds to your lap 6. You have approx 50 more HP but I have some MAJOR improvements to make.
OBDLink MX+ combined with RaceChrono Pro. The MX+ costs more than other adapters but I've found it to be really consistent. Peter Krause did a classroom session for TrackDaze. He had an awesome point, min. apex speed and time to WOT were two critical data points to tie together when looking for time. (Oak Tree is a good example where giving up a few MPH min apex can allow the car to rotate a bit more and provides earlier WOT point). Last thing, I really like Driver61's "Driver's University" series(I think he's got a playlist pulled together) and personally found working on vision to be the most important thing for me thus far. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-r4nyExkzseE.html
The camera panning on the Insta360 One RS is lame. My bad for not testing before recording. I'll fix it next time out. Also, the placement of my phone for timing blocks visibility. I'm going to move it directly in front of the driver for next season.
Thank you for posting, it takes a certain personality to post pitfalls on the track for the rest of us to learn from,hats off to you. PS, isn’t that nicknamed “Corvette Corner” at VIR?
I crashed my 350z in that exact same spot about 8 years ago in the rain. Almost identical car reaction and impact. No drive train or suspension damage....but a lot of ruined body work.
There are a lot of tire marks in that spot heading off in the same direction. Catches a lot of folks out. Hopefully you got your Z back up and out there.
@@hnel_on_track Mine had similar damage. Maybe a few more bent panels because it snapped around and hit the tires again on the driver side. I was able to drive it back to the pits. I had some professional bodywork done on rear and front quarter panels. Replaced a door , bumpers and hatch myself. Put a roll bar and race seats in it and it is still my track car. Hope you are still tracking yours as well.
I will be repairing my tub soon as soon as I get good weather just not sure if it’s necessary to repair from both inside and out, or if just making the repair from the exterior will be sufficient. My worry is torsion but I’m assuming that the frame rails are what takes the majority of the tq and the tub is more so just a mounting point for body panels and a division for weather/cabin. What’s your take on this?
Your comment on inside-and-out vs one side: I am no pro but my methodology was to repair "single" cracks on one side. These were mostly small, <5" long and didn't connect to any other cracks. There were a number of spots where cracks intersected, "multi" cracks for lack of a better phrase and I did inside and out for these as they sanded out to pretty large holes. Basically, I sanded out until I got the SMC firm(sounds weird but you'll see as you start grinding/sanding out, where the SMC is cracked it just kinda falls apart). This required taking out a fair amount of material and the holes in the tub ended up substantially larger than what appeared cracked on the surface. By comparison the "single" cracks when sanded required removing much less material until I got all the cracks out. There was an old school member of CorvetteForum(DUB) who had a long standing reputation as a top notch fiberglass repair guy. Unfortunately I believe he passed away but you can still benefit from his knowledge and expertise via his posts on the forum. (example: www.corvetteforum.com/forums/paint-body/3982886-smc-crack-advise-wanted.html) That example isn't from repair of a tub but he lays out a lot of good principles for repairing SMC. I've got a video made that covers the work I did to the car to get it to where it's at but I need to record a voice over. On the twisting/torquing of the tub, I'm not super concerned. I've beat the car up pretty hard bombing over curbs at speed on track and things have held fine. West Marine epoxy(105 epoxy and 206 hardener) is pretty stout. In my opinion the biggest challenge was keeping everything in alignment. Not sure if that applies to your tub damage but if you end up needing to bond replacement pieces together take your time and mock things up to get the alignment right before laying down glass and epoxy.
If you had to do it all over would you start with a c6 grand sport and only do the bushings and seats? A c6 ls3 base model and have to upgrade brakes along with the former, or do what you’ve done with the c5z?
Man that is a tough question… at the time I got this car there was roughly a 15K price difference between the C5Z and the C6 GS. Not sure how things look today. I ultimately went with the C5 as it left me with a good mod budget whereas the C6 would have left me less overhead to mod(though the C6 GS wouldn’t have required the same level of mods). A good middle ground could have been the C6 Z51. It would have required similar mods to the C5 but for someone that prefers the looks of the C6 platform it could be a well rounded option.
The engine is de-tuned to meet time trial class power limits. The electronic throttle body is acting like a restrictor above a certain RPM(somewhere in the 3K range). I meant to grab data for both the throttle pedal position and throttle body position but only captured TB. In some of the low speed turns where I leave it in third you can watch the TB go from 100% down to 55% as the revs pick up. My foot is on the floor in those cases.
Thanks for asking. I meant to put it in the description but forgot. A user over on Corvette Forums put together a guide: www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c5-scan-and-tune/4728168-data-acquisition-with-race-chrono.html Short of it is: Race Chrono Pro on my phone Vehicle config file from Corvette Forum thread loaded in Race Chrono Pro Dual XGPS160 for GPS OBDLink MX+ for vehicle data That's for the full data logging setup, specifically the Race Chrono Pro vehicle file and the OBDLink MX+ are the secret sauce to get the brake data. (pretty sure you can get throttle data with other solutions)
Thank you! Glad to get out there and shake the car down. I've got a few things to tweak before my next event but look forward to pushing the car a bit harder next time out.
3050 with driver(I'm approx 200 lbs with all my gear on) when the car was corner balanced in April. Caveat is that I added some things in(like dash) but also took some things out(wiring and some other electronic do-dads from interior). I'm going to have a real exhaust fabbed up from the X-Pipe back(got some resonators. will do over axle and straight out the back with 3" all the way). When I bring the car home from the shop I'm going to try and hit up a truck stop to get a new weight value.
Thanks for pointing that out! Your stock C6 weight comment got me curious about the C5s weight from last year. It sat at 3340 with driver. I'm happy with shaving approx. 290 pounds overall despite adding the cage.
@@hnel_on_track that's pretty good with cage. A guy name duke Langley has one around 2800 maybe less but I don't think he has a cage and he skinned body panel and all sorts of stuff
