It is really easy to go too far in terms of turning your street driven car into a "race car," and it is important to be honest with yourself before you get into the trap.
Case in point, my 69 Camaro. Granted, it is a development vehicle for our suspension systems, so it needs to have some of the track goodies by default. Most aren't too terrible, but some really make it a pain to drive the car on a frequent relaxed basis. Getting in and out of the car is a pain, I use Cobra Suzuka racing seats, unreal for the track, comfortable enough for moderate drives, but a complete pain to ingress/egress. Five point racing harnesses are really handy, but once strapped in, I can't even reach over to grab the garage door opener. Better open or close the passenger window before you take off too! The engine emphasizes mid range and top end power to make it manageable on corner exit on the track, still makes a great torque but really spanks up top. 400 ci, normal aspiration. Cool? Well, it idles at 1k RPM, only makes 9" of vacuum, so power brakes require a hydrobooster. I took it off about a year ago to convert to manual brakes for better feel/modulation, and now it is a total pain on the street because you can't really get heat into the pads to give good bite, so you really have to pay attention around town. The car is really loud, has no A/C, and so on.
The rear suspension is set. We have enough adjustment in our system to keep all of the important attributes in check for a variety of ride heights, and can bias the setup towards certain conditions really easily, all of the hard work has been done. Totally happy on the track, totally happy and comfortable on the street, done. Putting big tires on a first gen is "easy" in the back, and honestly it's not terrible to do the mini-tub deal to other cars even though the stamped parts aren't available.
The front is much harder, you'd like to put as much tire on the car as possible to better balance front to rear grip, in hopes to maximize total grip of the car. As I eluded to previously, solving the front issues is very, very difficult when you start to put big rubber on the car. Many of the weaknesses of typical front suspension systems are masked by the smallish forgiving tires that are usually used, going bigger really exaggerates things, fast. It's a heck of a lot more difficult than making a narrower frame to allow better turning radius. One thing I noted immediately when going from a 245 tire to a 275 tire up front on the 69 is that the power steering pump couldn't keep up. I replaced it with a race piece, and the "problem" was solved. For a while, that is. What wasn't obvious is that even though "I" am not working terribly hard to steer the car, the steering components are, and as a result they will wear faster. My wonderful AGR steering box got far looser pretty quickly. Tramlining (tendancy for the car to follow grooves in the road, etc) is greatly increased and very frustrating. And there's more but hopefully you get my point.
What to do? Well, I'm building another car using the lessons learned not only from my present car, but from input from dozens of others' experience. This one is a 70 Camaro, and I fully expect it to outperform the 69 in virtually every way, but will do so in a far more refined and civil manner. Again, the rear stuff is set, already installed as a matter of fact. For the front, we are doing a massive design effort, and the setup will be quite a bit different than what is currently available. Will it work? I think so, but we won't know until it's done. If it doesn't we'll learn, and apply the lessons. It will have "very" large front tires, by the way. Engine will be a 427 LS based motor, most likely, six speed, and you can bet it'll have one of Paul's terrific Hydroboost setups. Power windows too, and very likely A/C too. Sparco Milano seats are far more user friendly, and the car will have two sets of seat belts.
We have a couple more cars in progress too, a 68 Satellite crusier that will be perfect for trips to Vegas, power tour, etc. At some point, we'll build a track only car. It'll be very light, very safe, and very fast. But it won't be a street car, that's for certain.
M
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