One thing to remember and keep in mind is the REAL fun on the roadcourse is getting into and powering out of the turns-- You can signifantly increase your safety factor and take a lot of "wear and tear" off the equipment if you impose a top-speed cap down the straight parts of the track and also let off and brake earlier.
You will still have a lot of fun and your car will thank you for it.
It *IS* hard to control yourself though... many guys get out there and immediately overdrive their ability. I've seen it many times at Ferrari Club track days back when my Dad used to have his and we would go out on track rental days with the club. Lots of guys balled their cars up from ego-related mishaps. Once you get over the mental thing of feeling the artificial "need" to drive at 11/10th of your own and your car's ability on a casual open track day you'll have a lot more fun. Just keep it sane and work the speed up slowly, it's much better to run into ability or vehicle shortcomings at lower speeds. Tire barriers, K-rails, and rollovers all suck. Seen 'em all. Work on being smooth first, THEN work on being fast. The mental discipline thing can be real tough though as most guys, even inexperienced, go out and drive foot to the floor. Sometimes they get away with it... other times they hurt the car, themselves, or others. And definately get an experienced instructor.
I can't remember, what front suspension do you run now? Going to Denny's setup (Coleman spindles, Wilwood brakes, etc) or an AFX-based setup would be a HUGE improvement in the geometry and handling predictability department and also get you some better brakes. The B-body setup sucks at high speeds because of the massive amounts of bump steer, I have had a few very scary moments above 130 in my car with the bump steer on the B-body setup. Still needs to be swapped out.
As far as the rear suspension, as long as you keep the factory 4-link in your car that will always be the drawback because of the super-high rear roll center height... but the factory 4 link with all spherical joints and the built in roll-understeer will be quite predictable at the limit. That limit will just be lower than with a well designed rear suspension. I abuse my car all the time in turns and the traction limit of the rear is what holds me back-- but once it breaks loose it stays in a nice controllable slip as long as you don't do anything stupid on the throttle or brakes while it's sliding. I've actually gone to a less-aggressive front alignment to cut down on front end traction because I was getting too much oversteer with the "fun" front end alignment which was overpowering the available rear traction.
On the tire subject, I recently drove a track-prepped 'Stang on RA1's and was very impressed with the mannerisms on the street especially when cold-- way more traction than say Hoosier RS-series slicks when they are cold (aka: ice.) Once heated up the RA1's stuck very well, but obviously didn't hold a candle to hot Hoosiers. For a dual purpose tire R-compounds are nice!
Also think about a track alignment setting with additional caster and camber. More caster for straightline stability, more camber for cornering ability until you put so much in you affect stability under braking. You'll also need less toe-in (possibly toe out) to compensate for the inward thrust that is a component of the additional negative camber. Now is also the time to start thinking about stiffer springs, etc. Depends what you're running now. For our boatly A-bodies you will probably end up in the 850-950#/in range up front with a 1-1.125" sway bar and around 175-200#/in out back. Don't skimp on shocks either, cheap shocks with poor valving and high speed is a bad combination!
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
I do think they "come around" after driving them on the street again.
Linear Mode
