Anybody slowing down from 150+ mph very quickly??

[David Pozzi]

With your power level and car weight, you are right to worry about your brake system. Having a brake failure on a high speed track could endanger you and others on the track. Repeated laps will heat up all the systems in your car so coolers are needed for almost everything. I've seen power steering heat failures, so include a PS cooler too. A good aftermarket box with increased stiffness is what you need. Reducing pressure on your current box will show up in lack of boost when parking at low rpm's, not what you want.

My wife's 425hp 73 Camaro with the 13" Baer brakes went through the original pads in the first open track weekend. We swapped in better pads and increased braking distances and they are lasting much better, but there is no way we can brake near the limits of tire traction for repeated laps. We get some brake fluid related fade when we brake very hard which tells me our caliper temps are running very high. Our next step is to add brake ducting which will help a lot. We used the Valvoline fluid at first, but Motul or Willwood synthetic has a higher temp rating.

For your car I'd strongly suggest using the largest rotors you can fit and a good four piston caliper. The C5 brakes are not going to fit in your 17" wheels. Add brake ducts and brake early for the turns, enter the turns a bit slow and take a late apex to reduce the chances of going off course on corner exit. At the end of the track session, (checkered flag) -slow down and stay off the brakes, allow them to cool down or you will melt the seals out of the calipers when you stop. Cool off laps are for cooling off, not getting in an "extra" hot lap!

RA is a very fast track, you need to upgrade your steering box, springs shocks and antiroll bars, etc. It will make the car much easier to drive on the track.
David

[Blown353]

Originally Posted by David Pozzi

The C5 brakes are not going to fit in your 17" wheels.

David, are you sure? I've seen C5 calipers inside several 17" wheels, however the calipers need quite a bit of face clearance and depending on the backside spoke profile of the wheels you might need spacers (or different wheels.) Just asking for some clarification.

[nitrorocket]

Super good info!

I was looing at Hals for the front, because I like that the fronts replace the shock AND spring and turns it into a wanna be coil over to adjust ride height. The longer ball joints sound like they might be the cheapest and easiest route to correct some of the front geometry problems. I am very suprised the C5 brakes have heat up issues that bad... That is why I am a little comcerned with the brakes, Having a car that gets up and moves instantly, I will be going faster between turns which means I will be harder on the brakes, Big time! It was mentioned that the calipers might be the culprit in getting to hot, could a large Brembo, Wilwood, or Alcon caliper solve that? Or does it partly come down to rotor size? It might help me a little that I have 315's in the rear... I am getting away with quite a bit of break bias shifted to the rear, that takes a little load off the front brakes!

I was going to try to use a little heavier sway bar to compensate for semi weak springs so I would still have a little more weight transfer, If I take away all the weight tranfer, the car will never hook up and be fairly dangerous. Plus trying to hook up now is a problem. I realize I cannot have the best of both worlds, but I want to try to retain some transfer if possible. Anyone lake the adjsutable BIG BAR type rar sway bar kit for the Chevelle that sets the bar on the rear end? I was looking at some mustang sights that offer them, but most are a tad to short to get the mounts on the frame in the correct spot in the rear.

[Blown353]

Concerning the front coilover kits for a-bodies... because of their "bolt in" nature they are less than ideal and in the case of QA1 (at least a while back when I considered it) there really aren't any springs available that are heavy enough to do the job right. Also, because the spring sits against the spring perch up in the frame and the shock swivels on the upper bushings the spring induces some sideloading on the shaft and shock body because the spring is working against two different points of reference rather than against the shaft and the body only. If you wanted to do coilovers up front do it RIGHT and mod the upper frame mount with a double shear setup to hold a true coilover (i.e. one with the spring seated on the coilover body itself and not against the frame) with a rod end for the upper end of the coilover mount, similar to what DSE does with their coilover conversions for stock F-body subframes.

An easier and cheaper solution is to use the adjustable spring spacers with 9.5" x 5" circle track springs and standard shocks. I've been running that setup for a while now and it works very well for not much money, plus the springs are cheap so you can keep an inventory for fine tuning.

[nitrorocket]

I suppose the "real" coilovers would not be a hard swap in the front. I would just have to figure out a length and travel I needed to make them work.
The ATS spindles say they come with the C5 hub. Does this mean it has the 5x5 bolt circle?? Does anyone know if they are available without the hubs. I would just need the spindles.

What negative effects have people encountered from using stiff sway bars to support the car in turns versus just the springs? Like I said earlier, Being that this is a driver, I need it to have a little more weight transfer then 900 lb springs will give me!

[David Pozzi]

Originally Posted by Blown353

David, are you sure? I've seen C5 calipers inside several 17" wheels, however the calipers need quite a bit of face clearance and depending on the backside spoke profile of the wheels you might need spacers (or different wheels.) Just asking for some clarification.

Sorry, I was thinking of the C6 Z06 brakes not the C5 brakes.

One thing I've found out is the Baer two piston calipers we have on the 73 use aluminum pistons. While light, they transmit a lot of heat into the brake fluid. There are Stainless steel aftermarket Corvette racing pistons you can buy but they delete the dust seals, "since they melt anyway" I was told. Surf the net for Corvette brake issues, there are lots of vettes being run in open track events.

I suspect most late Camaro and C5 std calipers use the aluminum pistons too, which makes them less than ideal for track use on a heavy car.
David

[David Pozzi]

Do you have stock front coils now?

[fatlife]

Originally Posted by fatlife

The real good calipers don't even have dust seals for this exact reason, although they will make crappy street brakes. Another thing that you might think about if you are serious about brakes is that the good calipers use titanium or stainless pistons, the stock GM calipers I believe use cast aluminum or something which puts more heat into your fluid.

i know, i know

[fatlife]

I still say, put some decent brakes on, or even leave the stock ones on, and go to the track, learn it, and have fun. THEN upgrade the car heavily. You need to first see if you like it. Its easy to come up wtih pipe dreams about building the most killer track car and such, but you end up putting all your time and effort into building the car, not building your skills. If you can put the speed thing to the side, I think you would benefit from actually attending 1 trackday first, and then deciding what you want to do with the car. But if you are still insiting on being ricky racer I would recommend to maybe go to a school first and use one of their cars.

[nitrorocket]

Originally Posted by fatlife

I still say, put some decent brakes on, or even leave the stock ones on, and go to the track, learn it, and have fun. THEN upgrade the car heavily. You need to first see if you like it. Its easy to come up wtih pipe dreams about building the most killer track car and such, but you end up putting all your time and effort into building the car, not building your skills. If you can put the speed thing to the side, I think you would benefit from actually attending 1 trackday first, and then deciding what you want to do with the car. But if you are still insiting on being ricky racer I would recommend to maybe go to a school first and use one of their cars.

I see what your saying, but at least if the car is setup 1st, I can concentrate more on driving. My car would be pitifull right now (except between turns ).
I have been drag racing the car for 13 years. I know if I start going to a road track, Just like drag rading, I will love it, I have not gone because my car has not been setup to take advantage of a road track.
This winter I will put a bar in for now and get the suspension/brakes squared away. The brakes seem to be an easy choice(C5), but suspension/shocks/steering is the hard part as there are alot of choices and different directions to go. I am taking a liking to those AFX spindles!

I have stock cut coils in the front now. I guess it would be as easy as welding a perch on both the lower control arm and and up into the stock spring pocket to get a coilover shock in there. I wonder if they make a 500+ lb spring for a standard coilover?