LG Motorsports

Hi guys,

I took the Z06 to the race track, Motorsports Ranch today for the first time. Here are my observations:

First, the car had stock air filter, LG Headers, 484rwhp, stock cam (waiting for the big one and tuning) and Stock, as delivered, tires and stock as delivered alignment.

The car is extremely fast but I will replace the shocks this week. the car (at speed) and at the limit floats too much. The shocks are not doing a good job of stabilizing the car so the suspension can do it's job.

Water temp, after about 4 or 5 laps, was up to 239 degrees, and the oil temp was 269 degrees. This is on the high side for me and I had to slow down or stop for a couple of laps each time to cool it down.

We will install one of our radiators next week if there are no unforeseen changes that were made to this car's radiator.

The brakes worked perfectly. But they better since we upgraded the front brakes to a StopTech 6 piston with a stoptech aluminum hat and used a good compound pad. This brake package with rotors made the brakes so good they were not even a factor. They worked each time and every time as if they were new, and being hit for the first time. We changed these to eliminate any chance of hurting the stock calipers like other reports that have come to light. Good choice in my opinion.

Handling was not too bad, considering that we didn't put any track alignment on the car. The car needs some neg camber and a race alignment if one were to flog the car like we did today.

It was the fastest street car that i have ever driven at MSR. We turned many laps in the 1:22 range with our fastest lap at a 1:22.333 on stock tires. We tried some Toyo tires but the traffic was so bad that we got balked every hot lap attempt. with some good tires, I can see a 1:20 or a high 1:19 in the car.

By the end of the day, one of the lower camber bolts had moved and killed the alignment even more. We have some locators that we will install to hold the A arms in place before the next time the car is taken out. We made them for the C6 and looks like we will need them on the Z06 also.

We ran down every car out there including a Ferrari F40 with a good driver in it and a bunch of Porsche cars from RUF Porsche.
There was one BMW, race prepped car with slicks that was keeping up and in fact in the really tight sections, it could close up on us. The little cars really do the tight parts better than our Z06s can. He said that on good days and good tires he can run in the 1:21s. He was good enough to loan us his timing beacon so we could get the lap times recorded.

All in all, I would say that it is a very track worthy car that needs shocks, sway bars, Radiator, and a good cold air intake. I am very sure that the stock brakes would have been an issue, so I am glad that we went with the Stoptech 14" brake upgrade.

I am probably more demanding of a car than most but we do plan on upgrading all of these components until we have a very drivable package that will be totally user friendly. At slower lap times the car would be more than adequate

Thanks
Lou Gigliotti LGM

DJWorm

Lou,

Any problems with Tire Pressure Monitoring System (overpressure) or the Traction Control ?

LTC Z06

Sounds good, other than pad material, what other issues are you concerned about with the stock brake calipers?

1955 BelAir

Great info!

LG Motorsports

We only had the other wheels on for about 5 laps but there was no problem at all during those laps. only about 10 miles driven then the car was back on stock rubber.

The TC I had turned off as completely as you can with the stock button on the console. held it down for about 7 seconds to turn it off and It seemed to work.

LG

Patrick McDaniel

Which shocks are you installing?

After that shock installation would the car be strickly a track car?

LG Motorsports

I am use to my rock hard pedal of the Race Car so since there were no pads around for the stock calipers, I went with a proven design. These pads are readily available also for the Stoptech 6 piston package.

Other than the pad issue, I just didn't thnk the calipers were up to the task that I was going to ask of it. I have no first hand data from the stock calipers but experience told me to find a normal caliper with normal pads and a good compound. I left the stock calipers on the back since we only ask the rear brakes to do 15% of the braking effort.

Thanks
Lou G

LG Motorsports

We will install Bilstein shocks. they eat up the bumps faster than any shocks I have ever been on.

We custom valve them so we will have to figure out which valving we want to use for this application. We plan on making them a great "street" shock with control but not strictly a track shock.

If a shock can eat a normal "pot hole" then a smooth race track will be easy. It is the transition that the shocks need to be corrected.

Thanks
Lou Gigliotti LGM

Mako7

Lou:

Keep me on the list for sway bars, shocks, CAI and tuning (if you can figure out how to dyno tune in SoCal). I think the stock Z is a bit too floaty when pushed, but I have not been to the track yet. I am not ready to bail on the stock brakes yet--first I will try Castrol SRF and pads.

FourTonMantis

Who would have thought we'd see the day when a mostly stock Vette runs down an F40?

John Shiels

2900 lb. Blue Devil anyone

JimmyCrackcorn

Not that it means much, but a F40 was on the dyno one day as I waited to dyno my car, it put down 424rwhp.

SW

Gimmie a break, I'm pretty sure the driver of the F40 didn't want to push his $300k car as hard as alot of "other" cars out there. I see this alot when I go to track events. I wouldn't push my 550 or 360 to it's limits at the track because I didn't want to damage either one. I run my Vette and Viper at 100% because I don't worry about damaging them...

SW

RossN

Can you elaborate on the "locators" you refer to?

I am unhappy with the way my C6 seems to loose it's alignment settings so quickly, will these correct this?

Patrick McDaniel

Share shock part numbers when you get them.

I couldn't find anything on their website beyond 2004.

C6400hp

C6400hp

allanlaw

i think these are custom jobs that Lou puts together.

LG Motorsports

Hi,
Lou G here.

The F40 that was there was one of the early prototype cars built. So it was worth more than $300k.

It was driven by a pro driver who runs in the Atlantic series. He is no slouch. I know what a car looks like when it is stroking it and this Ferrari was not stroking. It took me a few laps to catch up with him and when I got close enough to his bumper, he waved me by.

I know the guy who was driving and he may even be my team mate next season in the World Challenge Series, so he is a very capable driver.

He then got into his Porsche GT2 car to finish the day.

I would not think it hard to believe that equally driven cars, F40 vs ne Z06 would be as similar as these two cars were. and Personally, I would not have driven the Ferrari as hard as he did but he obviously is not hurting for the money.

At any rate, I was not out there to compare the Z06 to anything but itself. I was more interested in the shortcomings of the car and the compromises that GM made to keep it a pleasurable street car. You can not have both a street car and a track car perfect in both cases.

I learned what I needed to learn and we now know that the new Z06 is still about 8 seconds slower than our World Challenge car.

So with a good set of tires and some work in the noted areas, the car will be as good as I need it to be in both venues.

And as it is, there are very few drivers who will test the limits as they stand now, so it will be good to go for track days with just minor changes.

thanks
Lou G

LG Motorsports

PS,

The shocks that I am speaking of are in fact custom valved in house aluminum racing shocks with adapter brackets and mounting hardware only sold by LGM.

Our web site has been an "inprogress update" to a new format which we hope to get complete within the next 2 weeks.

Thanks
Lou G