Buttonwillow track day, Thurs, Oct 14
 

Anyone interested in going? Less than a week away. Buddy of mine with a zr1 and his buddy with a c6 z06 are organizing it. This is NOT a redline/speedventures event. Will only be 15 cars tops, the entire day. There are no run groups, you pretty much do whatever you want within reason. They are a really cool bunch and love to drive fast. I'll be there with my rotary rx-7. Either post here or PM me if you're interested.

It's $290, which I know is steep, but consider that you can drive as long or as short of sessions as you want and at any given time there will probably only be 5-10 cars TOPS on the track. Let me know as soon as you can.

Even if you don't want to run your car, you're more than welcome to come and hangout, everyone is super cool and will give you rides as long as you have your helmet! They will have the snack bar, gas pumps, and skid pad opened up. At the end of the day we'll probably do some drag racing just for fun... And, this is for the full track, I think they're going to run it clockwise but we can change that with a popular vote.

TRACK INFO
DIRECTIONS TO TRACK

:drive:

Couple of cool related videos:

one of the guys almost running into a wall @ BW


same guy more recently in a c6 z06 chasing his buddy's zr1


zr1/z06 drag race


z06 doughnut @ day's end

message from track day organizer
 

track day results
 

So it was great fun for all, although we did have one casualty and that would be a hopped up LS1 in the red C5 pictured below. See at bottom for info from owner/driver :'( I finally got to ride in a zr1 on the track, and I thought it was an animal on the street... that sucker ripped on the track, can't even begin to describe the performance on the track.











Some videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbOl2uhGb3A#ws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNW4agVrz-0#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX0K5C9fgUs#ws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG9J3AMHfEc#

Well, it wasn't all roses... like I mentioned, a hopped up 490 whp ls1 c5 vette (the red one in pic above) blew his motor up. This is directly from the driver/owner:

All,
Thanks to all those who helped me get my vette off the track and then finally onto the U-Haul trailer for the long drive home. I was very sad to grenade my engine, but it was the original 1998 short block with 78K miles so I probably can't complain too much. For those of you that are interested in what happened, here is what I've found so far as I tear down the engine:

I believe one or more rods let go. Cylinders 2, 3, and 4 were totally destroyed with rods pistons and wrist pins laying in the bottom of the engine. Since I had fly cut the pistons to ensure valve clearance, I don't think this was the result of piston to valve contact. All the valves are in place and appear okay. Heads have minor scratches and pits from the aluminum piston multching. I found a hole in the side of the block on both sides right under the motor mount brackets that bolt up to the sides of the block which prevented a lot of shrapnel from flying out of the block. The oil fire did no damage to the car because I got it out right away with my fire extinguisher (you all better get religion on this one!). Otherwise my car could have burned to the ground because the flames were right under the fuel lines and brake fluid reservoir on the driver side. I think what made the oil fire so extreme was that I had a 3 qt accusump and when the oil pressure dropped it electrically pumped 3 more quarts of oil into the engine feeding the fire.

It was very fortunate that it happened on the long straight and I had an opportunity to get off the track quickly. Had I made it to the first turn I would have discovered that my oil coated front brakes on the driver side would be useless and perhaps spun the car when the other side grabbed. And then who knows where I would land.

In the photos attached, you can see that the two middle cylinders on the passenger side are destroyed and one on the driver's side as well. On the tops of the pistons you can see where they were fly cut when I built this engine several years ago with Tony Mamo's (AFR) help to get me 492 rwhp and 454 rwtq. It regularly saw 7000 rpm.

It was a privilege to meet you all and hope to be back to play another day! Get your fire extinguishers mounted in your cars guys!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

SETUP:

Hi Mike,
Stock block, pistons, crank, but installed ARP rod bolts because of the problem you mentioned. Here's the build list and I can send you the dyno graphs as well.
Cheers,
John

Baseline
• 1998 C5 convertible
• LS1 346 ci aluminum block
• MN6 transmission
• 342 gear ratio
Engine
• ARP rod bolts
• Fly cut pistons
• blue printed oil pump
• JWIS cam chain
• Undersize pulley (pinned)
• Mezzier water pump
• LS6 valley tray
• LS6 PCV breather conversion
• LS6 valve covers
• Catch can
• Cannon 3 qt. accusump
• DeWitt aluminum radiator w/engine oil cooler
• 165 degree T-stat
• MD ignition coils
Valvetrain
• G5X3 cam 112 LSA
• stock hydraulic roller lifters
• AFR 205 heads milled to 59cc (11.61 compression) ported by Tony Mamo @ AFR
• AFR 8019 dual valve springs
• Crane Gold 1.7 roller rockers with hardened pushrods
Intake
• FAST 90 intake ported by Tony Mamo @ AFR
• LS2 90mm throttle body ported by Tony Mamo @ AFR
• 42 # matched-flow injectors
• Vararam Cold Air Intake (CAI)
• High-flow airbridge
Exhaust
• LG Long Tube headers
• LG X-pipe
• High-flow Random Tech CATS
• B&B exhaust with electric cutouts
Drivetrain
• Exedy twin disk clutch
• Exedy lightweight flywheel
• Z06 thowout assy
• Hurst shift linkeage
• DTE built differential; 373 gears; hardened left axle
• DTE strutbrace
• Clutch-pedal stop
• Z06 MN12 tranny
Suspension
• Pfad adjustible coil-over shocks
• Z06 front stabilizer bars with metal end-links
• Z06 rear stabilizer bars with metal end-links
• Lowered
Brakes
• Front - Wilwood 6-piston calipers and rotors
• Rear - Wilwood 4-piston calipers and rotors
• Wilwood stainless steel brake lines
• Cartek Line Lock (front)
• Front brake ducts with hub backplates
• Motul 600 degree brake fluid
Wheels/Tires
• CCW 18” aluminum wheels front and rear
• Nitto 555 tires

Awesome!

Detonation + stock hypereutectic pistons = his pictures. Lol. Those hypereutectic pistons are crap and shatter like glass.

I wondered the same thing about detonation, but after asking the owner about it I haven't heard anything back. I hope he was tuned rich with reasonable timing... but maybe not, why would multiple cylinders be affected? Pretty sure he was running 91 pump fuel.

Not too many engine parts can handle detonation for long, I don't care what they're made of.

I broke two pistons, twice, in the Cobra when I first built it with the supercharger. That was with a safe tune and only 15* of timing. Hypereutectic pistons don't handle detonation well. I had less than 800 miles on the engine both times and for the first 500 I didn't even get on it. The car only detonated between shifts and that's when it broke both times. I now have forged pistons and over 70,000 miles on it since. I drive it all the time. In fact I put just under 800 miles on it yesterday driving back and forth to Fresno to a customers.

I run forged pistons but I say that they just let you be dumb for longer. lol. I always have a data logger with my eye on the knock retard checking for detonation. Also whats extremely common in these LS cars is valve float. Most of the springs available for these motors suck. That could have caused piston to valve clearance issues, especially if it was close to begin with.

Yeah I wouldnt go hypereutectic on a built motor, they contain way too much silicone. I have 25*+ of timing and run an e85 mix and rarely see any knock retard...maybe on a hot day after being in traffic and even then not really. Its all in the tune as well. I have like 7-10,000mi on mine but no problems yet....I hope it stays like that.