Quote:
Originally Posted by dasting
I've been tracking Miatas for the last decade before recently going to BRZ this summer, in parallel to my brother who has been tracking his 04 Z06 with me since 2012, and I've watched his car slowly transform from a weekend fun car to mostly a dedicated track car. It's not for the faint of heart. The C5 is an extremely capable car, but it was also both way ahead of its time and way behind its time. I say the former because it's extremely fast for a nearly 25 year old platform and can put down lap times that modern cars struggle to compete with. I say the latter because as fast as it was, it was not overbuilt and track ready from the factory in the way that modern "track day cars" are. (read: 1le Camaros, new Corvettes, etc). A BBK is required if you can drive the car near its limit, or else you'll go through rotors and pads nearly every weekend and a high cost. Contol arm bushings wear out and are expensive. When the clutch goes or the diff wears out, the whole rear subframe and rear transaxle is dropped and it's expensive to have done or time consuming and difficult to attempt yourself. I've seen his valves break at the track, coil packs go bad, among other things underhood, because the engine runs really hot on the stock system. Tires are way more money and you'll wear them out faster. He's dealt with the notorious ignition switch issue, the underhood temps have killed multiple starters on him, the C5 shifter is junk and as mentioned, the interior feels very dated.
I was considering buying one instead of the BRZ but when I really considered all the time and money he's put into his car, I started to rethink it. The nail in the coffin was when I asked him if he would do it over and he basically said definitely not. He'd either start with a c6, which sorted a bunch of the above out, or go straight to a c7, which sorted it all out.
I'll add the caveat that he has a lot of track time - he's an instructor and averages about 10-15 weekends a year and probably gets a min 3 hours of on track time each weekend, and also drives the car pretty close to its limit. If you're only doing a couple weekends a year and aren't trying to put down at-limit hotlaps, your money and consumables will go farther.
Hope that helps.
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This is pretty much dead on. I had an 04 Z06 for 4 years and it is a great car but it will need a lot of little things to actually be reliable if you drive it hard.
Seating, cooling, and braking are the big ones for reliability. I had a big Ron Davis radiator with integrated engine and trans oil coolers - and stock exhaust manifolds to keep engine bay temps reasonable-ish. Sparco seat and steering wheel, wilwood brakes with real ducts feeding through the centers of the front rotors. Ideally some proper hood vents would be good but I didn't get them.
Delrin bushings plus a good alignment and shocks go a long way toward making the car feel good to drive vs just being fast yet vague/wobbly. Throw on a bigger front sway bar too, like 33mm-ish, and they end up being very sharp, predictable, easy and rewarding to drive... kind of like a stock 86.
The engine and chassis are great but you should essentially plan to replace everything bolted to them. That being said, to really make (almost) any street car into a good track car you will end up doing the same kind of things.
I would probably go back to a C5 (non-Z06 for the targa+hatch) if I were to do track events again, but I prefer my 86 now since it's a better street car.