It doesn't that long ago that Jay was just a local guy trying to pull together track time for his buddies. Great to see Jzilla becoming a full-fledged organization.
Having a world-class racing facility two exits from our bed is a luxury we don’t take lightly. Making the two-freeway-exit trek this morning for the final shakedown of our C5 Z06 project was not only convenient, but exciting as the car already had two long, successful break-in sessions at the Florida International Rally and Motorsport Park under its belt and we were eager to see what it could do with proper fluids and the high banks of Daytona at its disposal.
Photography Credits: David S. Wallens
The verdict? Qualified success. We managed to turn our fastest lap ever at Daytona–on 200tw tire no less, bettering our best with the old LS6 and R-compound rubber.
But even today’s lap came with an asterisk. We were having to back off the throttle in the east banking to cut our speed through NASCAR Turn 4 because our AJ Hartman Aero wing was producing enough downforce to push our already cut fenders into our right rear tire.
Photography Credit: J.G. Pasterjak
Blame that on more top speed and thrust into the banking. A little more fender trimming will solve that but, really, it’s sort of a Daytona-specific problem that won’t give us much trouble elsewhere. Still, a little more safety margin is one sawblade away.
We’re also still struggling with high oil temps after some hard running. A 160-degree thermostat and E85 kept the coolant temps completely in check, but oil temps were still sneaking north of 270 degrees after pushing it for a couple laps.
While we’d be comfortable running like that at a time trial event where not every lap has to be 110%, the good folks at Improved Racing were kind enough to rush over one of their C5 oil cooler kits from Orlando to our Daytona base.
Photography Credit: J.G. Pasterjak
We’ll bolt that in this weekend and enjoy two more quarts of oil capacity plus the additional radiant cooling of the huge heat exchanger. We also should never have to worry about oil temps again.
The only other issue we ran into was a couple of exhaust bolts that backed out and separated one of the mufflers from the midpipe. We’ll replace those with a bit more torque and some Nord-Lock washers, but it did sound pretty gnarly for that lap.
Photography Credits: David S. Wallens
We also can’t say enough good things about the Jzilla Track Days, organizers of today’s track day. This event at Daytona ran in conjunction with the WRL test day, with HPDE cars sharing the track with some of the WRL cars getting a bit more test time before the race on Saturday.
Jzilla entrants had access to four hours of track time today at Daytona for the incredibly reasonable price of $500. We’ll have a more in-depth feature on the Jzilla club in the near future, but for now, if they’re coming to a track near you, we recommend checking them out: It’s a fun and well-organized way to spend a day doing cool car stuff.
So after a couple more hours of wrench turning and a trip to the tire store to mount our Goodyear rubber–more on that soon–we’ll be ready to load up to hit the road on Tuesday. Look for us at Sunoco stations between Daytona and Bowling Green, filling our tank with fuel and our stomachs with boiled peanuts.
It doesn't that long ago that Jay was just a local guy trying to pull together track time for his buddies. Great to see Jzilla becoming a full-fledged organization.
nderwater said:It doesn't that long ago that Jay was just a local guy trying to pull together track time for his buddies. Great to see Jzilla becoming a full-fledged organization.
The best part is that vibe is still strong within the organization. I was not aware of that origin story and was talking to one of their dudes and was like "You guys have the vibe of just renting a track with a bunch of your buddies." and he was like "Funny you should mention that..."
Glad it went well. We had the same kind of oil temps on our TR3 and that is not healthy. We were able to move the oil cooler into the air flow a bit more and it dropped temps 20-30 degrees.
Tim Suddard said:Glad it went well. We had the same kind of oil temps on our TR3 and that is not healthy. We were able to move the oil cooler into the air flow a bit more and it dropped temps 20-30 degrees.
We dropped a few degrees of oil temp with E85 and a 160-degree thermostat, but on the long 4th and 5th gear runs at Daytona it was still creeping up. The oil cooler should help. It holds two full quarts and has a ton of surface area.
As a Time Trial car it was still usable. Basically you could do a 101% lap, then a cooldown, then a 101%, and so on. But back to back laps would send things above 270. Hopefully with the cooler it just takes that factor out of the equation entirely and it's one less gauge to have to worry about.
Mostly we want to protect our fancy brand-new engine as best we can. Seems silly to install a fresh crate motor then skimp on proper protection.
Well after a year or so of saving loose change and squirreling away as much as a could without the wife finding out, I finally had enough to order the C5 oil cooler kit from Micheal and the folks @ Improved Racing. The kit arrived today and wow, like everything else I have ordered from them over the years (LS1 Camaro oil pan baffle for the RX7, the C5 Corvette trap door baffles, the LS crank scrapper and oil pickup tube brace to name a few) this kit is top notch! The adapter, the oil lines and the oil cooler S-fittings are a works of art - too bad once their are installed, you see won't get to see them much of them again. Looking forward to getting this kit as well as the HD fabricated aluminum radiator installed. Then she will finally be ready to get back on the track again (hope the loose nut behind the wheel is ready too) and protect the "warmed over" forged internal rebuilt LS6!
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