I was at track day running the Cal Speedway roval recently. There was a Corvette club running with us too. They had several cars in every group. I think 4 or 5 Corvettes blew engines or had some other failure that oiled down the track that day. Two of my sessions got cut short. I have generally thought C5 and C6 Corvettes were decent track cars. I have heard the stock brakes don't last but they seemed like a good performance value. Is this a normal thing for C5/C6 Corvettes when raced? Is it due to the banking at Cal Speed?

 

I heard of that happen to corvette's fairly often.

I've seen two corvette's on separate occasions blow their engines at laguna. For one of those vette's it was the second blown engine.

 

A few years ago I saw one, less than 6 months old, blow an engine.

 

I see lots of 'Vettes on the track doing just fine. I wonder how many of these blown engines were stock? I'm guessing a disproportional number of them had some sort of mods done to them.

 

I have to agree with Mr. Globe above. I race against them often in ST2 with NASA. We get all the T1 Corvettes from SCCA and I think I've seen 1 maybe 2 blow a motor in the past 3 years. These are all basically stock C5 or C6 motors. Good news for them is they can get a new motor from GM for about $3,500. No core charges either...

 

The lower-spec C5 and C6 vettes have major oiling problems under lateral G's.

The Z06+ and late-model higher spec C6 vettes have true dry sumps that largely address this.

There are good, cheap, aftermarket solutions to fix the oiling in vettes, and GM owned up to it and fixed it over the years.

The vette is a great track car, you just have to do $10k or so in mods first; dry sump, break upgrades, maybe suspension. Still a cheap track car even with that cost.

 

See for example :

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/auto...the-track.html

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/corvet...-dry-sump.html

 

Yep, the LS3 motors have a serious issue with oiling under severe G loads. The C5 and C6 Z06's don't really have that issue, although the early C6 Z06's did have a problem with the dry sump tank not being large enough or properly baffled.

 

Potentially... but a very fun grenade

Besides Docs point about the oiling problems with LS3s and some LS7s, the other issue is the fact that vettes typically run very hot...

However, if you add an oil cooler and a dry sump and those motors are pretty much bulletproof

 

On the same day, same track sessions my friends C5 Z06 without an oil cooler was seeing 320F oil temps. My car (951 with LS1) with an oil cooler was seeing 270F. My car really has no more frontal cooling area than the C5 vette, so you can see the difference an oil cooler makes.

I wasn't happy with 270F though, I replaced my radiator last weekend in preparation for next season. Hopefully that'll help...

 

I bought a 2007 C6 Z06 with 32k miles last year from a guy who tracked it regularly, and I have run 7 events myself, absolutely no issues (knock wood). Power train has 100,000 mi warranty. Most of the C6 Z06 owners I know have had no drama. I did install the larger oil tank. Very very quick car (mine is stock except for StopTech brakes) and much more fun to drive than I would have imagined.

 

The LS2 and LS3 have sustained G loading oiling issues. The oil gets stuck in the valve covers and doesn't drain back. A simple external line from the valve cover to the oil pan would probably solve it.

Z06 don't have that problem because they are dry sump.

 

Most of the Corvettes that I've seen blow are the the C4's. Those cars are always being worked on around here at the NASA races. Poor cooling on highly modified powerplants. The C5's and C6's seem to be much better.

 

Mr. Globe is right. T1 stock motor C5Z06 bullit proof. I'm one of the T1 guys from SCCA although my T1 buddies race NASA too I don't have the time. C6 LS2 ok too with batwing oilpan. C6 LS3 blows up without drysump. C6 Z06 fine but 2006 cars had too small a tank and poor baffling = motor death. Many at SV have motors that are moded and those die all the time. People don't understand any engine is a system and if you build one part you stress another part = motor death. To the OP how did you like trying to chase down vettes with license plates and some on street tires! These streetguy Vettes are crazy fast with easy sub 1:50 laptimes on pump gas at ACS. They are funner than you think.

 

I was at a track day a couple of months ago and out of 4-5 vettes that were there, one blew an engine first session of the day and another had a hose blow, spray fluid all over his rear tires, and hit the wall.