[Roostie]

I am interested in getting a Camaro 1LE for track, auto-x and some street. My current car for that role is a Miata, the car that asks for nothing - $500 for a set of premium 200 treadwear tires, and they last so long. Previously, I had a Carrera S that went through expensive rear tires in a heartbeat (I used R-comps).

Which brings me to my question: would there be a big difference in the tire & consumables budget of the V6 and V8 1LE cars? Between the weight difference and the power, the V6 might have a much lower tire budget. I do drive hard ...

My intention is to use a square set of 18" or 19" track wheels for HPDE and auto-x, which I could rotate front to rear. Seems like an 18" 275 or 285 width Hankook RS4 would suit the V6 car well, and 295/19 would be good for the V8 car. My instinct is that the V8 tire budget won't be too bad on 200 treadwear tires, but if the V6 can be operated for nearly half the tire budget (and 1/2 the brakes and 2/3 the gas), it's tempting ...

Perhaps some of you have compared V6 and V8 use of tires and other consumables at the track.

[apexit53]

Since you’re in California you’re season is a lot longer than mine but based off what you hope to run wheel and tire size I think you would be able to get a season out of a 1200-1500 dollar set of tires. A friend of mine went to stp for that reason, FS we were going through two sets in a short season and not easily rotated because of the wheel width difference. Granted going through two sets for me is just to make sure I always have a sharp set of tires on on the car. I don’t like running on worn out slow tires lol.

The v6 will also be eiseir on tires because it’s a lot lighter over the front. The v8 tends to chew up fronts because of the weight and lack of camber we can get.

[baron95]

There is a ˜200 lbs weight difference between V6 and V8 1LEs. Some of that is larger wheels, tires, brakes. So call it a ˜150 lbs (apples to apples) difference or ˜4%. That is negligible in tire wear.

There is of course a 36% HP increase in the V8 - that is what will cause a tire wear difference that you will notice. You will arrive at the end of every straight faster, you will brake harder, you will accelerate harder with a ton more slip in the V8.

If you put similar tires (size, compound, etc) the V8 will likely go through tires ˜1/3 faster. So if you spend $3,000 in tires/season on the V6, you will spend $4,000 on the V8.

Only you can determine if that is worth it.

Incidentally, you will be going through gasoline, brake pads, engine oil, track insurance, etc pretty much at the roughly the same 1/3 higher rate. Not sure why you are picking only on tires.

[Roostie]

Originally Posted by baron95

There is a ˜200 lbs weight difference between V6 and V8 1LEs. Some of that is larger wheels, tires, brakes. So call it a ˜150 lbs (apples to apples) difference or ˜4%. That is negligible in tire wear.

There is of course a 36% HP increase in the V8 - that is what will cause a tire wear difference that you will notice. You will arrive at the end of every straight faster, you will brake harder, you will accelerate harder with a ton more slip in the V8.

If you put similar tires (size, compound, etc) the V8 will likely go through tires ˜1/3 faster. So if you spend $3,000 in tires/season on the V6, you will spend $4,000 on the V8.

Only you can determine if that is worth it.

Incidentally, you will be going through gasoline, brake pads, engine oil, track insurance, etc pretty much at the roughly the same 1/3 higher rate. Not sure why you are picking only on tires.

Tires seem like the leading expense (most of the expense, I'd wager, for autocross), and they're a good bellwether of other consumable costs. If, as you say, the SS is about a 1/3 greater cost, then it's worthwhile to me. That's what I'm trying to gauge, how much different is the operating cost. Thanks for the info, it's helpful.

[brzfan]

It's impossible to tell from anecdotes. Consumable use depends strongly on driver skill, track, and weather. If a 30-50+% increase in consumables cost is OK with you, the SS 1LE looks like an excellent choice. For myself, that means less track time for my yearly budget which I can't accept. Just the price difference between the V6 1LE and SS 1LE alone is like 1-1.5 years of track days, on top of the increase in consumables and insurance cost.

[Provoste]

Originally Posted by Roostie

Tires seem like the leading expense (most of the expense, I'd wager, for autocross), and they're a good bellwether of other consumable costs. If, as you say, the SS is about a 1/3 greater cost, then it's worthwhile to me. That's what I'm trying to gauge, how much different is the operating cost. Thanks for the info, it's helpful.

If you commit to not running the OE 20’s on either the V8 or the V6 and run 18/19 square, I’d agree that the SS will go through tires 25-30% faster. Running the OE 20’s on the SS is damn expensive tire-wise, if you hit the track often and push the envelope. I’m buying a 3rd set of wheels shortly to run 305/30 19 RS4’s as my primary dual purpose tire.

Originally Posted by brzfan

It's impossible to tell from anecdotes. Consumable use depends strongly on driver skill, track, and weather. If a 30-50+% increase in consumables cost is OK with you, the SS 1LE looks like an excellent choice. For myself, that means less track time for my yearly budget which I can't accept. Just the price difference between the V6 1LE and SS 1LE alone is like 1-1.5 years of track days, on top of the increase in consumables and insurance cost.

Good insight here. Just had this same discussion with the operations manager at NCM, who currently has a well prepped BRZ.

[baron95]

The other variable is how much you will have to invest in a car to make it track worthy.

Virtually everyone I see that buys a BRZ or similar or even a track beater E36/E46 to "save money", sooner or later starts adding 6-pot brakes, larger tires, making suspension changes, and - the big money - power mods. Over time they put $10K into a $15K-$25K car, which is lunacy.

If you buy a Camaro SS 1LE or a C7 Grand Sport, you are done. You take to the track as is. You preserve your full warranty. And when you sell it you have no parts down the drain.

So be realistic. If you know you will want more power, more brakes, more tires, better suspension, buy the car that comes with all that.

[RXtacy]

I'm not sure what the consumable cost would be for the V6, but I can give you a breakdown of my cost on the V8 with stock setup over last season. Here is the items I went through:

1. 1 set of OEM Goodyear SC3's (5 track days and ~5k street miles) $1,200 + mount/balance
2. 1 set of OEM Ferrodo brake pads front/rear $350
3. 2 oil changes 5W-40 (10 qts each) $200
4. Brake flushes (RBF 600) ~$60
5. Track alignment ~$100

Total: ~$1,910

That's over 5 track days. You can extrapolate that out to however many days you plan to run.

At the end of last season I picked up dedicated Apex 18x10.5 track wheels with R888R's and DTC-60 track pads. We'll see how things shake out this season.

[driverxdeutsch]

Tires are for sure the weak spot on any 1le. I went out last weekend and ran on the stock goodyears on my v6 1le and was pretty impressed by the tire for what they are. That said, the front tires showed significant wear by the end of the day.

There were 2 zl1 1le's and one ss 1le at the track as well, all of the cars were very hard on tires. From talking with the owners (all had several track days on the cars already), they said that the rear tires actually last about twice as long as the fronts, which seemed consistent with how mine looked at the end of the day in my v6 as well. Everyone was on stock goodyears except for one of the zl1's that had re-71r's on the front. ss/zl1 owners said to expect 2 track days from the fronts, 4 from the rear.

I think the difference in tire wear between the v8 and v6 cars would actually not be that significant, they are all heavy cars. That said, they were all working with a much larger tires so moving up to a larger front tire on the v6 may significantly improve wear. You are 100% right on, my plan is to move up to a 275/285 square 18" setup to decrease tire cost, I was a fan of the RS-3's when I use to track my S2000, I'll probably go the RS-4 route soon.

Fuel will not be that different, the v6 is thirsty at WOT, I used ~1/3 of a tank per 20 minute session, the zl1's used ~1/2 a tank (haha), ss fell pretty close to the zl1.

Times were pretty close between the cars actually, although I realize that driver skill plays a significant role in that. I was about 4-5 seconds off the ss 1le and 7ish seconds off the zl1.

You will be very impressed by any of the 1le's on track. The v6 comes with the added bonus of being 10k cheaper (I just paid $28k for mine), and getting 30mpg on the road. The v8 comes with all that power. All are great in their own right. Now with the turbo 4 as an option, that would be an even cheaper option, although I personally have always been weary of tracking anything with a turbo due to heat issues.

[baron95]

You guys let a Honda CRX beat all the 1LEs?!!!

That is not right

[RXtacy]

Originally Posted by driverxdeutsch

There were 2 zl1 1le's and one ss 1le at the track as well, all of the cars were very hard on tires. From talking with the owners (all had several track days on the cars already), they said that the rear tires actually last about twice as long as the fronts, which seemed consistent with how mine looked at the end of the day in my v6 as well. Everyone was on stock goodyears except for one of the zl1's that had re-71r's on the front. ss/zl1 owners said to expect 2 track days from the fronts, 4 from the rear.

The 1LE package has different tires for all three models (ZL1, SS, LT). The ZL1 1LE has the supercar 3R's which are much more aggressive than the SS Supercar 3's. 2 days for the 3R's is about right, not on the standard SC3's.

[Roostie]

Originally Posted by driverxdeutsch

Thanks for sharing your observations, and those lap times. It brings back memories! I hoped to compare those lap times to the last event I ran at Buttonwillow in a car, way back in 2002. But you ran #13 CW, and we ran #1 CW, which adds the Star Mazda turn. My 2002 event was with Speedventures and is the earliest event they list in the online results.

I was driving a stock 2001 Camaro Z28 on R-comp Kumho Victoracers, which I suspect are pretty close to modern 200 TW tires. I was happy with my 2:13.2, but my friends in C5 Corvettes had the top 2 times that weekend ... the fastest being a 2:01 in a 2001 Z06 on full-race slicks. The same guy unofficially ran a 1:46.6 on #13 CW in his 2016 Viper ACR a couple years ago:

[driverxdeutsch]

Originally Posted by baron95

You guys let a Honda CRX beat all the 1LEs?!!!

That is not right

It had like 6 canards and a wing the size of my dining room table! Total time attack car. But yeah, it was faster than almost everyone. The blank car with the best time was a Ginetta G58, basically an LMP car, super casual track day... haha.